New Media & Society

New media has caused society to become more outspoken. It has given us the sense that we have a voice and that voice can be heard by anyone at any time. New media has allowed us to view everyone as human, because no matter how important of a job one has, they still manage to find the time to publicize their lives on social media. As odd as this seems, it has revolutionized the concept of celebrity. What was once unreachable is now only a Tweet or Facebook comment away. 

Privacy and Confidentiality

Social Networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook began as a fun method of self-expression. Users would post “inside jokes” publicly on each other’s profiles and photos of all kinds were uploaded without a second thought. Now that new media has become so mainstream in the corporate world, social networking profiles can no longer be used so freely. Although “privacy” settings are available to restrict viewers, many companies will gain suspicion of a potential employee whose social profiles are too hidden. People tend to share very personal information on their profiles, and thus need to be aware of who might be viewing them.

Advice to Brooklyn College

I would suggest Brooklyn College create a Facebook page for each course offered at the school. Professors can use this as a way to easily communicate with the entire class at once, and maintain an organized schedule with reminders for upcoming assignments. Students can also use the class Facebook page to express questions and concerns. Other students can see what their classmate has posted and “Like” it to confirm that this is a popular thought. Furthermore, each department can require a link to the class Facebook page be submitted, thus providing an easy glimpse into student feedback and the semester as a whole. 

Social Networking

As mentioned in my previous post, social networking has become an essential tool for all businesses. Companies use social networks as a way to keep in touch with their consumers and inform them of any updates or new inventory. In this way, social networking can be viewed as a source of free advertising. Furthermore, it allows companies to easily receive consumer insight, which can be used to modify products and services.  The danger of social networking for businesses is that it neglects to filter the useful insight from the nonsensical. A vocal minority does not necessarily represent a wise majority. With this said, businesses need to take each consumer insight with a grain of salt and figure out what makes sense and what doesn’t. As long as a business doesn’t run away with an idea just because it was promoted on social media, the concept of consumer feedback should be overall beneficial in the long run.

       Social Networks are also used as a common news outlet. Breaking news and trends now almost always start on social media, where the public will also comment on said news and trends. According to the New York Times articles, Getting the Most Out of Twitter, social networks such as Twitter have become more useful “as a way to tap in to the discussions of the day than to broadcast their own thoughts.” Although social media is known for providing an outlet to be vocal, one does not have to write so much as a tweet to reap the benefits of the site. However, with all the information buzzing around on social media, one is bound to have an opinion they’re compelled to share with the world. 

Check Out Social Networking Sites

Around the year 2006, when MySpace was at it’s peak in popularity, the site was known largely as a way to stay in touch with friends and even make some new ones. The number of comments on an uploaded photo was used as a measure of popularity. Now, however, in fierce competition with a plethora of social networking sites, MySpace seems to have redefined itself as an outlet for new music. Though the tools to upload photos and comment on each other’s profiles are still available, the company has zoned in on something that can set it apart from its rivals and give it a unique identity. Friendster, another social networking site, took a similar approach; though instead of zoning in on music, their focus is mostly on video games. Twitter has become an essential tool for all businesses. Even politicians are expected to maintain a Twitter account with which they update the public on reform, public appearances, and progress during a campaign. Celebrities use Twitter as a way to connect with their fans. Before the age of new media, celebrities were rarely viewed as real people who endure the day-to-day struggles of common life. Now, however, celebrities can publicize their daily frustrations, thus humanizing them and making their fans feel personally connected. Facebook continues to trump the competition when it comes to social relations. It has established itself as almost a necessity to function in modern society. Facebook is used to track down old friends and relatives, share photos, manage social events, and maintain client/business relations the way Twitter does. The question “do you have Facebook” has been replaced by “what is your Facebook name,” because it is assumed, at this point, that everybody has one. 

Wiki

Edited second paragraph under “early life.” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Bareilles#Early_life

Blogs vs. Wikis

According to Kathy E. Gill, blogs can be described as a regularly updated form of reverse chronological journalism, which offers links to related content across the internet and tends to be written with a sense of the author’s voice. Blogs may feature more than one author (http://faculty.washington.edu/kegill/pub/www2004_blogosphere_gill.pdf). Similarly, Wikipedia defines a wiki as a collaborative content management system which focuses on a specific topic. Unlike a blog however, a wiki does not usually have an owner or leader, but adapts to the needs of its users. The structure of a wiki reflects the use cases of its viewers and editors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki).

The ability to collaborate on blog or wiki entries has enabled an unprecedented flow of information around the world. Blogs with multiple authors collaborating together may allow for a large collection of work with a distinctly unique voice, and some feature comment sections to allow for viewers to participate directly in content creation in addition to consumption.

Wikis by nature are intended to be collaborative and there is virtually no limit to the topics they may cover.

Old vs. New

As I said in my first post, new media is quickly rising from the ashes of the old. Yet perhaps this trend won’t signify the death of old media in a blaze of glory, but an opportunity for its revival by the new media allegedly setting the flames. In a NYT article entitled “Publisher Rethinks the Daily: It’s Free and Printed and Has Blogs All Over”, Claire Cain Miller writes about The Printed Blog, a Chicago startup that is attempting to revitalize newspapers by printing blogs on paper in a similar format (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/technology/start-ups/22blogpaper.html).

Lev Manovich describes five interesting though abstract criteria that may help distinguish between old and new media. They are as follows:

1.     Numerical Representation: Digital code represents the fundamental building blocks of new media. Whether it is created on a computer or processed from a real-life analog source, new media at its most basic level can be described mathematically and as function of algorithms allowing digital manipulation.

2.     Modularity: In essence, the sum is greater than the whole of its parts. Pixels, polygons, and characters are combined digitally to create something of meaning to the viewer. This allows new media to be manipulated on an unprecedentedly minute level.

3.     Automation: New media may be more easily and conveniently generated thanks to the ability of computers to use algorithms programmed by the media’s creator.

4.     Variability: New media may exist in a virtually infinite number of forms, easily tweaked digitally to serve the creator’s purpose.

5.     Transcoding: While new media is displayed in terms that humans can understand (images, text, etc), there is an underlying file structure that only makes sense to the computer reading it, creating an extra layer of complexity.

Describe New Media

Look at the last 5 people you’ve sent text messages to. Unless one of those contacts is a grandparent or a North Korean immigrant, there’s a good chance they can give you an intuitive answer as to what “New Media” is. Even without a dictionary, they will probably cite websites, CDs, computer games, or iTunes as examples. That is, they have a “gut feeling” about what new media means. Yet the distinction between old and new media may be blurrier than your North Korean friend might have imagined. In Business Week’s 2007 article entitled “Turner’s Secret Web Weapon”, the writer describes how TV executive David Levy is attempting to marry the two realms by having TV content (old media) interact with accompanying digital content (new media) that viewers can access on their laptops (http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-12-19/turners-secret-web-weapon). Maybe old media isn’t done after all.

In The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich points out how difficult it is to draw a line between what constitutes old and new media. After all, computers are often used to process photos or ads, which are then in turn printed back onto paper. Which domain, old or new, can lay claim to such Frankensteined examples of media? Does the definition of new media rely mainly on society’s gut feeling? Trying to distinguish old from new is often enough to make Kim Jong Un’s head spin.

What is New Media?

Lev Manovich describes new media as a meta-medium of the digital computer. Similar to newspapers and news broadcasts on the radio or TV, new media is a modality of communication enabled by all things “Internet”. But CNN.com is not your daddy’s newspaper. Facebook feeds are not another channel you tune your radio dials to. As Laura Holsen points out in her NYT article entitled: “Who Needs a TV? I’m Watching on a Laptop,” cord-cutters across the country are finding new ways to access the media content they want. “Old media” is dying out, and as it burns new media is rising from the ashes. At the center of this is the Internet, which allows us to benefit from instant gratification and commercial-free viewing.

But this is not happening without consequence. In The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich fears that historians of the future will reflect back on their contemporary counterparts with a critical eye. While historians have always maintained an awareness of how “older cultural forms” of media shape our society, innovations in the areas of user interface and symbols have been allowed to become societal conventions and thereby become invisible to observers who have grown accustomed to seeing these elements in daily life. As this happens, our ability to understand new media itself becomes limited.

According to the Newspaper Association of America, print journalism advertisement revenue is 42% in 2012 as it was in 2003, while online ad revenue has nearly tripled. (http://stateofthemedia.org/2013/newspapers-stabilizing-but-still-threatened/newspapers-by-the-numbers/). According to Business Insider, approximately 5 million people have cancelled their cable subscriptions from 2010 to the end of 2013 (http://www.businessinsider.com/cord-cutters-and-the-death-of-tv-2013-11).

Even if Manovich can’t quite figure it out, the numbers don’t lie—old media is quickly sailing off into obsolescence. 

About Me

My name is Alyson Kaufman. I am a fourth-year journalism major planning to graduate at the end of this semester. After graduation, I hope to become a magazine editor in either print or multi-media. I have chosen this course because knowledge of new media is especially pertinent to my field.