Choose Your Own Media Adventure; Angie's Blog Post #1

In Chapter 1, Manovich describes what makes new media new media.  According to Manovich, new media can briefly be described as mathematical data that is read by and created on a computer.  He lists five components of new media, which are: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and cultural transcoding.   I will briefly describe each component.

                First of all, numerical representation can be described as images that we see on a screen being comprised of ones and zeros in order for us to mass produce images and copy them for many people to see. He gives the examples of film and photographs then describes them as pixles in combonation with each other. An example I thought of is this very blog. There is a long line of code behind everything that we put into this blog, and it is all just numbers.

                The second component is modularity. Modularity means that there are individual parts that make up a whole.  He says that the individual piece can be broken down into other individual parts and so on and so forth. The individual parts can be removed or altered without changing the document as a whole. Again, I thought about this blog when I read about modularity.  Each one of us are posting our thoughts, opinions, and understanding of the readings, and on a whole we are helping people to understand our readings.  But you could theoretically take out one of our posts and not have it change the meaning of the blog as a whole.  

                Automation can be described as the computer able to “read” already existing data and be able to interpret what humans want to do with it. It’s a human-computer interaction, if you will. In the book, he gives the example of computer and video games where the computer reads existing data to produce a game so that it interacts well with humans.  In this section, I thought about Facebook.  Facebook reads what you are interested in, though pages that you like and favorite, etc. Then based on its readings of you interests, it then produces ads for you to look at that you might be interested in. 

                Variability is the fourth component, and at its most basic level means that new media can easily be manipulated, edited, rearranged, and so forth so that it becomes a new type of program or document.  It is never fixed, websites and such may be changed in an instant. It is like Choose Your Own Adventure for technology instead of the children’s books. This section of Manovich’s book made me think about memes.  There are several pictures that are spread around the internet that have many, many different captions attached to them so they become a new meme everytime they are shared with different words. One meme that specifically comes to mind is the picture of the guy from Lord of the Rings, and this meme usually says, “one does not simply…”, and then whoever creates the meme inserts their own caption into that. Its the same picture and the same comment, but with different denotations to it.

                The last concept is that of transcoding which basically means taking one form of data, such as an actual paper document and transferring it into a digital document where the data is “read” by a computer and then translated to humans.  This can also happen in reverse, something created by a computer and then translated down to print. I thought again about blogs.  It was a trend for awhile to create a blog and then have it printed out on paper, and that way you could have two copies, one physical, and one digital.  This also happens the opposite way with books. There are books in print that have been transcoded into a digitial document and read by a computer like Kindle.

                In conclusion, I believe the most important or powerful component is that of transcoding.  Our lives are constantly being put into the digital world, such as Facebook, digital photos, digital documents, blogs, texting on cell phones, etc.  Digitality changes our lives just as we change digitality.  Though I love new media and find it exciting, quick, and close to our fingertips, I do miss little things such as handwritten notes and such.  But I am happy if the two things can coexist with each other. I don’t want my entire world to be ruled by digitality, but part of it ruled would be fine with me.