What is New Media?

In the last half century, the way we receive, transmit and interact with information has changed greatly due to the introduction of new media. This trend has continued into the 21st century, where mobile and wireless technology means that we no longer need to be at home to have complete access to all of our media channels.

But what exactly is New Media?

It's a catch-all category for new media formats which have been introduced in the last 25 or so years (some are a lot newer than others, and many have only been widely used for a short time). Roughly speaking, the Old Media consists of Print (Newspapers, Magazines, Posters), Film, Television and Radio and recorded music formats such as CD and Cassette. The New Media formats are everything else - The Internet, Mobile Phones, Multimedia, Computers, MP3, EBooks, and just about anything with a lower case 'i' or 'e' stuck on the front.

These new media technologies allow two major breakthroughs from older formats: Mobility and Interactivity. We can now access just about any media product anywhere, even when traveling at speed. We can also interact with the texts we are viewing - we can reply to posts on a blog, alter the outcome of a video game, even choose which angle to view a football match from over Digital TV.

It's also all surprisingly cheap - in the early 1970s, the first VCRs cost upwards of $5000, and their job can now be comfortably performed by a $500 DVD-R player/recorder.

To gain some understanding of the impact new media technologies have had on our daily lives, read this article on 'Total Rewind' about the introduction of the first VCRs.