I have reflected on how “old” media has influenced the shape and creation of “new” media, but I have never actively considered how the new reframes our thinking and perspective on the old. In, Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media and Textuality, Pressman presents comparisons from other scholars on how old media might be analyzed through our understanding and use of our current media and technology. The postal service America’s Antebellum period is defined as a “precursor to our contemporary digital social network,” these two medias are not sperate, but related to each other in both directions, the postal service is like the social network, and the social network is like the postal service. Old media is not just what came before the new, but also an actual previous version of it. This illustrates how current new media and technology has always been desired and in development, however its previous iterations have had to be created before it.

New media is not necessarily just new, but newer, I think of it like a software update, Media 2.0. New media is not a complete reinvention of the old, but growth upon it that creates a large network of interconnected and related devices that have sprung from each other. The comparison between what is old and what is newer can of course be applied to objects outside media, a NEW iPhone when compared to its previous generations is not new, just newer, a person would not be lost on how to use a new phone, because they are familiar with the old one and vise versa, just as a person would likely quickly realize how to use and view old or new media based on their familiarity with one or the other.