The basis of chapter 1 is how you truly decipher what is and what is not new media. Flew says that for something to be considered new media it should be new to the society. He uses the example of how our choice of television channels has grown vastly in the past few years. Although we have more channels to choose from, the actual watching of the shows has not changed. Therefore more channels and viewing options for our television is not a form of new media but merely an extension of what we already had. We are still watching TV the same way we always have we just have more options as to what we watch.
Flew goes on to say that new media should consist of the three C's: computing, communications, and content. These three components together sum up the purpose of the internet and why it is the "most significant manifestation of new media." The new media of todays society has to do with the transition from a paper to a digital format. With more and more information being saved on the internet, people are becoming more connected and knowledgeable. This phenomenon of rapidly growing connections is the future of where new media will come from.
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ReplyDeleteYour summary of Chapter 1 gets off to a good start, but then I begin to wonder if it diverges from Flew's argument. Where you write "Flew says that for something to be considered new media it should be new to the society," it seems like you are paraphrasing the Sonia Livingstone quote on pg. 10. You need to quote her as Flew quotes her. Then you spend three sentences discussing T.V. viewing, which Flew mentions briefly, but you could be spending time summarizing the focus of his chapter: digital media, mainly the internet and how it is changing society. You don't get into this until your second paragraph, but really you should summarize it in par. 1. Finally, I am not sure "more and more information being saved on the internet" is specific enough, since Flew breaks this down into very specific concepts such as hypertext, three types of convergence, interactivity, and virtual reality. Try to spend more time grasping the essential points Flew makes in his argument that new media changes society, and the most important changes are related to the Internet.