‘Writing on the Wall,’ by Tom Standage - NYTimes.com

A review of Tom Standage's latest (very) long-view book, The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation Is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories

"For nearly 20 years, we’ve thought of “new media” as the brash young upstart and “old media” as the stalwart if increasingly embattled establishment. But what if new media aren’t as new as we assume — and old media not really old at all? So argues Tom Standage in “Writing on the Wall,” a provocative book that asks us to look at media less in terms of technology — digital or analog? — than in terms of the role they invite us to play. Are we passive receptors for whatever facts, opinions and ad messages come our way? Or are we participants, sharing what we like with others, amending or commenting in the process? The second is characteristic of the Internet in general and social media in particular. But there’s nothing revolutionary about this, Standage says. Instead, it’s the role of consumer, so typical of 20th-­century mass media, that’s unnatural — and to Standage, a historical blip."

‘Writing on the Wall,’ by Tom Standage - NYTimes.com