New Media & Multimedia
Similarly to digital rhetoric and literacy, new media had the challenge of deciding on a set definition. A definition to describe its entirety. However it’s hard to do that when definitions are constantly changing. According to Cynthia Selfe, new media is the ability to create a medium within digital environments using different types of media sources. So new media is the ability to communicate, reshape, and interact through the online world. Within this reading section, the idea of new media being equivalent to multimedia has been brought to surface. Multimedia consists of a combination of these different media outlets to create engaging experiences for those online. While new media is similar I would argue that it’s more focused or geared towards text based communication compared to visual media such as videos or audios.
Principles of New Media
Manovich and Parker and Jordan provided different perspectives on principles to describe the concept of new media. Manovich argued that new media is generally built on the foundation of accessible numerical data. He then proceeds to explain how no matter what media is presented online it is all essentially data that can be changed and manipulated. The five principles of Manovich were numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding. These characteristics don’t necessarily represent what new media is but more so what it’s built from.
However, Parker and Jordan took a different route. Their five characteristics demonstrate new media as observational distinctions rather than the technical principles. Their five principles were integration, interactivity, hypermedia, immersion and narrativity. These principles demonstrated more to the user experience of new media and what has been observed from new media.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from this reading is that defining new media can be quite complex. However, Wysocki disagrees with Manovich’s definition. His definition implies that traditional media into digital happens naturally, disregarding the role people have in reshaping mediums.
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