Summary 1: Lehman-Wilzig, S. and Cohen-Avigdor, N. (2004). The natural life cycle of new media evolution.

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The authors compare new media communication with a living being that follows a six-stage, natural life cycle of evolution.

The six stages are:

1. Birth (technological invention)

2. Penetration

3. Growth

4. Maturity

5. Self-defence

6. Adaptation/convergence/obsolescence

The model relates to how much time it takes to diffuse and adopt new media and how many ‘adopters’ exist at each stage. They also suggest that these stages can be tracked over time, but don’t provide a time log for their model.

They focus on the evolution cycle, and how older media can survive the advent of new media competitors.

In the first stage, the new medium is created, in most cases sprouting from existing media that is lacking. In the second stage, the new media enters the market where it is ‘tested’ by a usually technologically conservative audience. So what society and the leaders in that society think of the new medium, and whether society is ready for the new medium, largely shape that new medium and determines its successful growth, which is the next stage.

The growth of the medium is where the audience starts shaping/defining the nature of the medium (eg. Using VCRs for renting movies rather than taping tv shows). They argue that, while there are several contributing factors to the growth of a new medium, the most important is whether the audience needs it and is ready for it.

The maturation stage is like the medium’s “golden age”, in which it becomes widely adopted and flourishes in the market. The creators spend on marketing it, fix glitches, appeal to new users, improve or add to it. But soon enough the new medium is threatened by a newer medium and now needs to survive, which is the defensive resistance stage.

 

The authors argue that new media basically forces older media to adapt. In a way, new media strengthens older media in this way. The older media recognizes the threat the new media poses on it and starts to improve itself in order to adapt and keep its audience.

 

The final stage is three-fold, in which the new media either adapts (by finding a new audience or sub-audiences), or converges (by piggybacking on the new media), or becomes obsolete (as many media don’t survive because they can’t adapt with new media).

 

In essence, the authors suggest most older media will survive, but in a changed form, and that old media might converge into new, multimedial and multifunctional media.

 

The authors focus their writing largely on an assumption that traditional media wants to survive. What is perhaps lacking is how the evolution of new media impacts on different societies – the same model that applies in the US does not apply in South Africa, for instance. It seems the authors assume that old media will adapt or die, however, some traditional media have gone online as a fashion statement or a marketing tool.

The authors’ model of evolution seems also to be a linear, perhaps even superficial analogy, lacking in defining the growth of digital technology as the backbone to the growth of new media.

 

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