Throughout the past two weeks, our studio has been discussing multiple topics in relation to, new media and online screen media production whilst developing and producing assignment #2.

Every Thursday, in our studio there are 4 students who are picked randomly to showcase an online project, blog, etc. to the class. This week, 4 of my classmates presented different projects they looked at from MIT docubase. All of these projects that were showcased ranged from, a 360-degree video about a natural disaster site, a web room live stream to a digital cross-platform storytelling.

At the beginning of week 4, our studio started to determine and examine the Manovich reading. We started discussing the 5 principles of New Media. We were divided into groups and each group has to discuss one principle. One of the characteristics that I believe all the projects that were presented possess clearly and I had the pleasure of discussing more in-depth was: variability.

It was mentioned in-class that variability has a quality of being distinct. Unlike, other characteristics mentioned in the reading such as numerical representation, modularity, automation or transcoding, variability explores the idea of having multiple copies of different versions of a media object. However, it centralises deeply, on how this media object is a customised content.

i.e. when I scroll through Instagram’s explore or discovery page on my feed, it will appear differently in someone else’s feed = same app/copy, different version, different versions for different people

 

 

Two versions from two different users of ‘explore’ page on Instagram:

 

 

 

 

 

The reason for this is because, all the contents we see even if it is in the same app or software, is personalised to match us. Thus, it is multiple versions of diverse media information or objects simply, a content that is variable.

Going back to the MIT docubase projects that were showcased in class, it was argued that these media productions not only possess interactivity as its main feature but also, variability. One of the projects that were shown in class involves digital storytelling with a twist. That is, to also interact with other sources that leads to another page. This is called, cross-platform, which basically surrounds on the idea of hypermedia interactive links.

In relation to, variability, one of the main crucial trait within this characteristic is ‘hypermedia’ or links that basically leads to another website, page, source, app, etc. This shows that variability not only encourages interactivity through hypermedia but also, results in us as consumers to navigate through the Internet in a cross-platform manner.