Understanding New Media
You often hear people saying that other people understand or don’t understand the media. Funny enough that the appreciative “he/she understands the media” is applied to success in old media, while “he/she does not understand the media” is applied to old media people fumbling with the Internet. So:
- What does it mean “to understand the media”?
- What are the differences between old an new media?
- Why is it so hard to understand new media?
Old media strategy: Preaching
Old media: Teaching the truth
Applied to old media “understanding the media” basically means to know how to shape a message so it becomes a magnet of attention. Old media is based on authority and the idea of a big story. Its paradigm is the bible. Its subject is the truth.
- Depending on which particular medium you use (Paper, Radio, TV) one has to adapt to certain material standards in order to be successful
- It hardly changes its self-definition
- It hardly changes its rules and shape, it is constructed by a few chosen people and it develops slowly
- It shows no form of own intelligence
- It’s controllable by money, power and/or superstition
- It grows attention through manipulation
- It is authoritarian, cautionary and talking down to us
- It drives and is driven by fear and entertainment, sex and crime
- It creates myths and creates distance
- It lives in the past
New Media: Socratic Dialogue
New media - developing knowledge through open dialogue:
The cool thing about working with new media in general is that you never fully understand it. Of course a paper tiger might object that understanding old media is also process that never comes to an end. Yet understanding new media is a bit more of a challenge as it is conceived as a two way medium constantly redefining itself. Its paradigm is the socratic dialogue. Its subject is knowledge.
- It can take the shape of all other media and thus emulate them in their function and power
- It constantly changes its self definition (Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0)
- It is driven and constructed by billions of people and thus advancing faster than any other technology we are aware of
- It generates a form of meta-intelligence that governs itself through the help of human intelligence
- It is not controlable by either money or power or superstition
- It rejects manipulation and grows through collaboration
- It’s anti-authoritarian, easy to understand and it engages in conversations
- It is driven by information and humor, sex and laughter
- It informs and connects
- It constantly defines and redefines the future
The media is the message: The web is not a church, TV is
That a new medium incorporates an old medium is not new. Print incorporates speech, radio incorporates print, cinema incorporates radio, TV incorporates radio. McLuhan noted as early as 1964 that “the content of a medium is always another medium.” The new thing about new media is that it doesn’t have a defined shape and that due to its high speed development its rules evolve constantly. In order to stay in touch with new media developments you are forced to develop as well. Which, I believe is an essentially philosophical state of mind.
Which leads me to today’s conclusion. While old media requires a mindset very similar to religion (priests on one side, and believers on the other), new media requires a philosophical mind. New media knows that it doesn’t know. And that knowledge can get you pretty far at times. It is hard to understand because in order to comprehend it, new media requires you to engage in its dialogue.
3.16.2007
13:36
A tiny niggle, “Luhan noted” I’m pretty sure you mean “McLuhan noted” otherwise a terrific article as usual.
3.16.2007
13:41
Updated. Thanks John.
3.16.2007
17:15
Would Socrates use Linux, Mac, or Sugar?
3.16.2007
18:02
One thing thats confusing me is the question “Why is it so hard to understand new media?” vs. the answer: “7. # It’s anti-authoritarian, easy to understand and it engages in conversations”…
How can something thats hard to understand be easy to understand?
3.16.2007
18:59
Obviously understanding a medium and understanding the message is not quite the same thing.
The Internet as a medium is extremely complex. Yet messages on the Internet need to be simple in order to be successful.
That simplicity is hard to achieve doesn’t contribute to the simplicity of my message right here right now, but with a little intellectual tolerance you might still get my point…
3.16.2007
22:54
McLuhan also writes:
“And when the sense ratios alter in any culture then what had appeared lucid before may suddenly become opaque, and what had been vague or opaque will become translucent.”
The idea of sense ratios is a little vague, but it refers to the reconfiguration of ourselves in the light of new media. It’s clear that not everyone gets new media yet, but to those that do, it feels logical and natural.
3.16.2007
23:34
You have a poor and pathological misunderstanding of faith. Pity you have to throw out such stereotypical generalizations about religion. When the next bubble pops, then you’ll understand what’s really ignorant and lacking in intelligence! No personal offense intended here… but your analogy stinks.
Read the bible sometime. It’s not as simplistic as you think.
3.17.2007
00:37
Oliver never brought up faith, and never referred to the Bible as simple. He wasn’t talking about what’s in the Bible, but rather how the Bible has been implemented. As the primary piece of reproducable media in the Western world, it was the great uniter of our society. But around it formed monolithic and centralized power structures that today feel old and outdated when compared to a democratized medium like the internet. Blogs are in, Crusades are out.
3.17.2007
01:11
Basher: You just verified Oliver’s theory.
3.22.2007
22:08
I agree with your saying Oliver. Just want to add that we have to take in consideration this repetitious circle and when the next new medium appears to try to develop ourselves into appropriate state of mind, and not to be the new (next) generation of priests and believers
3.23.2007
22:37
I don’t disagree with the gist of this article only the binary opposition, which is a nice rhetorical trick but hardly worthy of serious consideration. Also, it’s humorous to me that it is presented in an old-media format, in a talking down-to, authoritarian voice. To quote, it’s subject is the truth.
3.24.2007
14:41
David,
What’s your point, exactly? You basically agree but then you say that it’s all just rhetorical tricks and then you say that I am some authoritarian dude myself. I don’t get it. I can assure you that I mean what I say and that I am interested in hearing what people think. Religion=Authority, Socratic Philosophy=Dialogue, and the parallel to old media/new media doesn’t seem like a rhetorical trick to me at all. I put a lot of thought in this. If you are not just some religious guy that feels offended in his religious feelings, that is if you really have a point other than just wanting to put me down, you need to be more specific. I am not against learning from my users you know, and from what Google tells me you might have something to say…
4.6.2007
22:34
Sorry Oliver. I usually am a lurker these days because I don’t have the time to write as coherently as I ought to. Essentially, I agree because I too find the new media paradigm shift compelling, but also see many useful things in traditional media, especially our historical literary canon–which itself could be constructed as “old authoritarian media,” including Plato.
My own view of Religion differs somewhat in regard to your binary opposition, although I didn’t quite explain this. Many religious texts are in fact dialogue, some more Socratic than others: for example the Sermon on the Mount. Less Socratic texts include Song of Songs, a dialogue between two lovers; even Paul’s letters, the most authoritarian texts in the New Testament, are dialogue, albeit Paul chastising his less dogmatic brethren and probably misrepresenting the opposing voice (although this can be found, to some extent, in Gnostic texts).
The authoritarianism we see in religion comes, I believe, after the fact (in Christianity it is solidified in the Fourth Ecumenical Council) and is an effort to consolidate power. I don’t see this as something essential to religion and I believe such could happen with new media itself– if bandwidth, to give one example, were to be regulated in opposition to Net Neutrality.
So I see too many qualifications to agree with your formulation. This website, for example, rightfully acts as an authority on IA matters and the author of the above article is given, by its readers–again rightfully–credence over this poster.
However, I do agree with the gist of that new media represents a paradigm shift that needs to be understood on its own terms, and those terms must be understood in context of our media culture and the loosening of control the web represents for stakeholders in traditional media.
Really, it is a mere philosophical difference that probably amounts to nothing, therefore my reluctance to post at length. I apologize if I came across as sarcastic. That was not my intention.
5.15.2007
21:57
Hi OLiver,
I found this article interesnting about internet and democracy. A really new point of view.
http://radio.weblogs.com/0107127/stories/2003/03/10/deeHockOnBloggingAndTheNewConstitution.html
What do you think?
Thanks