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• 2008-09-30 21:36:17

  What is The New Media?

  AniDev's mission statement says "you are the New Media."  Does that make you wonder what the "New Media" is?  Do you wonder why you are a part of it?

  The term New Media is not clearly defined.  You will hear people use it in different ways.  Currently Wikipedia defines it as follows:

  "a term meant to encompass the emergence of digital, computerized, or networked information and communication technologies in the latter part of the 20th century. Most technologies described as 'new media' are digital, often having characteristics of being manipulable, networkable, dense, compressible, and impartial."

   

  Perhaps the better question to answer is:  What does AniDev mean by The New Media?  That is best answered by first defining what the old media is.

  In the past, means of mass communication has been expensive and limited.  There were a limited number of channels through which information could be communicated on a massive scale.  Therefore those who controlled such channels had a great deal of influence over what information people consumed.  Print, radio, and television all share this same quality.  Granted there are both advantages and disadvantages to this situation, but what makes The New Media special is its freedom from these limitations.

  In the Information Age, anyone with an internet connection is instantly one step away from anyone else who has an internet connection anywhere in the world.  Stop and think about this for a minute.  It is as if you are in the same room with everyone in the world, and any one of them can hear you, if they choose to stop and listen.  This has never before been possible in human history, and we are only in the first few years of this new realm of possibilities.  Surely we are only on the cusp of its development.

  We now live in an age where anyone who can gain access to the internet can publish their own information, and consume information from any one else.  This is the heart of the New Media.  There is noone between the consumer and the publisher or the artist.  There is noone deciding for you what you will be able to read, listen to, or watch.  There is no getway or industry you must clamor you way into to be able to put your content into this new media.  It is open.

  Why are you the  New Media?  Simply put, the New Media is made up of people just like you.  Content produced by people like you is constantly being consumed by others like you.  This brings a whole new world of possiblities to various professions, one of which is art.

  I should elaborate on what this means to the artist, specifically the cartoon artist here at The Animation Developers Network, but I will leave that until later.