Old Media vs. New Media

When addressing the concepts of old media versus new, there are a number of similarities and differences between the two. Old media consists of your typical print information sources, such as newspapers, journals, and magazines. It used to be the best way of informing the public regarding anything from politics and current events to food and travel. This much is the same for new media content, as well. However, new media, courtesy of the Internet, has made it much easier to obtain this information. Access is quicker and larger amounts of information is more readily available. The big difference was the creation of the Internet and it has taken media to a whole new plateau. With old media, if someone wanted to respond to the topic at hand or discredit it, they would have to send their rebuttal via print also. Now someone can comment to a blog post or article in a matter of seconds. One of the articles I read on ojr.com stated that new media is a digital revolution that has changed everything. This is most certainly true. New media has devastated some print businesses but has also given others the incentive to take their newspapers and magazines to the Internet. As another article noted, "all the staples of the old newspaper format are proliferating online." New media is an upgrade of the old way of sharing information and is continuing to prove beneficial to society.

Information Overload

There is nothing far-fetched about what Mark Nelson has to say about information overload and its hold over our society. The Internet is an ever-expanding realm that has become more of a catalyst for frustration than anything else. Was not the point of the Internet to make gaining access to needed information quicker and easier? It seems that this novel idea has become just that, novel. Eliminating unnecessary results only distracts the reader from reaching their ultimate goal. The only problem is that with the amount of new information added to the Internet on a daily basis, there seems to be no viable solution for the problem at hand.