New media can be described as any form of media that is prevalent and new to society. New media is such a broad term because there are so many different categories that fall under the term. For example, new media started out as being different forms of broadcasting during the Cold War period and then transitioned to computers in the 1990s. New media is a term that is always changing and its meaning depends on the time period. In my life I have found that new media is most prevalent in social media. In 2013 the app Vine became a sensation and everyone was on it. During that time it was the app to be on and the face of new media. Once Vine shut down, the app musically was considered new media and everyone my age was on it. But it then grew to be unpopular so the new media for a video sharing app would currently be TikTok. TikTok is an app that almost everyone I know has and uses regularly and it influences so much of generation Z. It affects clothing trends, the way people talk, and the common content that people find funny. New media is constantly changing and can be seen from the rise of Apple products to different social media platforms.
5 thoughts on “New Media”
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I agree, I find it incredibly interesting that the modern trends of social media shift from platform to platform every couple years. As you mentioned, the term ‘new media’ is broad because it’s definitions are based upon different time periods; the term is constantly changing and evolving while technology (and things included) evolve at the same rate. It’s shocking to see where media started from (that being broadcasts during the cold war,) to now, where I could pick up my phone and watch a bunch of random, short videos found on tiktok. Because technology is constantly evolving, I feel like the use of technology and media is evolving at the same rate as well. Where before media was used for broadcasts, as you mentioned, however now, media is used for virtually anything, and is not limited to just a singular use. Therefore the grand evolution of media, but also technology as a whole, drives the meaning for ‘new media’ generally everywhere, because media, and new media, can be found generally everywhere as well.
Great use of Vine and TikTok to demonstrate the rapidity with with new media emerge and fall out of fashion.
I really like your point on how modern new media (Tiktok, Instagram, Vine, etc) influence the culture of our generation. It’s easy to see how music, trends, and speech among other things are driven so heavily by consuming content on these platforms. Parallels can be drawn to the way radio and television influenced the culture of previous generations. This idea illustrates how our “new media” is not necessarily new, but a continuation of the evolution of media that has been occurring since the inception of the first forms of media. I think critics of new media fail to recognize how critical it is to accept new media in order to continue progress in finding faster, better ways of consuming content.
I think it’s very interesting how you mentioned the different phases of popularity social media apps tend to go through. I agree that there is continuously a new platform being brought to light just as another begins to lose its viewers. I also agree that these apps have such a big impact on the people thats use them —especially the young and impressionable generations. Different trends, clothing styles, and products are all heavily marketed on these apps and they do a very good job of getting the word out to all types of people.
I definitely agree with this statement especially because generations such as ours have lived through the “lives” and progressions of these three social media apps. I think that there is a huge prevalence within our society surrounding these apps specifically based on the way they have physically changed societal attitudes and expectations. Styles, phrases, mindsets and general appreciation for aspects of our society have been cultivated through apps such as these and have clearly built off one another rather than switched from one to another. “Retro” and early trends have not only continued to find their way back through “cliques” of those who remember when these trends took place, but they are also re-established as “cool” through this as well. For example, when I am on Tik Tok, I will hear old “sounds” from vines or musically videos reoccurring as a new Tik Tok trend. It’s interesting to see how the platform Tik Tok is not only an accumulation of the two previous apps, but how its virtual community presents these old aspects as well as creates new ones.