What is New Media?
According to Manovich, new media consists of everything that can be viewed (but not necessarily manipulated) on a computer (43). The things viewed on the computer can (and usually do) have a print counter part, however the print counter part is not considered new media because it is no longer in its digital form. For example, this blog is published in digital form so it is considered New Media. Even though the blog is currently in digital form and is considered New Media, if we were to print it and pass it out to the class, the blog would lose its New Media smell and become old news before its time.
How Media Became New
Computers have been around a lot longer than I knew they had been. The first "computer" was a loom that functioned with punched-out index cards, and took its commands from the patterns on them. This machine came about because mass media was starting to pick up, and a way to mass produce papers was needed because typesetting on a printing press was a nightmare. After the new printer came the first mode of movies when pictures were put into motion. Electric tabulating machines started to pop up around the late 1800's and they were a life-saver for everyone who had to calculate numbers by hand. In fact, the machines became so popular that the Tabulating Machine company evolved into IBM in 1924. Once computers took hold, everything was translated into ones and zeros and put onto computers.
The Five Principles
1. Numerical Representation:
Everything that has been turned into data is represented by 1's and 0's that are reassembled on the screen to show us what we've clicked on, or opened up. The pictures and other things stored in numerical sequences are described using mathematical functions. All things stored in "data format" can be changed, and all changes are made with algorithms.
2. Modularity:
Everything can be changed or manipulated and what we see on the computer screen is made up of pixels. Pixels are the one's and zero's, or the code, that make up what we're looking at. Coding became mainstream in the 1970's, when computers started to become more popular. Coding exists in every element of our technological world including our phones, TVs, game systems, cars, appliances with digital screens and many, many other electronic things in our lives.
3. Automation:
There are two types of automation, low-level and high level. Low-level automation consists of things created by the user on a computer from scratch while using a template or other things that already exist in the system. High-level automation consists of things the computer can do or make, but the computer needs to have some understanding of what it is making or doing. High-level automation is becoming very popular and ever-more useful in the world, and is driving the development of A.I. (artificial intelligence).
4. Variability:
Everything on a computer can be manipulated or changed, you just have to know how to do it. All content on computers is capable of changing, that is why viruses work, or should I say destroy? Viruses take one piece of the code and either change its algorithms to do something they're not suppose to, or destroy them completely. Humans can change the algorithms themselves as well, that is what our class is teaching us how to do.
5. Transcoding:
Transcoding is the translation of soemthing from one form to another. Manovich mentions that transcoding could have unintended consequences in the long run. He says that the cultural layer of New Media may be compromised by the technological means it is delivered, or translated, by because the computers' logic will override the logic of media either here or there within the code. Misunderstanding will eventually run amuck because we are losing part of the media's meaning by translating it into a sterile algorithm. Computers and software are constantly evolving, and that is where older things may get lost in translation.
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