old media vs new media essay

21 Advantages & Disadvantages of New Media (College Essay Ideas)

When writing a college essay on new media, make sure you cover the following points. These points can help you add depth and detail to your essay.

To write a strong essay, I recommend paraphrasing the following points and turning each point into a full paragraph . Provide clear examples and reference a source for each paragraph. You can use the sources listed below, but remember to use your college’s referencing style when citing your sources.

There are both pros and cons of new media. So it’s important to give a well-rounded analysis that shows you have considered your essay from both old and new media perspectives.

Old Media vs New Media

Here’s the difference between old and new media:

• Old media are media that were owned and controlled by large companies and disseminated through one-way communication methods. Examples include newspapers, film and television.
• New media are media that can be produced and distributed digitally by anyone with an internet connection and generally involve two-way communication. Examples include blogs, social media (like Facebook and Twitter) and online forums.

My favorite definition is from Logan (2010, p. 4) :

“The term ‘new media’ will generally refer to those digital media that are interactive, will incorporate two-way communication, and involve some form of computing.”

New media like Facebook and Twitter have made communication, socialization, sharing and interacting easier for people with an internet connection. We can now not only be the consumers of information but also information producers . Sharing news, thoughts and opinions to a global audience is no longer something only the rich and powerful can do. Anyone with a Twitter handle how has global reach.

Advantages of Old Media

1. Old media have broad reach. Old media were designed as a form of mass communication that was to be broadcast to the masses. From the invention of the printing press in 1440 to the 1980s, print media such as newspapers, then radio, and finally television, followed this same broadcast formula. One message was broadcast to an entire population of a nation. People of all ages got their news from a small amount of publications that had extremely broad reach across a population.

2. Urgent information is broadly dispersed. A follow-up benefit of this broad reach of old media was that information of public importance was distributed rapidly. Still today, when a public disaster occurs, most people turn to old media of television and radio to get important information from authorities. This information is often controlled by, distributed by, and policed by the government so everyone gets the same information about how to protect themselves during times of emergency.

3. The people who control news dissemination are authorities and experts. Old media has important gatekeepers (Carr, 2012) to ensure the quality and authenticity of information. Published information is parsed by editors and producers to ensure it is true. People along the information supply train are trained and experienced journalists, and their editors provide checks and balances to what is distributed in newspaper, radio and television broadcasts. By contrast, new media can be produced and disseminated by anybody with an internet connection, leading to misinformation. This is one possible con of the internet .

4. Extreme views do not spread easily. Because of the control that gatekeepers exert over old media, unfettered media bias , extreme and radical opinions are curtailed. Untrue information can be prevented and filtered and offensive information can be bleeped out to protect children. Unfortunately with the rise of social media, our world has become increasingly polarized and radicalized (Thompson, 2011) . This is largely due to the fact those gatekeepers aren’t there to provide quality control for information anymore.

5. A sense of community and social cohesion develops. Benedict Anderson (1983) theorized that the emergence of the printing press led to the concept of the ‘nation’. He said that when people of a nation all started to read the same information each day, they began to see themselves as a community. Before then, our sense of community was to people in our villages. After that, we saw ourselves as an “imagined community” who share a common set of values and culture.

Related: Imagined Communities Pros and Cons

Disadvantages of Old Media

6. Minority views can be marginalized. There is extensive literature that shows that people of color, women, and other minorities have had their views curtailed and silenced in old media. Instead, dominant views are perpetuated by old media. Critical theory and post-structuralism (inspired in large part by Michel Foucault) have long stressed that media has produced unfair stereotypes and narratives about minorities. Old media were complicit in the reproduction and normalization of ‘dominant discourses’, and have long silenced minority or unpopular opinions.

7 The government and oligarchs often control the message. Throughout the 20th Century, the ability to share information was controlled by a small group of people. This helped them to maintain their power. In Manufacturing Consent , Herman and Chomsky (2010) highlight how corporate America and media oligarchs (such as Rupert Murdoch) have had a mutually beneficial relationship where they perpetuated untruths and propaganda in order to maintain their positions of power in society. To a greater extreme, in socialist nations, governments literally censor the ‘old’ press and only allow favorable media coverage.

8. Old media don’t get much instant feedback. Today, when you broadcast something on the internet, it gets comments and re-tweets to provide the writer with instantaneous feedback. This isn’t the case with traditional media like television , which broadcast information without an instantaneous response (one exception might be talk back radio). Interestingly, many major communication models in the 20th Century that had a linear structure (e.g. the Laswell model and the Shannon-Weaver model ) are largely outdated due to the two-way communication features of new media.

9. People don’t listen to or respect old media anymore. The declining trust in expertise and authority is widely a result of the emergence of new media. As previously marginalized and even extreme voices have been magnified by new media, people have started turning away from old media and considering it to be elitist and untrue. Whether these claims are accurate or not, the declining trust in old media means it doesn’t have the clout it once did.

Advantages of New Media

10. Information production is no longer just for the elites. In the era of blogs, social media , and instant communication, elites and the powerful no longer hold a monopoly on mass dissemination of information. Anyone with an internet connection can now have their beliefs and opinions broadcast to anyone around the world who wants to listen. This removal of gatekeepers has allowed us to become not just information consumers, but also information producers.

11. People can find their ‘tribe’. With the rise of the internet, people can connect to people who share their interests from around the world. This has led to the rise of a multitude of internet subcultures where people get together on forums and associate with their ‘tribe’. Now, subculture groups (goths, LGBTQI youth, punks, etc.) who feel out of place among their friends from school can go online and connect with people who share their experiences.

12. National borders are less of a barrier. In the 20th Century, our ability to communicate was often restricted to people in our local community. This limited who we could associate with. The rise of dispersed tribes could have the effect of undermining traditional cultural groups (based around national identities, etc.) and instead allow us to link up with our dispersed sub-cultural groups around the world.

13. Minority views and opinions can gain traction. People from minority groups that were traditionally excluded from old mass media platforms have found platforms to share their opinions online. Together, they have been able to form groups large enough to have their voices heard. Silenced voices have risen up – from the #metoo movement to the Arab Spring – to change our world for the better.

14. We can stay in touch. Prior to social media platforms like Facebook, we often lost touch with people form out past. But now, thanks to social media, we can watch people from a distance and share our major achievements, milestones and life changes to stay in touch with people on our distant periphery.

15. News is instantaneous. Thanks to news apps, Twitter, etc., news spreads faster than ever. We no longer need to wait until the 6pm news to access our news. As part of this instantaneous access to knowledge, we now have what’s known as the “24 hour news cycle”. Consumers have an insatiable appetite for news, so new media have to pump out an ongoing stream of ever more sensationalized news articles.

16. News producers get instant feedback. As soon as a piece of news is pumped out, tweets fling back and comments are provided to show feedback. Digital analytics software identifies which headlines get the most clicks and can show how long people spend reading each article . These qualitative and quantitative big data coalesce to help news producers to create content that best serves their consumers.

Disadvantages of New Media

17. Misinformation spreads like wildfire. Without traditional gatekeepers of knowledge such as editors and publishing houses, there is nobody controlling which information is disseminated. Misinformation has become widespread in the 21st Century thanks to social media (Allcott, Gentzkow & Yu, 2019). This causes fringe conspiracy theories and even doctored images to influence people’s political and social views.

18. We can live in an ideological bubble. New media often allow us to ‘subscribe’ to our own news networks and favorite information producers. Without the need to have widespread mass appeal, new media target dispersed niche and ideological markets. Conservatives begin to only consume conservative media; and liberals only consume liberal media. People begin to only reinforce their personal views, causing social polarization.

19. There is fierce media competition. While in the past there were three or four major news organizations, now there are diverse and numerous sources for news. Small news websites with fresh takes for niche audiences popped up, crowding the market with information. In this crowded media market, there is competition in all niches, and brands need to have a fresh take to get attention.

20. There is a wider customer base for companies large and small. While competition is more fierce than ever, there is also a bigger customer base than ever before. Websites target global audiences and have global reach. A savvy media producer or social media marketer can expand their market globally – beyond what traditional media was generally capable of.

21. Children can access inappropriate information more easily. New media gives on-demand access to information. While in the past adult content was broadcast late at night, today it can be accessed day and night. Scholars like Neil Postman (1985) argue that there is a “disappearance of childhood” as a result of how media is changing. As children have greater access to adult information, the innocence of childhood is being decayed earlier than ever.

For your essay you might have to take a position on whether new media has been a ‘positive’ or a ‘negative’ force in society. In reality, there is no clear answer here: it’s been both positive and negative, in different ways. But we can clearly see that it has changed society significantly. It plays a huge role in political campaigns and changing how companies communicate with potential consumers. By outlining all the different facets of the advantages and disadvantages of new media, you can show the person grading your paper your deep and nuanced knowledge of the impact of new media on society.

Allcott, H., Gentzkow, M., & Yu, C. (2019). Trends in the diffusion of misinformation on social media.  Research & Politics ,  6 (2).

Anderson, B. (2006).  Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism . New York: Verso books.

Carr, J. (2012). No laughing matter: the power of cyberspace to subvert conventional media gatekeepers.  International journal of communication ,  6 , 21.

Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N. (2010).  Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media . New York: Random House.

Kellner, D., Dines, G., & Humez, J. M. (2011). Gender, race, and class in media: A critical reader. New York: Sage.

Logan, R. K. (2010).  Understanding new media: extending Marshall McLuhan . New York: Peter Lang.

Postman, N., (1985). The disappearance of childhood. Childhood Education ,  61 (4), pp.286-293.

Thompson, R. (2011). Radicalization and the use of social media.  Journal of strategic security ,  4 (4), 167-190.

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• The Blogosphere
• Social media’s agenda versus the MSM, week to week
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How Blogs and Social Media Agendas Relate and Differ from the Traditional Press

While most original reporting still comes from traditional journalists, technology makes it increasingly possible for the actions of citizens to influence a story’s total impact.

What types of news stories do consumers share and discuss the most? What issues do they have less interest in? What is the interplay of the various new media platforms? And how do their agendas compare with that of the mainstream press?

To answer these questions, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has gathered a year of data on the top news stories discussed and linked to on blogs and social media pages and seven months’ worth on Twitter. We also have analyzed a year of the most viewed news-related videos on YouTube. Several clear trends emerge.

Most broadly, the stories and issues that gain traction in social media differ substantially from those that lead in the mainstream press. But they also differ greatly from each other.  Of the 29 weeks that we tracked all three social platforms, blogs, Twitter and YouTube shared the same top story just once. That was the week of June 15-19, when the protests that followed the Iranian elections led on all three.

Each social media platform also seems to have its own personality and function. In the year studied, bloggers gravitated toward stories that elicited emotion, concerned individual or group rights or triggered ideological passion. Often these were stories that people could personalize and then share in the social forum – at times in highly partisan language. And unlike in some other types of media, the partisanship here does not lean strongly to one side or the other. Even on stories like the Tea Party protests, Sarah Palin and public support for Obama both conservative and liberal voices come through strongly.

On Twitter, by contrast, technology is a major focus – with a heavy prominence on Twitter itself – while politics plays a much smaller role. The mission is primarily about passing along important – often breaking – information in a way that unifies or assumes shared values within the Twitter community. And the breaking news that trumped all else across Twitter in 2009 focused on the protests following the Iranian election. It led as the top news story on Twitter for seven weeks in a row – a feat not reached by any other news story on any of the platforms studied.

YouTube has still other characteristics that set it apart. Here, users don’t often add comments or additional insights but instead take part by selecting from millions of videos and sharing. Partly as a result, the most watched videos have a strong sense of serendipity. They pique interest and curiosity with a strong visual appeal. The “Hey you’ve got to see this,” mentality rings strong.  Users also gravitate toward a much broader international mix here as videos transcend language barriers in a way that written text cannot.

Across all three social platforms, though, attention spans are brief. Just as news consumers don’t stay long on any website, social media doesn’t stay long on any one story. On blogs, 53% of the lead stories in a given week stay on the list no more than three days. On Twitter that is true of 72% of lead stories, and more than half (52%) are on the list for just 24 hours.

And most of those top weekly stories differ dramatically from what is receiving attention in the traditional press. Blogs overlap more than Twitter, but even there only about a quarter of the top stories in any given week were the same as in the “MSM.”

Instead, social media tend to home in on stories that get much less attention in the mainstream press. And there is little evidence, at least at this point, of the traditional press then picking up on those stories in response. Across the entire year studied, just one particular story or event – the controversy over emails relating to global research that came to be known as “ Climate-gate ” –  became a major item in the blogosphere and then, a week later , gaining more traction in traditional media.

These are some conclusions drawn from one of the first comprehensive empirical assessments of the relationships between social media and the more traditional press.

Among the specific findings:

• Social media and the mainstream press clearly embrace different agendas. Blogs shared the same lead story with traditional media in just 13 of the 49 weeks studied. Twitter was even less likely to share the traditional media agenda – the lead story matched that of the mainstream press in just four weeks of the 29 weeks studied. On YouTube, the top stories overlapped with traditional media eight out of 49 weeks.
• The stories that gain traction in social media do so quickly, often within hours of initial reports, and leave quickly as well. Just 5% of the top five stories on Twitter remained among the top stories the following week. This was true of 13% of the top stories on blogs and 9% on YouTube. In the mainstream press, on the other hand, fully 50% of the top five stories one week remained a top story a week later.
• Politics, so much a focus of cable and radio talk programming, has found a place in blogs and on YouTube. On blogs, 17% of the top five linked-to stories in a given week were about U.S. government or politics, often accompanied by emphatic personal analysis or evaluations. These topics were even more prevalent among news videos on YouTube, where they accounted for 21% of all top stories. On Twitter, however, technology stories were linked to far more than anything else, accounting for 43% of the top five stories in a given week and 41% of the lead items. By contrast, technology filled 1% of the newshole in the mainstream press during the same period.
• While social media players espouse a different agenda than the mainstream media, blogs still heavily rely on the traditional press – and primarily just a few outlets within that – for their information. More than 99% of the stories linked to in blogs came from legacy outlets such as newspapers and broadcast networks. And just four – the BBC, CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post accounted for fully 80% of all links.
• Twitter, by contrast, was less tied to traditional media. Here half (50%) of the links were to legacy outlets; 40% went to web-only news sources such as Mashable and CNET. The remaining 10% went to wire stories or non-news sources on the Web such as a blog known as “Green Briefs,” which summarized daily developments during the June protests in Iran.
• The most popular news videos on YouTube, meanwhile, stood out for having a broader international mix. A quarter, 26%, of the top watched news videos were of non-U.S. events, primarily those with a strong visual appeal such as raw footage of Pope Benedict XVI getting knocked over during Mass on Christmas Eve or a clip of a veteran Brazilian news anchor getting caught insulting some janitors without realizing his microphone was still live. Celebrity and media-focused videos were also given significant prominence.

In producing PEJ’s New Media Index, the basis for this study, there are some challenges posed by the breath of potential outlets. There are literally millions of blogs and tweets produced each day. To make that prospect manageable, the study observes the “news” interests of those people utilizing social media, as classified by the tracking websites. PEJ did not make a determination as to what constitutes a news story as opposed to some other topic, but generally, areas outside the traditional notion of news such as gardening, sports or other hobbies are not in the purview of content.

By focusing on this type of subject matter, the study creates a close comparison between the news agenda of users of social media and of the more traditional news media. This approach could  tend to make the agendas of the mainstream and new media platforms appear even more similar than they would be if a wider array of subject matter were practicable to capture. Thus the divergent agendas found here, if anything, are even more striking.

1 . https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/analysis_report/understanding_participatory_news_consumer

2 . http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007271

3. For the NMI, the priorities of bloggers and users of Twitter are measured in terms of percentage of links. Each time a news blog or social media Web page adds a link to its site directing its readers to a news story, it suggests that the author places at least some importance on the content of that article. The user may or may not agree with the contents of the article, but they feel it is important enough to draw the reader’s attention to it.

4.  There were three weeks in 2009 when no NMI was produced: March 2-6, November 16-20, and December 14-18.

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16.1 Changes in Media Over the Last Century

Learning objectives.

• Describe the types of new media.
• Identify how the Internet has affected media delivery.
• Explain why new media is often more successful than traditional forms of media.

Life has changed dramatically over the past century, and a major reason for this is the progression of media technology. Compare a day in the life of a modern student—let’s call her Katie—with a day in the life of someone from Katie’s great-grandparents’ generation. When Katie wakes up, she immediately checks her smartphone for text messages and finds out that her friend will not be able to give her a ride to class. Katie flips on the TV while she eats breakfast to check the news and learns it is supposed to rain that day. Before she leaves her apartment, Katie goes online to make sure she remembered the train times correctly. She grabs an umbrella and heads to the train station, listening to a music application on her smartphone on the way. After a busy day of classes, Katie heads home, occupying herself on the train ride by watching YouTube clips on her phone. That evening, she finishes her homework, e-mails the file to her instructor, and settles down to watch the TV show she digitally recorded the night before. While watching the show, Katie logs on to Facebook and chats with a few of her friends online to make plans for the weekend and then reads a book on her e-reader.

Katie’s life today is vastly different from the life she would have led just a few generations ago. At the beginning of the 20th century, neither TV nor the Internet existed. There were no commercial radio stations, no roadside billboards, no feature films, and certainly no smartphones. People were dependent on newspapers and magazines for their knowledge of the outside world. An early-20th-century woman the same age as Katie—let’s call her Elizabeth—wakes up to read the daily paper. Yellow journalism is rife, and the papers are full of lurid stories and sensational headlines about government corruption and the unfair treatment of factory workers. Full-color printing became available in the 1890s, and Elizabeth enjoys reading the Sunday comics. She also subscribes to Good Housekeeping magazine. Occasionally, Elizabeth and her husband enjoy visiting the local nickelodeon theater, where they watch short silent films accompanied by accordion music. They cannot afford to purchase a phonograph, but Elizabeth and her family often gather around a piano in the evening to sing songs to popular sheet music. Before she goes to sleep, Elizabeth reads a few pages of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . Separated by nearly a century of technology, Elizabeth’s and Katie’s lives are vastly different.

Traditional media encompasses all the means of communication that existed before the Internet and new media technology, including printed materials (books, magazines, and newspapers), broadcast communications (TV and radio), film, and music. New media , on the other hand, includes electronic video games and entertainment, and the Internet and social media. Although different forms of mass media rise and fall in popularity, it is worth noting that despite significant cultural and technological changes, none of the media discussed throughout this text has fallen out of use completely.

Electronic Games and Entertainment

First popularized in the 1970s with Atari’s simple table-tennis simulator Pong , video games have come a long way over the past four decades. Early home game consoles could play only one game, a limitation solved by the development of interchangeable game cartridges. The rise of the personal computer in the 1980s enabled developers to create games with more complex story lines and to allow players to interact with each other via the computer. In the mid-1980s, online role-playing games developed, allowing multiple users to play at the same time. A dramatic increase in Internet use helped to popularize online games during the 1990s and 2000s, both on personal computers and via Internet-enabled home console systems such as the Microsoft Xbox and the Sony PlayStation. The Internet has added a social aspect to video gaming that has bridged the generation gap and opened up a whole new audience for video game companies. Senior citizens commonly gather in retirement communities to play Nintendo’s Wii bowling and tennis games using a motion-sensitive controller, while young professionals and college students get together to play in virtual bands on games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band . No longer associated with an isolated subculture, contemporary video games are bringing friends and families together via increasingly advanced gaming technology.

The Internet and Social Media

It is almost impossible to overstate the influence the Internet has had on media over the past two decades. Initially conceived as an attack-proof military network in the 1960s, the Internet has since become an integral part of daily life. With the development of the World Wide Web in the 1980s and the introduction of commercial browsers in the 1990s, users gained the ability to transmit pictures, sound, and video over the Internet. Companies quickly began to capitalize on the new technology, launching web browsers, offering free web-based e-mail accounts, and providing web directories and search engines. Internet usage grew rapidly, from 50 percent of American adults in 2000 to 75 percent of American adults in 2008 (Pew Research Center, 2010). Now that most of the industrialized world is online, the way we receive our news, do business, conduct research, contact friends and relatives, apply for jobs, and even watch TV has changed completely. To provide just one example, many jobs can now be performed entirely from home without the need to travel to a central office. Meetings can be conducted via videoconference, written communication can take place via e-mail, and employees can access company data via a server or file transfer protocol (FTP) site.

In addition to increasing the speed with which we can access information and the volume of information at our fingertips, the Internet has added a whole new democratic dimension to communication. Becoming the author of a printed book may take many years of frustrated effort, but becoming a publisher of online material requires little more than the click of a button. Thanks to social media such as blogs, social networking sites, wikis, and video-sharing websites, anyone can contribute ideas on the web. Social media has many advantages, including the instantaneous distribution of news, a variety of different perspectives on a single event, and the ability to communicate with people all over the globe. Although some industry analysts have long predicted that the Internet will render print media obsolete, mass-media executives believe newspapers will evolve with the times. Just as the radio industry had to rethink its commercial strategy during the rise of TV, newspaper professionals will need to rethink their methods of content delivery during the age of the Internet.

New Media versus Traditional Media

New technologies have developed so quickly that executives in traditional media companies often cannot retain control over their content. For example, when music-sharing website Napster began enabling users to exchange free music files over the Internet, peer-to-peer file sharing cost the music industry a fortune in lost CD sales. Rather than capitalize on the new technology, music industry executives sued Napster, ultimately shutting it down, but never quite managing to stamp out online music piracy. Even with legal digital music sales through online vendors such as Apple’s iTunes Store, the music industry is still trying to determine how to make a large enough profit to stay in business.

The publishing industry has also suffered from the effects of new technology (although newspaper readership has been in decline since the introduction of TV and radio). When newspapers began developing online versions in response to competition from cable TV, they found themselves up against a new form of journalism: amateur blogging. Initially dismissed as unreliable and biased, blogs such as Daily Kos and The Huffington Post have gained credibility and large readerships over the past decade, forcing traditional journalists to blog and tweet in order to keep pace (which allows less time to check that sources are reliable or add in-depth analysis to a story). Traditional newspapers are also losing out to news aggregators such as Google News, which profit from providing links to journalists’ stories at major newspapers without offering financial compensation to either the journalists or the news organizations. Many newspapers have adapted to the Internet out of necessity, fighting falling circulation figures and slumping advertising sales by offering websites, blogs, and podcasts and producing news stories in video form. Those that had the foresight to adapt to the new technology are breathing a sigh of relief; a 2010 Pew Research Center report found that more Americans receive their news via the Internet than from newspapers or radio sources, and that the Internet is the third most popular news source behind national and local TV news (see Section 6.3 “Current Popular Trends in the Music Industry” ) (Pew Research Center, 2010).

Pay-for-Content: Will It Work?

Critics of the pay-for-content model point to the failure of Newsday , a Long Island, New York, daily that was one of the first nonbusiness publications to use the pay-for-content model. In October 2009, Newsday began charging readers $5 a week ($260 a year) for unlimited access to its online content. Three months later, an analysis of the move indicated that it had been a total failure. Just 35 people had signed up to pay for access to the site. Having spent $4 million redesigning and relaunching the Newsday website in preparation for the new model, the owners grossed just $9,000 from their initial readership.

However, the lack of paying consumers may be partly accounted for by the number of exceptions granted by the company. Subscribers to the print version of the paper can access the site for free, as can those with Optimum Cable. According to Newsday representatives, 75 percent of Long Island residents have either a newspaper subscription or Optimum Cable. “Given the number of households in our market that have access to Newsday ’s website as a result of other subscriptions, it is no surprise that a relatively modest number have chosen the pay option,” said a Cablevision spokeswoman (Koblin, 2010). Even though most Long Island residents have access to the site, traffic has dropped considerably. A Nielsen Online survey revealed that traffic fell from 2.2 million visits in October 2009 to 1.5 million visits in December 2009. Publishing executives will be watching closely to see whether The New York Times meets a similar fate when it adopts the pay-for-content model in 2011.

New media has three major advantages over traditional media. First, it is immediate, enabling consumers to find out the latest news, weather report, or stock prices at the touch of a button. Digital music can be downloaded instantly, movies can be ordered via cable or satellite on-demand services, and books can be read on e-readers. In an increasingly fast-paced world, there is little need to wait for anything. The second advantage is cost. Most online content is free, from blogs and social networking sites to news and entertainment sources. Whether readers are willing to pay for content once they are used to receiving it for free is something that the The New York Times set to find out in 2011, when it introduces a metered fee model for its online paper. Finally, new media is able to reach the most remote parts of the globe. For example, if a student is looking for information about day-to-day life in Iran, there is a high probability that a personal web page about living in that country exists somewhere on the Internet. Around three-fourths of Americans, half of Europeans, and just over one-fourth of the world’s population overall have Internet access (Internet World Stats). This widespread reach makes the Internet an ideal target for advertisers, who can communicate with their desired niche audiences via tracking devices such as profile information on social networking sites.

New Media vs. Old Media, Essay Example

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In the new generation of media, information has mainly developed into more controversial and gripping material, agreeing with the notion that ‘controversy sells’. The manner in which old news was done symbolized the goodness of the world, mainly touching upon the good nature of individuals and the manner in which the events seemed to make believe that the world really was a good place to live in once upon a time.

New media has become more controversial and this is because it is what the public would like to see. The ideology is based on the aspect of people are no longer interested in watching a good will story as it is no longer interesting, the need to watch something that will keep the public wanting to follow up on the developments of the related story; hence controversy (Brennen, 11). A good story is now considered to be ‘boring’ as the content is barely entertaining to the new generation individual.

News was harder to get in the old days, simply because of media houses having a limitation in funding to send individuals to areas that would have interesting stories. Another problem was the lack of the right connections in getting a story to put on the news or in a newspaper. These limitations meant that in some cases media houses would copy information from each other so as to have something to put on the news.

A major shortcoming that also existed in the archaic days was the primitive technology used to communicate as well as use to produce news (Brennen, 5). In several cases it would take a week to formulate a story for the news, and thus it was essential for reporters to get started as soon as possible so as to manage to have a newsworthy story. It was much harder to formulate a story based on the duration it took to make a story as well as get the relevant information. So in the case of the young age of parents, reporting was more of a challenge rather than a job.

The new generation has benefitted from the evolution of news reporting, that now it is simpler and easier to in getting, editing and reporting stories. The main catalyst for the convenience is the improvement on the technology used. In the old days, there was only the use of type writers and cameras that could only take photos from up close (Manovich, 2). This limited the ability of reporters getting a story done. Now with the use of cameras with zoom capabilities and the use of cameras that shoot high quality videos, reporting is now a simpler job description.

However there is major flaw with the present time reporting; reporting now seems to be more intrusive ad fairly controversial. In some cases it borders on the invasion of privacy. This is evident in the case of celebrities, who are not really able to go anywhere without the scrutiny or a journalist with a cameraman taking photos. In some cases celebrities result in violence in which they will hit a cameraman for his persistent camera-snapping. It is the sad reality of modern-day reporting as they tend to be a lack of boundaries regarding how private privacy really is. (Brennen, 15)

Aside from the minor negatives, reporting is fairly better and more interesting. Based on media in which a reporter will work, they get to enjoy the perks of having to travel to countries and provide live communication via the use of online streaming and the use of phone communication using signal boosting phones (can be used in areas without any or minimal signal for communication). The journalist’s job in this context was to rational interpreting many facts into narrative that was concise enough for everyone to understand including world leaders. (Lievrouw, p.3) Old media, however, did everything in a slower manner of developing sources over time and getting hard to get information.

The audience today is more media savvy and is more interested in being treated as a peer by news sources. The simple fact is that online writers and bloggers write because they want to. (Brennen, p.48) Journalists, however, are criticized that what they write has a fingerprint of sensationalism playing on the hubris of knowing what is important and what is not. Furthermore the editors have the pressure of sales numbers. Bloggers on the other hand have a definite sense of authenticity which makes up for the lack of literary swagger and sleekness. The news is presented as the gospel truth and readers trust bloggers more than the print publication. (Lievrouw, p.18)

In conclusion, old media is fast being seen as stale. (Manovich, p.17) New media is fresh young authentic. In the new media landscape, it’s possible for anyone to do the things that professional journalists do. The power of journalism is changing from the people who produce the news to the people who consume it. The journalists nowadays need to have better understanding of how to obtain information from different types of media: print, broadcast, internet and so on. They also should be able to rational interpreting the many facts and comments provided by witness and other audience into one grand narrative and report it to people who do not know about the story.

Lievrouw, Sonia Livingstone (ed.), ‘The Handbook of New Media,’ SAGE, 2002

Manovich, Lev. ‘The Language of New Media,’ Cambridge: MIT Press/Leonardo Books, 2001

Brennen, Bonnie and Hanno Hardt, eds. ‘Picturing the Past: Media, History and Photography’. Cambridge: MIT Press/Leonardo Books (1999)

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On the Cultural Crossroads: New Media vs. Old Media Essay (Critical Writing)

In spite of the fact that the modern techniques are slowly ousting the old means of communicating the news, such mass media as radio will never be interchanged by such new invention as IPad. Because of the force of the habit, people resort to ham radio much more often than it is considered. Despite the unfavorable prognoses of the specialists, ham radio still has its loyal audience, and this audience is not going to abandon the common source of information.

According to the results of the annual meeting of the ham operators all over the state, there is still hope that radio will not lose its listeners. No matter what new technologies lure people with, the more conventional radio still has a lot of fans all over the world; in addition, the statistic says that many people who start with IPad technology often turn to using the ham radio after they have experienced the advantages and the drawbacks of the new invention.

Taking into consideration the reasons which the fans of the ham radio mention first, the essence of the good old ham radio which no IPad can stand comparison to is the opportunity for live communication. Since the very idea of feeling the pulse of the information stream is so important for both the younger and the elder generation, it is too early to pension off the veteran of the information handling.

As a matter of fact, the history of radio is far not that long as one might assume. Because of its huge popularity all over the world in the middle of XX century, people started feeling that this device has had its day; yet such conclusion seems way too far-fetched. It seems that the new technologies which, no doubts, have the right to exist and to enrich the world with the new opportunities can coexist peacefully with the old media. Just think of the long way which radio had to come!

This is what happened in 1920ies:

The radio craze led almost immediately to a period of rapid expansion as entrepreneurs and advertisers began to grasp the potential of the new medium. Almost as quickly, government was compelled to expand its regulation of radio broadcasting. (Biagi 2006, 110)

The radio surely will not surrender its positions so easily! Among the advantages which radio has, tuning was mentioned in the article under the discussion. “He might tune into a station in the South Pacific or listen to a guy in Europe.” (Bluthe 2010)

One of the most amazing things which came into the open during the conference was the striking similarity between radio and IPad despite the “age gap” between them.

Comparing and contrasting the two media sources, the experts finally came to the idea that the two media sources both concern one and the same thing, which is hunting for information. While IPad makes the process relatively easy, a radio adds a touch of competitiveness to the process, making it more enticing, which makes radio look more winning compared to the invention of the new era.

The conference held has proved once more that the radio geeks are not so rusty as they might seem for the first time; most of them do not belong to the class of old geezers and possess vast knowledge on the modern mass media as well. However, as they emphasize, they have consciously chosen the old means to convey certain information to people only because it offers much more fun than IPad. Since IPad has been developed for a single person usage, it does not presuppose direct communication, which radio can suggest.

Hungry for new impressions and the feeling of reality around radio, both the old and the new generation are eagerly indulging into the world of ham radio. Still it must be admitted that a great deal of people are in ham radio “just for nostalgia” (Bluthe 2010). Feeling sad for the times which have gone and do not seem to ever come back, people resort to the only means they know, which is ham radio.

It must be admitted that despite the new opportunities which an IPad suggests, more and more people get focused on radio rather than on IPads. It seems that due to the specifics of IPad, it will never oust ham radio. Considered a gadget for those who prefer spending their time alone, IPad will never create the feeling of a company which radio can give. In addition, there is a small distinction between an IPad and a radio which makes them completely different from each other.

Trautschold (2010) has managed to seize the very idea of this difference: “Your IPad can hold a great deal of valuable information (181)”. In contrast to radio which does not presuppose keeping the information and represents a specific “stream of consciousness”, IPad stores the info which the owner chooses. This creates an impression of complicity and wipes out the idea of simplicity which is so appealing to the people who prefer radio.

Although it cannot be denied that the new ear must be followed by certain innovation and that the mankind is supposed to make both technical and spiritual progress, radio is one of the issues which should be better transferred to the future.

With help of this device, people will be able both to feel the essential of the epoch which has passed by so quickly and at the same time in such a strange and impulsive fashion, people can make the distance between themselves shorter, as well as feel less lonesome. Whatever the new era with its progress might bring, the old media will never become too old-fashioned and useless, and that is for certain.

Works Cited

Biagi, Shirley (2006) Media/Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media . Stanford, CN: Cengage Learning. Print.

Bluthe, Anne (2010, Apr., 4) IPad Zings, but Ham Radio Still Crackles. Newsobserver.com . Web.

Trautschold, Martin and Gary Mazo (2010) IPad Made Simple. New York, NY: Apress. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2023, December 21). On the Cultural Crossroads: New Media vs. Old Media. https://ivypanda.com/essays/on-the-cultural-crossroads-new-media-vs-old-media/

"On the Cultural Crossroads: New Media vs. Old Media." IvyPanda , 21 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/on-the-cultural-crossroads-new-media-vs-old-media/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'On the Cultural Crossroads: New Media vs. Old Media'. 21 December.

IvyPanda . 2023. "On the Cultural Crossroads: New Media vs. Old Media." December 21, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/on-the-cultural-crossroads-new-media-vs-old-media/.

1. IvyPanda . "On the Cultural Crossroads: New Media vs. Old Media." December 21, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/on-the-cultural-crossroads-new-media-vs-old-media/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "On the Cultural Crossroads: New Media vs. Old Media." December 21, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/on-the-cultural-crossroads-new-media-vs-old-media/.

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The Impact of New Media on Old Media

If the first two decades are any indication, it’s safe to say that the 21st century will provide some massive changes to the media landscape. We’ve already seen some incredible shifts in media throughout the past few years. And with even more exciting possibilities on the horizon, brands need to be prepared.

Understanding the impact of new media vs. old media can go a long way toward forming your brand’s marketing plan. Read on to learn more about making the transition to digital marketing!

Table of Contents

New Media vs. Traditional Media: Making the Transition to Digital Marketing

The importance of digital media, how does old media fit into the 21st-century marketing mix.

• New Media vs. Old Media: Benefits of A/B Testing Media Content

The age of the internet has opened up countless new doors of marketing possibilities. The digital landscape provides advertisers with so many new ways to get in front of an audience, with recent data from Statista predicting that U.S. digital ad spending will rise to a whopping $298.4 billion in 2024.

Why have digital marketing and new media become so popular? Here are some of the pros and cons of both new media and old media.

Advantages of New Media

New media is described as any media that can be produced and distributed by anyone with an Internet connection. Because of new media, people can communicate and interact with each other instantaneously and without the need for a "middleman” such as a publisher.

The lack of a middleman is one of the main reasons that new media is so popular. It was just a few years ago when only the elite and wealthy had access to channels that could send information out to the masses. Now, with the internet and social media, anybody can get their message out there regardless of their wealth or social status. This gives every person, brand, and business a chance to communicate with their audience.

Speaking of niches, that’s another major benefit to the age of new media—users and consumers can find a home online. The internet provides an endless amount of subcultures where people can go to find their community—regardless of what that may be. Representation like this matters, and it leads to a more engaged and enthusiastic audience.

How do you read this audience? With the instantaneous feedback that new media provides you, it won’t be that hard. Whether it’s via comments on a social media post, instant analytics tracking on a digital marketing campaign, or even a full-on response from users, there’s no shortage of feedback with new media.

This can be used to the marketer's advantage as they get a real-time look at how people are responding to their campaigns. As a result, they can make adjustments on the fly and create a better experience for their audience. 

Advantages of Traditional Media

Although it's more antiquated than newer forms of media, old media (such as radio, television, and newspapers) still have a broad reach. Despite its popularity, there are still people out there that aren’t actively using the internet as often as others are, which is why old media is still a viable option for reaching those audiences.

While the lack of a middleman is a benefit for new media, the presence of this middleman can benefit the older forms of media. These gatekeepers put information and content through a system of editors and producers to determine accuracy and validity. In theory, this will lead to more honest messaging and hopefully build a trusting sense of community and cohesion.

Downfalls of New Media

On the contrary, new media can sometimes struggle with building a trustworthy reputation. Since anybody can post without a publisher or company barring them access, it can lead to an influx of misinformation. When you pair that with the viral nature and instant sharing ability that new media provides, it’s easy to see how misinformation can spread so quickly.

This phenomenon has also led to ideological “bubbles” or niche markets that allow us to only consume the media that we want to consume. This can create polarization and people reinforcing their personal views rather than seeking out new information.

Unfortunately, these bubbles don't provide an opportunity for a brand to create a loyal audience. It also makes it tougher to convert a new audience member who may have preconceived notions about your brand.

It’s no walk in the park to build a brand online right now. The competition is fierce and the market is crowded with all sorts of new information, sources, and brands for all sorts of niches.

How can a brand combat this? By being fresh and coming up with a new idea that stands out amongst the crowd and gets people to notice you.

Downfalls of Traditional Media

Compared to the instant feedback provided within new media, the feedback process for old media is a much slower, clunkier experience. Broadcasted or printed information has no way of receiving direct and immediate feedback, which means they aren’t able to pivot as quickly as can be done on new media. 

Old media also provides a barrier of entry to any small business, brand, or person who is looking to get a message across. You have to go through a channel or publication to get your message out there. If you don’t have the money or resources to make this happen, then you can’t get on the airwaves and spread your message, no matter how good it is.

Reasons like this are why people are starting to make the shift towards consuming and creating more new media than old media. The numbers for old media continue to go down, and this shift has forced traditional media companies to adapt and find new ways to reach an audience.

If multi-billion dollar media companies are looking for ways to get their brand involved in new media, then odds are that your brand should be involved in digital media as well. It's estimated that there are 4.95 billion internet users worldwide , and as that number continues to grow, so do the opportunities.

It’s important to incorporate digital media into your marketing plans because, to be quite frank, it isn’t going anywhere. More people are flooding the internet and finding new ways to use it to cover their daily needs. If you can’t find a way to get involved, you may miss out.

As you create your media budget , it's important to be realistic about what you can spend, while simultaneously setting clear goals so you can keep track of your marketing initiatives.

Is Online Advertising Effective?

Online advertising is a fairly new concept in the zeitgeist of marketing, which is why many brands and business owners are skeptical to try it out. However, once they realize the effectiveness of a well-created online advertising campaign, their doubts are quickly cast aside.

Whether you’re running a paid search campaign, a paid social campaign, or just want to build up your brand organically online, you would be surprised by how many eyeballs you can get on your brand or business and what that new exposure can do for you.

What makes online advertising most effective? As mentioned earlier, it’s the fact that you can test your campaigns as they happen, make adjustments and see new results come in. This allows you to not only make changes to your advertising campaign but also to the way you market your product or service in general.

Despite the massive popularity of new media, there’s still room for old media in your marketing plan. At times, new media can be handcuffed by the brevity of a digital user’s attention span. If you want to get a message across to somebody, you have to do it within seconds before they scroll on to the next thing.

With old media, you have a bit more leverage with the viewer’s attention and can use this to put out a longer message. And as a marketer, you can use this to your advantage.

Do you have a longer video that you want to put out for people to see? Maybe it would fare better as a television commercial rather than as an Instagram post. Has your design team put together a beautiful ad? Don’t just put it on Facebook—put it in a magazine.

There are plenty of ways to incorporate traditional media into your marketing plan. It’s all about finding the right platform for each project.

New Media vs. Old Media: A/B Testing Media Content

The more testing you can do with your advertising, the more insights you'll uncover and the more your advertising will improve. While there aren’t as many direct ways to test your traditional media as there are for new media, you can still use the two to put together a better picture of how your message is being received.

There are plenty of insights you can gather from testing content online. The more content you put out there, the more you can learn about what your audience reacts to. For example, are there certain messaging strategies that your audience responds well to?

You can use these insights in your full marketing plan and even incorporate them into your old media advertising. These online insights are a direct look into what your audience is reacting to, so use them to your advantage!

Start Your Digital Marketing Campaign With Cohley

Thanks to the impact of new media on old media, it’s clear that the new forms of media are here to stay, yet many people and businesses have trouble throwing their hats into the ring and participating in these newer media forms.

Thankfully, that’s where Cohley can help you out. We change the way brands generate content and help them position themselves favorably in the digital landscape. Check out our different solutions to see how we can help your brand out, and schedule a consultation with us today!

OLD MEDIA VS. NEW MEDIA: WHAT’S BEST FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

Posted August 24, 2017 by NDMU | Communication

“Your business relies on a variety of marketing and advertising methods to reach potential customers and leads ,” according to internet marketing agency WebpageFX. “Over time, the marketing methods you use have likely evolved, changed, or even been retired and replaced with new ones.”

These new methods, often referred to as “new media,” are contrasted by traditional forms of media known as “old media.” As you decide what’s best for your business, you’ll need to evaluate old media vs new media and see how they fit into your marketing plan.

What Is Traditional or Old Media?

Traditional or old media refers to forms of media that were common prior to the Information Age. Old media can include the following institutions and marketing methods:

•  Television •  Radio •  Print •  Direct mail •  Billboards/signage •  Cold calling •  Door-to-door

Old media is for the most part mass media, makes use of one-way technologies and is not interactive. It is associated with outbound marketing, or the traditional form of marketing where a company initiates the conversation and sends a message out to an audience , according to online marketing software and services company WordStream.

What Is New Media?

New media refers to forms of media found in the current digital age. In the context of advertising and marketing, new media can include the following:

•  Search engine optimization •  Pay-per-click advertising •  Content marketing •  Social media •  Email

New media involves “those digital media that are interactive, incorporate two-way communication, and involve some form of computing,” according to Robert Logan in his book, Understanding New Media . New media is “very easily processed, stored, transformed, retrieved, hyper-linked, and perhaps most radical of all, easily searched for and accessed.”

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Many new media forms are associated with inbound marketing, where the customers find the business, mostly through various paid and natural search engine marketing methods, according to WordStream. An exception would be email marketing, which still involves the business initiating the conversation and sending a message to the audience. An example of inbound marketing in new media would include a business working to improve its search engine results for terms relevant to the organization. When members of its audience search for these terms, they can more easily find what they’re looking for at the company’s website.

Old Media vs New Media: Make the Right Choice

Keep the following points in mind when looking at old media vs new media in your marketing plans.

•  Consider your demographic. Each media outlet resonates differently with specific audiences. Define your audience and evaluate the effectiveness of reaching your audience before committing to a marketing channel. You’ll need to research and/or test the marketing channel with your audience.

•  Consider your resources. Some forms of old media can be expensive. New media outlets that utilize inbound marketing methods can potentially work better if you have a smaller budget; however, they can also require a longer timeline to see returns. Evaluate your marketing budget along with each channel you’re considering.

•  Consider your timeline. There is a considerable difference in results between old media and new media (and especially with outbound marketing and inbound marketing).

•  Consider your project requirements. It can be difficult to track your return on investment with forms of old media marketing, such as television and radio advertising. If you are concerned with having a high level of tracking on your campaign, new media forms of advertisement will likely work better.

Enhancing Career Opportunities in Marketing

Notre Dame of Maryland University’s online master’s in contemporary communication helps students develop their skills in new media and entrepreneurial communication. Graduates learn how to apply critical analysis, creative insights and technological competence in their career, and they are prepared for emerging positions in marketing, PR, organizational communication and more. The program takes place in a fully online learning environment.

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