The Insistently Brave New World

Book Review

New New Media, by Paul Levinson; Penguin Academics, 2009; 191 pages.

Those of us who have tiptoed cautiously into the Brave New World have reason for our trepidation. The first time you take a cell phone call in the bathroom is an epiphany. “My god, I can’t get away.” But you don’t have to answer it, do you?
Now comes the text message revolution. How do you duck that? And Twitter… What in the world is Twitter and why is everyone, including professional athletes caught up in the middle of a game, using it? Who could possibly be interested in knowing that you have an annoying hangnail?
What Fordham University communications professor Paul Levinson is calling “New New Media” (beyond the Internet into the wireless central nervous system extending out from each of our individual central nervous systems) has the ugly, SuperEye elements of Orwell’s prescience, yet it can be beautiful. How convenient to be able to skip the post office and send a message instantly to a relative, friend, associate. But those are actual people you know in person. What of the millions of “friends” who live in this virtual world? How can you keep up with it all without going crazy?

It takes a certain kind. That kind understands the reality and the potential of what Levinson calls the new new media world of Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, Twitter, podcasting (homemade radio shows on the Internet), news aggregators like Digg, and avatarish alternate worlds like Second Life, all of which he explains in this book. “New New Media” is a kind of primer for semi-dummies. It’s for people who have heard of all this but don’t know how it all works, so they don’t play.

Fearful of having a Facebook account because you think you’ll be stalked? Justified. Worried that you’ll never have a moment’s peace once you tread lightly into this netherworld? Justified. Like everything else in this society, the good comes with the bad, as Levinson points out. Proceed with caution.

Indeed, now that everyone and anyone can be a publisher, how will everyone and anyone know who’s telling them the truth?

This, of course, is a central concern for traditional journalists who are not happy to give up their turf, or more accurately, to share the turf with the great untrained. Levinson insists that this is a more democratic model, with citizens deciding what’s important and what isn’t. I mentioned Levinson’s book to a retired editor friend of mine, noting in particular the author’s pleasure in knowing that he and millions of others publish and broadcast as they wish. My friend’s simple response: “And there are no editors.”

My friend doesn’t need the job, so that’s not his concern. He mistrusts unedited information because it might not be vetted for accuracy or truthfulness. As he should. In a recent interview, Levinson insisted that quasi-Luddites like my friend and I have been wrong about the new media world. “There has never not been [ethical] standards,” he said when asked about that touchy topic. “That’s a misunderstanding of people who are not experienced in new new media.”

Still, Levinson warns, “Everyone recognizes that there are a lot of crackpots, criminals and unethical people out there. That’s why you have to take everything with a grain of salt.”

More like a mountain, maybe. For traditional news sources (newspapers in particular), making money on the Internet has not been easy and remains a quandary. Interestingly, Levinson offers lots of advice to the independent/individual publishers about how to grow their blogs and websites so that they can one day provide some income from advertising services such as Google’s AdSense and others. Eyeballs are the key; but how to get them.

It’s all about networking and cross promotion. Levinson, who writes science fiction novels as a pastime, has several Internet sites including blogs and podcasts, and he uses one to promote the other. A lot. He promotes his books on every site, refers people from one site to another, jumps on other people’s blogs with responses and comments that often promote one or more of his various sites. He’s a man in business. That’s the way it’s done, sometimes with astonishing results.

A woman named Mignon Fogarty started a blog where she gave people grammatical advice. That’s right, the proper use of grammar. On the Internet, where grammar has been beaten to an unnecessary pulp. Things went so well for her that she was given a book contract, and “Grammar Girl” hit the best seller list in a happy commingling of the old and the new.

Not everyone cashes in so nicely. We’re all familiar with that. But if you want to understand the Brave New World, Levinson’s book wouldn’t be a bad place to start. But be forewarned: He doesn’t miss an opportunity to promote his work by way of illustration. That, too, is the world we live in. Or is that in which we live? Let me check with Grammar Girl.

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