New Media Attributes

Disclaimer: This is lifted almost directly from my draft PhD thesis. It is posted here for interest, but recognise that concepts are explained in detail in the full version of thesis. (I thought I would spare the Web the need to post it in all its 5000 word glory.)
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‘New Media’ is a commonly used phrase, along with other apparent synonyms ‘digital media’ and ‘interactive media’. On closer inspection however, new media embodies a whole set of arguments and connotations. It is therefore important to set out clearly what the term means in this context.
Whilst new media understandably embraces a wide range of technologies (for example, the Internet and hypertext, mobile phones and physical computer games like Nintendo’s Wii) there are several defining characteristics which can be drawn out. Although these traits are not necessarily all present in each example of new media, there exists enough of a correlation between media objects to render the attributes meaningful and indeed invaluable for future discussions on the relationship between new media and storytelling.
Synthesising several sets of characteristics results in the following list of new media traits:

1. Digitality: the underlying technological structures which enable new media objects to be easily accessed, manipulated and remoulded.
2. Multimodality: the range of modes in which users can interact, impact and experience new media.
3. Immediacy: the twin goals of new media to provide such an immersive experience that it renders the medium invisible and to make media so pervasive that its incongruity becomes unnoticeable.
4. Dispersal: the distribution of new media objects across networks, accessible media creation tools and the geographical dispersal of increasingly mobile physical devices all enable dispersed production and consumption of new media.
5. Co-creativity: the experience and social dynamics of co-creating new media objects with other users as a bricoleur, contributing to revisions through feedback, interacting within and out-with predefined parameters.
6. Ephemerality: the transient nature of new media objects, as shown by the finite lifespan of their physical existence (e.g. mobile phones superseded by newer models), current accepted formats (e.g. file types/protocols) and the ever changing, mutable content they embody.
   

A final note on interactivity
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, interactivity was not adopted as a characteristic of new media in the definition for this thesis. Interactivity is a fundamental of new media in the same way that digitality is. However, as was mentioned at the start of this section, to explicitly include interactivity as an attribute in its own right is in many ways stating the obvious. Digitality was included because the direct consequences it affords of modularity and replicability were considered to be facets of digitality. The consequences of interactivity are particularly enmeshed in co-creativity and ephemerality but to some degree impact on every attribute. Therefore it was not deemed necessary to forcibly delineate interactivity into a distinct characteristic.

Comparison between Twitter and real life conversation

Reading Schank's 'Tell Me a Story', got me thinking about interactions on Twitter and how conversations start. To me, Twitter resonates with real-world face-to-face conversations by its fleeting, short time-limit tendency.

Generally, to start a conversation on Twitter requires seeing a tweet in more or less real-time. Tweets are found by either following the person tweeting or through a search for keyword. If too much time passes then the tweet slips down the list of latest postings to be unnoticed. Granted, if it's a particularly obscure keyword then a reply may be some days/weeks after the original tweet was posted, but in the main I would say conversations are instigated within 24 hours of posting.

Schank suggested that intelligence is intimately connected with story knowledge. Conversation is the exchange of stories. The more stories you know, the better you can select an appropriate story to tell next.

Schank says;

We are satisfied, as observers of actions, when the stories we hear match our own stories. When the match is very similar, we tell our version of the story. When the match is hardly a match at all, when we have a contradictory story, we tell it. Actually, the middle cases are the most interesting - when we have no story to tell. What do we do then? We look for one.

How does this translate to Twitter? Well, I'm not sure. But my own experience of Twitter conversations suggests that for the middle cases Schank suggests I simply do not tweet back.

Unlike real-life conversations, which require some form of mutual acknowledgement and interaction to maintain, Tweets are easy to ignore. A reply is not expected from each tweet. And I think this is what happens in the middle cases.

However, for dissimilar or similar matches, I think Twitter conforms quite closely to Schank's observations on conversation.

Storytelling Traits

I've been thinking a lot about how to characterise and define storytelling. I know it's always going to be a contentious issue and a lot depends on what your personal idea of storytelling is, but I've listed what I think below.

Please let me know if you agree or disagree with them. Perhaps I have missed something out, or one of the characteristics shouldn't be there?

N.B. A word of context first - this list was created on the basis of observing storytelling in Scotland (mainly through storytelling clubs). I'm hesitant to use the term 'traditional storytelling' as it is a continuing contemporary art form.

Here goes:

1. Diversity of stories and storytelling styles
2. Collective memory - shared memory of stories throughout storytelling communities
3. Performance - formalised event (different from normal conversation, even if it is impromptu)
4. Liveness - real-time event, not generally recorded
5. Physical presence of teller, eye-contact
6. Voice - as a tool for characters, emotion, suspense etc
7. Gesture and body language
8. Engagement of imagination - of both listener and teller
9. Connection between story, teller and listener - emotional, personal, group
10. Desire by teller and group to share stories

All thoughts welcome!