contemplating digital orality

Using my previous post on Interactivity as a launching point, I decided to revisit the topic of new media, which has much to do with interactivity. In May 2008, I addressed What is New Media and noted that it was a bit difficult to define it… and then defined it. New media can still be seen as a somewhat ambiguous term and a bit difficult to define, in part due to the inherently temporal, ephemeral nature of any definition in flux. However, we can certainly peg down a decent definition, beginning with the base idea from that 05.08.08 post:

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An article I wrote over a year ago was published today in the Rocky Mountain Communication Review. While it was a rather lengthy gestation period from submission to publication, I am pleased to finally see it in print. It looks very good. Here it is in PDF form:

Barrow, Time. (2009) “New Media in the Online Classroom.” Rocky Mountain Communication Review V.6(1): 62-65.

I just got word that my paper “New Media in the Online Classroom: Delivering Content with Web 2.0 Technologies” was accepted (as-is) for publication in the Rocky Mountain Communication Review (RMCR) edition on “New Media, New Relations.” This online journal should be publishing around March 1.

The paper defines “new media,” considering what constitutes new media in our current age, perceived benefits new media offers, and what it means to be “new” media. The paper then focuses on the transition of a face-to-face class to an online environment and on through various iterations from delivery via Blackboard® to the addition of a supplemental Web site, and finally to its current form, which incorporates many instances of new media and Web 2.0 technologies. The paper examines the implications of such delivery methods and goes on to consider the most logical direction for additional research in this area.

Those of you that were present in my Day 2 Podcamp presentation got a snippet of what this is about. This paper represents the more thorough, formal, academic presentation of the concept/topic. Once it is live, I will add a link to it here.

This post is in response to This comment, which essentially inquires as to the way in which elements of primary AND which elements of secondary orality play into:

• Orally-based web 2.0 technologies;
• Interpersonal relationships and the associated oral communication patterns;
• People in front of the radio or around an orator versus the experience of having those relationships in a virtual environment;
• Orality and epistemology; and
• Oral communicative patterns.

Additionally, the comment acknowledges the freedom podcasts [and related audio-visual discussions] grant us in terms of when/where (portability) and inquires as to how such technologies meet the innate need to set new knowledge into social context.
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In response to This comment, I’m not fully comfortable with “Video Chat,” which seems to suggest conversations generally formed of quick snippets of thought that are conversational and not fully thought-out before presentation. I’d prefer a title like “video discussion” or “audio-visual discussion.” [NOTE: While a google search of "visual discussion" revealing 3750 hits, shows I did not coin this term, it is a term I have not previously heard. Therefore, I will research how other people are using the term and will likely present a follow-up post with my findings.] This point is really about this concept that adding a video comment to an online video allows the commenter to more fully form his or her thoughts, just as one can do in a written comment.
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