Post by account_disabled on Mar 11, 2024 10:34:22 GMT 5.75
Following a previous post of mine , Prof. Robert K. Logan of the University of Toronto, former collaborator of Marshall McLuhan, contacted me and granted me the opportunity to translate for Italian readers some of his considerations which should become part of his next book “Understanding New Media: Extending Marshall McLuhan." The term “new media” generally refers to those digital media that are interactive, incorporate two-way communication and involve forms of computing, as opposed to “old media” such as telephone, radio and TV. These older media, which in their original incarnation did not require the use of computers, now, in their current configuration, make use of this as well as other technologies, which do not necessarily fall into the category of communication media, such as refrigerators and automobiles.
Many “new media” have emerged from combining an older medium with India Mobile Number Data chips and hard drives. We put the term “new media” in quotation marks to highlight that we are talking about interactive digital media. Instead, when we use the term new media without quotation marks, we mean to refer generically to the media, which are new in the context of the discussion. To better illustrate the terminological differences we can say that today all "new media" are new media. We can also say that in 1948 TV could be classified as a new media, but not as a “new media” in the above sense. The TV integrated with a computer to create a digital video recorder, such as the TiVo system, can be, on the other hand, an example of "new media".
An important difference between “new” and “old” media is that old media are mostly also mass media, which cannot be said for “new media”, with the possible exception of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Although the latter two media could be considered mass media due to the fact that anyone with a computer and a telephone or a cable connection can access them, they are nevertheless "enjoyed on an intimate level, each user working alone in front of a screen and a 'interface' (Wolf 2003b, p. 11). Another aspect is that millions of people access the Internet and the Web every day, and each of them has the possibility of consulting billions of pages already available. Furthermore, the Web and the Internet differ from mass media such as TV and radio because they incorporate two-way communication. This is why we can define old media as passive mass media and "new media" as interactive media with individual access.
Many “new media” have emerged from combining an older medium with India Mobile Number Data chips and hard drives. We put the term “new media” in quotation marks to highlight that we are talking about interactive digital media. Instead, when we use the term new media without quotation marks, we mean to refer generically to the media, which are new in the context of the discussion. To better illustrate the terminological differences we can say that today all "new media" are new media. We can also say that in 1948 TV could be classified as a new media, but not as a “new media” in the above sense. The TV integrated with a computer to create a digital video recorder, such as the TiVo system, can be, on the other hand, an example of "new media".
An important difference between “new” and “old” media is that old media are mostly also mass media, which cannot be said for “new media”, with the possible exception of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Although the latter two media could be considered mass media due to the fact that anyone with a computer and a telephone or a cable connection can access them, they are nevertheless "enjoyed on an intimate level, each user working alone in front of a screen and a 'interface' (Wolf 2003b, p. 11). Another aspect is that millions of people access the Internet and the Web every day, and each of them has the possibility of consulting billions of pages already available. Furthermore, the Web and the Internet differ from mass media such as TV and radio because they incorporate two-way communication. This is why we can define old media as passive mass media and "new media" as interactive media with individual access.