“Today we are beginning to notice that the new media are not just mechanical gimmicks for creating worlds of illusion, but new languages with new and unique powers of expression.”
Marshal McLuhan
What is New Media?
New Media encompasses a broad spectrum of art and innovation that has emerged as a result of the advent of digital technology, and more specifically, the personal computer. The world wide web is an obvious bi-product of new media, but also acts as a stage and delivery system for many other forms of new media, including web sites, animation, audio, and video. The concept of desktop publishing is thoroughly rooted in the world of ‘new media’. In many cases, ‘new media’ is simply a new approach to many traditional mediums, or ‘old media’, such as print, music, and film, all of which have been dramatically transformed by the ‘new media’ revolution. Even in many fields in which the end product itself is not digitally broadcast, like an automobile or building, their prototypes are initially conceptualized and designed through the use of new media.
All of the hardware (computers, cameras, cell phones, etc.) that make up the digital arena are forms of new media, and all of the accompanying software (web browsers, text editors, imaging applications, accounting systems, etc.) are forms of new media, and all of the resulting data (images, ringtones, spreadsheets, text documents, etc.) are also forms of ‘new media’. This said, ‘new media’ has clearly established a prolific presence in the modern worlds of entertainment, business, and even our domestic lifestyles.
New media is simultaneously a science, and an artform, it is also simultaneosly process, and product. New media is as tangible as a cell phone, yet as abstract as a series of ones and zero‘s. New media is virtually indefinable as it is constantly evolving, and thus the name itself may be impervious to becoming outdated or ‘behind the times‘ and may therefor permanently remain new media.
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