New Media

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Crosbie suggests that three features of New Media make it significantly different from old media:

It cannot exist without appropriate technology

Information can be personalised

Each user in a network can share, shape, and change the content which is being shared.

Moreover, New Media is truly global in scope and it allows connections to be made. Individuals can create content and then share it without the hindrance of physical borders. In social networks such as Facebook, consumer is often the producer.

Old media was of a linear nature but the new media, allows interconnections to be made not just of people but of information. A good example of this is WIKIPEDIA.

The Digital Optimism View states that New Media is beneficial to the society in three ways.

Economically: New model of production have been introduced. One significant model, is the creation of software developed collaboratively to take advantage of wide creative pools. Producers now have to be much more efficient in order to fulfill the demands of the consumer because the ability to act as a global crowd means that corporate behaviour is being analysed more closely.

Politically: Due to the flow of information, governments ability of restriciting and repressing information becomes weak, due to the immense pressure of the society. The govt's ability to censor the flow of information is also made hard.

Culturally: People are allowed to express themselves and exercise their freedom of speech more freely, because of the ability to remain anonymous over the internet. This also allows whistle blowing, where the activities of either private or public sector can be scrutinized.

An alternative view argues that new media, isnt wholly beneficial.

Free software models are more apparent than real. Their costs are non-financial, such as driving down quality, exploiting free labor, privacy and copy right. One significant similarity between old and new media is how corporations are able to create a monopoly and lock in consumers. An example of this is Amazon's e-book reader, which dictates who can create the E-Books for it and how consumers can use it. Therefore, New Media leads to concentration of majority market share in the hands of few corporations. Scheter argues that this leads to reduction in diversity of news products. Moreover, politically, mass communication tools can be used to repress a society and promote inequality.

The introduction of New Media leads to a whole range of issues for both consumers and producers.

For Producers; there is the massive threat of their content being copied and being distributed without their permission.

Government can hack other nations networks for purposes ranging from espionage to sabotage.

Consumers face the constant threat of the invasion of privacy. Websites such as Facebook earn revenue through attracting advertisers, which can now be targeted to potential buyers, through the selling and purchasing of user's data through the internet. Consumers enjoy free services on the cost of losing their privacy. Different parties can hack the user's email accounts and other social networks in order to sell their data to advertisers. Moreover once something is released into the internet, it becomes highly impossible to bring it down.