What is New Media?
This is the golden age of media. The “explosion of user-created media content” online has created a “new media universe”(Manovich, 19). According to Lev Manovich’s eloquent article on “What is new media?”, he has concluded new media as basically the “convergence of two separate historical trajectories: computing and media technologies” (Manovich, 6). In other words, it is the digital representation of media. Everyone can now publish their own materials and content online. We are no longer just the audience. On top of that, we can also share and respond to the information we see online — the two-way communication.
To understand what is “new media”, we should first understand what is “media”. It is basically the means for us to receive mass communication collectively. Media has changed and evolved throughout the years: from the old, physical, one-way form of media that we can see and touch, to the new, online-based, interactive form of media that we are “tethered” (Schroeder, 3) to at all times — the new media. Before this new development, our parents and grandparents only relied on the tangible form of media. Their generation had actual newspaper that they needed to buy from physical stalls in order to receive news; an actual television for entertainment and movies; and an actual radio instead of a podcast you listen to on Spotify. These three entities are separate and they get their source from multiple companies at the time. Media (the TV and radio) helps publicize and broadcast their production. So, now, new media has emerged. We only need our phone, the internet, to receive all the information we need. Convenient. Isn’t it? But is new media really that good for us?
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All three of the writers, Manovich, Smith and Schroeder, have presented very convincing arguments to their theories. What stood out to me the most was the pertinent example Smith used about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. She points out that the online platforms we use in our everyday lives are essentially based entirely on the media’s founder — Zuckerberg’s — view of life, which is pretty much how a university student sees life (the things they find important or interesting). In a sense, we are living our lives through the eyes of Mark. It is terrifying once we ponder on it. Because with how all-encompassing social media (i.e facebook) is in our lives, and with how “tethered” we are with it, our world seems to be constructed by Mark Zuckerberg — a college student. And we are his unconscious victims, as we live by his narrow and shallow rules of life. We, as both users and producers of the new media, are reduced to the limited representation of our online presence, like what Smith has identified. The world, as Schroeder said, is being “shaped” by new media. We have shrunk to fit the construct of that particular website Zuckerberg has created. What we comment, post, and do on social media are restricted to it. In a way, the way we think is also restricted to it. That is chilling.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the creation of new media is a good thing, and it does have it’s perks and benefits. Not only due to the fact that it is convenient and has offered us unlimited entertainment in just one gadget, but also the fact that its “user-generated content” has stimulated conversation on a global scale. The way we could now connect to people from around the world via social media has “led to online togetherness becoming more visual, more frequent and more dense — an ever more homogeneously diverse way of life.” (Schroeder, 99). We now know more cultures and information from every corner of the world — this shapes our “culture” and our “capabilities” (Sen, qtd. in Schroeder, 99). It shapes our capabilities because we can now educate ourselves on issues that the marginalized groups or minorities are facing, and through “information seeking” (99) on new media, we could help them. Awareness can now also be raised regarding these problems.
On top of that, I completely agree with Schroeder that social media has helped connecting us and bringing us together. I, for one, get to know that my friend from kindergarten is engaged. I know his fiancé proposed to him when they were watching the TV series, Friends (the episode in which one of the characters proposed to her boyfriend). I probably don’t really need to know that kind of detail of the relationship of someone I barely know. But I do. And weirdly, I enjoyed it. Because it was entertaining. I would’ve never gotten to know anything about this person if it wasn’t for Instagram. And I congratulated him via Instagram afterwards. So, I agree. We are able to make transient and quick interactions with many people by using social media. But like what Smith has suggested, I am not sure about the “quality” of those connections. To me, in order to establish a deeper connection, it doesn’t have to be ever-lasting, but it has to be genuine and meaningful. Something that has an impact on the involved parties and they would remember that connection for a long time. What I mean by that is it has to be communicated back and forth of something that the two of you could both relate to. Of course, you can share something very intimate to you online, and have people comment back something equally intimate to them. But after all, commenting, and merely using texts and emojis to communicate cannot capture and deliver your thoughts and feelings fully. Connection is never just words, but also your physical touch, your facial expressions, your tone of voice — those are equally important, if not more. Therefore, on one hand, we are presenting our “staged” (Schroeder, 83) and “strunk” (Smith, 2) self, which might not be genuine and cannot represent us fully. On the other hand, we are not actually together when we are posting and talking to other people via social media. After we leave a comment or text someone for a while, we quickly forget about it and move on to the next interesting thing we can see on our phone. We are constantly distracted. So how can those momentary connections be profound and meaningful?
Nowadays, we can’t help but use social media and new media at every waking moment. It’s like we are afraid to be alone and we feel the need to know what everyone is up to all the time. New media is intertwined with our lives and we are constantly exposed to different information on our phones. Like Schroeder has pointed out, “social media entail that people spend a good deal of time monitoring what others are doing;” (3). We love reading about, listening to, watching, and looking into other people’s businesses. While the way we actively look for information and create our own content do give us a wider worldview and bring us together, we do have to think critically if this world is warped. Have we become performers and audience? Have our lives become a form of entertainment? And has the world become a stage that is built by social media founders? Does that make us puppets? Does that mean we are trapped? How scary is that.
