Summary

Starts with the popular definition of new media as anything that’s distributed on a computer, but Manovich finds that too limiting; he wants to include everything produced with computers, too. Computers are the convergence of computing and media technologies, starting with the Analytical Engine and the Daguerrotype, respectively. Computers used to just be big calculators, but now they have become media creation and manipulation tools. He marks new media as distinct from old media in that it has:

Key Terms

Numerical representation, that is, anything on a computer can be reduced to binary code;

Modularity, in that all the pieces still retain their identity and can be picked out of a piece of new media; 

Automation, meaning that because new media is digitized, many of the things that go into creating new media can be done without human interaction, on a level not previously possible;

Variability, in that multiple versions of the same thing are likely to exist for a variety of reasons;

Transcoding, meaning that all the parts of a piece of new media that have human or cultural meaning (like a story or a picture) also have a different level of meaning to the computer—basically the constituent parts of the software that converts it into an understandable form.

Old/New Media

Manovich’s dissatisfaction with what he sees as the popular definition of new media makes sense: books were a medium long before computers came around, but computers definitely did change books, so to leave them out of the definition seems strange in that light. Including things that are made with computers in the definition of new media makes sense because the whole concept of new media is ultimately tied to computers, and the whole “new media” thing is really a discussion of how computers have changed media.

Having spent a great deal of time on the internet, I’ve read many arguments about copyright over the years. So, nothing in the copyright readings was really new to me. I knew about Creative Commons and how it worked, and I knew about the rules for determining fair use. I didn’t know that different organizations had put together codes for their industry regarding best practices for fair use. I think the two most empowering fair use rules are commentary and parody, but perhaps that’s just because they’re the ones I encounter most. I don’t generally like to blame bad laws on Big Business buying off lawmakers, but with copyright law I think it’s actually the case—we wouldn’t have the ridiculously long copyright protection we do if corporations weren’t trying to squeeze every penny out of their intellectual property before they (reluctantly) give it up.

I haven’t had much experience with copyright myself. I learned about Creative Commons when Newgrounds started their audio portal for sharing music—rather than risk getting sued by the RIAA for pirating music, I started downloading things from Newgrounds that were meant to be shared. Another example would be using the Unity engine to create video games—when you launch your program, it’s branded with a “Powered by Unity” screen before it starts your game—I made a small game in Unity just last semester.