Definition of new media

the means of communication that are displacing newspapers and television at the beginning of the 21st century. Chief among them is the World Wide Web or, more generally, the Internet. Some differences between the Web and earlier media include the following:

• Lack of central control. Almost anyone can publish almost anything without an editor's or publisher's approval.
• Very low cost of production. You do not have to own aTVstation or newspaper company to express yourself; everyone has a voice. In the 1500s, the printing press had a similar impact. It allowed any educated and reasonably prosperous person to print handbills and give them out. Later, newspapers and magazines arose as means of mass communication through printing.
• Computer-assisted access. Computers can help you find material you are interested in and filter out things you do not want to see.(See search engine).
• MultimediaNewmedia can combine the effects of print, painting, photography, music, motion pictures, and animation while adding new capabilities of their own, such as hypertext. See hypertext.
• Volatility The contents of a web page can be changed at any time; it is possible to rewrite history and deny what you published a few weeks earlier. Libraries need to address this by archiving the World Wide Web for the public good.

One thing everyone agrees on is that the new media are in their infancy and their most common uses fifty years hence will probably involve techniques that have not yet been invented or foreseen.