Defining “new media” should be simple. New means not old, and media means a form of mass communication. Simple. But when put alongside one another, things change, the synergy between the two words, and the context they live in in our modern age, create an entirely new meaning. New media consists of the objects, be they analog or digital by origin, that are composed of some form of digital code, are conveyed, stored and manipulated by computers, and communicate ideas or emotions in some fashion be it visual or text based. To break down this definition, objects refers to an item, be it a single image or an entire production of images, that exists within the definition of new media, including analog forms of media such as books or paintings that have been digitized(Manovich 14). This definition stretches to digital films and modern television programming that is operated and stored on computers in one fashion or another, so that while we may consider going to the movies and older form of media, it can in fact retain its position under this definition (Lister 9). This then raises the question of what it means to be “new”. When will computers stop being new, especially when they have after all been around for decades, and computational machines have existed since the nineteenth century(Manovich 22)? The distinction here lies in the manner in which the the media s experienced and part of this deals with the individual taking in a form of media: “…we have seen a shift from ‘audience’ to ‘users’ and from ‘consumers’ to ‘producers”(Lister 10) While it is true that it was before possible to interact with older forms of media, the important distinction is between “‘open’ and ‘closed’” interactivity, open being manipulation that allows for greater nuance, while closed restricts a user to certain criteria of involvement(Manovich 56).
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2001. Print.