New Media

The book “The Language of New Media” (p.16-32) by Lev Manovich offers a lot of interesting perspectives on the age of internet based media that I had never really thought about. Manovich offered up the “5 Principals of New Media” which are;

  1. Numerical Representation
    – Due to New Media objects being made on computers, they are created in numerical form, i.e. computer code. Because of this so many new avenues are available to us in media creation, especially in terms of saving time and money creating content, meaning the accessibility of media creation is much larger.
  2. Modularity
    – Each media element (i.e images, video, audio) is made independent to one another and because of this they can be altered and editing individually, oftentimes after the platform these media elements are stored on are published. An example of this is a HTML site, where objects like GIFs, videos, and the like are all accumulated on the one site to create a singular work, but they are still all individual texts that when taken out of the context of the site is still understandable.
  3. Automation
    – The simplest explanation of automation is the automatic functions of creation done by computers. There are “low-level” automations where the user sets the parameters of the computer and then automates accordingly, like key-framing in editing programs. Where automation gets really interesting (read: terrifying) is this idea of A.I software that can create literary narratives based on data it receives from human interactions.
  4. Variability
    – Variability goes hand in hand with modularity, but expands on the idea of individual texts as texts that can have multiple versions of the same text, whereas traditional media texts are stored in a physical space and are a fixed creation. By storing media within an internet database, anyone is able to access it and can branch out to multiple contributors, who can edit the content and create multiple versions of the same text.
  5. Transcoding
    – To transcode something is to transfer from one form to another. Manovich offers this idea of transcoding between cultural and computer layers, which he calls a “conceptual transfer”. This is a really interesting concept that we are really just scratching the surface of, where we can bridge the gap between how we communicate with the computer world and convey that into the cultural media departments.

After reading this section of the book it really helped me wrap my head around the concept of online media creation, to not just look at it from the perspective of a regular piece of media content that is put on the internet, but one that actually interacts with the online space, that adapts to its surrounds and can move around freely within a multitude of avenues within the internet. The ideas that we were conceiving for this assignment changed a lot after starting to see online media creation through this lens that Manovich created with his writing.

 

“I’m worried about the traditional media, but I think the new media is a plus for democracy.” – Bob Brown.