New Media can be defined in several ways. It is another type of media, but it is also a particular type of computer data which makes media programmable. New media technologies thus have the characteristics of being manipulated, networkable and interactive. But new media is constantly evolving and its definition ever changing. What maybe characterized as new media today is different from its perception in the past and also in the future.                However, what sets new media apart from the traditional media is its digitization of content. As Jussi Parikka states, in new media ideas become coded into zeroes and ones, and thus detached from the material sphere of communication.  Nonetheless, the most important features of new media according to Manovich, are its modular structure, variability and branching interactivity. A modular structure means that individual media elements such as images, sounds, pages of text and so on, always maintain their separate identity. The variability principle of new media means that an object in new media can exist in different versions. The concept of branching interactivity can be explained by the most popular new media structure of today: hypermedia. In hypermedia, multimedia elements that create a document are connected through hyperlinks.
Hyperlinking has also transformed the writing process because it allows people to structure and aggregate their information differently. Blog posts, articles, opinion columns are now organized according to hyperlink organization. subsequently, new media results in the emergence of a distinctive voice of modern bloggers — reactive, informal, colloquial, personal and loquacious. Yet this level of personal exposure reveals the dangers of new media. Online sites and corporations can monitor user content such as personal emails and browser history for advertisement purposes.
Although new media is often separated from the ‘old’ media, they are inextricably linked. As Manovich explains, cinema was the original multimedia as filmmakers experimented with moving images, sound and text. the principle of new media were already present in the old medium of cinema — discrete representation, random access and multimedia. Old media can hence be characterized as the ancestor of new media. Therefore one can also observe that what really separates new media from the old are not its principles but its programmability. Nevertheless, new media is slowly eroding the importance of traditional media as it has enabled the average person to discuss and actively participate in political, social and economic issues, implying that old data outlets are secondary sources of information.                                                               Overall, new media values  individuality over conformity. It is a semblance of the most perfect conception of utopia composed of unique individuals. New media subsequently assures users that their thoughts and choices are unique.