ABSTRACT
It is important to resist hard and fast distinctions between producers and consumers ofnew media. The interactive nature of the new medium requires a consideration that all users are, initially at least, new media practitioners. An instructive parallel can be made here with the historical development and use of photography. In photography there is a very large market supporting domestic, amateur and professional photographic practices. News, fashion, sports and reportage photographers, high street portrait photographers, wedding photographers, fine artists, camera club amateurs and snapshooters all use photography and they all produce photographs. The products of all these different photographic practices are valued in different contexts and frames of reference. The same can be said for many other media practices, writing would be another good example, where many more people sustain the practice of writing than those whose writing is subsequently published, and far fewer still whose work is given marketing and media prominence.
