Critical review of "The Language of New Media" Chapter I - "What is New Media?" by Lev Manovich
Manovich says that the popular definition of new media identifies it with the use of a computer for distribution and exhibition, rather than with production. He thinks that it is too limiting to consider texts and photographs distributed with the use of computer as new media, and the same texts and pictures distributed in books as not. He thinks that computer either used for distribution or production, influences (or does not influence) the culture the same way.
The computer revolution we are experiencing today is nothing ever seen before. If the emergence of printing machines influenced the distribution of texts and the invention of photography influenced the production of still images, then computers affects all types of media - texts, still images, moving images, sounds, etc.
Manovich brings out an interesting idea that today, all of our culture is being shifted into computer mediated form. Everything from books, movies, photos can be produced, distributed and communicated through computers. He looks at the two parallel paths which both lead to the development of a computer as we know it today. The first path is the convergence of computing and development of calculators, the other is the convergence of media technologies. It is interesting to realize, that everything we experience while using computers are actually numbers and mathematics. Every piece of information has its numerical representation which could be understood by the computers in order for them to create content.
In the chapter of "How Media Became New" he goes through the historical inventions and developments which are all a prerequisites to developing computers. Here he describes the trajectories of computing and media technologies. He said that For a long time the two trajectories ran in parallel without ever crossing paths. When finally in just less than 70 years ago the two paths meet, Manovich says that the media becomes new media. Basically it can be said that new media was born by merging computing technologies with media technologies. Calculators with cameras or printing machines.
Manovich describes the principles of new media, which can not be used for characterizing old media. These are:
- Numerical representation
- Modularity
- Automation
- Variability
- Transcoding
Numerical representation means that all new media objects, whether they are created from scratch on computers or converted from analog media sources, are composed of digital code; they are numerical representations.
Modularity suggests that every media element consists of smaller parts like pixels, polygons, voxels, characters or scripts. The small particles form together a media element such as a still image, music, text etc. These media elements could be used together to make a film clip for example, which is again another media form. While modulating all these media elements and changing their purposes, the all the elements still stay the same and their identity remains.
The principles of numerical representation and modularity together allow another principle to emerge - automation. Many operations of media creation, manipulation and access could be done without human help. The texts and pictures could be automatically corrected by the software. Automation is used in creating 3D effects in movies and computer games, also in creating new virtual objects from scratch. All this knowledge is programmed into computers by numerical representation and modularity. Computers logically assume how every element fits into the larger picture.
Variability of new media is also derived from principles 1 and 2, but is also closely connected to principle 3 - Automation. While old media involved the industrial development of identical copies of books for example, then new media can be characterized by variability and have many different versions.
Manovich says that new media can be seen as consisting of two layers - cultural layer and computer layer. It means that in one way the content of new media can be seen by humans as a collection of images, which could be interpreted as some kind of a narrative or comprehensive content, in the other hand the computer "sees" the same content as numbers. It is again interesting to see how computers and numerical representation can form the media into something which could be easily understandable for humans.
Manovich's views on new media and its principles give a logical and intriguing overview of the essence of computerization and new media. His theories although from almost ten years ago still illustrate the ways media and computer technologies are developing to this day. As he stated, the principles 1 and 2 are the prerequisites for principles 3-5. Therefore it could be that ten years from now, some more principles will emerge to characterize new media or even produce a newer media.
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