Journal #5 Response: "What Do Technical Communicators Need to Know about New Media?"

The greatest structural change in the world --socially, politically, rhetorically, and economically-- in my lifetime has been the internet.  Uber, the number one transportation company in the United States, paid for no gas, changed no tires, replaced no radiator fluid last year. The number one transportation company in the U.S. has no vehicles.  Airbnb, the most used accomodation company in the world, has no rooms or motels. What they have is leverage--the leverage to effectively harness new media. 

Is "what I write..separable from the medium in which I produce it"? I'm not sure that it is. "New Media" is both more limited (in terms of content restrictions) and more unlimited (in terms of options for disseminating a message). It is both faster, and in some situations can be slower (creating, editing, and sending out a voice recording as opposed to talking to an audience in a physical room).  

Wysocki, Anne Frances. Solving problems in technical communication. Johnson-Eilola, Johndan, and Stuart A. Selber, eds.  University of Chicago Press, 2013. pp. 428-453.