New Media Definition

General Definition

Also known as social media, New Media are Internet-based (Web 2.0) technologies that collectively are characterized by the 5 C's: communication, collaboration (e.g., wikis such as this), community (e.g., social networking sites like Facebook), creativity (e.g., user-generated content), and convergence (e.g., mashups). It is an umbrella cover which include television, movies we watch, newspapers, comics, magazines or books we read, cellphones or the apps we use, text messages, the music we listen to on the radio, video games, podcasts, virtual worlds, blogs and almost every single technology that we are using today.

New Media have greatly influenced the way information is received all over the world. The old media, also known as traditional media, were the means of communication that had existed before an emergence of new media. Television, cinema, radio, telegraph, print, recordings, phonograph, and others are considered part of traditional media. Before television and newspapers were the only way news got circulated. With the evolution of the internet, we are now able to receive news in real time. With the click of a button, a news station can broadcast a live stream of breaking news. Even better than that, witnesses of any newsworthy event have social networking accounts and use them to get the information others. We can view news today as a social experience. Roughly 44% of online news users get news at least a few times a week through emails, automatic updates or posts from social networking sites. In 2009, Twitter's monthly audience increased by 200%. Pew Research Center Publications. May 23, 2010.</ref> More and more users are embracing new media every day. Companies make products now centered on social media. Companies are aware of the millions of users worldwide and see the various benefits of having social media accounts. New Media has helped bring people together which has contributed collaborative work. People are able to share ideas and thoughts which influences creativity fosters progress.

New Media have also entered the arena of medicine. Patients use social media as a source of information and as a support network. Many pharmaceutical companies are using new media to educate the public and to spread awareness about their products. Social Media usage also increases revenue for the companies and puts their businesses on the map. Social media has brought about a fitness revolution with as smaller companies are profiting from selling their products via sites like Instagram. Companies like Comcast use sites like Twitter to find people who need technical support. Gatorade acknowledges athletes with electronic high-fives. New media is useful in all aspect of life they have totally revolutionized the way we all think and communicate.

A Transition from Old Media

The behavior(s) of human society is simultaneously changing in accordance with technological advancements. Old media (also known as traditional media) consists of printed newspapers, magazines, and books, and broadcasted television (shows and movies) and radio (music and talk) programs. The mass media, preliminary the Internet, was limited to resourceful information, education, and entertainment. In comparison to new media, printed publications are distributed to the mass audience. Old media ran with the system of distributing information to the masses as quickly as possible. This method and technology allowed for the method in order for old media to be considered one dimensional. Meaning that new media is not considered a one-to-one relationship, but a many-to-many relationship. There was scarcely any method in which an end user of the old media can contribute to the information and thus, it was a one-directional flow of information. There is a lack of personalizing and customization provided, given that publishers have control over what is displayed within the context, as well as viewpoints on various issues. These mediums require more effort to edit, are slow to process and detached. One can argue that old media still exists because of a slow adjustment to new media. Reasons that people still read from a hardcover book or newspaper are that it is a personal preference, Internet connection is limited to certain areas available with Wi-Fi, even since 2015 New York subways provided us with WiFi connections under our subway ride, or are financially or competently incapable of surfing or browsing for information. Overall, the purpose of old media is constrained by its historical and technical parameters.

New media today now derives from the transition from or integration with old media, in a digital, more interactive, and accessible configuration. Some key factors with utilizing the Internet include reaching out to bigger masses, the rising demand for conveniently accessing information, the interaction between online publishers and readers, and individual expression. Convergence combines several mediums into one channel or platform, the Internet. Newspapers, magazines, books, and cable television now are transitioning and adjusting in a digital era, providing more opportunities to expand their audiences with expedient and engaging content. Today, we have e-zines, e-books, and online-streaming multimedia websites. The underlying factor with new media is building and sustaining relationships with the growing online community. In comparison to old media, new media is more personalized, individualistic, and attainable. The costs of printing, manufacturing, product distribution, etc. transitioning to costs of website domain and development, information systems, “viral” advertising, and sponsorship. In addition, being physically present to buy a magazine or borrow a book from a local library is becoming less attractive proportional to purchasing a portable device such as smartphone or tablet with access to e-texts or music libraries Savikas, Andrew. "Media: Don't Fear New Technologies." Information for the World's Business Leaders-Forbes.com. Forbes.com. Web.; With new media, there is an increase in interactivity, socialization, electronic information, and creativity.

The future of New Media is still a mystery or better yet a puzzle. The media slate does not get wiped clean with every innovations. “Old media” like printed literature continues to engage new media and derive new products. We can see this in periodical reviews or books coming from blogs, a great example is the “Baghdad Blog” of a women turned to printed media which paid out over 30k pounds for copyrights.

“New media doesn't kill old media -- television didn't kill film, and the internet didn't kill television -- but it transforms it.”

At this point we are actually able to see “old media” from a distance and its effects on society as a whole. We soon will be looking back at all the items we call “new media” now and see the grand effects they caused, exalt them and transform beyond.

Substitutes of The Old Media

The New York Times Mobile

Media, such as newspapers and broadcast television, is being replaced by consumers with “new” media found on the Internet. It also seems that the definition of new media keeps changing daily, as new websites, apps, and devices emerge on the market. For instance, now you do not need to go to a local store to buy the newest The New York Times, you can browse it anytime on an electronic device that has an access to the Internet.

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YouTube

Youtube since its creation in 2005 has been a success. The original purpose of Youtube was to have a platform where people can post video content and have other view them as much as they want to. Youtube is the largest digital platform in the world. Over 4 billion hours of video are viewed each month and about 250 million hours of video is viewed per day.

Over the past few years especially, websites have been replacing newspapers and YouTube channels have been replacing broadcast television. In the 2019 MLB season Youtube and MLB struck a deal where 13 games will only be streamed on Youtube.

People can enjoy the videos and music they love, and they can share it all with friends, family, and the world on Youtube. There are over 1 billion active users on YouTube each month and is the largest video sharing website in the world. YouTube said in a blog post, “If YouTube were a country, we’d be the third largest in the world after China and India.”

By expanding high-speed data networks across the world and increased the availability of internet-enabled smartphones have helped to connect billions of people to the Internet, fuelling growth in social media and video-sharing websites. YouTube was an instant success after its founding by three former PayPal employees in 2005, adding millions of users in its first year. Google bought it for $1.65 billion in 2006.

YouTube allows users to upload videos, add tags, and share it with the world. There are many news, music production and media companies who have begun using YouTube to broadcast their contents. Through YouTube, many individuals have risen to instant fame and have become "online celebrities". YouTube not only replaced the old way of streaming videos but it has also opened up opportunities for young entrepreneurs and aspiring artists.

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Netflix

Television has also been replaced by new media. Many streaming programs exist today that offer the same services as a television. Streaming Media is the transmission of videos or audio over the internet. One of these programs is Netflix: the number one worldwide streaming provider. It provides services to over 100 million members in over 190 countries, who enjoy watching more than 125 millions of hours per day. There is no longer the need for paying cable or buying an expensive television because, with streaming, you can watch anything by simply using your computer or smartphone.

Therefore, computers and smartphones are some of the new devices that are replacing television because of their more advanced functions. With a computer, you can go online and have access to anything and with your smartphone, you can make calls and text messages to anyone across the world. You can have everything into one technology, so it is your choice to make the best decision.

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NPR

The use of podcasts has also replaced old media by bringing the beauty of entertainment to your ears. This made an on-demand radio which is dominated by the National Public Radio network that has several different shows and podcast right on your phone. What is great about these podcasts is the convenience of consuming information in an efficient way.

NPR is a privately and publicly funded non-profit media organization headquartered at Washington, D.C. It serves as a national syndicator to a network of over 1,000 public radio stations in the United States.

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New Media = Digital Divide?

New media has had a profound effect on three essential categories of society in the twenty-first century: economics, politics, and the exchange of ideas. Of course, the scope of this article is limited in its ability to name the types of changes that are a product of new media, let alone a sufficient treatment of each category. However, it is important to sketch a brief schematic life of new media in the Information Age.

Economically, new media is the globe’s commercial skeleton. Fiber optic wiring networks between the world’s cities connect one to another to another…. Not only does this simple fact make global finance and trade a physical reality, since data networks between firms and investors are universally accessible, but it also impacts the possibilities and conceptions of so-called “old commercial” enterprises while giving rise to new ones. Every time a customer goes online to shop for that rare book title, or that overstocked iPod, or even the digital camera from a large retail store available down the block, new media is on both sides of that transaction. New media is not only the product but helps to mold the process of electronic commerce.

This means that manufacturing and production are largely focused on making the hardware that supports new media, while “softer” enterprises like news agencies, programmers, and artists adapt their crafts to the flows of the electronic current. If it seems abstract, that’s because it is. New media processes and communications add another dimension to the business and consumers’ practices we were already used to.

Perhaps the most interesting part of new media has to do with the restructuring of research, global economics, social interaction, and the currents of writing and dissemination of all information that have accompanied its emergence. Web and blog-writing in particular, are not particularly revolutionary or groundbreaking because it changes the way people use language or construct basic sentences. It is groundbreaking because it allows people to structure and nest information into documents differently. In today’s average web/blog post, news articles, op-eds etc. are not only entries in mixed media (photos, writing, video) format, but they are organized according to hyperlink organization.

Hyperlink organization is one of the definitive features of new media, and its implications run deep as well as wide. Nesting, which is frequently in the form of hyperlinking, requires extensive interpretation and research. This organization is beneficial since old media representation often asserts an artificial context into an article or media piece in order to provide continuity. In nested new media, hyperlinking fosters the ultimate citation resource-apparatus. In traditional reporting found in a print newspaper, scholarly research article, or encyclopedia, information and references are contained within the body of the text. There are certain citations and allusions, but for the most part, the sweeping or narrow nature of the text depends on the structural organization of the piece as well as the reader’s contextual understanding of a given subject.

It is well known that data organization differs greatly in twenty-first century new media. For instance, the single most influential tool in casual research and data-storage: Wikipedia. It is virtually impossible to search an article that is published on Wikipedia without coming across a hyperlink to another page of data; in fact, it is more accurate to say that it’s difficult to come across an entry with fewer than ten hyperlinks. In addition to the classical model of citing sources at the end of a document with trusted texts and data, Wikipedia exemplifies a style of information technology that is based on the interconnectedness of ideas and events.

Here it is important to note one way that “new media” may not actually be all that new: During the French Enlightenment, the authors of the famed Encyclopedia created a system of footnotes that referred to certain other entries. The subtle structure of such an organization underlies a profoundly partisan representation of facts and images. The same is largely true in hyperlink writing. While the content that is mentioned and presented in an article may be empirically accurate, it is important to note that the selection of sources and outside connections may still be highly subjective. This quality makes research a more shaded and complex enterprise and sometimes even enriches the reader’s understanding of a given issue.

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Culture of New Media

YouTube Careers: Cosmetics Industry YouTube began in February 2005 for users who didn't want to wait on MTV to play their favorite music video, or for those looking for a good laugh. YouTube became a platform where everyday users who could grab a camera or their mobile devices and release their creative content to the universe. What began as a hobby for some eventually became a very lucrative career for some vloggers. Business companies saw the impact everyday vloggers were having on people by the number of subscriptions one would receive. The beauty industry, for example, saw an increase in sales due to the exposure of beauty tutorials. Users would purchase makeup, review them and whether it was negative or positive, it was an advantage to the business because of the free marketing. Users like Michelle Phan reached millions of subscriptions and because of she has endorsed my multi-million dollar companies like Estee Lauder and even started her own makeup brand. Other notable users are Bethany Mota, Jaclyn Hill, Carli Bybel, Desi Perkins, Katy DeGroot or "LustreLux", Laura Lee, Manny MUA, Casey Holmes, Nicole Guerriero, and KathleenLights who altogether accumulate millions of followers.

Lingo: Hashtags, tweets, the gram, pop culture, DM A new user may become overwhelmed with the world of new media. Netflix and chill, tweets, hashtags and DM's may sound like a new language to some, but it has become part of everyday language for many in this generation. Popular songs have been inspired by the social networking culture. Song by rapper Yo-Gotti titled “Down in the DM released in 2016 expresses the trend with young adults who try to find casual hookups or relationships through private messages through Instagram https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXSpXO4N-tI . It explores this generation’s trend of casual relationships versus the traditional courting. Popular culture has taken into account the power new media and has used the platform to increase their market sales.

Internet Lingo: Instagram users have shortened the name of Instagram as ‘the gram’ and twitter updates are called tweets. The word ‘tweet’ was added to the Oxford dictionary in 2013. When Twitter first launched in July 2006, no one used "tweet" as a noun or a verb. Twitter emerged the word “Tweet” and “hashtag”. Hashtags are now famously used on sites like IG, Twitter. Hashtags are defined as: A word or phrase preceded by a hash mark (#), used within a message to identify a keyword or topic of interest and facilitate a search for it. So whenever a user adds a hashtag to their post, it is immediately indexed by the social network and searchable by other users.

Memes have been wildly popular due to sites like Instagram. Memes are described as photos with written content that may refer to popular culture. Memes like “Salt Bae” or “Arthur” went viral in the years 2016-2017. Memes are simple and popularized by users of Instagram with simply hitting the “like” or heart button. The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, as an attempt to explain the way cultural information spreads.

Significance of New Media

New media messages convey important influences in our daily life, it has tremendously changed the way we communicate and connect with each other. It serves as a means of communication and brings people together, not only friends, family, and young people, it also links strangers that share same interests and objectives together. For example, many professionals have created their profiles on LinkedIn and others can send invitations to these professionals to link with them. In addition, many companies started to look for candidates and have a connection with these candidates by using social media.

Social Media is easily accessible for such a modern-day tech-savvy generation. It has been a great help in its search engine and has increased many company's ranking along with the advertisement. It makes it much easier for companies directly contact without the use of a middleman or third party. The popularity of social media has allowed for people to maintain occupied and have the world at their fingertips.

Mass media messages have enormous influence in helping to shape public opinion and underlying sentiment. It is also an important accountability mechanism; it raises important issues that might otherwise never be publicly debated or addressed. .

New media has taken complete control of everything that we use both positively and negatively. Social media users are the most active and up to date people compared to a regular internet user. The social media has been one of the most important and main sources of communication as years progressed. It is also a great way to demonstrate things that an article or maybe an individual can't do personally. Social Media has also become such a thing that it has been included in school curriculums.

Controversies of New Media

Controversy New Media has brought is cyberbullying. It used to be that bullying was confined to playground and schoolyards terms but today bullying continues to haunt throughout the day. There are multiple outlets which cyberbullying can be done and it's not limited to children or classrooms anymore. Adults have experienced cyberbullying on countless experiences including from strangers whom they've never met. A famous case such as the Megan Meier's which shed light on her suicide from cyberbullying. As a result, there have been media and press campaigning anti-bullying. Many celebrities such as Madonna and Lady Gaga have joined the fight against cyberbullying and are continuing to bring awareness to the cause. People now willingly upload photos onto Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, plus other sites, which let their “friends” on the platform, or even total strangers, see photos from their daily lives. The photos are curated to show people’s best, most fun selves and this has led users to those sites to experience “FOMO” or “Fear Of Missing Out.” According to a new study, FOMO is real and it makes you depressed. It is based feelings of jealousy that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, as photos posted by your friends indicate. Many people feel anxiety when they see pictures of friends who travel, who spend their time on the beach, or who go out often (while some of us have such a busy schedule and barely find time to sleep). Our depression starts when we start comparing ourselves, our clothes, or our lifestyle to others. It is very easy to do and difficult to stop. Some people become addicted to spending hours each day on these social media, while only a few of us are even able to delete our Facebook account.

Some people also claim that new media become an instrument for the government to manipulate public opinions by restricting some information. For example, in China, Communist Party started to concentrate on shaping public opinion through new media after the violent crushing of pro-democracy protests in 1989. In 2009 the arrival of a Twitter-like microblogging site, Weibo, appeared to usher in a new age of free expression in China, but the authorities got spooked when users showed outrage after a deadly high-speed rail crash in 2011. Several prominent bloggers with a huge following, known as “Big Vs”, were soon silenced.

Another controversy New Media is responsible for is an invasion of privacy. The end users of social media portals are not aware of sites owners agendas. What's been being done with the information that is volunteered by the public remains unknown and unannounced by the social media page owners. There have been some accounts where Facebook has reported to be manipulative in the way it wants users to volunteer information for public view. The sites built with questions about a users life to push them in the direction of making information public. New media has also allowed technological advancement to flourish. With the benefits of smartphones also giving major corporations access to personal and private information. Employees, students, and job applicants have concerns regarding privacy issues with social media. Many portals for employment applications require users logins and passwords to access additional information than required although laws have been created to protect the public against such request.

Through new media, the world is more connected than ever, with that has brought additional consequences. Whole lives are displayed to the public. Since the introduction of social media, privacy has received a new meaning. One of the reverse effects being so well connected new media has brought are self-esteem issues, dissatisfaction it's affected public happiness levels. Studies have shown that "likes" on social media pages have started to affect mood and changes in attitude throughout the day. Studies have gone so far to find that suicide rates could be linked to social media usage. People are starting to assess self-worth through likes on social media and associating likes as a display of affection, approval, and popularity. Social media has also been linked to causing dissatisfaction with life and overall projections of what it means to be happy. Through applications like Instagram and Snapchat, people gain access to glimpses of others lives. However, those glimpses can be a false display of glamorous lives and provide the illusion of a desirable lifestyle. People posting and viewing can develop distorted views of what it means to want and need something to be happy. New media has provided a gateway to level out the playing fields through virtual worlds.