These new media are becoming an ecological force engaged in a dynamic dance between natural and synthetic systems. The following is an attempt to offer a few considerations toward such a goal. In order for us to attempt to realize this goal, we first must be able to envision the systemic implications of new media technology and content. Despite the hype, it is clear that technological and social developments in the last two decades of this century have indeed presented our global community with an ontological shift, a shift in the way we think of existence and the nature of reality, inaugurating a new reality and new ways of thinking about multiple realities. Questions about the nature of existence must be reframed by the new media generation to address the nature of existence today.
Ontology refers to that branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of existence.
Ontology distinguishes between the appearance or illusion of reality and more genuine or authentic forms of existence. Ontology is therefore concerned with the level of reality present in certain events and objects, but more importantly with the systems which shape our perceptions of these events and objects. These perceptual systems are important because they apply values which attribute meaning to such objects and events. Ontology locates the difference between real and unreal and then develops the implications of that way of differentiating the real from the unreal. Traditional ontology studies the entities or beings by observing the conditions under which we ascribe reality to beings.