Joseph Wharton-BrownBA Hons Arts Games Design

Year 1

What Is New Media?Cover

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Gameplay has absorbed itself into our culture. It comes from ‘new media’ that

has made its way into human civilisation. But, what is new media?

New Media is a modern term used to explain everything relative to the

Internet and its media vehicles; mediums. New media changes everyday and

is unpredictable to what it will turn into, but the main focus area of new media,

is the definition of digital technology. People, however, do have ideas what it

does, just not how it does it.

Considering Vin Crosbie’s views, it exceeds old media and keeps improving

how we communicate; unlimited solutions.

Vin Crosbie is an author of ‘What is New Media’. Here, he discusses, in his

terms, how media shapes and expands the human life. He has confirmed that

the three ways of communications are: one to many, many to one to many,

and many to many.

What he means by this is: one to many represents old media, in a way that, at

this time, we are only able to communicate one way. For example, one person

speaks and others have to listen – in order to know what is being said and

trusting that the word gets out. Many to many are between new media and old

media, a majority of people know something and they communicate to one

person and this individual communicates to others. It may get the message

across, but it often becomes jumbled or distorted that these other individuals

do not fully understand. An example of this is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an

online independent editing website where others can put the incorrect

information or the correct information that ‘the others’ read everyday, by which

they tell others the incorrect information generally and thus, relates to many to

one, one to many. Finally, many to many are the new media. We have

unlimited communications to the outside world with the media vehicles, such

as our smart phones, are in the palm of our hands and at the lowest possible

prices at this present time. We communicate all at the same time and, by

doing so; we all getting the same understanding of the subjects in question

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and is nearly impossible to get the subject distorted. This is considered the

result from blogging and video sharing. Meaning several people reads or

views the message or the video in question and they undoubtedly share it –

getting the same information out to several people. It also works by knowing

that hundreds of individuals see the same information without sharing; still

getting the message across.

Gameplay is the same as “many to many” as we can communicate various

ideas and work collaboratively with others, people that other people haven’t

met before. Even though, gameplay doesn’t show us updating what the latest

subject in government is and more of a general communication device. We,

however, are able to surpass the old media as letter writing.

Old media is less versatile. Old media, (illustration 1) in forms of

communication, relates to: magazines, newsletters, scholarly journals,

pamphlets, fliers, broadsides, billboards, etc. And, other traditional media is

electronic, (illustration 2) such as: radio, television, digital still photographs,

video recordings, audio recordings, interactive video games, etc. These are all

older forms of media communication. The later forms of communication lie on

the Internet. The Internet is our unlimited boundary to the world: we are able

to contact people from around the world, like from England to America without

any additional fees, as it would have been in the early 1950s, where people

had to jump on a plane and see the person they wish to contact, or send a

letter and pay large amounts to cover the postage.

In the case of media and mediums, the Internet is the medium and the media

is the content that is shown within it, such as blogs, e-mails, video sharing

sites, etc.

Marshal McLuhan’s views on ‘new media’ and “the medium is the message”

are correct, the medium does shape how the message is received, but one

media doesn’t rely on one media any more. The medium is more widespread

and allows users to do more, unlike using a piece of paper for making lines,

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something like a mobile device is able to be a piece of paper for people to

write on, games console, connect to people that are millions of miles away,

send messages to those people, and not just call somebody which, in

Marshall’s time, would only allow people to do. Not only that, but the medium

is the foundation of other forms of media functions. McLuhan also states,

where media is concerned: “When the creative process of knowing will be

collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society, much as

we have already extended our senses and our nerves by the various media.”

(p 23, Marshall McLuhan Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, 1964) This relates to the subject focus of Vin Crosbie’s theory that new media is the

extension of man, and when comparing with McLuhan’s personal opinion, the

message is conveyed within what is the most useful attributes of a piece of

technology, whereas the medium allows us to manipulate and improve,

otherwise adapt and evolve what new media is, how it is shaped and how It is

received. This shows that McLuhan was able to collaborate with someone

who shown his works 18 years after the death of Marshall McLuhan.

Additional theories of Sherry Turkle, she believes that any media make us

cope and make life outcomes the way we want them to turn out. She said:

“First we have Robin is “played into” a machine. We speak of television as a

‘playing drug’, but perhaps the very passivity of what we do with television

reassures us. We are concerned about children glued to the screens, but

despite what we have heard of Marshall McLuhan, and the idea that “the

medium is the message”, the passivity of television encourages many of us to

situate our sense of its impact at the level of the context of the television

programming.” (Turkle S, The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit,

p 106, 1984) What she means is that, although McLuhan’s views on the

subject states that the medium shapes what we do with it (i.e. the message),

the television (for example) encourages us to examine the current state of the

television (the medium), observe what the impact is at the level of context of

what is being shown (the message) and interpret our own thoughts on what it

can be used for and what mediums it can use. Which takes me back to

Crosbie and his thoughts on how “media is an extension of man” (Crosbie V,

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What is New Media?, 1998). This is true, and compared to McLuhan’s views

and then with Turkle’s, Crosbie knows that media is more diverse (as media is

a constantly changing form of technology) and keeps allowing us to do more

things with one media vehicle. Unlike in McLuhan’s day where technology and

people’s opinions on technology seems to be not going in any direction at that

moment in time, but the opinion of Sherry Turkle shows both her and Crosbie

are on the same level (Even though it appears to be that McLuhan’s theories

are similar to Crosbie’s own opinions). Turkle knows that media can be

interpreted in different ways, where she hints at media is able to be translated

in other, more versatile directions, and Crosbie is clearly stating the facts that

media can and always keep changing and keep being that extension of

human capabilities, by which shapes and situates back into human abilities in

order to improve them, whereas Marshall McLuhan’s factual opinion was

correct at an extent, but is disappearing slowly from our minds. (illustration 3)

We see evolution in life, reforms the mediums, by which transforms how the

message is received completely. However, we still see that there is still a

medium specific towards the content (the media). We still use the Internet (the

medium) for the generic uses for blogging, and becoming known to the world

where we only can be seen in cyberspace. The future may and may not see

us still relying on the Internet in order to communicate with other individuals in

the world, but we may reshape and reform this medium into a different

message, where new content has been created and the new medium to

progressively change how the human being lives and interacts with the world.

Nobody knows what the future holds. Eventually, we might see the views of

Sherry Turkle and Vin Crosbie as we see McLuhan’s opinion as outmoded, as

(previously stated) media is constantly changing.

In conclusion, new media is constantly changing, where dwelling into multiple

mediums is discovering different media combinations. “The medium shapes

how the message is received”, but as it is the medium that is constantly

altering and reforming, it shows a different root of what media (content) it

uses. The mobile has journeyed far and its media keeps expanding. Media is

an extension of humans, where we have things like computers being

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something far more than a large writing and business asset, but an entire

communication and creation device, where people are able to talk to people of

different nationalities and cultures, and express ideas visually in many

different styles. With the computer and mobile as examples, media can be

reconstructed into something more than one thing, despite McLuhan’s facts

and thoughts. Computers have also been made as a game system, since

video games were born, where we can communicate with people around the

world, and have another resource of advertisement and selling products on

this server. This is a prime example of media transforming to work differently,

but keeping how the device was to be used for. All in all, it is clear that one

medium is not dependent on one media, but the media is more wide spread

across the mediums in question. Thus, proving mediums aren’t dependent on

one media.

Illustration 1

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(Illustration 2)

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(Illustration 3)

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ReferencesCrosbie, Vin. What is New Media?. 1998. Print.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions Of Man. London,

Routledge: N.p 23, 1964. Print.

Turkle, Sherry. The Second Self: Computers And The Human Spirit. London,

Granada: N.p 106 1984. Print.

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