What is New Media?

My idea of old media: News about celebrities on TV, Radio and Newspapers and Internet

My idea of new media:  My idea of old media + News about “Us” on blogs, social networking websites, wikis and personal websites. The reason why I say “Us” is because I believe each one of us are now celebrities within our own little networks. World famous celebrities were/are still followed by news reporters because we want to know about their personal lives. However, with blogs of our own, personal websites and Facebook, myspace and twitter we are sharing our information with our network of friends. I strongly believe that this has become possible only because of New Media.

As mentioned in the abstract of “The New Media Technologies: Overview and Research” by Prof. Friedman, New media are web related technologies like online blogs, wikis, social networking websites and virtual worlds. In addition to these technologies available on the net, cell phones, ipods, photography softwares and games like Wii are also part of New Media technology.  

Internet is the core of New media since most of new media forms have developed online. For instance, the article “Who needs a TV? I’ve got a Laptop” reveals how TV channels have formed websites to showcase their TV show episodes (Websites such as ABC.com, CBS.com) With the laptop being used for so many things already, this adds another one to the list. No one would be willing to spend money to buy a TV. In addition, the Internet has helped serve as a faster mode of communication. With online new, instant chatting , social networking websites it has become highly easy to keep in touch with your friends all around the world. Distances don’t seem to matter anymore. For instance, I got back in touch with a few friends I met in 6^th grade and we are now planning a reunion. It is amazing how we all move on with our lives and these networks bring us back together.

All these forms of new media can be described in one word called “Web 2.0”. This is actually the millionth word added to the English language. As the article “English gets a millionth word” suggests that 14 words are added to English on a daily basis. It is hard to believe that this has actually become possible to increase words in a language and keep up with the counting. All in all, the power of new media surprises me. And if you give it a thought, we are actually learning a lot right now just by this “ONLINE” class.