A Study On Paul Levinson's New New Media Thoughts

In recent years,studies on Levinson's media theory and technical thought have been gradually deepened.However,enough attention has not been attached to studies on Levinson and his “new new media” thoughts,as well as other scattered media insights related to the “new new media”.In particular,as a new form of media,the transformative property of new new media has not been comprehensively and sufficiently elucidated although it can be found that the media thoughts contained in some discourses are obviously consistent with Levinson's “new new media”.The fact is that the “new new media” was pioneered by Levinson while Levinson's "new media" thinking is still “unknown”.The “new new media” thoughts not only serve as the continuation of Levinson's theory of media evolution but also can be regarded as a unique embodiment of media evolution in the new era.The media environmental school have provided a sufficient theoretical foundation for the "new media" theory.In addition,Levinson has been influenced by various thoughts,especially American pragmatism,rationalism,and Karl Popper's philosophy,which can also be fully demonstrated in Levinson's “New New Media”.According to the media practice,it can be seen that the media environment has undergone dramatic changes,and new new media has become the mainstream at present.More and more scholars are likely to define this media environment as a new media,whilst based on the new media environment practice,Levinson separates new new media from the new media and explains its guiding principles in the metaphorical way,which reveals Levinson's ingenuity.More importantly,Levinson summed up the characteristics of new new media in his specific media practice.Levinson adroitly senses and observe those changes in media form,and participates in the specific practice of new and new media on the alert.The core principle of the media ecology lies in that “the media is the environment” and the media builds the environment in which we live.The media environment built by the new new media confers the users more sufficient and direct freedom.The opinion that “Every consumer is a producer” suggests that anyone in the new media environment should be the owner of the environment and participate in the production of media content.This breaks the rules between human,old media and new media.Human becomes a person with true freedom of expression,which is the underlying core feature of Levinson's new new media.Production is the concept of initiative,but consumption is passive.Human are correspondingly active in the process of content production.The new new media has made the transformational change from passive acceptance of content to active production,which is impossible for any medium so far.It is no exaggeration to conclude that the new new media has fulfilled the pursuit of freedom for the last millennium in human history.Freedom is an eternal theme for human.Levinson captures themost prominent feature of the new new media and considers it as a fundamental feature for classifying old media,new media,and new new media.Under the new new media environment,the media compete and catalyse each other.As for media evolution theory,Levinson puts forward that the media compete for the attention and time.In the new new media environment,the mutual catalysis between the media is more obvious.This means that the new new media environment provides an opportunity for media to“cooperate”,similar to media integration.In other words,the new new media environment creates a warm and big habitat for media integration,so the “mutual catalysis” of new new media allows various media to be integrated.In this way,another new medium has emerged afterwords.Levinson's philosophical media thinking puts “human”at the core.Representing the“humanization trend” of media evolution in media evolution theory,Levinson has already emphasized the “human” as the principle existence of media evolution.In the new new media environment,the humanization of media is more distinct.Only when the media meets the needs of human can it survive and develop further.Owing to its core characteristics,everyone can join and apply new new media which in turn makes the negative influences of the new and new media even more obvious,and it is human themselves that are able to tackle this problem successfully.The emphasis on human mainly attributes to the influence of “human chauvinism”.In the process of media evolution and function,human are at the core position,which reveals the media theory of media ecology that media study should affirm the subjective position of human,and highlight the humanistic care.In terms of the relationship between new new media and human,Levinson has asserted that“The new new media will eventually surpass the user's control”.The relationship between human and the media is the focus of the media ecology.Levinson has pointed out that the new new media is not entirely an extension of human beings,which creates theoretical conditions for the new new to eventually surpass the user's control.The transcendence over user control implies that human have lost the dominant position in the media.Since human have created media technology,how to solve this problem is what Levinson mentioned.Therefore,in the new new media environment,how to treat,explain and solve the problem of media transcendence over user control is what media environmental ecology needs to explore.Although Levinson's new new media thinking is not systematic,and the views are scattered,it is still a bold theoretical innovation in media development.