A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media (by a beginner): Lesson 5
Lesson 5: Why is Social Media described as ‘New Media’?
To answer this question, we have to appreciate the differences between OLD media and NEW media (the category in which Social Media falls into).
As I have written before, OLD media broadcasts are one-way and from traditional media such as television, newspapers or radio. In all cases, the message travels from the broadcast to the receiver.
Before the rise of the Internet, only certain individuals and organisations had the ability to create, broadcast and distribute material to an audience. It is these establishments that we tend to refer to as ‘The Media’.
An example of an established TV broadcaster
Only established newspapers had the resources to research, write and distribute news stories and articles. It was also only TV stations that were able to produce and broadcast videos through limited channels on television. Both newspaper and TV companies rely on a huge infrastructure of writers, researchers, journalists, technicians, designers, producers and editors to broadcast their content. This costs a huge amount of time, money and effort.
In the last decade however, the rapid development of cheaper higher-quality technology and the rise of NEW media sites on the internet has meant that people can now broadcast their own media – be it audio, video or print – to an ever-increasing audience of internet users. Through the various social media platforms I discussed in my last post, anyone can now publish content similar to that which was once dominated by traditional media – news stories, fiction, entertainment, music, feature-length film.
That said, an article from The Times newspaper uploaded onto thetimesonline website is not suddenly NEW media. The broadcast is still one way (computer —> reader) and remains traditional. However, if the article has hyperlinks to other articles, a comments box that invites reader-response or a button that allows you to share it with other internet-users then this interactivity makes it NEW media.
In essence, NEW media refers to the transfer of traditional media to the internet. NEW media provides many more channels – where there’s internet access, there’s a channel. NEW media is open and accessible – anyone who has access to a computer can comment or create. NEW media is also interactive – it relies on participation and involvement (be it commenting on a blog, sharing broadcasted content with other people or actively manipulating the content to form new content). NEW media speeds up the process of communication – feedback can be instant from other internet-users.
As I will be explaining in the next post, NEW media allows you to do two things more efficiently than OLD media – CREATE and DISTRIBUTE. How NEW media content spreads is where Social Media will be swaggering in confidently to flex its disseminating guns…
SUMMARY: NEW media refers to traditional forms of media which are now primarily internet-based. The effect is that content is created, shared and accessed quicker than before and with a greater level of interactivity and participation.
To read more on the subject of ‘new media’, go here
WHAT DO YOU UNDERSTAND BY THE TERM ‘NEW MEDIA’? HAVE I MISSED ANYTHING OUT?