New Media: Extended Definition

New media is the term that describes the newest facets of communication that rely on computer systems. Eugenia Siapera (2018) provides us with “…three main alternate terms: digital media, online media, and social media” (p. viii). Examples of new media are blogs, Facebook, human-computer interface, video games and virtual reality. New media is interactive and it is largely portable because of technologies like smart phones/watches and laptops. Murray (n.d.) expounds on this idea, “Because of the interactive nature of the medium, the computer environment is not just immersive, it is animated” (p. 6-7). These facets are different from old media such as printed media or physically static media like vinyl records, radio, and television. Lev Manovich highlighted that the change from old media to new media lies in the “idea of the convergence between computational and communicative logic as characteristics of the new media” (Siapera, 2018, p. xi). On the other hand, Murray (n.d.) views media as, “a single new medium of representation, the digital medium, formed by the braided interplay of technical invention and cultural expression” (p. 3).

The video below is a brief synopsis of media’s trek through time.

All media is rooted in communication, and new media is filled with rhetorical basics. Marshall McLuhan is a theorist who provides a rhetorical view of media and “considers that speech, orality, was the first medium” (Siapera, 2018, p. 6). In a previous course I took (Visual Rhetoric in Technical Communication), I learned three basic rhetorical principles:

• rhetorical situations (writer, audience, topic, purpose, and context)
• rhetorical elements (invention, arrangement, style, delivery and memory)
• rhetorical appeals (logos, pathos, and ethos)

New media maintains these principles while expanding the delivery (or tools) that technical communicators use. This expansion has been relatively rapid and requires that technical communicators not just adapt to the changes, rather to test the many theories and evolve the media (tools) they are communicating through.

References

Añonuevo, J. (2017, July 11). Evolution of traditional to new media. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/GA9Ld6HgqKM

Murray, J. (n.d.). Inventing the Medium. The New Media Reader. Retrieved from http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-intro-murray-excerpt.pdf (Links to an external site.)

Siapera, E. (2018). Understanding new media(2^nded). London: SAGE.