Defining New Media

Issues in New Media Questions Blogs Class Discussion Schedule News Post presentation to TRACS by 4pm under Resources, same time as blog post News Video Excerpts from TED Talks

Thoughts on “new media” New media is simply written media as we know it, digitized and "glammed up" for faster processing and reception - Maira Cutting edge technology that is being thought of at this very moment - Cherie When I think of new media, the first thing that pops into my head is social networking sites- I think of myspace, facebook, all those sites we all deny we spend way too much time on - Dee I associate new media with updating computers and software and things that we already have and that exist - Meagan I confess, I've used the term "new media" a few times before without really considering its definition - Fazia My first problem with defining new media is that the word “new” is always changing -Sunday Symbolically, new media represents change - Shane So in short, "new media" are just a phase were going through and will soon grow out of - Chris

Thoughts on “new media” To me, new media is an advanced medium for information that is highly customizable, interactive, unique, and engaging - Scott It wasn't until I did the readings that I allowed myself to contemplate that the word "media" isn't relegated to journalism - Kerri So my definition of new media deals with how this information is being conveyed from point-to-point. The digitalness of the content if you will - Jac I'm not a fan of the term New Media - Michael Media today is all about the consumer, or end user - Theresa For me, new media is synonymous with the Postmodern epoch. - Cooper

Communications Media Communications media - the institutions and organizations in which people work - press, cinema, broadcasting, publishing, online Forms and genres of these institutions - books, newspapers, films, magazines, tapes, discs, Web sites Other definitions of media? Terms - multimedia; mixed media; transmedia

Defining New Media “New media” suggests something less settled, known, identified Changing set of formal and technological experiments Complex set of interactions between new technologies and established media forms From New Media: A Critical Introduction Despite these differences, singular term is applied unproblematically

Change Associated with New Media Shift from modernity to postmodernity Intensifying processes of globalization Replacement of industrial age by post- industrial information age Decentering of established and centralized geo-political orders Seen as part of technoculture - a larger landscape of social, technological, and cultural change Postmodernity (also called post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is a term used to describe the social and cultural implications of postmodernism. The term is used by philosophers, social scientists, art critics and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary art, culture, economics and social conditions that are the result of the unique features of late 20th century and early 21st century life. These features include globalization, consumerism, the fragmentation of authority, and the commoditization of knowledge (see "Modernity"). Modernity is associated with social progress, Industrial Age, Age of Enlightenment

Connotations of “New” New media as “the latest thing” Connotation of better, cutting edge, avant- garde Social progress associated with technology Broad cultural resonance rather than a narrow technical or specialist application Some prefer digital media (digital binary code, 0’s and 1’s), although that symbolizes a clear break with analog media. Digital seems purely technical Interactive media - single, ill-defined contentious quality CMC - computer-mediated communication - limitation to one set of machines and practices All problematic New media has broad cultural relevance - recognizes big changes, technological, ideological, experiential…general and abstract

Kinds of New Media New textual experiences New ways of representing the world New relationships between subjects and media technologies New experiences of the relationship between embodiment, identity, and community New conceptions of the biological body’s relationship to the technological media New patterns of organization and production Pg.12

Characteristics of New Media Digitality Interactivity Hypertextuality Dispersal Virtuality

Digitality Data input converted to numbers Can be output to both online sources or “hard copy” Analog - all input data is converted to another physical object Broadcast began conversion of analog to electronic; but scale and nature is much more significant in digital Symbolic realm of mathematics rather than physics or chemistry Binary data - strings of on/off impulses Still, there are relationships to physical processes; miniaturization limits, bandwidth; physical access Doomed - extraordinary fluidity and promiscuity of form Pg. 16 Media texts are dematerialized in the sense that they are separated from their physical space, photograph, book, film Data compressed in small spaces Accessed at very high speeds in non-linear manner Easily manipulated Email case - page 18 - question of authorship; authority of electronic letter; interpersonal implications

Interactivity Ideological - more powerful sense of user engagement with texts; choice Instrumental - users’ ability to directly intervene in and change the images and texts that they access. Hypertextual navigation Immersive navigation - visual and sensory spatial exploration Registration interactivity - users’ ability to register their own messages; bulletin bds, MUDs, MOOs Interactive Communication - ability of communication to emulate face-to-face Critical questions Problems of interpretation, definition, producers, p. 22

Hypertext Discrete units of material in which each one carries a number of pathways to other units. A Web of connections in which the user controls the navigation Vannevar Bush - As We May Think Ted Nelson - A New Home for the Mind Marshall McLuhan - Extensions of Man Bush - novel methods of storage and retrieval; will read for next week; memex; storage by association rather than by alphabetic or numerical indices Nelson - Non-sequential writing Hypermedia - Bolter and Grusin- references to McLuhan - rich sensorium of human experience. Hypertext referred to more in literary realm, interactivity more in computing and communication Two trajectories in hypertext scholarship - 1)return to previous works that challenged linearity, pg. 27 2) Hypertext scholarship as the technological embodiment of a particular moment in literary criticism. Reference Foucault, Barthes, Derrida post-structuralist- fragmentation, non-linearity, intertextuality, death of the author.

Dispersal Consumption - large number of highly differentiated texts; no longer simultaneity and uniformity of messages received by mass audience Selectivity of users Accompanied by intensification of merger activities limiting democratizing potential Production - craft skills of production becoming more dispersed, less specialized Media production processes become closer to habits of everyday life - PowerPoint, desktop publishing, Web design, photo manipulation, etc. Concept of prosumer Pg. 34 - Critical and satirical journalism flourishes; fans get a chance to participate in the realm of media celebrity, and independent film-makers begin to organize new alternative distribution networks. Craft bases and apprenticeship systems breaking down.

Virtuality Immersion - environment of computer graphics and digital video in which user has some degree of interaction Visual, tactile experiences felt to be in one place, while the body is in physical space Space - way of imagining the invisible space of communication networks Adopt different identities; new associations and communities Cyberspace - questions of embodiment

Being Digital Better and more efficient delivery Bits commingle effortlessly - mixing of audio, video, data - multimedia Bits about other bits - headers “If moving these bits around is so effortless, what advantage would the large media companies have over me?” (or you?) Potential for new content to originate from a whole new combination of sources

From Pencils to Pixels Trace the stages of literacy technology for the telephone; computer; the Internet. Do you agree with the author’s contention that “the computer is simply the latest step in a long line of writing technologies?”

Lev Manovich Teaches new media art and theory at Univ. of CA, San Diego Born in Moscow Studied fine arts, architecture, animation, and programming Wrote The Language of New Media, 2001

Manovich on New Media The ability to disseminate the same texts, images and sounds to millions of citizens Assuring that they will have the same ideological beliefs was as essential as the ability to keep track of their birth records, employment records, medical records, and police records. Photography, film, the offset printing press, radio and television made the former possible while computers made possible the latter. Mass media and data processing are the complimentary technologies of a mass society. Trajectories were distinct and parallel Ultimately the computer became a media synthesizer and manipulator

Principles of New Media Discrete representation on different scales Numerical representation Automation Variability Discrete representation - modularity - can be sized, combined, but still hold separate properties; object oriented Numerical Image/shape can be describe by a mathematical function; subject to algorithmic manipulation - media becomes programmable Automation Automatic correction - low level, removes human intention from creative process; artificial intelligence - high level; improved access - search capabilities- handle over abundance of information Variability Perfect copies and different versions- often created by computers (data to Web pages example, via templates) - values individual over society - everyone can make their own version Transcoding turn media into data - cultural layer vs. computer layer - will influence culture via organization - influence each other. These build upon one another