Jenkins, Henry "Eight Traits of the New Media Landscape"

From RhetorClick

Summary

Henry Jenkins wrote a blog post called “Eight Traits of the New Media Landscape” in 2006. Before describing his eight traits, Jenkins highlights that when considering the media landscape, it is important to list more than just tools and technologies. Jenkins feels that the focus of the new media landscape should not be on emerging technologies but on emerging cultural practices. It is important to “to understand the underlying logic shaping our current moment of media in transition.”

Here are Jenkins' eight traits of the new media landscape

1) Innovative
2) Convergent
3) Everyday
4) Appropriative
5) Networked
6) Global
7) Generational
8) Unequal

Innovative: New media is always being created and is quickly absorbed in culture.

Convergent: All kinds of media are broadcast across a broad range of channels, and media is shaped top-down and bottom-up at the same time with conglomerates controlling messages and consumers expressing how they want their media.

Everyday: Media technology is fully integrated into everyday interactions.

Appropriative: New technology makes it easy to re-purpose media images, and cultures are communicating through borrowed media content.

Networked: Messages flow easily from one place to another, and communication is not a one-many receiver model but a many-many model.

Global: New technologies allow people to communicate with other people around the world.

Generational: Young people have different cultural styles and values in the new media landscape than their parents, and both adults and young people know less about each other’s media values and assumptions than they think.

Unequal: Media allows for different levels of participation, and “participating may be elective for those who have the resources needed to belong in the first place but no such option can be exercised by those who are being left behind.” Unequal is the only trait that Jenkins feels describes current educational institutes.