Producing New and Digital Media

Your Guide to Savvy Use of the Web

James Cohen, Thomas Kenny

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429574900
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Producing New and Digital Media is your essential guide to understanding new media, taking a deep dive into such topics as the cultural and social impacts of the web, the importance of digital literacy, and creating in an online environment.

This cutting edge text provides an introductory, hands-on approach to creating user-generated content, coding, cultivating an online brand, and storytelling in new and digital media. In showing you how to navigate the world of digital media and complete digital tasks, this book not only teaches you how to use the web, but also helps you understand why you use it.

Key features for the second edition include:

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• Coverage of up-to-date forms of communication on the web: memes, viral videos, social media, and more pervasive types of online languages.
• New chapters on YouTube influencers and on-demand subscription television.
• Each chapter has media literacy sidebars, sample assignments, and activities.
• Updates to the companion website additional materials for students and instructors

Thoughtful, entertaining, and enlightening, this is the fundamental textbook for students of new and digital media, digital culture and media literacy, as well as a useful resource for anyone wanting to understand and develop their presence in our digital world.

CHAPTER 1

What Is New and Digital Media?

The word media, the plural term for medium, covers a broad spectrum describing communications through television, film, radio, and print. Media requires a viewer, a listener, a reader, or a spectator to carry any effect whatsoever. In our rapidly advancing hypermedia landscape of the present, where all traditional media has become singular on the screen-based Internet, the reader, viewer, and listener can participate as well and truly use media as communication. Technology has inevitably transformed our traditional media into a multitude of interactive platforms, now read and listened to on mobile devices, tablets, e-readers, flat screens, and wearable devices. Whether it’s media consumption, the form of the content, or the interaction with the media, the Internet has changed the habits of citizens globally. We are now ever connected, ever participating, and consuming film, television, music, news, radio, and millions of native websites.

In many ways, new and digital media are distinct from traditional media. New media are any emerging technologies that affect you both socially and culturally. Like traditional media, new and digital media allow for media consumption; however, new media make participation imperative in order to be useful. Users may use an existing platform, but they can also create the content. Coders and developers working for their respective companies design Facebook and YouTube, but it’s the millions of users worldwide who create and participate to enhance their growth and reach. The citizens of the web create the additional media in pictures, videos, text, artwork, and sound, among other forms of rapidly developed communication formats and data on the platforms.

New and digital media are unique because of the addition of the World Wide Web and how it connects users to a plethora of stimulating, user-generated amateur and professional textual and visual content. New and digital media also include web design and site creation, as users can simply read and consume the web while also creating and designing their own digital environment. In the last two decades, the web has increased from blogging and web platforms to fully produced website design and access to coding and gaming. Where traditional media were based on a consumption model, new media encourage online communities and many users to form them, with Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, and Facebook acting as places to bring users together to interact, create, and have daily conversation and interactivity with one another.

Figure 1.1 Guide—Welcome to the Internet; We’ll Be Your Guide

New and digital media are simultaneously production and design for those who consume and participate with the content. Digital media creation has invented new ways of communication, and there have been various unique forms where users send messages and express themselves digitally and creatively. New media can be accessed online through memes, short-form videos on Snapchat, and looping animated GIFs, to name a few. In the digital media environment of the web, media can be watched as well as altered and disseminated by participants. Your outlet on the web can be a personal website or social media platform, among many other applications. New and digital media prosper because you create and participate.

HOW DO YOU USE THIS BOOK?

The main purpose of this book is for you to become savvy in new and digital media. In order to become savvy, you have to understand the theories and cultural significance of the pieces of technology, some of the platforms, and the web as a communication device. Once you have an understanding of the reasons why you participate in online communities, how to build a website, and the influence of streaming television and memes on the digital landscape, it is up to you to join and take part in the medium as a more savvy, responsible web citizen. Being a savvy user of new and digital media means having the knowledge and background information of how and why the technology and platforms in which you participate and create work. After you have read each chapter, we want you to join us online and take a chance. After you read about online communities in the following chapter, we would like for you to join one yourself; if you have never created a meme before, try making one; if you have never produced a vlog before, record one. In order to take advantage of digital media, you have to take chances and jump right in. Once you become a participant and content creator, with an understanding of the purpose or meaning of digital media, you will experience its benefits.

Another aspect and purpose of this book is, once you have the knowledge of how to use particular platforms, technology, and communication and digital media tools, we want you to become a storyteller. Whether it’s through textual or visual formats, we want you to be a storyteller in whichever area of digital media you plan to participate. After reading the chapter on YouTube influencers, you may want to start your own web channel on YouTube to create your first series. After reading the chapter on online branding, you may want to start producing your own podcast or blog to promote yourself. Regardless of which chapter affects you, share your story and content with participants connected all over the world. We hope this book organizes and advances your techniques for online storytelling to your audience. You may be inspired to become a storyteller on digital platforms through tools you will be learning in this book. It can be as simple as tweeting on a daily basis or having a voice through your blog, posted once a week. You have the ability to reach millions with digital media, and your story can be unique, creative, and motivational for all to enjoy.

This book is not only your guide but also a step-by-step reference for how to complete your digital tasks. We want this reference to be your one-stop shop to inform you of new and digital media theory, creation, and participation in the web, all in one place. We understand you can find this information in many places on the vast web, but we offer this as a practical introduction to new and digital media and hope it serves as a valuable tool and guide by your side as you become empowered.

We included sidebars throughout this book that offer additional insight into and awareness of a given topic. The sidebars are designed to increase your media literacy perception in relation to the information we are discussing at the time. These sidebars are meant to start a discussion, build your knowledge, and encourage you to participate and learn more. The sidebars also fill in some of the blanks and quirky questions left unanswered by the growing environment online. These will help you build your mental skills and knowledge area in a specific topic. At the end of each chapter, you will find projects to practice new and digital media skills learned in the text and apply for future study or personal ventures.

TO KEEP IN MIND WHILE READING

The Internet and the web are a hugely open media platform accessible from anywhere at any time. Your participation is required for the evolution of the media, and we encourage you to be curious and try everything. We offer one phrase of advice we wish you to keep in mind when using the web: if you do not pay for it, you are the product.

These are strong words to associate with digital media platforms, but paramount for all users to keep in mind. Before we delve deeper into the book, you have to remember that, although these media are accessible and open and for the most part “free,” someone, somehow, is always making money and a profit. In Chapter 2, we will be discussing online communities based on many different social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and many more. Building communities with other users will be the main focus of the chapter, but keep in mind that the material and content you create regularly are bought and sold to advertisers in order to support the storage and delivery costs of the platforms. For every platform you join where you do not have control of the design of the system, there is a professional team that regulates, monitors, and controls your access. Participate, but be responsible and read your terms of service on each platform. We know that most terms of service are boring to read, but they offer you information on your rights and usage of any given technology. We will do our best to explain how you can use the web in the most responsible and creative way and as safely as possible, but, with the nature of the web, this information regularly changes and updates. It is your responsibility to read the “rules” every time they update for the best experience you can have using new and digital media.

WHY WE WROTE THIS BOOK

When at dinner with family or hanging out with friends or at a concert, we hear people talking about Internet culture, whether talking about the new trendy meme, YouTuber, Netflix show, or personal Instagram account. Often, people discussing digital content or online material feel a sense of connection, but others feel left out. We recognized the importance of not just knowing about media on the web, but also how it got there and how it operates. So when you or your friends share a meme or memory, we’re combining our physical life with our digital creations. Really knowing how that works makes you a savvy user of the web and establishes you as the expert. With every post you share to an online community, you are telling your story to a perceived like-minded audience. At the very core of these actions is the timeless process of storytelling. Producing new and digital media means connecting your story to the always expanding digital media environment.

New and digital media are ubiquitous; that is certain. When we sought to approach this book, we knew that we’d have to explain the culture surrounding the omnipresent media. The web, the Internet, and social media are becoming supersaturated, with almost half the world with access to the Internet¹ and 3.028 billion people with some sort of social media account.² Our approach in this book concerns the ever-pervasive need to control your intentions in the digital space. You can see and hear the need consistently. When we are asked to do talks and workshops, we often find the same thing asked from some of our audience members: “Why isn’t there a book on this topic?” This is what we aim to achieve.

The variety of ways the web plays into our lives often go unnoticed. We have started taking the essence and ambience of the web for granted. In Alfred Hermida’s essay “Twittering the News: The Emergence of Ambient Journalism,”³ he explains that Twitter has become background noise and, in the case of journalism, it takes on the qualities of information as having nearly ethereal qualities. This so happened recently, when the Associated Press announced that algorithm bots would now write financial news stories.⁴ In this book, we break down what some of the immense amounts of information flow and, more importantly, separate the quality signal from the growing noise.

In respect to understanding the power of using the web for something much deeper and more pronounced than ambient information, we turn to users who utilize the web’s tools, such as YouTube, to enhance their daily lives in ways unimaginable just over a decade ago. In Chapter 5, we will discuss how YouTube can be utilized as a learning tool, and how the user can get involved as a teacher to those who may be in need of their specific information.

Savvy users of the web are far beyond those who use it for frivolous updates or posting pictures of their pets, and they participate by creating quality content. Digital media have no sense of time or place. We understand time linearly, but time is always the same to digital media. Understanding that, we start to recognize that thousands of new users are logging on daily, and people are discovering new parts of the web all the time. We ourselves, as a people, are very similar to the construct of the web.

The web is a replicating entity that continues to grow, creating content out of every subject as each new member joins. If there is something that exists, you can most likely find it online. You can see the immense use of the web and the power of its users by going to your favorite social media platform and typing #selfie, #grilling, and #travel by checking the tag results—nearly every minute a new photo gets added regardless of what platform you check.

If you are seeking information or advice on any subject, from changing tires to cooking, someone has created a video of that happening, and if they haven’t, someone will very soon. To sift through this information to become a savvy user of, and participant in, this media landscape involves a process of understanding how we use the web and how we can get involved. Take, for example, Christine McConnell, a woman who is a self-taught baker who learned all of her techniques from YouTube. McConnell loves the style of the 1950s. A make-up artist and stylist by career, McConnell practices her work on herself. While expanding her skills, she watched YouTube videos on how to bake interesting pastries and desserts. She created a niche when she started baking desserts in the form of monsters and characters from horror movies from the 1980s. She started an Instagram account to show off her work, and, very soon, online publications such as BuzzFeed ran profiles on her.

McConnell provides an amazing framework for success in producing new and digital media. From the time we wrote the first edition of this text to this update, Christine McConnell used her Instagram to show off her talent and like some of our examples in this text, gained the attention of media executives. In 2018, her series The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell aired on Netflix. The show is like an expanded universe of her social media presence—in the televised version, she creates her work to her cohort of “co-stars” (which are puppets) and the show’s plot revolves around her creations. Many average web users feel overwhelmed when they learn about Christine McConnell or other users who have created personas from their own expertise. If you are reading this book, then you have already taken steps toward advancing your identity online and becoming a better user of the vast amount of free tools available.

In Marc Prensky’s article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,”⁵ he explains we are in an era of youth growing up to understand digital media as a natural tool. This was later corrected when Prensky realized his article was a bit too ahead of its time: digital natives are really those born after the rise of the World Wide Web and, more specifically, touch-screen media. Although many readers of Prensky’s article felt insulted by the insinuation that, if you were not savvy with digital media you were relegated to immigrant status, it opened a conversation about what it means to be truly native in a landscape of 1s and 0s.

Prensky explained that a fair amount of the backlas...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1 What Is New and Digital Media?
• Chapter 2 Online Communities
• Chapter 3 Web Literacy
• Chapter 4 Memes and Virality
• Chapter 5 From Viral Videos to YouTubers: Web Video’s Historical Impact
• Chapter 6 Over-the-Top Television and Storytelling in a Streaming World
• Chapter 7 Personal Branding
• Chapter 8 Conclusion
• Glossary
• Index