Networked Media-Week 4

This week’s course has, in a sense, completely changed my inherent thinking about terms such as new media and social media. As a Chinese, in the media industry, I have been in contact with, people often refer to new media and social The two media terms are conflated. Like others, I have never delved into the relationship between these media terms. So as long as other people bring up new media, we will always pop out WeChat, Facebook, Instagram, etc. The name of the social media platform. I didn’t realize the relationship between new media, social media, and the app until I heard the lecture on week 4. As the teacher showed, new media is like a vessel full of water. It is the root of the plant that draws water in the vessel, and the specific platform, APP, such as Instagram, is the green leaf of the plant. 

In this week’s study, both reading and lecture focused on the newness in the new media. This is a feature that would not have appeared before the Internet flourished. But Eliane pointed out three significant features of the new media: digital, online, and evolving. From these three points, I think that new media’s new is technical innovation. But after a deeper reading, although this understanding is correct, it is too one-sided. Based on Siapera (2012), new media is a complex object that combines technology and communication perspectives. Her perspective on the development of new media has completely changed our original intention for new media because she uses a new way to analyze new media and believes that existing media practices can connect with technological progress and social communication. Therefore, by referring to contemporary media as “new media,” Siapera suggests that we can refocus our attention on how the media’s technology and communication respond to each other. In short, the term “new media” is an argument for exploring more complex approaches where technology meets society. Most importantly, Siapera’s argument about thinking about media with novelty is pragmatic. It has the meaning of change, evolution, and novelty. Because it enables us to change the logic of the media to include the characteristics of the computer and media’s propagation logic “(2012, p5.), thereby avoiding the simplification of the tripartite relationship between technological innovation, social communication and existing media practices. These arguments are enough for me to roughly understand the meaning of New Media from the academic aspect. I will get more ideas and insights in deeper reading and practice later, and solve some of my questions. There is a deeper discussion on web2.0 this week, and the content discussed is very similar to last week’s course reading: New Media, a critical introduction. We have moved from a passive receiver of message media information to an active information creation Elaine also gave an example to show us that Web 2.0 can make people more engaged to participate in a certain topic and so on. In web2.0, we have a strong interactive relationship with apps. In addition to the fact that we can already publish our content as a creator on these platforms, the information we obtain from the application is also owned by us Determined by the will. Many websites today will have their own algorithms, such as YouTube, TikTok, etc. I often check some electronic products out of the box and review videos on YouTube, so no matter when I open YouTube, I can see related videos about all kinds of electronic products. This is what I think of social media in the term social media. But on the other hand, my personal information and usage habits are also listed on the website Collected and leaked. When I open some other websites, there will always be some ads for cameras or laptops.

All in all, social media is a thing that keeps up with the times. It is updated rapidly every day or every week. So as a major media student, our learning is completely impossible to stop. I look forward to practical learning in the future.

Reference

Siapera, E. 2013, Understanding New Media, SAGE Publications, London (Section: pp.1-16).

Hinton, S & Hjorth L 2013, Understanding Social Media, Sage Publications, London 2013. (Section: pp. 1-31).

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