My New Media Definition

Hello All,

I graduated from UT Austin in 2003 with a Bachelors of Journalism. That's right, I have a B.J. from U.T. I decided that I love journalism but I didn't want to work for a paper, and I didn't want to be a copy editor. I got my first internship in PR around my sophomore year at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. I loved and have worked in non-profit PR ever-since. I've worked for the Muscular Dystrophy Association and, most recently, for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

I came to Texas State last year to get my Masters in Mass Comm as a way to open more doors for me in the local non-profit industry.

I am a graduate assistant, and I currently teach two lab sections of MC1313, Intro to Mass Comm writing with Kym Fox.

I know that it seems obvious but it wasn't until I did the readings that I allowed myself to contemplate that the word "media" isn't relegated to journalism. Being a life-long student of journalism, I allowed myself to fall into that trap where we tend to think that if doesn't have anything to do with the delivery of news then it isn't worth our time or our analysis. I don't know why I allowed myself to languish under the assumption that this class would focus somehow only on how technology and the Internet has affected the mainstream press. It's a Cindy Royal class after all.

So when Manovich began to compare software design and modern art I had an epiphany. There really are multiple definitions of New Media. There is the narrow one I formulated in my brain that saw New Media only as it related to my own knowledge of traditional journalism, and more advanced, holistic definitions that take into account the technology and it's history.

According to Manovich, a basic and flawed definition of New Media is as follows: "New media are the cultural objects which use digital computer technology for distribution and exhibition." Well, traditional journalism's foray onto the Internet certainly would fall under this definition, but it encompasses so much more. For instance, Manovich includes video games as a new media. Previous to reading this article, I would not have thought of video games as New Media.

But, after finishing all of the readings, I find that my original definition isn't all that off. According to Manovich, when describing the approach to new media that allows for clickable image maps and animated icons that this "approach assumes the existence of historically particular aesthetics that characterizes new media. This aesthetics results from the convergence of ...already existing cultural conventions and the conventions of HCI." Dennis Baron, in his explanation of how writing technology advanced from the pencil to the computer, speaks of how word processing didn't become popular until the interface began to look more like the traditional page. So, new media is influenced by our preconceived notions based on the technology and delivery methods we are most used to as a culture. In my personal experience, that is journalism, newspapers, broadcast, etc.

Cheekiness aside, I know that my first definition was too narrow. However, I don't want to saddle New Media with the also narrow definition of anything that can be communicated, transported or conveyed digitally. I think Baron is right when he says that all media was once new media. In the same vein, all new media will one day be old media. So I would like to say that my new definition of New Media is any new way in which culture can be circulated. Right now this means the Internet and new digital formats. But, eventually that will change as well.