August 24, 2019
editAfter reading, I've understood what New Media is and can be.
I stated in my last entry that I believed New Media to be akin to what social networking is today. Lev Manovich mentions that there is a difference between what is New Media and what is cyberculture where "cyberculture is focused on the social and on networking; new media is focused on the cultural and computing". But I would argue that cyberculture has evolved hand-in-hand with the emerging field that is New Media and there is much overlap. An example would be the various movements on social media that big up great steam to influence the culture around us for better (#MeToo Movement) or for worse (cancel culture).
I've learned that New Media is ever-evolving. When the internet came to be, late-1990's online media was considered "new" media. By today's standard's, something like Yahoo! or AOL is considered old and decrepit compared to Twitter and Wikipedia. But both can be placed in in the "new media" camp but the latter being the more preferred avenue of communication and interaction on the internet.
The last aspect of New Media that I didn't know before or even consider was the absolute democratized nature of it all. The power that a group of people or even a single person can wield is immense with the advent of New Media. I mentioned before the #MeToo Movement and I want to elaborate how because of New Media (Twitter, Medium, Instagram, Facebook, etc.) women, and some men, can have their voices heard among the masses in ways that were never offered before. In Old Media, you would have to wait for a whistleblower to go to a newspaper and have their story go through an editor who might ultimately decide if it's worth printing or not. Now, there is no middle man. Voices can be heard unincumbered. But this also challenges the reliability that newspapers are/were known for. Sometimes without proper context, situations might devolve into a witchhunt where ultimately everyone involved is wrong to a degree and you are left wondering if you were given the truth or was all of it just a huge misunderstanding. Regardless, New Media is here and now and navigating it can be a bit tricky sometimes.
¶ Um....yeah....okay.