Foundations of New Media Design
Lecture 1 What are new media?
What is a medium?
“The term medium refers to a middle place, a physical connection between two places, an
analogical connection through communication technologies, a representative, an
environment in which cultures or individuals dwell, and an instrument to accomplish some
purpose.” – Paul A. Soukup, 2016
Common domain specific definitions:
- Art: Materials and techniques used by an artist to produce art
- Biology: Materials in which life (e.g., bacteria) can be sustained
- Communications: Outlets and tools used to store and deliver information or data
- Physics: Materials through which waves and energy propagate
Shannon – Weaver model of communication, 1948
Different ideas about these models
- Receiver is a computer à Robot
- Sender and receiver are people à Computer-mediated communication
o Computer-mediated communication (CMC) refers to human communication
via computers and includes many different forms of synchronous,
asynchronous or real-time interaction that humans have with each other
using computers as tools to exchange text, images, audio and video.
- Is there feedback? No à Media consumption
o Media consumption is the sum of information and entertainment media
taken in by an individual or group
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,Medium is the message
“There can be no message without there first being a medium through which the message is
created, and which limits the possibilities of what can be communicated. A call to pay
attention to media and their effects, rather than the content they carry, because we tend to
focus on the content and ignore the medium. The medium is of greater significance than the
content because the medium affects the way that individuals think, feel, act, and perceive
the world, individually and collectively, influencing society, culture, and human history.
Media play a leading role in human affairs, functioning as environments that limit and shape
us on every level.” – McLuhan, 1964
Types of media
Dead media is media that are obsolete or have been forgotten.
Examples: Victorian phenakistoscopes, 80’s video games and home computers, stereopticon,
Protean View, Zogroscope, Polyorama Panoptique, Frith's Cosmoscope, Knight's
Cosmorama, Ponti's Megalethoscope, Rousell's Graphoscope, Wheatstone's stereoscope,
the polyphon, pianola, and viewmaster.
Old media is forms of analogue, rather than digital, media that are still in use.
Examples: Television, radio, newspapers, etc.
Remediation is the integration of features of an old medium into a new medium. The
content of media remains the same.
Examples: Film uses text comparable to theatre, computer games use narratives from films,
news websites use layouts comparable to newspapers.
New media are forms of media that are native to computers, are computational, and rely on
computers for redistribution.
Examples: Smart phones, computers, virtual worlds, computer games, human-computer
interface, social robots, voice interfaces, virtual assistances, interactive museum
installations, smart homes, etc.
Emerging media are communication formats or channels in the process of becoming known
as part of a long evolution of our communication architecture.
Example: A Nike logo drawn on the wing of a butterfly.
Synesthetic media
Synesthesia: the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body
by stimulation of another sense or part of the body. (vermenging van de zintuigen)
Examples: Tasting colors, or seeing sounds.
The history
It started with a theory, but it was not socially acceptable, so it takes years to take off.
Painters also started to pick up on synaesthesia. But technology was limited, difficult to go
“beyond the canvas”, needed new ways of creating. This led to analogue. Analogue: Made
with an optical film printer – manipulating film tape directly; + Electonic Sound!
- Definition of analogue: relating to or using signals or information represented by a
continuously variable physical quantity such as spatial position, voltage, etc.
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,Eventually this leads to for example colored television and VJ software (realtime visual
performance). VJ software makes (creating) synaesthetic media accessible to everyone and
is now standard part of entertainment. Computation à Adding interaction, images move
when a person moves. Generative: Artists provides the algorithm, data generates the
artwork. Computation à Artificial intelligence creates on its own, by tapping from the vast
pools of data about humans that is available. [impression]
Other interesting histories
- From cave paintings to Instagram
- From mouth-to-mouth storytelling to Netflix
- From Hero of Alexandria’s automaton to social robots
- From ritualistic chanting to Spotify
- From local shop to Amazon.com
- From walking stick to brain-controlled prostheses
- From can-and-wire to Skype
The digital transformation
Digital enables unprecedented forms of information access, making, sharing, and
automation.
Consider, in the last decades e.g.:
- Desktop computer, computers become available to everyone
- Internet, networks and connectivity goes global
- Smart phones, allow connectivity to be anywhere, anytime
- Wearables, online and offline are starting to blur
- Artificial intelligence, autonomous and data driven choices
Digital media is media stored as digital data
Digital data is discrete data, usually represented using binary numbers
Consequences of the change from analogue to digital media:
1. Media are described mathematically (using binary numbers)
2. Subject to algorithmic manipulation
3. Media become programmable
Digital convergence
The term digital convergence means the ability to view the same multimedia content from
different types devices and thanks to the digitization of content (movies, pictures, music,
voice, text) and the development of connections methods.
Examples: Netflix makes it possible to watch movies on tv, laptop or mobile, Google books
makes it possible to read from mobile devices, and Spotify makes it possible to listen music
from tv, laptop, mobiles and more.
However, be critical and don’t overestimate capabilities of computer technology, like:
- Storage capacity, type
- Distribution and networking capabilities
- Information access, and type
- Limitations to how media can be manipulated
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, Underestimation of aspects of media (content) that go beyond computer technology:
- e.g., the continuing narrative and storytelling aspects of media
Digital divide – An ethical dilemma
Digitial divide is the gulf between those who have ready access to computers and the
Internet, and those who do not.
The digital transformation assumes that digital will be everywhere, and everyone will choose
digital.
Designing (for) new media?
New media design is not just about solving business problems or entertainment – it is about
making a positive difference in people’s lives.
Designer: A general term for a person who makes designs for objects.
But through history “… designers became increasingly cognizant of their larger objective of
rendering technological developments individually and culturally meaningful.” – Klaus
Krippendorff, 2016
New media design therefore unifies studies of, a.o.:
- Societal (or business) challenges
o Think about what the world needs à but also in reality, thinking about what
a smaller group needs, think about what a business needs.
- New media technologies and trends
- The needs, behaviours, and values of people
o Psychology, the human factor.
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