What is new media?

New media is a broad, all-encompassing term that primarily refers to the Internet and its by-products - search engines, social media platforms, video and audio streaming services, etc. Despite how pervasive the Internet and its by-products are in our daily lives, we aren't in a position to fully understand its scope and impact on our daily lives as we are still in the process of uncovering and evaluating the forces behind our feeds and timelines. For the purpose of this project, 'new media' primarily refers to social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

What's problematic about new media as we know it?

With the advent of the Internet, new media effectively challenged and dissembled the traditional roles of the producer and consumer, re-defining what it means to be a media user. Today's social media user simultaneously participates in both, the content creation and consumption process. This contribution results in feeds and timelines that are always in flux - indicative of social media's supposedly intrinsic democratic nature. While the Internet acts as a platform through which the masses can voice their opinions and experiences, we have to be mindful of the cost that we, as social media users, pay for this autonomy.

At its core, social media platforms are meant to serve the monetary interests of the organizations and creators behind them. Our autonomy as users isn't directly impacted by these motives but the content that gets rewarded i.e. the content that is circulated on our feeds is meant to maximize our engagement with these platforms. While the content suggested by our explore page might align with our personal interests and values, its purpose is not to help you further explore those topics but to keep you on the page, no matter what the cost.

Why I'm doing this project:

I'm a fourth-year Film and Digital Media Studies + Philosophy student interested in exploring the way in which social media impacts our perception of the world. Through my research, I've had the opportunity to learn more about the various factors that influence social media as we know it and wanted to create a project that de-mystified some key concepts and make this information was more accessible to those outside of the field.

We need to work on creating a shift in priorities from monetary gain to public welfare.

How should we approach re-imagining social media?

As social media users, it is vital for us to critically analyze the mediums we engage with and question the various driving forces that structure our timelines so we can begin understanding the answer to questions like:

Who holds power in this context?
Who decides what content is valid? How does this process of selection and elimination affect our perception of the norm?
How is the content rewarded indicative of the fallacies within social media?
And last, but not the least, how can we re-construct social media in a manner that serves the masses as opposed to the monetary gains of these platforms.

I will explore new media through the lens of power and autonomy by investigating the role of the attention economy (that dictates how platforms can monetize on our time and energy) and human agency within these realms,

While this is not a comprehensive study of the many factors that affect our individual social media experience, I hope that this work helps provide a deeper understanding of some of the 'invisible strings' at play. If you're interested in learning more about the topic, you can visit the Resources tab where you will find the sources I've used for this project along with other videos and personal explorations of the same.

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