Old vs. New Media

The definitions of old media and new media are dynamic and can be quite vague. It is necessary to define them in terms of examples since new media today might be old media tomorrow.

Examples of old media include basically anything that does not involve "user-up" control, meaning users do NOT have direct control over content and layout. Old media include TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, websites with limited user content and scholarly journals, among others. New media include technology that is primarily user-controlled and offers many ways of customization or variation. New media are often web-based and include such sites as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, flickr, delicious and digg. Concepts and uses of new media include blogs, social networking sites , wikis, video posting and the like. While social networking and bookmarking are the main components of new media, cell phones, for example, can be considered new media due to their ability to transmit old media in new ways. Many cell phones now have access to live, streaming TV and include applications that use Facebook, Twitter and flickr.