MEDIA (OLD, NEW, & NOLD & OLW)

Medium/media=A material or abstract artifact used to communicate between things or people.

Mediation=Process of communicating between one thing or person and another using media.

Two questions to ask yourself about a medium:

1.  How does it change about we think about time?

2.  How does it change how we think about space?

AFFORDANCES & CONSTRAINTS

Affordance=A feature of a cultural tool (medium) which makes it easier to accomplish certain kinds of actions.

Constraint=A feature of a cultural tool (medium) that makes it more difficult to accomplish certain kinds of actions.

Five more questions to ask media!

1. How are media changing what we do and how we do things? (Doing)

2. How are media changing how we express ourselves and use language? (Meaning)

3. How are media changing how we relate to others? (Relating)

4. How are media changing how we think? (Thinking)

5. How are media changing how we manage our social identities? (Being)

ACTIVITY: AFFORDANCES AND CONSTRAINTS Select a non-digital technology and discuss how they have affected (afforded and

constrained): 1.  The kinds of physical things people can do in particular situations. 2.   The kinds of meanings people can express in particular situations. 3.   The kinds of relationships people can can have in particular situations. 4.   The kinds of thoughts people can think in particular situations. 5.   The kinds of identities people can assume in particular situations. If you can’t think of one try one of these – traffic signals, cameras, cash register, money, a sidewalk Now consider these technologies as parts of wider social practices. What other tech. are they used together with and in what situations? How do the techs and social situations affect what we do with these techs.? Jot down your answers.

MEDIA CONTROL/CONTROL MEDIA Media Control=

a. affordances and constraints b. technologization of practice (association of social practice of use with certain tech. so it’s difficult to use the tech in ways that don’t conform to convention)

c. access d. ease of use

Control Media (hacking)= a. appropriate (choose what media to use)

b. adapt (get a media to do something that fits your purpose) c. modifying d. mixing

AT/THROUGH OSCILLATIONS & HACKING

AT=Looking AT style. Looking at how something is put together (remembering there is a medium standing between us and reality)

THROUGH=Looking THROUGH style. Seeing or experiencing a medium as transparent (forget that there is a medium standing between us and reality).

What is media transparency?

What is media opacity?

How do these limit hacking?

THE MACHINE IS US/ING US

WHAT’S NEW ABOUT NEW MEDIA? Not much but a lot…right? Remediation=process whereby computer graphics, virtual reality, and the WWW

define themselves by borrowing from and refashioning media such as painting, photography, television, and film…but it’s more - remediation argues precisely against the idea that any medium (multimedia or not) could be self-contained. In defining a medium as that which remediates we set out from the position that all media were hybrid or mixed, that all media refashion other media.

Immediacy (or transparent immediacy)=a "style of visual representation whose goal is to make the viewer forget the presence of the medium (canvas, photographic film, cinema, and so on) and believe that he is in the presence of the objects of representation.”

Hypermediacy=a "style of visual representation whose goal is to remind the viewer of the medium.” Hypermediacy plays upon the desire for transparent immediacy, making us hyper-conscious of our act of seeing.

REMEDIATED?

REMEDIATED?

REMEDIATED ACTIVITY

Try using “waybackmachine.org” to see how websites have changed are changing.

1.  Find an example of remediation where you think new media has remediated old media.

2.  Find an example of where you think old media has remediated new media.

3.  How’s the logic of immediacy and or the logic of hypermediacy connected to technoligization of practice?

4.  What does thinking about remediation offer us when we examine “digital anxieties” or technodystopian and technoutopian arguments?

REMEDIATION – ONE MORE TIME AGAIN

Double Logic of Remediation=Our culture wants to both multiply is media and to erase all traces of mediation: Ideally, it wants to erase media in the very act of multiplying them.

Remediation=process whereby computer graphics, virtual reality, and the WWW define themselves by borrowing from and refashioning media such as painting, photography, television, and film…but it’s more - remediation argues precisely against the idea that any medium (multimedia or not) could be self-contained. In defining a medium as that which remediates we set out from the position that all media were hybrid or mixed, that all media refashion other media.

REMEDIATION EXAMPLE 1

REMEDIATION EXAMPLE 2

CONVERGENCE CULTURE

For Jenkins Media=Socially realized structures of communication, where structures (1) include both technological forms and (2) their associated protocols (from Gitelman).

Delivery Technologies=tools used to access media content (recorded sound is the medium).

CONVERGENCE CULTURE

Media changes through many channels. It isn’t pre-determined.

The bicycle story.

CONVERGENCE CULTURE

Black box fallacy=The attempt to reduce convergence to a technological model for identifying which black box will be the nexus through which all future media content will flow.

Convergence=A process…

SAY WHAT?

CONVERGERATE ACTIVITY

Let’s keep thinking about remediation and convergence culture. Let’s converge these terms as well as a few other terms and concepts we’ve learned.

A. Find and jot down one definition of media convergence (not the ones on page 2-3) that clearly communicates an aspect of media convergence you are interested in.

Illustrate the concepts from an example of media convergence that you’ve noticed (your favorite TV show might be a good place to start).

B. Think deeply here (immediate and hypermediate yourself) – how do you see the concepts of media convergence and remediation connected?