New Media

When reading "The Language of New Media" I found the talk of what "new media" actually is very interesting. How words on a computer are, but words on a piece of paper are not. I didn't really understand his point as to why this shouldn't justify this media as being new media just because they can both equally have effect on society.

Manovich's first principle of "new media" really made me think about digital technology. The numerical representation of a picture. I already knew that everything in a computer is in binary code, but I don't really picture the design of something like that in text, or especially in a picture. When Manovich talked about how new media is subject to algorithmic manipulation, or that "media becomes programmable." Like the formulas required to change the sharpness of a picture. Although I agree that both new and old media have the power to effect equally. What makes computer's new media is this programmability. Which allows this "Modularity" of movies or clips. The program Photo Shop has to be mentioned when talking about these principles. I watched a clip the other day on you tube of speed drawing on with photo shop. There is no doubt in my mind that we are well on the way to replacing hand drawings with digital drawing. The detail was amazing. This is a new media...not because it's new information but because of the medium, the method. The digitalization. The modularity & automation.

I just liked this article because it makes me think about the actual process involved in creating something like this text for this blog input. It's easy to take it for granted and think that displaying this text was a simple process. But the algorithms are crazy. I can't even imagine creating programs with capabilities of iMovie, or iTunes, or Photo Shop.