What is New Media?

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Abstract

New media represents an intriguing landmark in the world of human communication. It is powerful and flexible, constantly enabling new forms of expression and driving innovation, and yet the precise boundary of the term is rather ill-defined; this makes detailed study of this important field very difficult.

The researchers investigated the self-identified "new media organization" De Waag Society as a case study from three angles: a social, a technological, and a developmental perspective. These three angles were chosen to attempt to represent the field as a whole and arrive at a cohesive definition for what, precisely, new media is.

Through a series of interviews and participant observations, it became clear that existing definitions were perhaps too narrow, and that the field of new media is too broad to be singularly defined – instead, the researchers found characteristics that new media projects tend to represent. New media is fluid and ever-changing, but tends to involve connecting individuals with technology and each other, and tends to do so by using old or new technologies in new and innovative ways.

Contents


Group Members

  • Clint Tseng, Computer Engineering
  • Dylan Nunley, Computer Science and Economics
  • Julia Moore, Communication and Painting

Introduction

Background and Motivation

The cornerstone of human essence has long been the art of communication. Whether spoken or written, the advanced state of our language capabilities has enabled us to collaborate, form communities, think about the world, and develop like no other species on Earth. These developments, in turn, have given us increasingly efficient and effective means of expression through the use of new technologies such as telecommunications and the Internet.

Now, in the 21st century, technology is developing and expanding at an increasingly rapid pace – the Internet has reached near ubiquity, and new interfaces and devices are constantly being pushed to the market. These new technologies have the potential of generating a rather profound impact on how we collectively communicate and thus function as a society, and thus the study of this dual relationship is not simply interesting, it is critical. Collectively, a term emerged to describe this fusion of concepts: new media.

Unfortunately, the term itself isn't terribly well defined, both due to the rapidly fluxing state of its subject and the philosophical difficulties in attempting to determine what, precisely, "new" is. In fact, many scholars prefer to use the term digital media whenever applicable in order to avoid confusion.

The situation is, therefore, less than ideal – perhaps even less than adequate. Technology has become an incredibly powerful communication tool, especially with a growing number of people not only using the Internet, but storing increasing amounts of their own selves and lives upon sites such as Facebook, Flickr, or YouTube; this particular concept has in fact become an area of interest and study of its own, as showcased in the highly popular video Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us. GPS technology and related location-aware applications have been steadily growing in the commercial market in recent years, catalyzed by such mobile products as the popular Apple iPhone. Thus, being able to define precisely what new media is inherently represents a greater ability to comprehend and study its implications.

Literature Review

Many papers use the term regardless of its questionable status. Many take it for granted, launching from the term into studies of various technologies and their applications. Shalom M. Fisch, for instance, in a study regarding the use of various technologies in children's education entitled What's so "new" about "new media?": Comparing effective features of children's educational software, television, and magazines, "reviews research on several forms of media intended for use in informal education outside of school: television, magazines, and interactive software (including online)" (2004, p.105). Others, such as Melinda McAdams in her article Information Design and the New Media, define instead old media and take new media as an implicit entity from there: "The old media are massified; they broadcast on a one-to-many model, and I don’t really get to choose what I want, except on the widest level" (1995, p.39). McAdams does, however, make an interesting distinction between the nature of the consumer in information exchange, stating that "[a] useful basic distinction can be made between active and passive, or between users and consumers...The mass media deliver information on their own terms and on their own schedule, assuming the existence of a passive consumer on the receiving end" (McAdams, 1995, p.39). Combined, these statements make the interesting suggestion that there is an element of active participation that is missing from "old media."

We found one definition reflective of common conceptions and we took as a base definition from which to develop: "New media is the marriage of mediated communications technologies with digital computers" (wikipedia.org, 2008). However, this is an extremely utilitarian definition, consisting of purely a technical description of precisely the components that comprise the concept. It doesn't address the essence, goals, or motivations behind new media, and so in this regard we would like to improve upon the current definition.

Approach

To attempt to tackle at once the entirety of what new media could represent would be foolhardy at best – the potential of the field is so incredibly vast and difficult to navigate that no singular conclusion could possibly be reached. Instead, we recognized that we need a case study.

After some searching, we came across an organization known as the Waag Society. De Waag was founded in 1994 as the "Society for Old and New Media," with the mission statement of "mak[ing] new media available for groups of people that have little access to computers and internet, thus increasing their quality of living" (waag.org, 2008). The Society appears to have evolved somewhat since then, as characterized by the change to their current mission statement:

  • Develop creative applications for social innovation
  • Use and explore technology to foster innovation and solve real problems in society (Kresin, 2008)

As a self-described new media organization, we determined that the Waag Society would be fascinating and informative as a case study, and provide a unique perspective on the situation – their idea of new media may be different from that of other organizations as De Waag focuses specifically on the field of new media.

Research Questions

After remotely studying De Waag from Seattle, we concluded that it is an organization dedicated to new media. But what exactly does this mean? New media is a term many people are familiar with, but few can define. Using De Waag as a case study, we ask, “what is new media?� Defining the term is undoubtedly an integral part to studying any new media society, but is also an important consideration for anyone using the term. The term was probably coined in the 1980s (Stahlman) and certainly has a different meaning today, since what was new then is not what is new now. By approaching the idea of new media from three different perspectives, we hope to come to a definition that fits into the context of De Waag, and with more research may be generalizable.

The first question, investigated by Julia Moore, asked, “how does De Waag use new media to solve social problems?� De Waag’s current mission statement emphasizes the organization’s interest in using new media to solve social problems. By considering what social problems are addressed in specific projects we hope to gain insight into the relationship between new media and society and understand new media in a broader social context.

The second question, “what is the role of technology in new media at the Waag Society?� was asked by Dylan Nunley. Investigating technology in a new media society is a key component to understanding new media, since information is almost always mediated by some form of technology. This can be as simple as words on a sheet of paper, or as complicated as a binary stored on a computer chip. Researching what types of technology are used in new media will help construct a concise definition of the term.

The final question, proposed by Clint Tseng, asked, “what are the key factors that drive evolution in a new media organization such as De Waag Society?� Studying the chronological changes in new media at De Waag will give insight into how the definition of new media has changed with the developments of new technology. The term new media has been around for decades, and "new" no longer means what it used to. Investigating what new media used to be will provide insight into what the term means today.

Conceptual Framework

Our research is framed in terms of Philip N. Howard’s “Network Ethnography.� A crucial aspect of ethnography is spending considerable amount of time with the people being studied, conducting in-depth interviews and observing small group interactions. Network Ethnography provides a framework to study De Waag by submerging ourselves in the community of the organization and participating in De Waag projects. Our study will simply be a study of De Waag; we will be very careful about the generalizability to any other organization or social phenomena.

There are several major steps to analysis with network ethnography:

  1. Research, select, and enter a field site; investigate community boundaries. This phase of the research will entail acquainting ourselves with De Waag, its processes, and the external bodies it interacts with while carrying out its work.
  2. Conduct social network analysis on many members of the community. This phase involves mapping out internal and external bodies and examining exactly how and why they interact with each other and De Waag.
  3. Use results to identify groups and individuals worth of close study. Here, we determine which of the internal and external bodies we studied in brief should be investigated and interviewed in our effort to study De Waag and its relationship to new media.
  4. Identify previously unsuspected points of social entry and subsequent methodological strategies for current and future research.

Following our investigation with De Waag’s employees and associates, we will likely discover previously unidentified methods and entities, which we may research in similar accord to learn more.

Given how interconnected De Waag is, and how much its work relies upon those connections, network ethnography provides a very adept and suitable means by which we can endeavor to study the organization and its use of new media. The conceptual framework has limitations, however. Network ethnography involves integration into a networked community, which will be impossible to the desired extent because of time limitations. We only have four weeks to study an organization of about fifty employees. De Waag also develops technologically sophisticated projects, so actual participant observation will be limited.

Research Methods

In keeping with the theme of network ethnography from above, most of our research was carried out through expert interviews. When we arrived in Amsterdam, we began by visiting one of De Waag's two locations, Pakhuis de Zwijger, to obtain an overview of the Society. We spoke with Frank Kresin, Program Manager, as well as three of his associates. From this visit, we determined the general structure of the Waag Society, and learned information about some of its key projects and ambitions. In addition, we were referred to people specializing in our individual areas of reserach.

We interviewed Tom Demeyer, Head of Technology, and Peter Fekkes, Lab Manager, to discuss the technological component of our question. We interviewed Sander Hooreman, Usability Researcher, and Ron Boonstra, Lay Out and Website Editor, with regard to the evolution of new media within the Waag Society. We talked with Rob van Kranenburg, Head of Program Public Domain, to discuss the social aspects. We used these interviews as our principal data. These expert interviews helped to further our knowledge both directly in terms of the goals of the research, and also indirectly by obtaining their co-workers and building the social network map which we then proceeded to analyze.

The network ethnography framework led us to research De Waag's partnerships and competitors. We interviewed Pol Eggermont about his collaboration with De Waag for the "Park of the 21st Century" Westergasfabriek. We also interviewed Willem Velthoven, the founder and director of Mediamatic, one of De Waag's closest new media competition. The project at Westergasfabriek, still in its conceptual stage, is hoping to transform the park into a site of experimentation where cultural and social heritage and creativity are fused with collaboration, technology, and interaction. Mediamatic is a media organization that shares many traits with the Waag Society but also many differences, therefore providing an important counterpoint for comparison.

We also engaged in participant observation by participating in two activities. The first activity was constructing a mechanical insect in the Waag Society's Fablab; the FabLab is a facility wherein any individual may come and build whatever art or practical project they may choose through a wide variety of tools made available by the Society, such as woodworking tools, laser cutters, rapid prototypers, and CNC machines. Our group designed and built this semi-working device exactly as other FabLab participants would. This not only gave us hands-on use of the technology they employ, but also the type of values—like creativity—that they embrace. Our second activity was testing the Rituelen game. We began by talking with Peter Troxler, Project Manager, and Dick van Dijk, Concept Developer, about the design goals of this project and then followed with an interactive trial of the locative game. This experience showcased their plan of integrating technology with education. Overall, these two activities allowed us to uncover the implicit philosophy of the Waag Society in a hands-on approach not possible in an interview setting. These activities gave us working, first-hand data and experience and was especially helpful since we were not able to attend any of their project or developmental meetings.

Our research took place in four separate locations, which can be seen on our map page.

Another component of our research methods was background research through online texts. This technique allowed us to learn about the history of new media, the fundamental philosophy of the Waag Society, and some of the Society's more recent projects. This allowed us to come to the interviews prepared for in-depth discussions.

Our research and anaysis cluminated with a ten minute presentation at the EASST conference in Rotterdam, August 23, 2008. The final presentation slides can be viewed here.

In terms of human subjects considerations, our project had no serious implications for our interview subjects, since they were expert interviews. Our only consideration was to ensure the objectivity of our questions – opinion questions can easily become pointed or loaded, and a misstep in the answer could cost an interviewee a job.

Analysis and Discussion

Overview

The nonprofit, pubicly and culturally funded De Waag Society was founded as the Society for Old and New Media in 1994 by activists, artists, squatters, and hackers. Their first focus upon formation was Internet accessibility – by focusing their projects on getting people on the web, they empowered people to communicate more efficiently and solve their own problems. Soon, however, accessibility became less of an issue due to the growing ubiquity of the Internet, and so they changed their name to simply "De Waag Society" and accordingly began focusing on a far wider range of social issues, across many different domains. While their projects are now far and varied in focus, one common theme among many modern initiatives has been the integration of location-aware technologies.

"How does De Waag use new media to solve social problems?"

Analysis

After conducting a number of interviews with member of The Waag Society, it became apparent that the organization is in the business of creativity and innovation. Business models of companies in the United States emphasize maximizing profit and minimizing loss, while De Waag’s first concern is solving social problems. A new prototype is always developed to solve a social problem, not to make profits. Success in De Waag is instead measured by the amount of discussion it creates about an issue, the awareness the prototype raises, and the response the product gets from its users and developers. The Society centers all of its research, development and prototyping on five domains: education, healthcare, society, culture and sustainability.

Each domain represents an area in which social problems are addressed. In healthcare, for example, De Waag developed Scottie, a form of non-verbal remote communication that allows sick children in hospitals communicate with their families at home. De Waag recognized the need for children to stay in contact with their families and the inability of telephones and e-mail to suffice for true interpersonal communication, which includes physical and tactile cues. After identifying these issues, the Waag Society developed a children's toy that can be activated remotely by the child’s family. The Scottie doll fills in the communication gaps in phone and electronic communication by simulating touch through vibrations and emotion through colored lights.

Other social problems the Society tackles include: accessibility to the Internet by underprivileged groups, preserving personal history, and connecting individuals with similar interests.

Discussion

De Waag uses new media to solve social problems in a very straightforward way. Every new project is developed to solve some social problem. This philosophy of helping people is embedded into the society. But why?

Two important factors account for De Waag’s philosophy for solving social problems. First, the society was founded by activists: squatters, political activists, hackers. Though hardly any of the original staff still works for De Waag, the consistent turnover brings in new employees with fresh ideas and optimistic and creative insights.

The Society also strives to solve social problems because they are a non-profit organization that receives money from the government. As Rob van Kranenburg, Head of Program Public Domain, so eloquently stated, “With public funding comes the responsibility to do great things" (Kranenburg, 2008).

Though De Waag is not part of the competitive commercial market, they hold a very interesting and unique position as an organization in a commercial field with public money. De Waag is competing with other new media organizations, such as Mediamatic, to stay on the cutting edge of creativity and innovation. De Waag must stay on the cutting edge to keep public funding and stay afloat. The Society also has more room for risk and creativity than a commercial company, because they are free from maximizing profits and have freedom to deviate from repetitive models that have proven successful in the marketplace.

"What is the role of technology in new media at the Waag Society?"

Analysis

From our interviews and experiences at the Waag Society, we surmise that technology plays a vital role in all projects. The technological component of these projects can be broken into two, separate roles. In the majority of projects, specific applications of technology are used as a basis or supplement to the project. The role of this technology is to mediate information, either from person to person or from person to computer. In the other role, however, applied technology does not take part in the project, but rather, the project's goal is to impart knowledge about a specific technology or to embrace its use.

The first role—applied technology as a mediator of information—can be further separated into several sub-roles that are not mutually exclusive. The role appearing in many of the more recent projects is locative (location aware) technology. This type of technology enables participants to interact with their physical surroundings and allows the location to be the interface and mediator of information. For example, the Rituals project uses GPS enabled mobile phones as its foundation. Instead of a traditional classroom setting, children are able to learn about religious traditions and identity by listening to stories while interacting with the city.

Technology is also used as a means to convey audio and visual material. In these projects, the primary goal generally relates to cultural discussion, with the technology aspect serving the role of presenting the audio/visual component in a novel and relevant way. For example, the Stranger Festival was a project whose goal was to provide young people a medium for self expression and self empowerment through video art. The Waag Society contributed to this festival by providing the online interactive infrastructure for its participants.

The third sub-role of applied technology at the Waag Society is collaboration, community involvement, and accessibility. Technology is used to create an engagement or discussion between people (or people and computers) in an intuitive manner. For example, the StoryTable project provided an interface for elderly people to view picture and video content in a simple and intuitive way.

Discussion

To understand the lasting implications of technology in the Waag Society, a review of one of its projects is appropriate. Westergasfabriek, as mentioned above, is a park that is currently in the process of becoming “The Park of the 21st Century.� The project, supported by the Waag Society, is currently in its conceptual phase. The project seeks to combine interactive installations and locative technology with narrative, social, and cultural content.

For example, the ParQ venture will allow park goers to leave textual and visual messages at Westergasfabriek via Bluetooth, with the park acting as the mediator. This user generated content is open-ended and free to evolve on its own. Some other subprojects include text-messaging based intra-park communication, interactive historical activities, and festivals. These undertakings are developed on an open innovation platform, where end users contribute to the developmental process.

The Westergasfabriek project illustrates that application of technology at the Waag Society is contingent on accessibility and usability considerations. Further, technology is utilized to serve a social issue, and therefore the technology is not a defining characteristic of the projects of the Waag Society.

"What are the key factors that drive development in a new media organization such as De Waag Society?"

Analysis

There were two primary foci in analyzing De Waag Society under the developmental lens: determining exactly what the historical evolution of the organization entails with regards to focus and methods in terms of stages in development, and subsequently determining the factors that led to the shift from one stage to the next. These perspectives are important, as the "new" in "new media" is a chronologically relative term, indicating that somehow the field is always changing. Analyzing what these changes are and why they happen are critical to understanding what new media is.

There are two primary phases that the organization has gone through – the initial post-founding incubation phase during which the primary focus was accessibility, and the post-expansion phase which has been marked by the proliferation of location aware projects. The initial phase spawned several initiatives, such as the [[Interfacing Access]] group, which was centered on the idea of Internet interfaces as simple as a single button. Most of the issues related to the initial phase disappeared with the accessibility initiative. The locative phase, however, has encompassed a vast variety of social issues, representing everything from healthcare (Scottie) to religion (Rituelen). As well, this phase involves more than just locative technology.

There were three primary reasons that Waag Society employees identified as catalysts for changes in the organization's direction.

  • People come, people go. Often times, single people are the driving force behind specific projects. De Waag Society is composed largely of younger, idealistic people, and as these people leave De Waag to move on to other things, projects that they advocated strongly tend to fade. One example of this occurring is the Interfacing Access group.
  • Social situations change. Sometimes a social issue that the Society attempts to address slowly becomes less pressing or completely irrelevant. The accessibility focus of the organization, for instance, faded over time as the Internet became more and more ubiquitous.
  • Outside influences. Since the organization began interacting with other people and organizations more, outside influences have grown as a significant factor in how the organization develops. The Amsterdam Realtime project, for instance, which began the locative media movement within the organization, was in fact an art project that Esther Polak approached the Society to build.

Discussion

Several clear patterns emerge when synthesizing the development of the organization into a cohesive idea. In general, the Society began as a much narrowly-focused organization, and has slowly expanded to a much larger organization with many more aspirations. While the original focus of accessibility had a social root, it was also very focused on a particular technology – the Internet. Now, however, while locative media tends to be a theme among De Waag Society projects, these same projects tend to cover a vast array of different social issues, with different methodologies and goals. This indicates that the Society has come to new media as a means, not an ends – increasingly, while new media is still woven deep into the fabric of the organization and its methodologies, the ultimate goal of these projects have shifted toward solving or bringing about dialogue about very natural, mainstream social issues.

The catalysts to these changes also speaks as to the nature of the Society's relationship with new media. While one would assume that new media itself, as implied by the term "new", evolves in definition relative and recursively to itself, the experience of the Society seems to suggest a far bigger picture. As social issues are the primary focus of the organization and its use of new media, changes in society and thus social issues will severely impact the direction of the organization and thus its potential uses of new media. In addition, the factor of people, both inside and outside, reflect a far more complex and organic picture. While humans are a part of society, and while we tend to hold interests and beliefs about various media, we are very complex creatures, composed of a convoluted synthesis of countless stimuli. Thus, new media does not appear to develop only in terms relevant and relative to itself.

Discussion: "What is new media?"

De Waag has proven to be a unique case study to answer the question “what is new media?� In the course of our research through three individual lenses, we have uncovered various aspects of De Waag Society's relationship with new media.

The organization’s position as a non-profit competing for creativity in a commercial world has encouraged them to combine old and new technologies to create “new media.� This creativity and innovation has proven vital for De Waag to continue to recieve public funding, and public funding in return has kept their main focus on sovling social problems.

De Waag Society's use of new media isn't necessarily characterized by its utilization of technology – Head of Technology Tom Demeyer said, “we don’t develop technology, we use it. We combine it in new ways, we abuse it.� The organization freely uses older technology when appropriate, as demonstrated by their use of text messaging as an alternative interface in the parQ project. Thus, to the Society, new technology does not necessarily equate new media.

Finally, it would seem that the development of new media at the Waag Society doesn't necessarily depend on the progress of new mediums or technology itself, but instead on a large number of organic factors that are largely unrelated to new media. Development occurs outside the context of new media itself.

The synthesis of these separate conclusions has led us to draft a series of defining characteristics of new media rather than a singular definition. From our findings, we believe that new media:

  • Is fluid and ever-changing
  • Connects individuals with technology and each other
  • Uses old or new technologies in innovative ways

Conclusion

In total, we have determined that new media cannot be clearly defined by strictly utilitarian terms such as the textbook definition we began our studies with. Instead, we have found that the Waag Society illustrates that new media should be instead characterized in broader, less limiting terms which relates both to the use of the media itself as well as to its purpose of being.

It should be noted, however, that the Waag employees we interviewed each had a unique and strong reaction to our goal of defining new media. None of them had a concrete definition, and most of them saw no need for such a definition to exist. "I'd like to keep it that way," said Rob van Kranenburg, the Head of the Public Domain program, when confronted with the fact that new media is so nebulously defined.

We believe, however, that it is important to arrive at some sort of concrete boundary for the term and thus the field. New media is and can be a very powerful tool, and the study of it is a crucial undertaking, but a difficult one given its limitation, or lack thereof.

In this process, we have uncovered the footholds from which new media may be defined, but we have truly uncovered more questions than answers. The organization we chose as a case study is a fascinating conglomerate of people and ideas, but which represents only a small perspective on new media. In the future, we would like to propose studying other organizations, both commercial and non-profit, and in various locations around the world, to determine whether or not these defining characteristics of new media are generalizable, and whether they can be further refined.

Acknowledgements

This project could not have been possible without the generous help of many individuals and organizations. We would like to thank De Waag Society from the bottom of our hearts for the truly unprecedented hospitality, time, and access they donated to our cause. Specifically, we would like to thank Lipika Bansal, Ron Boonstra, Tom Demeyer, Peter Fekkes, Sander Hooreman, Rinske Hordijk, Frank Kresin, Peter Troxler, Dick van Dijk, and Rob van Kranenburg. All of these people took time out of their busy schedules to meet with us for extended periods of time.

Mediamatic was also incredibly generous, as founder and visionary Willem Velthoven also donated his time to further our cause.

Pol Eggermont, who is currently working to develop Westergasfabriek into a world-class, innovative park, was also among those who met with us for an interview amidst a busy schedule.

We would also like to thank our instructors – Clifford Tatum, Jessica Burstein, Paul Wouters, and Mirjam Schieveld. They were immensely helpful, not only pointing us in the direction of De Waag Society in the first place, but also in guiding our project back on track when we ran aground. Professor Wouters, in particular, generously introduced us to many members of De Waag Society.

References

See Also

Projects: Amsterdam Realtime • FabLab • Rituelen • Scottie • parQ
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