New Media Technologies: Communication Theories COM 300 Kathy E. Gill 6 April 2005

Agenda  Recap Monday  Characteristics of New Media  Lab

Why Use a Technology?  Cognitive Needs – Desire (demand) for information, knowledge, understanding  Affective Needs – Aesthetic, pleasurable, and emotional experiences  Personal Integrative Needs – Inner-directed, deal with credibility, confidence, stability, and status  Social Integrative Needs – Outer-directed, strengthening relationships with family, friends, the world  Escapist Needs – Desire for tension release or diversion - Katz, Gurevitch, and Haas

Diffusion Theory  Rogers (1995) outlined four parts: Innovation Social system Time Communications channels  And five steps: Knowledge Persuasion Decision (adopt or reject) Implementation Confirmation

Characteristics of New Media  Compare/contast with “old” media  Review Networks of Remediation  Examine McLuhan’s “medium is the message”  Review Manovich’s five points

New Media Characteristics  A blend of characteristics from “old” media Print Radio Film TV

Print Characteristics  Abstract  Fixed  Linear  Primarily verbal  Reader controls pace  Transient audience

Radio Characteristics  Dynamic  Linear  “Live” — happening in real time  Auditory  Creator controls pace  Transient audience

TV Characteristics  Dynamic  Linear  “Live” — may be happening now  Primarily visual  Animated  Creator controls pace  Transient audience

Film Characteristics  Fixed  Linear  Primarily visual  Animated  Creator controls pace  Captive audience

New Media  Typically nonlinear  Dynamic  “Live” (maybe)  Multi-media (visual, auditory)  Relies on hypertext  User controls pace and direction  Transient audience

Source: One new technology

Hypertext  Presents information as linked nodes  Breaks the linear narrative Envisioned by Vannevar Bush (1945) Coined by Ted Nelson Apple : Hypercard Online (software) Help systems Tim Berners-Lee

Networks of Remediation (1/5)  “A medium is that which remediates” … and it is measured “against” other media (like we just did)  New media in turn change the “older” media TV … tickertape Print … adopting web design conventions

Networks of Remediation (2/5)  Economic success depends on supplanting a pre-existing medium Conflict: newspaper websites v paper Conflict: CDs v downloadable (sharable) songs  Hypermediacy Survivor… The Apprentice… mediated or authentic?

Networks of Remediation (3/5)  How do we separate technology from its social use? Can we? Technological determinism : says technology causes social change … Social determinism is the converse  Corollary: “nature versus nurture” … “'technology-push” v “demand-pull” Can new media technology offer us transparent democracy?  Howard Rheingold, John Perry Barrow

Networks of Remediation (4/5)  Postman: “the uses made of technology are largely determined by the structure of the technology itself” For example, arguably the underlying Net Tech is ‘old’ (TCP/IP) and yet adoption has proved to be a function of ‘ease of use’ (new software) and social necessity (network effects)

Networks of Remediation (5/5)  “The Male Gaze” Which economic sector was the first to be profitable online? (hint: the first letter is “p”) Are webcams mediating today’s “strip tease” by providing a sense of immediacy and transparency? What about sites like “Wicked Weasel Bikinis” (Australian firm)?

McLuhan (1/4)  Believes media (technologies) affect cultural (social) change Differentiates between a medium and its content Same content (words) is a different message when delivered in print, face- to-face, or on television

McLuhan (2/4)  Historical Construct Tribal Age (oral culture – intuitive) Age of Literacy (invention of phonetic alphabet – emergence of logic) Print Age (invention of printing press – linear thinking – science – individualism) Electronic Age (ushered in with telegraph, poster child: TV – global village – decline of logic and linearity - image) image

McLuhan (3/4)  Theorizes that a print culture created conformity and continuity Think about America’s #1 export: culture/movies/logos  Western technology and remote geographies: Al Jazerra – satellite technology to most of the Middle East; banned by several ME countries

McLuhan (4/4)  Compare our immediate knowledge of the 26 December Tsunami with the 1556 Chinese earthquake that killed 830,000  If, as he suggests, print created individualism and nationalism … what might networked communication create? Will familiarity breed contempt or collaboration?

Manovich’s Five (1/6)  Numerical Representation  Modularity  Automation  Variability  Transcoding

Manovich’s Five (2/6)  Numerical representation “zero’s and one’s” Vector graphics v Bitmaps Analog v Digital  Early complaints about CD v LP

Manovich’s Five (3/6)  Modularity The “whole” consists of many “objects”  Example from blog: Google Images  PPT and Excel  HTML page (javascript, JPGs, etc)  Individual blog posts

Manovich’s Five (4/6)  Automation What computers do best! From blog post: “Apple’s new OS X Tiger… and Automator” Photoshop automation; running “Cron” jobs; database driven websites RSS readers Object management and search (Google)

Manovich’s Five (5/6)  Variability Website customization possible by automation Presenting data (shaping appearance) based on output device: monitor, PDA, cellphone Scaling (zoom – Google Maps)Google Maps

Manovich’s Five (6/6)  Transcoding Two distinct layers: cultural layer and technology layer … the intersection is a field called Human-Computer Interaction

Summary  We define (or frame) new media in comparison to old media  There is an intrinsic relationship between content and technology: both contribute to meaning  Churchill : “we shape our buildings and then our buildings shape us”