Digital Media Technology Week 1: Introduction Peter Verhaar

□ A practical introduction to a number of techniques for the creation, enrichment, storage and dissemination of digital information □ Combination of theory and practice □ No prior knowledge is needed Digital Media Technology

□ Lectures and seminars □ Weekly programme: □ Blackboard will not be used extensively □ Reading is all online □ Grade is based on four assignments and homework assignments Organisation

□ W1-5: Text Encoding (XML, TEI) □ W6-8: Stylesheets (XSLT) □ W9-12: Database theory (SQL, ERM) Three main topics

□ HTML □ CSS □ FTP □ XML □ TEI □ XSLT □ XSL:FO □ SQL □ PHP □ Javascript Techniques

□ Medium: a technology that can augment human communication □ Unmediated communication is limited □ Latin word ‘medius’ □ Marshall MacLuhan, Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man (1964). Digital Media Technology?

□ Cf. C.S. Peirce, Roland Barthes □ A particular way in which the information is encoded and/or presented to recipient of the message Modality

□ Digital information is numerical information. Cf. Latin word ‘digitus’ E.g. words for ‘digital’ in Romanic languages: Digital Studies or ‘Le champ numérique’ ‘Studium Librorum et Instrumentorum Communicationis Numericorum’ □ Digital information is information represented as combinations of 1s and 0s, e.g. ASCII: A = A = Digital information

□ Digital information is ephemeral and has no intrinsic materiality □ Overall experience is determined by a combination of three layers Materiality Hardware / Device Software / Applications Digital Content

Digital convergence

□ Focus is on the publishing industry and on the cultural heritage sector □ How to organise vast quantities of digital data? □ How to improve the access to these materials?

Lifecycle of digital objects

□ MA BDMS: focus on the dynamic process of the transmission of knowledge and information through analogue and electronic media □ A digital (r)evolution is taking place □ Aim of DMT: produce an understanding of digital media via practical engagement □ This course does not turn you into a professional programmer Why DMT?

□ Technique used to create web pages Hypertext Markup Language News Prince Constantijn: research on big data urgently needed Policy makers urgently need scientists’ help with the phenomenon of big data. This was the view expressed by Prince Constantijn, speaking at the opening of the Leiden Centre of Data Science, the virtual centre for research on big data at Leiden University. Read more

□ Consists of code to specify the formatting Encoding in HTML pparagraph h1/h2/h3heading bbold iitalics □ Text to be formatted is surrounded by an opening and a closing tag: and □ Example: This text is shown in bold

□ Attributes specify additional properties of an element □ They consist of a property and a value which is given in quotes □ Example: Click here Attributes

Seminars: division into Group A (13:00 – 15:00) and Group B (15:00 – 17:00)