How do you communicate with people every day? On your phone, face-to-face, through social media… this is what chapter five describes as “the medium” — our channel for communicating with others (Littlejohn, Foss, Oetzel, 2017).
I decided to focus in on the new media theory here because it refers to the world we live in today. It describes that “Web 2.0 and related technologies have unique features that have changed the way people communicate with each other” (Littlejohn, Foss, Oetzel, 2017). It’s no secret that the addition of social media has seriously changed how we communicate with our friends, family, and colleagues. For example, this is my first time ever having a blog, which adds another medium where I get to communicate with my classmates and other readers. And I wouldn’t even be able to have this blog without the help of the internet. But of course the new media that we have today are not the same as face-to-face interaction, but they provide new forms of interaction that bring us back into personal contact in ways that older media could not do, the chapter states.
I have my bestie and I pictured here because if it wasn’t for technology I wouldn’t have been able to attend her wedding this past summer. We met through AAU when we were in high school and haven’t lost contact since! Having multiple ways to communicate with her (on the phone, in a text, or through social media) have kept our friendship going! I’m so blessed that I was able to witness her marry her best friend — thank you technology for giving me multiple avenues to stay in contact with awesome people in my life!
Littlejohn, Stephen W., et al. Theories of Human Communication. Waveland Press, Inc., 2017.
Janae's Journey 
Hi Janae and thank you for that feedback which was very interesting.
The new forms of communication is nowadays a big topic and not only through the communicational lenses we have as communication students but also on a global scale. Taking the example of social media which first goal was originally to communicate easier with people we cannot often communicate with on a face to face base, we could observe that social media sometimes took us away from that first principle. Indeed, we can affirm that people sometimes forget the true meaning of social media by only communicating through them and forget how to communicate in a proper way when they face people. But I feel really close to you Janae when you say that thanks to social media, you can keep contact with your best friends that are not in Charlotte but somewhere else in the US; Thanks to social media, I can still communicate with my family and friends back in Europe and regarding that, I feel very fortunate and thankful that I am able to use social media and live in the Web 2.0 era.
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Hi Janae!
I really enjoyed reading your blog. I saw both of you in this pic and I started missing my best friend who also got married last summer, back home. I must say that it feels terrible when you can’t attend such occasion. I envy you for being able to attend your bestie’s wedding!
Well, I completely agree with you that the modern technologies with their unique features have taken way of communication into some different level. I feel privileged to have access to these modern technologies as I am able to connect with my families and friends back home whenever I wanted to, though we are miles apart. I was not physically present in my friend’s wedding, but I was able to be part of different wedding functions via video call and I am happy about it. Just as you haven’t lost contact with your childhood friends, even I am still in contact with few of my high school friends especially due to social media. We still share great bondings even though we don’t meet in person. Also, I was able to celebrate the most anticipated festival of my country. I was emotionally involved in all the rituals and celebrations. In fact, celebrating in such way strengthened my bondings with my family members and other close relatives. Such communication medium made me know more about the values of families and cultures in ones life. Thanks to the modern technologies.
Interesting post!
Sudina Shakya
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