What is New Media?

Since launching this blog several people have asked me to explain what I mean by new media. Even many of you who 'do' new media, have inquired about my views. Sooo....

New media is a broad term used to describe a series of technological, political, and cultural shifts that together are changing the structure of the media and entertainment industries. More importantly, these shifts are also changing the historic relationship between the media producers and consumers.

Deregulation, technology innovation, and new capital investments have significantly altered the way media and entertainment products are developed and distributed. Large corporate conglomerates have emerged to exploit capacity from across once different sectors of the economy. Intellectual property and media content developed in one part of the corporation can be repackaged, resold, and distributed many times over several mediums, and across domestic and international markets. New products and services and new business models have emerged that threaten many industry players who have not figured out how to adopt them, like newspapers.

These same technologies gives consumers much more control over not only what they will watch, read and listen to, but also over how media products are developed and can be used. The new internet based peer-to-peer networks, collaborative tools, social software coupled with new and cheap computer software and recording equipment, coupled with a myriad of new communication devises empower consumers to become producers and distributors of their own media and entertainment. Interactive forms of entertainment and civic engagement like internet based social networks are cutting into the overall percentage of personal time and resources people invest in traditional media products and services. The media and the entertainment art form are changing from a one-way, mass viewing experience - to an interactive, personalized experience. Many people are demanding a new level of engagement in the media and cultural that constitute their world.

Yet there is still no consensus on a definition of the media industry today – old or new. Analysts use different frameworks to identify the sectors that make up the industry. Attempts to study the industry are further complicated by the large number of mergers and acquisitions that have occurred since the 1990s and continue today. Data on specific companies is constantly changing. Also, given that much of the work within the industry is project based and contingent, data on the number of people who actually earn a living by working within the industry, their wage levels, skill sets, credentials, etc. are also hard to obtain.

It seems to me Jenkins got it right when describing new media as a process - a convergence process through which a new or an alternative media environment will emerge. He believes the new media environment is being shaped by these two seemingly contradictory trends - trends in traditional media that have a given rise to very small number of privately held gatekeepers who now have unprecedented control over the media and popular culture - and - trends that are transforming the audience into active producers and consumers of the news and popular culture. As we sit in the midst of this process he claims it is very hard to predict the media landscape that will emerge on the other end.

Next week, I will share some of what I have learned about the potential implications of these trends for the media landscape in Greater Washington DC.

Meanwhile, what do you think? Does Jenkins capture the inherent contradiction which he believes may characterize 'the media' today? What are your thoughts about how these contradictions are playing out in Greater Washington, DC?