What is New Media?

New media is constantly changing and evolving with every new technology. There are many kinds of technologies that are part of new media. One of my favorites is YouTube because of the way people are able to show their creativeness with everybody. Everyday I'm always seeing something new and interesting that people are creating. Every time I want to see something funny I always turn to youtube and find a video like this one about some funny cats. A new media technology that I frequently use is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an interesting technology because I would have never expected that letting people post and edit information into an encyclopedia would ever be successful. I would never have expected that people would take the information in Wikipedia seriously because they were being edited by ordinary people. Other technologies that are part of new media are facebook, flickr, hulu, twitter, and many more.

New media would have never been possible if it wasn't for the internet. The whole reason the term new media was created was to show how media was being used to connect and communicate with each other. The way we connect and communicate now is through the internet which made it possible for new media to change and evolve. Like Lev Manovich wrote in "New Media from Borges to HTML", "new media are the cultural objects which use digital computer technology for distribution and exhibition. Thus, Internet, Web sites, computer multimedia, computer games, CD-ROMs and DVDs, virtual reality, and computer-generated special effects all fall under new media." Therefore the internet and new media go hand-in-hand because new media would not have become what it is now without the internet.

Just like new media needed the internet to become what it is now, new media also needed old media just as much if not more. Many of the old media such as television, newspaper, books, magazines, and radio are being replace and/or enhanced by new media. The reason old media is being replaced or enhanced by new media is because new media is able to be more interactive with its users. Also users are able to express themselves and connect with others that are feeling the same way. An example of how old media is being enhanced by new media is the newspaper. In an article from the New York Times by CLAIRE CAIN MILLER, she wrote that a new newspaper company called "The Printed Blog" will publish blogs on paper and distribute it in big cities. It will also contain other user generated content. Though the future for this company is uncertain you could see how old media will need to be enhanced by new media in order to survive.