New media - what is changed?

When we talk about new media, we first need to define what new media is. Some authors declaim that new media is any new digital technology, others oppose by saying that media as it is, is not new because it must always be understood in a term of a historical context. It is necessary to be aware that new media allows writing history, while the history of those who bears a large share of responsibility in the present. Thirds are saying that media can not be associated with the term digital becouse digital does not necessarily means new. But now new meida uderstood as we wish is present, and we should ask our selves what has been changed about new media during the the time of theirs existence.

Article which I would like to talk about is comparing the position of new media in the 1999 and the present thinking of the new media. Today new media are included in all the spheres of everyday life. Variety of media technologies, forms, and content, often lumped together under the single (and misleadingly homogenizing) rubric of ‘the internet’, have become a commonplace part of work, education, leisure, culture, and politics. New media is today understood not as something that is here for use but as a part of us. The ubiquity of new media

has resulted in their being taken for granted. Like author says one of the consequences of new media mainstream status is that users expatiations are more expansive and more routine. But new media is not used just in those fields but are more and more often being used in a form of interpersonal communication and interaction. Author further emphasizes the need to track changes and understand new media, not just in ICT but in terms of something everyday, even in media studies themselves. Like he says:

            “As new media become embedded and indispensable throughout society,

            culture, and the economy, perhaps the biggest challenge to new media

            studies will be the need to shift away from thinking of ICTs as

            extraordinary, and to accept and study them as normal or ‘banal’” ( Lievrouw 2004).

References

Lievrouw, A. Leah. 2004. Whats changed about new media? Introduction to the fifth anniversary issue of new media & society. Accessible via: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/swiss/archive/Lievrouw.pdf  (5. March 2011).