When a Medium Stops Being a Substitute
New media are often judged as substitutes. Can the video call reproduce the room? Can the digital document reproduce paper? Can the recording reproduce the live event? That comparison is useful at first because it identifies what may be lost.
It becomes limiting when imitation remains the only standard.
A medium also creates possibilities that its predecessor did not have. Distance matters differently. Participation can happen from places that were previously excluded. Close visual attention, recording, search, accessibility tools, and asynchronous exchange can alter how people take part. None of that proves the newer medium is better.
It makes the evaluation more accurate. The question changes from 'How well does this copy the old form?' to 'What kind of presence and interaction does this medium actually support?' A medium stops being merely a substitute when people learn to use its own affordances rather than apologizing for everything it is not.