The
term “new media” will in general refer to those digital media, which are
interactive,
incorporate two-way communication and involve some form of
computing as opposed to “old
media” such as the telephone, radio and TV. Numerical representation.
Because they are based on digital codes, new media texts are numerical:The
following are the principles of new media.
Converting continuous data into
a numerical representation is called digitalization. Digitalization consists of
two steps: sampling and quantization. First, data is sampled, most often at
regular intervals, such as the grid of pixels used to represent a digital
image. The frequency of sampling is referred to as resolution. Sampling turns
continuous data into discrete data, that is, data occurring in discrete units:
people, the pages of a book, pixels. Second, each sample is quantified, that
is, it is assigned a numerical value drawn from a defined range .
Modularity.
These different media samples or data bits - stills, QuickTime video clips,
sounds, etc. - can function as separate objects or modules that can be combined
together in different ways without losing their independence. A website
consists of different objects that can be stored independently on a site or
network as independent parts that are then combined in different ways. They can
then be readily added, deleted, or revised without having to totally redo the
overall website. All of this makes production of digital texts different than
production of traditional texts, for example, a painting.
Automation. The
production and combination of the modular parts is often completed through the
use of highly automated systems. Digital photos can be automatically edited to
improve their quality through editing programs. Hollywood filmmakers can employ
computer graphic or 3-D systems to create animation images, such as the use of
thousands of soldiers in the Lord of the Rings film series. A "smart
camera" has been developed at the MIT Media lab that automatically takes
pictures according to a script.
http://www-white.media.mit.edu/vismod/demos/smartcam/ Websites automatically
adjust to specific users, providing them with information based on their
previous visits.
Variability.
The same new media texts can also be automatically be created in different
versions to suit individual users' needs. Again, due to the modularity
principle, the different components of the same texts can be varied to create
new texts. For example, hypermedia texts, which are created through linking
together disparate texts, can be varied according to the different combination
of links or pathways, resulting in different texts. Texts are also continually
updated, creating new, more recent versions of texts. The size or scale of a
text can be varied using zoom/close-up features on Mapquest maps or images.
And, different versions of the same media content can be varied as when films are
made into computer games or games such as Tomb Raider are made into films.
Transcoding.
Transcoding refers to translating something into another format. Manovich notes
that new media exists on two different layers-a "cultural layer" and
a "computer layer." The "cultural layer" includes
categories associated with types of literary texts, genres, encyclopedia
topics, narrative patterns, etc. The "computer layer" are the
processes by which the computer organizes data into packets or databases.
BY MUSA LILIAN BAPRM 42631
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