Introduction to New

Media
BY
IRREDIA OSẸMWEGIE-ẸRO
 New Media

This discourse will focus on the basic

concepts of new media.

At the end of this discourse, we will have a

better understanding of the nature of
new media, and the materials used in its
construction.

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 What Is New Media?
It's a term for the many different
forms of electronic communication
that are made possible through the
use of computer technology.
The term is in relation to “old” media
forms, such as print newspapers and
magazines, that are static
representations of text and graphics.

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 What Is New Media?
• “New media” suggests something
less settled, known, identified
• Changing set of formal and
technological experiments
• Complex set of interactions
between new technologies and
established media forms

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 What Is New Media?
It's defined by the underlying use of
numbers (codes) to represent media
objects.

This use of codes enables computers to

do the work needed to have the media
be dynamic.

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 What is New Media?
* Web sites (Flash)
* streaming audio and video (podcasts)
* chat rooms
* e-mail
* online communities
* Web advertising

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 What is New Media?
* DVD and CD-ROM media
* virtual reality environments (Second
Life)
* integration of digital data with the
telephone, such as Internet telephony
(Cell phones)
* digital cameras
* mobile computing

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 What is New Media?
* Digital animation
* video games
* web art
* network performance
* motion/position capture (GPS)

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Use of the term new media implies that communication
is happening between computers and humans
resulting in a medium for expression.
One needs to know about artistic creation and about
computer technologies.

We need to know about technology especially with

respect to its capabilities and the limits it imposes on
expression.

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 Characteristics of New Media

1. Information 8. Hypertextuality
2. Network 9. Dispersal
3. Interface 10. Virtuality
4. Archive
5. Interactivity
6. Simulation
7. Digitality

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 When did the “new” begin…
New media the result of
the convergence
between modern media,
the computer

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 Computing

Charles Babbage (London 1833)

The Analytical Engine
George Boole (Oxford 1854)
Boolean logic
Turing machine theory
(Cambridge 1936)
Theory of computable
numbers
Analogue media Von Neumann (1940s in the
US)
Photographic camera Processor/memory
(France 1839)
Cinema (France 1895) The processing of mass
Radio (1901 - UK) information (input)
Television (1920s) Votes
Records
Mass dissemination of
information (output)
Texts
Images
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Sounds
Old media tools There is thus a
and content were mystical
tied together authority
established
The models
‘worked’ on the Audience
audience Broadcaster

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New media gave Thus the mystical
authority is
the tools to broken by
the audience interactivity

the remote We have control over

the pixel…
the joystick
the application The DNA of new
the network media...

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New Media Contagions

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The End of Authority?
Hypertext
shadows the
roles of author &
reader (Landow)
Internet
threatens
established
power structures
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New Media Goes Corporate

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 New communication
paradigm?
Old paradigm
(mass
communication)
= one to many -
sender to receivers

New paradigm
(networked
media) = many
to many - sender to
receivers???

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mass media? new media?
interactive
mass (demassified)
passive non-linear
linear user-responsive
user-inaccessible networked

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 Characteristics of New Media

1. Information 8. Hypertextuality
2. Network 9. Dispersal
3. Interface 10. Virtuality
4. Archive
5. Interactivity
6. Simulation
7. Digitality
These Characteristics are part of the
character thought in Institute of Ẹdo
Studies, BIU.
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Thank you

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