Facebook as a New Media Frontier

This past Tuesday, I presented my Case Study about New Media. I primarily focused on the different aspects of Facebook and how it is slowly becoming a frontier for New Media. With the many attractive features that this social networking site has available to its account holders, it is no wonder how Facebook is becoming a phenomenon across the entire globe. However, with the growing features of Facebook comes a price that many consumers are not fully aware of. Users must take caution in what they put up on their personal web pages as well as be wary of any applications they decide to add.

During my presentation, I explained what we consider to be “New” Media in the eyes of the consumers. I explained that New Media has six different categories that it can belong to, including: Digital, Interactivity, Audience Generated, Asynchronous Communication, Narrowcasting, and Multimedia forms. Upon closer examination of each of these categories, it is easy to see how the world of Facebook is quickly expanding into the realm of New Media. Facebook can be considered part of practically all of these categories. So, when presented with the question, “What is “new” about “New Media”, we can see that Facebook is the unification of all six categories. The world of Facebook is entirely digital, as it is only accessible through a computer. It is interactive, seeing as how many of the applications that the users are allowed to add are various mini-games that they can play during their spare time. It is also almost completely audience generated, seeing as how each user has their own unique personal web page. Users can choose to view the website at any time they please, making it a good example of Asynchronous communication. Facebook also has narrowed their advertisements to specifically cater to each unique user, thus making it a viable example of narrowcasting. Finally, Facebook provides links to other sorts of websites through their advertisements that pertain to whatever each unique user is interested, a trait that multimedia forms is known for. When I asked the class how Facebook could expand in terms of New Media, I suggested that it could also integrate parts of “old” media, such as television and music. Creating an application wouldn’t be very hard to include television websites such as Hulu as well as music websites such as Last.fm.

With the addition of these two media outlets, Facebook could potentially become the milestone of the past 10 years in media mediums. Not only would it include every single aspect of “New Media”, but it could also incorporate the aspects of “Old Media” in order to revolutionize the way the modern world works. Facebook is truly changing the way everyone lives their lives, creating virtual relationships and virtual friendships.