When I began reading the book New New Media, I wondered how much could one write on Facebook or Twitter or Wikipedia or any of the topics covered. But, after reading each topic, I figured that each of them is wider than I thought or imagined. New New Media are nothing but an extension of the old media and the new media as Marshall McLuhan would call it. New New Media show a patter of continuity and are predictable in nature. Some of the metaphors used for each of them really got me into thinking why I didn't ever thought of them. For instance, they say Twitter is a classroom, chat room, or gathering that goes on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It facilitates group to individual and individual to group communication. Twitter can certainly be educational, it is the communication structure of the classroom, not its content, that is catapulted into a worldwide conversation on Twitter. (p 32). The old media exists offline and new media exists online but retain old media ways of doing business. (p.57). New Media amplify aspects of our communication, obsolesce a currently widespread form, retrieve an earlier form, and eventually reverse or flip into something else. (p 40). If we apply this to any of the media that we are currently using, we will find this same patter. Be it Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.
The comparisons made are not limited to things we see around. Levinson says, "Answer videos or video responses are a YouTube equivalent of text comments on Facebook". The best thing about YouTube is we can find the recordings and videos which are even more than 50 years old. The drawback however I have myself encountered is that some of the videos I saved in my channel were no longer available due to the copyright issues. Hence, the longevity of videos on YouTube is little bit of an issue, which even Levinson mentions in the chapter. The videos need not be just the one broadcasted on television. Any person could shoot a video with his/her phone and just upload it on YouTube. Its as simple as that. Unlike all the new new media, YouTube is not space binding and time binding in nature. To me, Wikipedia seems to be one of the weakest media forms right now due to its openness to let anybody write and edit the content. However, personally I do look for information on wikipedia, no matter how untrustworthy it is considered.
New new media have definitely changed the way we receive information, the way we communicate and so on. Twitter's 140 character limit seems to be indicative of the fact that as more and more people do not like to read or don't have the time to read, succinctness is the need of the hour. People love visuals accompanying the text. Thats what the new new media seems to be putting all its money on.
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