lovehatethings

Whether you call it "New Media", or "Digital Media", or "Social Media", the time is rapidly arriving where the qualifiers have become redundant.

I wish I could say that we could define the divide between "new" and "traditional" media as subjective or objective with the subjective being personal bloggers and podcasters, but it's a sad fact that most network television, radio, or last-gen media is completely subjective as well.

We cannot qualify by level of research or journalistic integrity because all generations of media waft back and forth through actually researching what they're talking about or caring about facts.

As the potential for to reach worldwide to millions of people has outstretched the potential of last-gen broadcasters, it's not fair to distinguish the two by using the term "broadcast". Who is to say that a live streamed web event is not broadcasting?

We cannot call it "personal" media, because some websites have essentially become their own networks with dozens of employees and paid "on air/web" talent.

I even tried to apply a tested and true model for me with regards to artistic pursuits which generally falls to whether the creator is creating for the purpose of the work itself, or instead is doing it for some other purpose which subverts a purer intention. Could we use "art" and "craft" to divide such media? Perhaps, but it would be essentially useless as we could never be accurate without asking every content creator and be assured they weren't lying.

We could use "amateur" and "professional", but the word "amateur" has historical been been seen as a "less than" proposition. [And even more recently by Steve Jobs who indicated consumers wanted to be able to sift through the amateur dreck.]

Would that I could simply say that "digital" media only represented content created by people on computers, but even that distinction falls apart as all television becomes digital, all television cameras and microphones go to hard drives, and all print media is predominantly generated digitally before it hits a press.

With all of these inadequate qualifiers to describe media and indicate something that's becoming progressively meaningless, we seem to have accepted the word "medium" should indicate the tool and not the content. For decades, when someone spoke of "the media", they referred to mass media outlets that would broadcast across a nation, or, more specifically, a group of reporters who may show up to an event. It seemed that the one irreducible primary was the reporter, the writer, or the television anchor.

Isn't the writer a medium as much as the newspaper, or the anchor as much as the television? And so isn't the blogger, podcaster, vidcaster as solitary a medium as the anchor. In fact, the experience of a solitary blogger or podcaster sequestered behind a basement PC is probably a whole lot less "social" than a production team in a newsroom.

So while some may argue that the worldwide web is a medium for social change that allows individuals to communicate with people quicker and further away than ever before, it could be called a social medium. But the instrument of content is still the person who, while a medium, is no more or less social than Walter Cronkite.

And if the content creator might be a less social medium than ever, have we really become all about the tools and less about the idea? Isn't the irreducible primary still fingers on a keyboard, a voice and a microphone, or a finger choosing how to frame reality?

Don't even get me started on Social Networking.

There is nothing so special in society as the charismatic orator. For entertainment and education value, the orator can stand on the stage, on the soapbox, behind the mic, in front of the camera, and reach out to one mind or a million. The content appeal and most often the appeal of the orator is completely subjective, yet the quality of certain individuals isn't lost on masses.

The practice has melded from the ancient to the cutting edge. From Greeks standing in front assembled crowds to podcasts that receive tens of thousands of downloads a day, the orator has moved from the floors of democracy to the warm glow of an LCD screen. And in so much I enjoy podcasts of people interacting, discussing and dialoguing, I hold a fond affinity for the monologue, the rant, and the introspective narrative. From Garrison Keillor to Henry Rollins, from Stuart Mclean to Jello Biafra, from MLK to Bill Hicks, from John Kennedy to Lenny Bruce, the orator has developed and ex panded to suit the needs of audiences and the conventions of the times. (And I'll take the heat here for not including any female examples - my only excuse is for populist impact and general ignorance of comparable pop culture examples, which is a more of a social tragedy than an excuse.)

That the orators of today can hide in a basement behind a microphone may bastardize the centuries-old traditions of standing in front of a crowd and bellowing to assembled throngs, but the intents have not changed: inspire, motivate, educate, even manipulate. Orators try to inspire confidence with confidence, encourage fun by having fun, and move to action by using words as tools - and sometimes weapons.

While some would complain that oratory is a lost art, I often think that, instead, the audiences have lost oratory. For hundreds of millions of people oratory has been reduced to places of public worship - the preacher at the pulpit. The orator used to represent the closest thing to mass media that existed during a place and time. Our attentions have been drawn to flash and pomp and circumstance, yet there's nothing quite the same as a live venue with a passionate speaker, a message, and a desire to communicate. If the ability to experience a charismatic orator live has waned from our consciousness, perhaps some of us have turned to modern substitutes.

I'll be the first to admit that the crowd atmosphere, facial contortions, body language and electricity is difficult, near impossible, to reproduce over a microphone, but remains, noenetheless, enjoyable. Our minds have a boundless ability to fill the voids left without the live experience. The podcaster also has a great strength that is borne on a huge disadvantage. Let's face it; there's little social inhibition in not downloading or stopping and walking away from listening to a podcast. The buy-in on behalf of podcast listeners ensures their engagement and should encourage the content creators. While millions of people sit solemn in houses of worship, there is a stigma involved in getting up and walking out on a sermon.

The faceless orator of portable media devices is not so much the Big Brother or Supreme Sister of the future, but instead a voice of choice, an expert in semantic antics, expressing luminosity in verbosity... and the Earbud Orator shall reign forever... or at least until something cooler comes along... like holodecks.