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What we call new media right now is largely focused on attention grabbing rather than retention, which often means shorter content, dual content (Family Guy clips, Subway Surfers gameplay, Reddit posts, Minecraft parkour), with bright colors and constant movement designed to hold your attention.

Source:

Waters, Jamie. “Constant craving: how digital media turned us all into dopamine addicts.” The Guardian, 22 August 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/global/2021/aug/22/how-digital-media-turned-us-all-into-dopamine-addicts-and-what-we-can-do-to-break-the-cycle. Accessed 3 July 2025.

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The YouTube era stayed pretty close to its roots in blogging at first with the introduction of vlogs! Just like its predecessor, this era gave people the ability to interact with one another and made creating your own media even easier by removing the necessity of more technical skills such as HTML or CSS. People started making tutorials, skits, short films, and content was much less performative or competitive than it is today, which meant most content was a lot longer, more relaxed, and focused on creativity and expressing oneself.

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Alongside the creation of blogs we received a vital feature to media as one of the three c's of new media was found in the internet: communication! People could comment on others blogs, creating online communities and sharing with one another through the internet, transforming media from a one-way broadcast to an interconnected web, a conversation.

Source:

Robinson, Ryan. “History of Blogging: How Blogging Evolved (1993 - 2024).” RyRob.com, 22 February 2024, https://www.ryrob.com/history-of-blogging/. Accessed 4 July 2025.

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In comparison to current media, most TV shows had 20-30 minute long episodes. Longer content requires more retention, which is why they typically had more complex storylines and buildup compared to later media. They had to make you want to finish that episode and watch more later!

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Radio of course has quite the big difference between itself and its decendants: Visuals. However I find that because of the lack of vision, more effort is being put into the expressiveness of the speakers voices (This could also be partially attributed to the broadcast featured being a detective/thriller). From my personal experiences with radio, it was mostly enjoyed as a secondary activity (listening to the radio while at work, cooking, cleaning, etc), contrasting to the standard sit down and watch TV. I also found radio very interesting as it was free! While radio shares this trait with some newspapers, certain television channels, and some parts of the internet era, radio was free by default.

Source:

Free Old Time Radio Shows from The Golden Age of Radio - OTR, https://www.oldradioworld.com/. Accessed 4 July 2025.

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Newspapers didn't have any sounds or movement like future media, and used text and images to inform the public, focusing exclusively on content. Reading the newspaper was mainly a sit down activity that had to be done alone, not together with friends or family.

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The "Filter Bubble" describes how what we believe, trust, or even think about is heavily shaped by what we see, which is largely shaped by what algorithms choose to show us online, as it is where many peoples information about the world around them stems from, when an individual has a question, their first thought often is to "google it". This connects to Socrates' concerns regarding the spread of the written word, that by having knowledge available to them externally, people could be led to rely less on memory, ultimately leaving them less knowledgable.

Sources:

Pariser, Eli. The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. Penguin Press, 2011. Academia.edu, https://www.academia.edu/34426834/The_Filter_Bubble_Eli_Pariser . Accessed 10 July 2025.

“Socrates on the Invention of Writing and the Relationship of Writing to Memory.” History of Information, https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=3439 . Accessed 10 July 2025.

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Early internet activism and website design focused on giving users more control. But now, most online participation is shaped by hidden systems like search results, trending topics, and algorithms. These systems aren’t neutral, and their biases shape what people see as important or true.

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One pretty extreme example of this is Pizzagate: an internet conspiracy theory that quickly spread as a result of search engine algorithms and social media. It eventually resulted in a man armed with a gun entering a pizza place, searching for a non-existent child trafficking ring that was said to be inside the basement, despite the building in question not having a basement to begin with! While it might seem like an isolated case, it shows how algorithms can push people deeper into the same kinds of content. The open field that allowed us to see new and different perspectives has slowly transformed into an echo chamber reinforcing peoples beliefs and producing extremists.

Source: “‘Pizzagate’ gunman killed by police in North Carolina after traffic stop, authorities say.” CNN, 9 January 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/09/politics/pizzagate-gunman-killed-police-shooting . Accessed 10 July 2025.

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Search engines often present results in a way that feels objective, but most people rarely question how those results are chosen or what information is being left out. Algorithms play a major role in shaping how we see the world by controlling what shows up and what doesn’t.

Some websites or content creators even get buried through practices like "shadowbanning", while others can pay to appear at the top of search results, even if they’re less accurate or not what people are actually looking for. Sites like Fandom, for example, often show up first, even when their information is outdated or incomplete.

They decide what information gets through, and these filtered views influence how we understand reality, especially as online spaces become more central to public life.

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Reading Sophie Bishop’s article on influencer creep helped me understand how social media platforms have pushed the boundaries of what counts as “work” and who gets pulled into it. What stood out to me was her point about how influencers are expected to always be “more”, more authentic, more engaged, more optimized for algorithms . This pressure doesn’t just affect influencers, it spreads into the lives of their families too.

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A clear example of this is in family vlogging culture. These creators turn everyday life into content, often involving their kids in daily routines, emotional moments, and even private conflicts. What started as casual documenting turns into a full-time business, and I’ve noticed that the pressure to keep producing often leads to burnout, not just for the parent running the channel, but also for their partners and children too. In some cases, kids grow up completely on camera, without being able to consent or even fully understand what’s happening.

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Bishop talks about how influencers feel responsible for pleasing algorithms and keeping their audiences engaged. Family vloggers experience the same thing, but the emotional and mental labor gets distributed across their whole household. This shows how influencer creep isn’t just about individual content creators, but how the demands of platform culture bleed into everyday life, even more so when profit is involved.

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Being visible online is now part of how we measure success. But that visibility comes with a cost, and sometimes it’s kids who are paying it.

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Bishop, Sophie. "Influencer Creep." Real Life, 9 June 2022, https://reallifemag.com/influencer-creep/. Accessed 25 July 2025.

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Self-documenting and self-branding are becoming basic to all forms of work

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In Coded Bias, Joy Buolamwini shows how facial recognition systems deployed in the UK regularly misidentify Black and Brown faces. These aren't errors, they're actually the result of the tech in question being built using biased datasets (such as having more data on white faces than black ones). Despite being marketed as “objective,” this technology actually reproduces and reinforces inequality. Our textbook defines this as a form of malinformation, real data used in harmful ways.

Sources:

Kantayya, Shalini, director. Coded Bias. 7th Empire Media, 2020.

Flew, Terry, and Richard Smith. New Media: An Introduction. 4th Canadian ed., Oxford University Press, 2021.

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Stephen Colbert’s idea of “truthiness” helps explain why the public accepts biased AI as neutral. Colbert defines truthiness as believing something because it feels true, not because it is true.

Facial recognition gives off this appearance of being advanced and therefore trustworthy, but that sort of belief hides the underlying bias and very real potential for harm. Belief in this sort of AI based models are based not in the truth regarding this subject, but instead off of the readers truthiness when it comes to AI.

Sources:

The Late Show with Steven Colbert. “ 'Post-Truth' Is Just A Rip-Off Of 'Truthiness' “ Youtube, 18 November 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck0yqUoBY7M

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Chomsky’s propaganda model reveals how media systems distort public perception through five filters. In the case of AI surveillance, these two filters stand out:

Ownership/profit orientation: Media organizations and their corporate sponsors benefit from the booming surveillance industry, so they don't have any real incentive to critique it.

Sourcing: News stories often rely on tech companies and law enforcement officials as authoritative voices, framing surveillance tools as smart governance rather than as threats to civil rights.

Sources:

Flew, Terry, and Richard Smith. New Media: An Introduction. 4th Canadian ed., Oxford University Press, 2021.

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Misinformation isn’t typically loud or obvious, it can be silent and deeply entrenched into systems. Facial recognition systems aren't just biased, they’re backed by media narratives, corporate profits, and our own personal desire to believe in technology that can be more neutral than a person, but this tech is just as biased as the people, tools, and data used to create it. By failing to critically question these tools, we mistake control for truth.

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While reading chapter 9, I was surprised that the public domain is supposed to be the default, not copyright. I always assumed creative works automatically belonged to their creators forever, but it turns out copyright was originally meant to be a temporary exception, not a permanent rule. This really shifted how I think about media ownership especially when so much content feels locked behind corporations and paywalls.

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Copyright used to last only a short time, but now in Canada it generally lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. This extension delays when works enter the public domain and become freely accessible. It feels like the balance has shifted too far toward protecting corporate interests rather than fostering cultural sharing.

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Companies like Nintendo aggressively defend their copyrights, even on old games they no longer sell or update. I first played Super Mario Bros. on an emulator because I didn’t own a console. It seems unfair that fans who keep these games alive through emulators or fan projects are often punished, despite no legal way to access the originals (discontinued consoles, discontinued games, the e-shop for the console is shut down, etc).

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It often falls to fans to preserve and share games, manga, or films when companies abandon older media. Even though this sometimes violates copyright, these efforts help keep culture alive for new audiences. That kind of access feels essential, especially when official versions are unavailable.

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Many people like me first encountered certain media through “unauthorized” means (like emulators or aggregators). While legally complex, they pave the path for new fans to discover and appreciate works, and often encourage them to support creators later through future purchases.

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Reading about copyright law made me question who it really serves. If it’s meant to support creativity, then it should balance creators’ rights with public access. But today, copyright often feels like a tool for control and gatekeeping, limiting how culture can be shared and adapted to only the ways that make corporations money.

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Sources:

Flew, Terry, and Richard Smith. New Media: An Introduction. 4th Canadian ed., Oxford University Press, 2021.

Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO). What you should know about copyright. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/canadian-intellectual-property-office/en/guide-copyright