In this article, we’ll identify three defining features of today’s digital media and how they impact digital communication.
1. Interactive media is the ability to interact with computerized information and content in ways that are similar to how we interact with humans. For example, the website dictionary.com offers several ways for you to comprehend the meaning of a word or phrase (definition, synonyms, audio pronunciation, examples, and origin), allowing us to learn in more ways than a traditional dictionary book.
2. Social communication is the use of digital tools to facilitate communication with people, businesses, and digital assistants. For instance, Web conferencing tools like FaceTime allow us to have live or private visual and verbal conversations with people over vast distance. In addition, social network platforms like Facebook allow us to connect with people privately and publicly via several delivery channels.
3. Intelligence is the growing amount of digital tools that help us be better informed, make more intelligent decisions, and communicate more efficiently. This has grown with the rise of artificial intelligence in computing devices like, Google’s Google Assistant, which is a digital assistant that helps you to find info and get things done. It engages in two-way conversation with you via verbal or written means. It’s intelligent enough to reference prior questions, answers, and interactions with you to intuitively relate it to your current question in order to create and deliver a conversational response. In addition, users can interact with Google Assistant’s intelligent conversational user interface via desktop computers, smartphones, tablets, and wearable technology.
Next, let’s explore how digital media technologies can help businesses overcome the disadvantages of mass communication.