| What is New Media?
1. New Media versus Cyberculture
2. New Media as Computer Technology Used a a Distribution Platform
3. New Media as Digital Data Controlled by Software
4. New Media as the Mix Between Existing Cultural Conventions and the Conventions of Software
5. New Media as the Aesthetics that Accompanies the Early State of Every New Modern Media and Communication Technology
6. New Media as Faster Execution of Algorithms Previously Executed Manually or through Other Technologies
7. New Media as the Encoding of Modernist Avant-Garde; New Media as Metamedia
8. New Media as Parallel Articulation of Similar ideas in Post-WWII Art and Modern Computing
Lev Manovich's 5 characteristics of New Media
adapted from his Language of New Media
1. Numerical Representation
All new media objects are composed of digital code. Therefore these objects can be described mathematically and programmed.
2. Modularity
A new media object consists of independent parts (modules), down to the smallest level (text characters or pixels). These modules are stored independently and inserted into larger texts.
3. Automation
New media (which are composed of digital data) use computer technology to store, organize, and access materials. New media are "meta-media," in that we are concerned with accessing and reusing existing texts, more than with creating new texts. Automation further removes human intentionality from the process of creating texts.
4. Variability
New media texts potentially exist in many different versions. The logic of databases makes possible the creation of different interfaces from the same data, and the customization of media composition. This customization can be automated (as happens with websites which provide different information to different users).
5. Transcoding
Transcoding is the translation of something into another format. Computerization promotes transcoding in relation to all cultural categories and concepts. For example, our cultural ways of thinking have been profoundly affected by the ways that computers model the world, represent data, and allow us to operate on it.
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