New Media

Hello, 

  My name is Meagan Meyer, I started out as a theatre major at UT then transferred to Texas State, where I graduated in 2006 with a B.F.A. in directing.  Shortly after getting this degree I realized that it wasn't the best fit for me, and that I needed a real job so i took some leveling classes and started my mass comm degree this past summer, and so far it has been a much better fit.  

This Christmas I was talking to my cousins husband who is the literary editor for the New Republic magazine in Washington D.C. about internships and what direction I should take and he told me that the best thing that I could do is to learn as much as I possibly could about new media and focus on it because he felt it would be the most lucrative and valuable path that I could take. so I am very excited about this course.

When I was first reading I tended to agree more with Negroponte in the article "Being Digital". When he says that "Better and more efficient delivery of what already exists is what most media executives think and talk about in the context of being digital." This is what I first think of when I think of New Media ,this is because  I associate new media  with updating computers and software and things that we already have and that exist, and while this is true I think that a better definition is Manovich's definition of new media, in the article "New Media: a User's Guide", which is that new media is mainly characterized by variability.  Because New Media is digital it can be transformed in numerous ways and sequences as opposed to the permanence of old media.  Because this is possible with new media we can now "custom fit" every advertisement, email or anything else to a specific person and their likes, dislikes and interests.  As stated in New Media: A User's Guide: "New Media objects assure the users that their choices- and therefore, their underlying thoughts and desires- are unique, rather than pre-programmed and shared with others." I also think that a good definition of new media would be that it is everchanging, most recently it has evolved to a more digital form, so it will be interesting to see where it evolved from here.