Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic freefall on 14 October 2012 was not only a record
breaking skydive attempt that broke the speed of sound with the human body. It was
also a record breaking YouTube sensation, proving yet again that the expansion of
new media technologies and devices has turned the average media consumer into a
new breed of media mogul who chooses when and how they enjoy their content.
Broadcast live on YouTube, the social video sharing website revealed that Felix
Baumgartner’s supersonic jump is now the “live stream with the most concurrent views
ever on YouTube’. Some 30 cameras on the capsule, the ground and helicopters
recorded the event.
While it had been pegged as a live broadcast, there was an 18-second delay in case
of a tragic accident. At the time of the jump eight million concurrent live streams
were broadcasting at one time over the Red Bull YouTube channel. There were many
more viewers via a number of new media and mobile television portals as well as
traditional television broadcasting.
New media is a 21st Century universal term used to define all that is related to the
Internet and the interplay between technology, sound and images and refers to the
various technologies that have emerged or seen rapid growth during the latter part of
the 20th century and into the new millennium.
Most people who have an Internet connection are aware of some of the major types
of new media, which includes social networking sites such as My Space, Facebook and
Twitter, as well as blogs and video sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo.
Technologies described as new media are digital, allowed to be manipulated, are
networkable and interactive. New media does not include television programmes,
feature films, paper-based publications, magazines or books – unless they contain
technologies that enable digital interactivity.
The emergence of new media has allowed the democratisation of the creation,
publishing, distribution and consumption of media content, as well as the real-time
manufacturing of new, free-for-all content such as public uploads to YouTube.
Media evolution
Until the 1980s media relied primarily upon print and analogue broadcast models,
such as those of newspapers, magazines, television and radio. The last 25 years have
seen the rapid transformation of media which rely on the use of digital technologies,
such as the Internet and video games.
Digital computers have transformed the remaining ‘old’ media, as suggested by the
advent of digital television and online publications. Even traditional media forms such
as the printing press have been transformed through the application of technologies
like image manipulation software like Adobe Photoshop and desktop publishing tools.
One of the first forms of new media that the general public became familiar with
during the latter-20th century was cyberchatting. Whether one-on-one or within a
chatroom, chatting online quickly evolved from a mostly text-based tool to one which
also included audio visual capabilities through applications such as webcams. Because
of the anonymity afforded by the Internet, many people who engaged in online
chatting began reconstructing the narrative of their real lives, posing online under a
different name, age, gender or occupation.
Today, the notion of a new online identity first introduced in chatrooms has expanded
to include visual recreation, for example, online gaming like Blacklight Retribution, a
team-based multiplayer first person shooter game set in present day conflicts where
you customise your character, weapons and accessories and play war with people you
don’t know from a bar of soap, online.
Another example is via the popular web service, Second Life. On Second Life, you
“enter a world with infinite possibilities and live a life without boundaries, guided only
by your imagination’. Here members create their own 3D image, also known as an
avatar, and interact with other members in a completely virtual world.
As weird as it seems living a second life, new media was partly responsible in getting
Barack Obama elected as President of the United States. He raised a phenomenal
$750m for his presidential campaign via the Internet and created an enormously
powerful online community that has changed politics forever. President Obama was
the first president to use his Blackberry for daily communications and still conducts
his weekly fireside chats on YouTube.
Profound effect
Other than politics, new media has had a profound effect on two other fronts of
society in the 21st century: the exchange of ideas and economics. Economically, new
media is the globe’s commercial skeleton. Fibre optic wiring networks between the
world’s cities connect one to another to another….
Every time a customer goes online to shop for that iPod special offer, or the digital
camera from a large cyber retail store, new media is on both sides of that transaction.
New media is not only the product but helps to mould the process of electronic
commerce. This means that the electronics and associated industries are largely
focused on making the hardware that supports new media, while softer enterprises
like news agencies, programmers, authors and artists adapt their crafts to the flows
of the networks.
When it comes to the exchanging of ideas, perhaps the most interesting part of new
media has to do with the restructuring of research, social interaction and the currents
of writing and dissemination of all information that have accompanied its emergence.
Web and blog-writing in particular are not particularly revolutionary or ground-
breaking but it changes the way people use language or construct basic sentences. It
also allows people to structure and nest information into documents differently like
using hyperlinks. Take for instance, the single most influential tool in casual research
and data-storage: Wikipedia. It is virtually impossible to search an article that is
published on Wikipedia without coming across a hyperlink to another page of data.
Wikipedia exemplifies a style of information technology that is based on the
interconnectedness of new ideas and past events in a new media mould.
TV on the go
New media has given birth to technologies that have made access to information
easier and more convenient. Take for example mobile television, it is not uncommon
to see spectators at a rugby or cricket match watching or listening to their mobile TV
devices for quick access to action replays or quirky commentary provided by the
broadcaster covering the game.
During the Currie Cup semifinal between the Bulls and the Sharks, Odwa Ndungane
was shown checking the score of a PSL Soccer game on a DStv Walka while sitting on
the bench having been replaced for fresh legs! During Prince William and Kate
Middleton’s wedding, thousands of mobile TV users standing in the streets on London
watched the parts of the ceremony that they could not physically see, on their
handheld devices. Here in Johannesburg, it is not uncommon to see commuters glued
to their Drifta or Walka devices on the Gautrain on their early morning journey to
work.
New media has also greatly advanced cellular communications in the past 20 years,
through devices and applications that connect with the Internet and other
technologies.
Africa is in the midst of a technological revolution, and nothing illustrates that fact
better than the proliferation of mobile phones. More Africans have access to mobile
phones than to clean drinking water. In South Africa, mobile phone usage has gone
from 17% of adults in 2000 to more than 76% in 2011. Today, more South Africans
(29 million) use mobile phones than radio (28 million), TV (27 million) or personal
computers (six million). Only five million South Africans use landline phones and four
million use hard wired Internet, according to Nielsen, the American global information
and measurement company.
Other applications
As in other countries, mobile phones are being used in a range of ways aside from
talking. South Africa ranks fifth in the world for mobile data usage, ahead of the US,
which ranks seventh. The mobile phone as an Internet device is also on the rise –
11% of South Africans use their mobiles to go online, and consumers aged between
25 and 34 are the heaviest users.
Facebook was the most popular social media platform in 2011 in South Africa, used by
85% of mobile subscribers, according to Nielsen. Half of all users of Facebook in
South Africa access the site via their mobiles. MXIT, a mobile instant messaging
platform, is also popular in the country, with 61% saying they access the site.
SMS text messaging is practically ubiquitous among South African mobile customers,
and is used by almost 4.2 times more people than email. More than two-thirds (69%)
of consumers prefer sending texts to calling, in large part because it is less
expensive, and 10% believe texting to be a faster way of communicating.
The majority (60%) of South African mobile users said they are aware of mobile
banking services offered by banks, but only 21% say they use such services. A much
larger number of those aware of the services said they would never use them.
When one considers that just three years ago, there were no smartphones being used
on the continent, the pace of change is stunning. South Africa is the biggest market,
but other countries on the continent are likely to catch up fast.
What fascinates me about new media is that all businesses have become media
companies no matter what they offer in terms of services or products. In order to
survive in today’s tough economic environment, a company has to disseminate
information – you have to Tweet and Facebook, and show off your services via a video
on YouTube.
Everyone has become a master in new media publishing and mastered the
technologies needed to create new media content.
By Ian Dormer
Screen Africa magazine – November / December 2012
