New media refers to the more contemporary means of mass communication that involves digital technology like the internet. It is inherent with computers and computer technology and relies mostly on this for transmission and distribution. Legacy media on the other hand denotes to the conventional or rather traditional means common with forms such as newspaper, radio and television. With legacy media, the receiver plays no role in the distributed content and is thus considered to be totally passive.
The two types of media bear significant differences from each other, apart from the fact that new media is becoming increasingly popular among today’s generation of people. New media relies on several metrics to drive influence among users unlike old media which only has one way of doing this. As is evident with new media outlets, figures such as social shares, likes, duration spent on viewing items and dialogue are considered as invaluable means of metric scales. Success is therefore measured differently between the two media ( Ebert, 2011) .
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More emphasis is placed on community building by new media as compared to legacy media. Community development has become a mainstream phenomenon with new media as it seeks to captivate users by appealing to their human nature of wanting to give back to the community. It is almost impossible these days to scroll through social media without a pop-up or an advertisement that asks one to contribute to a noble cause (Ebert, 2011) . Furthermore, new media is more diverse as it offers almost every aspect of life information from social to financial in an integrated field unlike legacy media which tends to be subject cautious.
Social media for instance is a form of new media and has contributed to criminal events such as hacking of accounts and emails, which is a violation of one’s privacy. On the other hand, it is used to sensitize the general public by giving valuable information such as helplines and ways on how to avert dangerous individuals. Some people have fallen victim to cyber bullying which is a form of victimization on social media ( Kowalski, Limber, Limber, & Agatston, 2012).
References
Ebert, J. D. (2011). The new media invasion: digital technologies and the world they unmake . McFarland.
Kowalski, R. M., Limber, S. P., Limber, S., & Agatston, P. W. (2012). Cyberbullying: Bullying in the digital age . John Wiley & Sons.
