contemplating digital orality

A colleague of mine recently suggested that New Media is everything newer than the pencil. However, I cannot accept such a simple definition; all media is new at some point. To the chirographic era, the pencil was new media, as was the Gutenberg press. Being that so many new media forms have arisen over the last few decades, what constitutes New Media may differ between individuals. For example, few scholars would consider the pencil to currently be New Media (although some might argue for it). However, as we consider a somewhat more contemporary example, such as the CD player, the level of agreement begins to rise. Of course, newer and unique media forms, such as Skype, Viddler, Jott, etc., are invariably agreed upon as New Media.

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Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. The MIT Press, 2000.

The promise of push-pull media is to marry the programming experience of television with two key yearnings: navigating information and experience, and connecting to other people. (By Kevin Kelly and Gary Wolf, “Push” in Wired Magazine Issue 5.03 | Mar 1997).

In Chapter 14, Bolter and Grusin discuss the concept of “Convergence,” based on a 1997 article from Wired magazine, in which the editors proclaimed the end of the Web browser in favor of the new push technology formed of the convergence of existing electronic technology. The wired editors go on to suggest that the many media of cyberspace are converging as if being pulled together in a way as powerful and unavoidable as gravity. Specifically, this convergence is comprised of the telephone, television, and Internet and offers a more full bodied experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. The MIT Press, 2000.

In chapter two, the authors discuss Mediation and Remediation. They note that while hypermedia and transparent media are opposites in design, they have a common goal: to move beyond representations and attain the real. However, the real is not some objective, universal truth that applies to all and that one can uncover. “The real is defined in terms of the viewer’s experience; it is that which would evoke an immediate (and therefore authentic) emotional response” (53). So, transparent media tries to hide the fact that it is mediated, while hypermedia puts this fact up front and strives to offer the user a richer experience, thus invoking a fuller reality. Read the rest of this entry »

Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. The MIT Press, 2000.

Repurposing as remediation is both what is “unique to digital worlds” and what denies the possibility of that uniqueness” (50).

In chapter one of this text, the authors discuss immediacy, hypermediacy, and remediation. Fittingly, they offer the disclaimer that they make no claim that any of these three concepts are universal truths, but rather that they are practices of specific groups at specific times. Read the rest of this entry »