1. Key Concepts in Manovich

2. Defining New Media

• New media refers to the use of computers

• (digital tech) to record, store, create, and

• distribute media (43)

• Note: A printed book or poster could still be

• seen as new media (at least in part) if

• computers were involved in its creation or

• distribution.

3. Numerical Representation

• All forms of media are ultimately stored as

• binary (numerical) code on a computer and

• thus are easier to combine and transform.

• This principle is axiomatic (the basis of all the others)

4. Modularity

• Media elements, be it images, sounds, shapes

• or behaviors are represented as collections of

• discrete [numeric] samplesThese elements are

• assembled into larger-scale objects but they

• continue to maintain their separate

• identity (51)

5. Examples of Modularity

• Google image search (takes images from websites and puts in new contextenabled by modular structure of the web)

• Bb 2.0 (each video retains its own identity as distinct part of youtube, but they are also re-combined to make a new media object in another location)

• The concept of layers (in image, video, or sound editors)

6. Automation

• Decreases human intentionality in the creative process.

• Common examples: photoshop filters, wordpress templates, autotune

• Blurs lines between professional and amateur.

7. Automation and Database Logic

• The Internet, which can be thought of as one huge

• distributed media database, also crystallized the basic

• condition of the new information society: overabundance of

• information of all kindsBy the end of the 20 th century, the

• problem became no longer how to create a new media object

• such as an image; the new problem became how to find the

• object which already exists somewhereThe emergence of

• new media coincides with the second stage of a media society,

• now concerned as much with accessing and re-using existing

• media as with creating new one (55)

8. Variability

• Old media involves human creator(s) composing a fixed/stable text that is then copied and distributed through mechanical means.

• New media (like Islands, Carving, and Wilderness ) give rise to many different versions. And rather than being created completely by a human author, these versions are often in part automatically assembled by a computer (56)

9. Interface and Database

• It becomes possible to separate the levels of

• content (data) and interface. A number of

• different interfaces can be created to the same

• data. A new media object can be defined as one

• or more interfaces to a multimedia

• database (57)

• (Examples: Islands is an interface to flickr.com;

• wordpress templates are interfaces to your blog

• content)

10. Customization / Personalization

• You enter information about yourself and then the automated software creates a personalized interface to the database just for you.

• Reveals a post-industrial logic.

• (Examples: the wilderness downtown; amazon

• recommendations; pandora)

11. Hypermedia

• A structure of links for accessing multimedia content (each user makes their own path)

• Bb 2.0 and the dumpster are hypermedia texts (Islands is mostly not hypermedia since the variability is controlled solely by the program not the user).

• In a basic sense, the entire world wide web (internet) is one big hypermedia database.

12. Transcoding

• Key computer concepts (interface, database, search, modularity) begin to influence how understand ourselves and our culture (McLuhanesque: the computer is the message).

• The computer database starts to rival the print or oral narrative as the primary, valued cultural form.

• Computer can refer to any digital technology not just a desktop or laptop.