Furthering the Definition of Digital Media

After making through a unit of how to define digital media, I feel as though I know more now than I did a week ago.  While I have a better understanding of what is digital media, I feel as though I do not yet fully understand the term.  When I typed, "What is digital media" into Google, I got many pages talking about how to use digital media to better a business.  However I did happen to find one site where the author writes about the definition of digital media.  His first couple sentences describe how I felt when I first learned about it.  It is tough to nail down the term.  Derek Flanzraich's blog simply defines digital media as the different platforms on which people communicate electronically.  The definition is simple and it is nice to read another normal person's perspective on what digital media is.

Link to Derek Flanzraich's blog post: How To Define Digital Media?

Macluhan: "Medium is the Massage"

I'm still trying to unpack the point of McLuhan's book, "Medium is the Massage".  It was a very strange composition of text and pictures.  At the end McLuhan included a comic style drawing of a son telling his father that "The environment that man creates becomes his medium for defining his role in it."  This sort of helped me understand the point of the book.  A little.  Most of it honestly went over my head so much that it is hard for me to even type about it.

It makes sense that environment impacts the way a person sees their role in the world.  If one person is raised in Beverly Hills, California and another is raised in a small rural town in Michigan, then they will have different roles in life.  Obviously.  Now let's think about an example that uses a digital medium.  If one person is raised with a computer and another is raised without a computer their roles will be different as well.  The person raised with the computer may grow up thinking that part of his identity is what he portrays on social media sites while the person raised without the computer may see that his identity is not what others perceive of him, but what he creates himself.

McLuhan stated that "The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village."  I'm sure that he was talking about television and media since the internet had not been made public yet, however this statement describes the effects of the internet at present.  Because the world has become such a connected sphere, it is a global village.  People can connect to others half way across the world or all the way across the world.  Digital isolation only exists in non-developed areas which are sparse.  Our world today is a global village and which impacts how we see our roles in society. 

Jean Baudrillard: "Simulacra & Simulations"

I'm going to be honest and just throw a statement out there. This particular piece of reading was extremely hard for me to understand.  Maybe because he is French?  I'm not quite sure why it was so complicated, however I made it through and read about Mr. Baudrillard's view on simulations. 

He used a term simulacra frequently.  I did not know what this word meant prior to the reading, however it is defined by Dictionary.com as a slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or semblance.  Mr. Baudrillard used Disneyland as an example of a simulated area.  Everything inside Disneyland is an illusion that gives off a perfect world.  When reality is that it is just a plot of land in the middle of Los Angeles. 

I completely agree with Jean Baudrillard's view on simulation and simulacra.  A real world example (that he gives as well as one that I agree with strongly) is American politics.  I won't get into the right wing or left wing discussions, however I do believe that to gain power many politicians simulate an idea of togetherness.  They gain power by claiming certain policies and supports.  The feed of illusion is moved on to the public by the media which simulates their views or opinions in papers, news broadcasts, or posts online. 

What is real and what is simulated?  What if the Matrix is real and our world is just a simulation that we are lead to believe is reality?  While saying that we are all computer programs living on a mass hard-drive while the real world is destroyed by machines is a major stretch (insert deep breath here) the true world is honestly a simulation or simulacra of what reality is.

Lisa Gitelman: Always Already New, Media, History and the Data of Culture

I feel as though this reading is particularly tough to follow in the aspect that it cannot hold your attention for very long.  As I trudged along reading about the "history" of media, all of the information seemed very basic, and to me, extremely dull.  To be honest, I felt as though I was reading thirty-one pages of a textbook on basic computer knowledge that most ten year old's could understand.

I do agree on one thing.  The abundance of citing manuals is astounding as a student.  Having to learn many different styles, which are changing constantly, makes a challenge to find a happy medium between finding a source and citing the source correctly.  Gitelman used a phrase which I found somewhat humorous, "Each new edition will address itself to more and more publication formats, more and more varieties of orange juice, while a total theory of documents and a final system for documentation remain forever out of reach."  The orange juice part made me chuckle.

On a serious note, it is hard to correctly document information and give credit if so many different styles exist.  Especially when they keep changing.  Learning how to document old types of media with new types of media will remain a challenge, but it seems like the hope of it becoming easy will never happen.  Much to Lisa Gitelman's distress.

"As We May Think" by Vannevar Bush

Bush's article was a fairly simple one to understand.  Especially for super late night readings.  The overall concept that logic is what fuels science and invention makes sense.  Without logic to advance the future of science, machines and life in general would not be able to advance forward in synchronicity.

Some of Bush's example of machinery were a little outdated, however I believe that this helped make his paper more interesting.  The age of this writing created a fantastic image with a concept that was easy to follow.  Bush states, "The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability..."  It is great to know that this one fact about the world has stayed the same over time.  Our human minds use logic with the help of these complex machines to advance the world.  It is a team effort.

Definition of New Media According to Lev. Manovich

When the phrase "new media" is said I instantly imagine the definition to be any advancement in media.  From the printing press to film to computers.  For Manovich the definition of new media is anything digital.  In his journal titled The Language of New Media he states that new media is only digital.  After I made it through the first chapter, and the extremely bad typing errors, I came out on the other end disagreeing with his definition of new media. 

Manovich gave principles that define media as new.  These included numerical representation and variability.  What I did not understand was why does the term new media need to be defined by rules such as numerical representation.  It seems that any advancement in media is technically new.  An example used in the chapter was the printing press.  During it's time it was a new advancement.

A better term to use would be "digital media" instead of "new media".  Most of Manovich's argument centered around the fact that new media has a code and is digital.  The word new seems to mean an advancement of something, however most of the principles listed described digital sources.  While digital is an advancement, the chapter seems to say that new strictly means digital.

A great difference that clearly states how new media differs from older media is the variability principle.  New media can be changed many times from the original by a computer or outside force.  Older media sources could only create copies of the original and had to be done by an actual person.  Manovich argues that variability allows for interaction, however older media included interaction.  Photos needed to be developed by hand and film required the time and commitment to be cut and pasted by a skilled projectionist. 

One term that I did agree with Manovich on was "hypermedia".  It appears that the internet today uses many hyperlinks that create a network of information.  Almost everything can be linked back to the original source.  A modern example that would not exists without hypermedia is the website Pinterest.  Users pin articles, photos, or anything else that they find onto this site.  It strives on hypermedia.

Overall, I wish that Manovich would have addressed why new media is strictly defined as digital information.  I also wish that he would have stated why coining the phrase "digital media" is not relevant and instead the phrase "new media" is used.  He does state that he tries to avoid using the words digital and interactive because they are too broad.  Digital seems to be a more narrow term than new when describing a type of media that revolves around computers and code.

Why Are You Holding My Bag?

Hello my fine feathered readers.  First I must thank you for holding my bag.  You've been so kind.  This blog is a creation of my own idea and one of my professors.  Here's a little background on me.  I'm a humanities major at a college which specializes in engineering.  I am also a female at a school that is mostly guys.  It is the school's trademark identity.  This space will be a place to post my experiences as well as other discussions related to college and the digital world. 

Again I must thank you for holding my bag and I hope that it is not too heavy for you.  Talk to you soon.