How fast can new things become known as “common”?

Mediamorphosis gave us a new understanding about the transformation of technology and howit affects the cultural changes in the society. According to Roger Fidler, an internationally recognized new media pioneer and visionary, in his book “Mediamorphosis: Understanding New Media”, “Mediamorphosis is not so much a theory as it is a unified way of thinking about the technological evolution of communication media.” Moreover its process needs an integrated knowledge of human communications and the historic patterns of change within the overall system. New media (a form of mass communications using digital technologies such as the Internet) do not arise spontaneously and independently – they emerge gradually from the metamorphosis of old media hence the coined term Media-morphosis.

All the kinds of communication are intricately constructed into the structure of the human communication system and it cannot exist independently from one another in our culture. As new forms surface and develops, it influences, over time and to different degrees, the development of every existing form. The norm have been coevolution and coexistence, rather than sequential evolution and replacement. In the following example, we will see how history dictates that the old and the new will coexist, rather than the old one dying:

Radio. In the post-World War II era, Media experts predicted that amplitude modulation or AM radio would be most significant and profitable form of mass communication, they even saw no threats to radio. Yet, by the early 1950s, they revised their statements declaring that radio is in fact in the verge of extinction. However, this medium did not die but it metamorphosed into a new form of mass media – the frequency modulation or FM radio.

Television. Several media analysts predicted that television will soon undergo coevolution and metamorphosis – well, it did. According to them, viewers will be able to easily to aggregate and choose the programs they want to see, whenever and without having to surf channels or program their CDs and VCRs. Examples of which are the American video-sharing website – YouTube, Netflix wherein you can watch movies and TV shows online and even on mobile phones, tablet and more. Digital boxes and Google’s Chromecast allows the viewer to play audio and video content by streaming it via Wi-Fi from the internet or via local networks. These developments are some of the best examples of the mediamorphosis. Television did not die but it developed and created new mediums of visual communication.

Electronic mail. Nineteen years ago, Internet introduced a new emailing platform, Instant messaging (IM) and short messaging service (SMS). These new forms of communication offers real-time text transmission over the internet or local networks. It can also be seen that traditional media companies are creating new ways to distribute information. For instance, Facebook started with a simple online address book of Harvard students then it turned into a social networking platform. On August 9, 2011, it launched the Facebook Messenger that offers instant messaging service and software application which provides text and voice on iOS and Android versions. But, as of 2016, due to the needs of the society, variety of features were added including video calls (April 2015), group video calls (April 2016), games and sending attachments e.g. pictures, videos and the like. Facebook Messenger Web underwent Convergence where it creates another form of media to develop another.

Websites. Complexity is the last stage that support the morph media endures through the years. It is the stage wherein the simple became complex. Take websites as an example, as they develop they adapt trends and now they became complicated that there is too much trends, plug-ins, designs and whatever you can actually put in it. After which developers go back to creating simple and user-friendly websites then the cycle repeats.

As a final point, established forms must change in response to the emergence of a new medium if they did not, their only option is to die. From Paul Saffo’s 30-year rule, Mediamorphosis allow the same forces that shaped our past, rapidly (from 30 years to months e.g. Apple and Samsung Mobile phones) shape our future.

References:

1. Fidler, R. (1997). Mediamorphosis: Understanding New Media. California: SAGE Publications
2. Tan, M. (2014). Mediamorphosis [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://prezi.com/w_egzee3tfea/mediamorphosis/
3. McCan, J. (2007). Dawn of the Participation Age. Retrieved from https://participationage.wordpress.com/category/mediamorphosis/
4. Zhang, Lucy (August 9, 2011). “A Faster Way to Message on Mobile”. The Facebook Blog. Facebook. Retrieved February 15, 2016.
5. Flores, B.K. (2016). Mediamorphosis: Analysis on Fidler’s Mediamorphosis. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/6178602/Mediamorphosis