ABSTRACT
Whenever media technologies start their diffusion process, they are discussed as the new media. Accordingly, there has to be a concept of the old media that might be displaced or at least change their former social functions (see chapter 5). Thus, thinking in terms of old and new media is a familiar aspect of media-related discourse. As a rule, this kind of discourse also includes the concept of new media users. The (often implicit) argument here is that the new media are not used as just another, more comfortable means to serve certain functions in everyday life, but that they are linked to new functions, to new patterns of social and cultural behavior, and finally, to new identities (Turkle, 1995). Although it is not yet possible at this stage of the diffusion process of today’s new media to evaluate this strong hypothesis, this chapter aims to provide empirical evidence with regard to the question of how far the so-called new media are actually new in functional terms and what place they occupy in young people’s media environment.
