★ my experience with traditional media, and new media ★
Question 4: How is your experience of traditional media different from your experience with new media?
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Traditional media refers to communication delivered through physical or broadcast formats, which Gasher et al. (2016) describe as including “film, books, magazines, television and radio broadcasting … as well as an increasing range of new electronic information and communications technologies” (p. 337). While I did encounter some of these forms growing up, traditional media wasn’t really as prominent in my life as I initially thought; instead, new media played a much bigger role in shaping my experiences.
Growing up in the early 2000s, I had access to a variety of traditional media, mostly through my parents. I spent countless hours listening to their cassette tapes and music CDs. While I no longer use the cassettes, I still occasionally pull out my music player to listen to albums from my dad’s collection of 80s and 90s classics. It was through those albums that I discovered the artists I'd later come to love, like Michael Jackson, Madonna, and bands like Hardline, Vital Signs, and Journey when I first started getting into rock. Music played a central role in shaping my media habits and personal tastes as a kid, which eventually led me to curating my own CD playlists to listen to inspired by my dad’s collection. Listening to the radio was just as enjoyable for me, but nothing matched the connection I felt to these physical media collections.
New media began to play a larger role in my life once the family computer entered the picture. It was my first exposure to the internet, and I quickly became fascinated with research. I would send hours after school learning about space, dinosaurs, the magma crater beneath Yellowstone National Park--just about anything a ten-year-old obsessed with science could get lost in. YouTube amplified this curiosity for me, often leading me down rabbit holes of analysis videos, vlogs, documentaries, and so much more.
I liked involving my little sister in many of these activities, and we would play online games together on platforms like Roblox, Cool Math Games, or various Flash Player games that have since disappeared after support for it was discontinued. This was long before I got my first Wii, Nintendo 3Ds, or iPad, which later became my main entry into console gaming. By high school, my sibling and I were playing more console games, while my friends introduced me to manga, webcomics, and fanfiction, all part of the broader world of media the internet has to offer. I also transitioned to reading more books online once I had my first laptop, and social media became a part of my daily media use only after 2020.
While traditional media laid the foundation for much of the content I engage with now, new media expanded my opportunities to connect with others, including my friends and family in an away that keeps us all close despite being of different ages and interested in different things. Almost everything that I do now relies on new media, but I will never negate the benefits traditional media has also brought into my life.
References:
Gasher, M., Skinner, D., Lorimer, R. (2016). Mass communication in a digital age. In Mass Communication in Canada (8th ed.) (pp. 336-361). Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.