C67. Rice, R. E. (2013).
Preface. In F. L. F. Lee, L. Leung, J.
L. Qin & D. S. Chu (Eds.), Frontiers
in new media research (pp. 1-6).
NY: Taylor & Francis/Routledge.
The
continuing emergence and diversity of new media forms, content,
services, and
affordances are creating a shift from the predominance and clarity of
the
technological object, institution, and transmission triad, as the
editors note
in the introductory chapter, to a frontier of convergence,
digitization, and
melting boundaries among technologies, institutions, content format,
participants, intellectual property and distribution modes. Even the
nature of
“media characteristics” (Rice, 1987) is in flux, due to continuous
innovation
and reinvention, and initial periods of interpretative flexibility.
People have
wide choices in content, format, group memberships, and even in the
development
of new material, features, services, and technology (consider the
pervasiveness
of social media such as Facebook, the social and commercial impact of
blogs and
Twitter, the rapid diffusion of new “apps” for mobile phones and
devices, and
the incredible deluge of videos posted to YouTube). Users not only can
create,
but also (re)distribute, recommend, and evaluate content.