New Mediums

Constantly in today's society new mediums are being developed. As stated by Marshall McLuhan in "Understanding Media: Extensions of Man", a medium is any extension of ourselves. The article also states that any new medium consists of old mediums. Mediums, in turn, make up each other. Examples of mediums include something as basic as the assembly line to something as complex as html codes. New mediums constantly change the way our society communicates with the world as they are created. The few examples that I will be discussing are Facebook Chat, Youtube, and Tumblr.

Facebook Chat

I would say that Facebook chat is a relatively new form of medium. The free automatic application on the facebook site of course stemmed directly from facebook. The chat feature on facebook allows a person to be seen as "online" or "idle" (meaning away from they're computer) for all of their friends (or the friends they have selected) to see. You also are able to view your friends that are online as well. If you are online, you are able to chat with that person in real time. This is the same exact concept of instant messaging only done through the facebook website. The mediums that incorporate facebook chat include: facebook, text, instant messaging, emoticons, and the internet itself. The new medium has perhaps decreased the act of texting and due to this new medium, generally speaking, aim had become obsolete. Chat speak has probably increased and email and messaging has also decreased.

Youtube

Youtube is a new type of medium that has completely changed how the world listened music, watched videos, shares videos with their families, and watched television shows. Youtube was a fabulous new invention that gave people the ability to upload their videos to a live website that displayed them for other users and non users to view and watch. This idea was pivotal in today's society because no one ever had the thought of giving people the ability to download their own videos in live time. Mediums that make up this pivotal website include htmls, videos, comment areas, text, and music. This new medium presented the world with a new way of communication with other users, decline of purchasing music, time taken away from watching the actual television tube, and even contests were created through the use of youtube.

Tumblr

Tumblr is perhaps one of the newer blogging mediums that I am aware of today. Social networking itself is a medium and that makes of Tumblr. Tumblr is basically a blogging site where a person can write about their days, post videos and links, follow their friends, and organize all of their writing and posting in various formats and designs. It is a very unique blogging technique because of its variety in appearance, in my opinion. You can arrange your postings in chronological order, by pictures, or key words with different types of columns. The types of mediums that Tumblr contains includes the internet, text, photos, videos, audio, htmls, graphic designs, and links. The creation of Tumblr gives people new blogging techniques and ideas, more accurate ways to depict their thoughts based on personal taste. It may have also decreased postings on facebook or even writing in journals or diaries.