Hype Cycle - Hype in New Media

Hype in New Media

Hype in new media (in the more general media sense of the term "hype") plays a large part in the adoption of new media forms by society. Applying the idea of the hype cycle to new media technologies such as the iPod, which was found to have failure rates of 13.7% in a 2005 MacInTouch study in the middle of the iPod boom, we can see the same trends may apply for forms of new media as they apply to technology in general.

Terry Flew states that hype (generally the enthusiastic and strong feeling around new forms of media and technology in which we expect they will modify everything for the better) surrounding new media technologies and their popularisation, along with the development of the Internet, is a common characteristic. But following shortly after the period of 'inflated expectations', as per the diagram above, the new media technologies quickly fall into a period of disenchantment, which is the end of the primary, and strongest, phase of hype.

Many analyses of the Internet in the 1990s featured large amounts of hype, which as a result created "debunking" responses toward the Internet. However, such hype and the negative and positive responses toward it have now given way to research that looks empirically at new media and its impact.

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Famous quotes containing the words hype and/or media:

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