Defining New Media: An Industry Association Perspective

In an industry marked by change, speed, and rapid growth, many have been challenged to define new media. So frequently has the question of meaning come up that the very project to define it has become something of a cliché. Does new media mean multimedia, the Internet, software, high technology? For most, the absence of clear definition is a problem. In a recent study from January 2001, Stephane Dion wrote: The parameters of what constitutes the multimedia industry are not clearly defined and this weakness presents a problem in terms of both individual business development and efforts to obtain funding.Here in BC, a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey conducted in July 2000 concluded: "New Media"…is an ill-defined and frequently misused term…consensus is hard to find. What these rather gloomy summaries fail to do is note the several similarities across many of the proposed definitions, as well as to recognize the dynamic potential this open-ended process of definition has for the industry. New Media BC has built a strong industry association that finds its strength in the diversity of its membership. Our membership includes ISPs, ASPs, web site developers, gamers, animators, Internet marketers, e-learning developers, schools, and software developers. It is a diverse membership which nevertheless recognizes shared goals. These goals include: making a commitment to digital technologies and formats, building strategic business partnerships, and sharing knowledge about technologies, skills, and markets. New Media BC has been careful to be responsive to the industry it serves. New Media companies don’t like to be boxed into narrowly defined terms. Therefore, we try to approach and define the industry through an understanding of the industry’s own dynamic generation of meaning over time. There are two sides to the new media equation: technology and culture. New media includes content production such as animation, writing, video, and design; interactivity is the other half of the equation. That interactivity is created by programmers and software developers, the people who allow us to talk in chatrooms, make online payments, and play a video game. We provide definitions of new media in our publications and during our activities with other industries, the government, the media, and the public, but they have, I would argue, a healthy provisionality. Meanings are important, and what’s more are possible. Initiatives such as the new media tax credit programs in Quebec and Ontario have, by necessity, generated definitions that make a real impact on how companies perceive themselves and how they develop. There will be ongoing negotiations between companies and legislators over these kinds of programs, but change is a feature of not just the new media industry, but also other cultural industries such as film, television, and publishing and also high technology industries. As an association, whose work is to serve and liase between the ever-changing business community and the institutions of the government, we must maintain a double-view to what we hope to gain by finalizing definitions of new media. Realizing consensus on meaning aids communication, we must also realize the growing interconnectedness of new media companies to the business world at large. A concrete example of this multi-layered and multi-directional convergence is found in the constant range of attendees we observe at New Media BC events. Although we have distinct Special Interest Groups for digital designers, new media marketers, e-learners, and executives, at any one meeting of these groups we have marketers, designers, programmers, business development officers, executives, government and university representatives all in attendance. Restricting our definitions can ignore this interconnectedness in industry and the convergence of not just technology, but also people, terms, services, and products.

Defining New Media: An Industry Association Perspective

Broadcast | November 29, 2001

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