We often hear people talk about new media and how they have affected our way of living and become an important part of everyday life. But what is “new media”? I find that the term is very vague and is interpreted very differently by different people. For how long can media be new? And what about in twenty years? Will new media be old media then?
I think that Siapera is very right that terminology is highly important. I also agree that the terms “online media” and “digital media” are perhaps too excluding and literal. But if terminology is so important why has Siapera chosen such an indefinite word to describe it? My point is that if someone talks about “new media” I will not be able to distinguish if it is Siapera’s definition or just a common saying. However, by using the term “new” Siapera emphasises her most important characteristic – that new media is always evolving. I can’t help but wonder; why not just call them “evolving media” instead? Then again, perhaps this leads to the same issues as the term “new” – first of all that it can be applied to everything and secondly: isn’t all media evolving? I think this exemplifies just how difficult it is to define “new” media.
Because it is so hard to create a suitable definition, I like the way that Hinton & Hjorth views the terms web 1.0 and 2.0 as a practice and not a technology. By doing this they also define web by how it is actually used – and not just which practices it affords. I like this way of thinking about it because it puts the users and their behaviour in focus instead of the technology. By looking at the changed behaviour and practice of people’s media usage we also often see that just because a media affords specific technological options we often don not make use of them all.