Interfacing with the Macromedium: The Web 4.0 and the Digital Media Converging into a Medium of All Media

Abstract

This text displays a unifying theory on digital media. Its focus is on the Web 4.0 and terminal digital devices we use to be online. In our present time we are interfacing with a new medium, a medium of all media. We call it the “macromedium”. Following the trend of convergence, the new macromedium encompasses all apps, websites, social media and terminals, like the computers and the smartphones and tablets.

When speaking of results, one has to highlight three specific characteristics of the macromedium. First, the macromedium has a large scale in size, because it is both all the hardware and all the software we use to interface with data (websites, apps, devices, cloud storage, search engines, servers); second, the macromedium because it records everything we do, it transforms the Web 4.0 and the digital devices we use, like the smartphone, into history-media. All our digital trails, keystrokes and searches, purchases and connection events become recorded, an indelible record; third, the macromedium is so powerful and all-encompassing that in the near future different file types will not matter, as any device or system will be able to read any format. As long as it is on the macromedium, it will be like flipping the switch to have electricity on. Last, but not least, the macromedium favors access to data in a different way. For the first time in history, all generations have access to the same news, the same sources, the same entertainment and regardless of their age, location, social class and political views. Convergence is taking place, on a technological level, but also on a social level. Younger crowds and the elderly have access to the same information, the same space, what once would be called “cyberspace”, “virtual domain”. At least in the northern hemisphere, the macromedium is coherent.