Grammar: As Written by the Database of the World

An endless dispute continues concerning proper grammar usage. Guide to Grammar seeks to put an end to this dispute. But with people like Wikipedia claiming that they know the answers, the dispute lives on. I hope whoever penned the grammar Wikipedia page used correct grammar.

But the encyclopedic nature of both Guide to Grammar and Wikipedia have proven to be too dense for the average reader. Wait, who is that on the horizon? It's Grammar Girl! She has come to save us from the boring world of grammar with a quirky and fun approach to a typically boring topic! Is she a dork? Or is she ironically cool? Nobody knows!

Look out, Grammar Girl! Grammar Gorillas is declaring (guerrilla?) war on your fun and quirky approach by making grammar even more exciting! Guess the correct answer to grammar questions and you win bananas! That is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S, bananas!

The war on boring grammar comes to a critical mass when Grammar Bytes enters the fray. Not just fun and quirky, Grammar Bytes is grammar instruction with attitude. Possibly to appeal to the reality TV generation, where sassy attitude is king. The poor people who just wanted to learn grammar are being bombarded by these so-called "fun" grammar instruction sites.

All the while, amid the boring grammar war, the Purdue OWL holds strong in its appeal to the grammar nerds who don't mind being called grammar nerds. They don't need to be entertained by games and fun. They are satisfied with the mundane, academic approach.

Grammar from About.com seeks to dethrone the Purdue OWL as king of the grammar sites for the indoor kids, but it's SEO ranking isn't very encouraging. Perhaps they would benefit from some more targeted keywords and incoming links.

But what about grammar instruction for the in-between crowd? You know, those who fall asleep when reading the Purdue OWL, but don't necessarily want to be overstimulated by the flashing excitement of grammar fun? (Maybe they have epilepsy...?) No fear, Grammar Monster is here! A fresh approach to grammar without being gimmicky is their appeal.

In conclusion, I ask: what is grammar, anyway? Dictionary.com says it is the study of the way the sentences of a language are constructed; morphology and syntax.

BORING!

Bring back Grammar Girl!

(The rest of the post is my commentary)

So, this was obviously a bit weird. But think about what I had to work with! When you google "grammar", you aren't going to find a lot of fan sites, or reviews, or stores selling grammar. All I got for results were different grammar instruction sites. The best thing I could think of is how different styles of grammar sites could be appealing to different people, and how one side is competing to be more academic, while the other side is competing to be more fun and quirky.

I admit, my choice of topic probably didn't facilitate a great blog post for this particular prompt, but I think I did OK with what I had!

The Tale of the iPhone 5

There was once a time when all cell phone carriers had limits on the amount of data one could use on their iPhone 5. Then Sprint came along and said "Don't put a limit on your data!" Sprint stepped forth, and offered their iPhone 5 with absolutely unlimited data.

The iPhone 5.  This is the thinnest, lightest, and fastest iPhone ever.  It can be ordered right this very moment at the Apple Store online.  The all-new design features a brilliant 4-inch display which will blow your mind and exceed all expectations.  Something so great must surely have its oppressors.

Out from the shadows, a spicy villain emerges seeking to destroy the iPhone 5. The Samsung Galaxy SIII which is said to be the most anticipated phone in Samsung's history is finally here!  This evil doer is trying to deceive loyal iPhone 5 fans that this phone is available and ready for their purchase immediately, whereas iPhone 5's are backordered and sold out!

Something to add to Samsung's canon appears in the news to show us that the new "Maps" app on the iPhone 5 is appearing to be a failure.  Apple's CEO Tim Cook steps up to the plate and expresses his sincere apology for this disappointment and vows to do all in his power to make it right and correct the Maps app.

Apple fans seem to respond positively to this because in the CNET iPhone 5 Review that follows, the iPhone 5 appears to have received an "EXCELLENT" rating!  Tech site Gizmodo is soon to follow with their iPhone 5 news, reviews, and gossip portraying very positive.  One week, and 18 people have already shared stories of how they have managed to break their iPhone 5's!

While some have already broke theirs, some sad souls have not yet been able to receive their iPhone 5's.  If you happen to fit this mold, then you may want to know "How to wait in an iPhone 5 line" as so kindly shared by CNN.  Wait in line yourself, or pay someone to do it for you.  Either way, you are going to have to wait in a line if you didn't pre-order yours.

Suppose you were successful in getting in and are at the cusp of buying your new iPhone 5! You're presented with a conundrum.  Which service provider do you chose?! Well Verizon Wireless would like us all to know of their 4G LTE speed.  Looks like just a bunch of random numbers and letters, right?  4G stands for "4th Generation" (in cellular technology) and LTE stands for Long Term Evolution.  Bottom line is Verizon is the fastest!

Success! You picked your service provider, and have turned to the wonderful world of iMore where you can bask in the continuous flow of knowledge that comes from a vast community of iPhone 5 lovers.  Now that you've reached the climax of your story and purchased your phone all you have left to do is enjoy it! iMore shares all the great news and discussions about the iPhone 5 to help you stay up to the latest on what your amazing device can do!

As we turn the final page, we see that on the first day, the iPhone 5 sold 2 million units.  By the end of the first week 10 million phones have been sold.  Breaking all records in consumer electronics history, we come to realize that although the final page of this book has been completed, the iPhone 5 story has really only just begun.

Bullying, A Novel by Google

So, I realize that this post is kind of long, but perhaps you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.  I added all the links so you could follow them at any time.  I followed some of them while I was writing this and some of them are very interesting.

We open with a scene from stopbullying.gov where "[b]ullying can happen anywhere and to anyone.  Get information here to stop bullying at school, online, and in the community."  

But, wait.  What is bullying?  Find out from the all knowing oracle Wikipedia.  

Now that our hero knows what bullying is, he is worried about his friend being bullied at school so he looks up Dealing with Bullying on kidshelp.org. 

Oh no! Not enough information! Never fear Bullying: Medline Plus and Bullying | American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry are places to go for information. 

The scene shifts.  We are in the den of our hero.  He is looking at the news: Facebook bullying catches attention of NM police Social Bullying Common in TV Shows Kids Watch, and Homecoming bullying prank turns to civic 
support of victim Whitney Kropp (+video) are what he sees.  

While online, our hero discovers just how many anti-bullying sites there are just like the opening scene for both kids and adults.  It's My Life . Friends . Bullies | PBS Kids GO! and Kids Against Bullying are more for kids just like our hero and his friend while Bullying at School and Online | Education.com, National Bullying Prevention Center, Bullying — National Crime Prevention Council and are better for their parents and other adults dealing with bullying.

While we wait for our next scene, we view pictures of kids being bullied, kids being left out, cartoons, memes and fan art.  Some of these images make our hero want to do something, others make him want to cry, while others are slap your leg funny.

And a word from our sponsors libertymutual.com/Responsability "Is Bullying Getting Worse In Our Society?  Join The Discussion."

We come back to a scene with Bullying in Boys and Girls: How to Stop Bullying just for parents.  

But, that is not all!  We must never forget our academic writing from www.apa.org on 
Bullying.  "Yet, with greater understanding of the extent, seriousness, and dynamics of this problem, the amount and consequences of bullying can be greatly reduced" (Eyes on Bullying).

Now that our hero's parents have a greater understanding, they now learn to prevent bullying from 

stopbullyingnow.com.

The scene now shifts to CBS News where our hero sees Bullying: Words Can Kill - 48 Hours.  Now our hero and his parents goes to theaters to see Bully that they learned about from Bully | Now Playing In Select Theaters | Official Site.  This documentary was rated "R" and was recently dropped to "PG-13" because of one young woman who made a stand so the target audience could see the film, bullies and their victims in schools.

Home again, our here looks to see what more can be done and finds more information on www.stompoutbullying.org/ while his parents learn that bullying is not at school: Workplace Bullying.  They view together another video on YouTube:

KIDS REACT TO BULLYING.

And we close with a word from our sponsors libertymutual.com/Responsability "Is Bullying Getting Worse In Our Society?  Join The Discussion."

Arrested Development Memes and Fanart

Unsurprisingly, it was very easy to find Arrested Development memes and fanart.

This is a variation of the Keep Calm and Carry On meme, which originated from a British WWII propaganda poster. The "Keep Calm" meme is incredibly popular online and has even leaked into the "real world." Information required to "get it" includes the running joke that when the Bluth siblings were children, their father taught them elaborate lessons that included a man with a missing arm. The children did something their father, George, didn't like (not leaving a note when they used the last of the milk) and the situation escalated to the point where this man lost his (fake) arm gruesomely as a result of the childrens' behavior.

Creating the image makes a connection between everyday life and the show. The creator pulled together the old poster, the cultural craze surrounding the poster, and an aspect of the show.

This is one of many TV-show memes based on Texts from Last Night, popular on Tumblr. Users take texts featured on TFLN and overlay them on stills of TV shows for humorous effect. 

To "get" this, users must know that Ann, the girl pictured, is devoutly Christian and making her first prank call at the urging of her boyfriend.  The included text describes a parallel situation of a Christian person misbehaving. The maker had to see the text on TFLN and remember this particular moment in the show and connect the two in his mind, then take the time to search out this still and create the image. It demonstrates the amount of space the maker's mind has dedicated to Arrested Development and the appreciation for the show.

Professional illustrator Kyle Hilton creates paper dolls of characters from TV shows and movies on his Tumblr and has done a whole series of Arrested Development characters. While the artist is a professional, he didn't originally create the paper dolls for profit. They have certainly helped him gain notoriety (and are now being sold). Because the artist is a professional illustrator, he almost certainly uses Adobe Illustrator and other professional-level tools. 

As this is part of a series, the artist has used a template to a certain degree. The artist also selected specific aspects of this character to represent the character as a whole in this particular image.

The Bully - Memes and Fan Art

When I decided to use bullying for my final project, I washed it through the memes experiment.  The other day, while I was looking up memes to use, I discovered that there are several different voices on the memes, the most common being against anti-bullying.  None of them were really funny to me, but I don't find that kind of stuff funny.  Many of them were quite serious.  The memes that did come up for anti-bullying were all different.  Most of them were a one time meme.  In other words, I didn't see them with any different captions.

The "philosopher" meme, above, is often used to get people to think about an idea, usually the opposite of the actual philosophy.  It obviously gets it's name from the stance of the dinosour and requires a skeptical view of things to be funny.  I find that it is sometimes used to poke fun at important ideas.  Here it is used to call into question anti-bullying.

The "Stop Cyber Bullying Girl" has several memes all in response to the image.  This one kind of makes fun of the meme itself.  There was only one version of this meme that agreed with the picture saying "Stop... Please...."  The others were all similar to this one, my favorite saying "You gotta do more than that to stop bullying."

The fan art for bullying was much different.  Most of it was like the image below.  Most of it was fan art for another thing like Disney or Anime with a caption added to it.

This one, as well as several of the other Disney related images that came up, have two images from the movies super imposed together.  The image of Belle had to be cut out and composited to the image Jasmine and a caption added to it.  This image and others like it will reach out to a very specific audience.  The Disney fan art will reach out to younger kids and pre-teens that are still interested in the Disney princess.  The Anime fan art reaches an older crowd, including many of us.

I did find a couple of anti-bullying fan art that were more specific to bullying.

This one is called "Mercy, not a Myth".  It is a montage or collage of different images or memes and a poem to the side.  Each of the images is powerful and has a strong anti-bullying message specific to the image.  Putting them together and adding the poem on the side gives them the all same message and adds a call to action thus giving the images more power and meaning.

This one is pretty normal.  I found a couple like it.  It is also the kind of montage I would have created on my own using templates and ready made images.  This one uses only word, but they are the kind of words that point out the different kinds of bullying that some people are not aware of.

iPhone 5 Memes & Art!

I was able to find quite a few memes and fan art related to the iPhone 5 and also just iPhones in general.  Also not surprising, I found a lot of anti-apple related material as well.  I'm quite the Apple fan, as mentioned in my earlier post, however to make this as unbiased as possible, I will include some memes and fan art to show the sides both for and against the Apple iPhone 5.

For my first, I will show a meme that rings true for all devout Apple fans.  When a new product is released, most will jump right in and buy whatever that product may be.  I feel this meme adequately portrays this situation :)

Next, let's take a look at a meme from the other side of the spectrum.  This meme would have been created by someone anti-Apple, claiming that all their products are pretty much the same, having only slight differences.  Plus, I love Zoolander, so I had to include this!

Here's one that I just thought was funny!

 

My piece(s) of fan art will be in 3 parts to show the evolution of something I that I recently saw in the news regarding Apple and Samsung and their everlasting battle.  Below is the print advertisement that Samsung released shortly following the announcement of the new iPhone 5.  The purpose of the ad is to show that "It Doesn't Take a Genius" to know that the Galaxy S III is better than the new iPhone 5.  See below the picture for the rest of the story.

Loyal Apple fans were obviously not too pleased with Samsung for doing this, so they "released" a rebuttal ad promoting the iPhone 5 over the Galaxy S III.  To do so, they quickly crossed out the features that were identical between the two phones, and added commentary on the right side to give reasons behind why Samsung has done some things and predictions on what they will do in the future to further copy Apple.  They also added comical text throughout the ad to make Samsung just seem like a "bully" who is "Copying the Future".

 Finally, Apple fans completely changed the whole appearance of the ad with different text on the top and bottom to promote the iPhone 5 over the Galaxy S III.  Personally, I think they should have also changed the pictures of the phones as well, to make the iPhone 5 look more appealing than the Samsung phone.

Grammar Memes!

Honestly, I didn't think I would be able to find any good memes for my topic. But surprisingly, I found quite a few.

Here is the first one:

The Willy Wonka meme was already explained in the blog prompt, so I won't bother explaining it again. I'm sure that anybody who has used the internet knows that most people don't bother using correct grammar in chat rooms, on message boards, or in most online environments. Many people argue that using correct grammar isn't necessary in these environments because they aren't academic settings. So when somebody comes into a chat room or on a message board and starts correcting grammar, they are typically ridiculed and asked to shut-up. 

This particular Willy Wonka meme pokes fun at the people who insist on correcting grammar. The meme insinuates that correcting grammar is unproductive, especially in an online setting. I personally haven't seen this meme used in real life, but I assume that people use it on a message board when somebody posts grammar corrections. The meme is basically saying, "nobody cares that our grammar is bad... go do something better with your time."

Here is the second one:

If you don't know, this is Ryan Gosling. This example is a little bit more complex than the last one in that the original intention of the "Feminist Ryan Gosling Meme" seems to have been lost. For an in depth history of the "Feminist Ryan Gosling Meme", click here. But in short, the meme was started by somebody who was trying to keep track of feminist ideas and theorists. Eventually, it evolved into photos of Gosling with a sensitive sounding quote imposed onto the photo, all with the intro "Hey girl..."

Now, look at the example I shared. The quote is neither feminist inspired nor sensitive. It appears as if somebody just took the "Hey girl..." intro, then posted some random quote about grammar. The blood on his shirt is supposed to lead the viewer to believe the Mr. Gosling beat up the guy who didn't use proper grammar. 

This second example seems to have been created by somebody who encourages correct grammar, as opposed to the first example which is condescending toward grammar correctors. 

You can probably imagine that is was a bit more difficult to find grammar fan-art, and it was. But here is something I found:

A "grammar nazi" is one who constantly corrects grammar. If somebody tries to correct somebody else's grammar on a message board post, a typical response might be "all heil the grammar nazi!" Now, I don't think I have to explain what a nazi is--at least I don't think I do, right? The point is, I'm sure most people know what is being suggested by the term "grammar nazi". By knowing what the term suggests, the intentions of the user of the term should also be pretty clear--people who constantly correct grammar are like nazis. That is obviously extreme, but the internet is full of extremes!

As far as the creation of this piece of art, it doesn't seem as if it took an incredible amount of technological skill. I can't confirm this, since I don't have a word processor on my computer right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a simple template in Microsoft Word that can be used to create something that looks like a book cover. The most complicated part was most likely the creation of the logo, but I'm not sure if this particular artist was even the original creator of the swastika inspired "grammar nazi" logo. 

I like this one, too: 

Bullying

Writing about Bullying

I have been interested, as some of you already know, in creating a digital book that will me new media at its best.  One of the important things about this book is what it is about.  I choose to write a story about bullying.  Therefore, I chose to spend some time on it for my final project.  The website I chose for this blog is www.stopbullying.gov. 

The home page encourages the visitors to start click on links as the links are the quickest way to get information to answer questions about bullying.  As a matter of fact each link is full of the information relating to the link.  The links on the information pages are mostly contained to the site.  There are a few key words that are liked to outside sites that relate to the key word.  For example say you go to Related topics under the What Is Bullying tab and click on the word stocking.  It directs you to www.victimsofcrime.org.  There is also a link like this for teen dating.  But most of those links go to another page in the home site.  Some of the links that direct to other pages are noted as additional resources.

The site is designed to get you started and then guide you to other related information on other pages within the sight.  You can jump out of this line by clicking on a link on the top and following a different line at any time.  Most of the links open in the same window, while a few open in new windows.  It's kind of like a maze that you are doing on a sheet of paper where you can chose to follow a different line at any time.

Arrested Development

I've had a minor obsession with Arrested Development since the second season began in 2004. This obsession never disappeared, and it has intensified the announcement that new episodes were being filmed. Since we're supposed to be focusing on something we like and won't mind spending the semester studying, I thought Arrested Development would be perfect.

The website I chose, the Arrested Development Wiki, is a 400-plus page wiki devoted to the show. The wiki has many internal links to pages about characters, products, episodes, and locations, as well as a page devoted to fansite links. Many of articles cite outside sources, like Huffington Post and other news sites.

Links are a muted orangey-brown and stand out from the white background and black text, but fit with the color scheme of the site (and the show).  Links are placed within body text, below body text as sources, and attached to pictures, encouraging users to explore and learn more.

The frequency and variety of links should lead readers to be interested in looking at more information about the show, and because it is an Arrested Development wiki, chances are readers are already interested.

iPhone 5

I've thought a lot this weekend about the subject for my final project.  I have always been a huge Apple fan.  Initially I was going to go with just Apple in general.  However, as the hype has only began to grow concerning the new iPhone 5, I decided that I would narrow my scope and focus only on that single product.  After watching the success of the pre-order when a predicted 2 million phones sold out within hours, I knew this would be a fun and interesting topic to work on throughout the rest of the semester.

An interesting site that I have always admired with respect to Apple products is iMore.com.  Specifically for this project I will base my findings out of http://www.imore.com/iphone.  From this site, there are a multitude of relationships that link to iPhone 5 related material.  Specific relationships include an iPhone 5 Buyers Guide, Users Guide, comparisons, advertisements, drawings, accessories, and much more.

The option of linking to all these related sites proved to be very helpful.  In browsing, I was able to learn a lot more about the iPhone 5 as I was linked through the different pages.  The pages that were linked to the initial site only helped to further describe and explain my chosen product.  iMore does a great job of providing all this information and having links to other valuable pages that elaborate more.

This is a beautifully designed site that is very easy to navigate.  The layout has a big picture of the iPhone 5 at the top of the page and all the related articles and below.  The right column has the related accessories that link to the store.  The layout feels a lot like a blog.  It is easy to get into an article, because you can click on either the title or the picture associated with the article.  At the bottom of the page is a brief recap of the articles to easily access from that single spot.

The exciting world of grammar...

This will probably sound ridiculous to everyone else in class, but I have decided on the subject of grammar for my final project. Exciting, right?

There is a perfectly good explanation for this seemingly idiotic decision. I figured that if I am being forced to build a webpage based on a topic of my choice, then I might as well choose something that I need to learn more about. I am an English major with an emphasis in writing studies, specifically technical writing. I'm not 100% sure about what I want to do with my degree just yet, but I do know that I need to learn more about grammar--badly. I write and speak well, but I want to learn more about all the little rules and what they are called. This will be a good skill to have if I am involved in any sort of editing or copy writing.

So, there you go. That's what I'm doing.

But this blog post isn't necessarily meant to be an introduction to my topic of choice, so here is the site that I chose: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/. I am already familiar with "Grammar Girl", but I didn't realize that her grammar tips are only one of many "Quick and Dirty Tips". The first thing I noticed about the page is that it has a menu bar with dozens of links to the other "Quick and Dirty Tips" pages. They have tips for everything from money and investing to pets. So the major links that the visitor will notice first (at the top of the page) are the links that take you to pages that belong to the same family of pages--the "Quick and Dirty Tips" pages. All of these pages have the same layout, parent logos, and ad placement. The only difference is that the content varies from page to page.

Links to pages outside of the "Quick and Dirty Tips" family are limited. In fact, nearly all of the links that take you somewhere outside of the family of pages are there to serve the "Quick and Dirty Tips" brand. This includes paid advertisements and links to popular online merchants (Amazon, Barnes and Noble), where you can buy books and other products that were written by "Quick and Dirty Tips" authors. These links are prominently displayed near the top of the page, making it nearly impossible for the visitor to miss them. In fact, I have already clicked on a few of them because the ads were so applicable to the target audience of the site--grammar nerds.

In addition to visiting some of the paid ad links, I have also browsed a few other "Quick and Dirty Tips" pages and found them to be quite useful. This can be counted as a success on the part of the web designer, as these links are prominently displayed and easy to navigate. The fact that each page is designed the same is also quite helpful, because I already know where to find what I need, regardless of the subject of the page (the money tips have the same layout as the feminine hygiene tips... not that I was looking at the feminine hygiene tips or anything).

Overall, I felt like the link structure of this page was good. The main menu links brought you to other pages within the family, and the ad links were direct and applicable. I feel like one can surf around the "Quick and Dirty Tips" pages for hours without ever really leaving the parent site, except to click on the ads that will result in a small payment to the parent site. Those bastards have it figured out!

Five Principles of New Media

In Chapter 1 of The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich lays out his five principles of new media.

1. Numerical Representation New media objects, whether created on computers or converted from analog formats, are made up of digital code. Any new media object can be described, as well as changed or manipulated, using a mathematical function. New media objects are programmable. In stark contrast to old media, new media objects can be described in some kind of unit and be changed at the level of that unit by the code the object is made of (such as pixels for images).

2. Modularity New media objects are made separate pieces which maintain their identity after the piece is complete and can be changed after the piece has been made. The World Wide Web as a whole is also modular, with many separate objects that are easy to change.

3. Automation Computers can automatically create images, layouts, etc. Websites create themselves based on the user's hardware and internet browser. Artificial Intelligence can interact with humans, many people are familiar with chatting with a bot. One that I am familiar with is Cleverbot.

4. Variability New media objects aren't fixed. Such objects are never complete and can exist in nearly infinite versions. One person can take a photo and post it online, then another can download it and edit it in some way and post it, and so on.

5. Transcoding New media objects can be changed or translated into another format. A cultural thing (story, art) becomes a technical thing. An old story or myth (Snow White) can be typed and adapted into a script (Snow White and the Huntsman), then recorded, either on film or digitally and sent to theaters, then made available for download or DVD.

New Media!... I guess

Here are some totally exciting new media principles!

1 - Numerical Representation

New media objects are composed of digital code. This can be applied to a new media project that is made from scratch on a computer, or one that has been converted to digital from an analog source. The easiest way to understand this is the remember that all digital images, sounds and videos are comprised of 1's and 0's. These 1's and 0's comprise digital code that, when deciphered, makes up the image, sound or video. This code is also subject to manipulation, making the media easily changeable.

2 - Modularity

When media elements are combined into a larger object, each of the original elements still maintains their separate identities. For example, a short video includes individual frames that come together to make a moving image. Each of those frames has it's own separate identity. The same can be said about the audio that is associated with the video clip.  This is important because it allows for each individual element to be altered or manipulated individually without having to alter the main video in its entirety.

3 - Automation

Automation is, more or less, exactly what the word implies--making parts of the new media creation process automatic. Somebody trying to create a Flash animation can benefit greatly from automation, especially if they don't have a high level of artistic ability. Instead of meticulously having to create a three-dimensional shape to include in the animation, the user can use templates and pre-designed shapes. Through different algorithms in the program code, these shapes can automatically act in realistic ways without the user having to program them to do so.

4 - Variability

Variability can be seen as a result of principle one, numerical representation, and principle two, modularity. Because new media objects are composed of digital code, they are subject to be changed by any user who receives them. Likewise, because new media objects are generally comprised of smaller new media elements, those individual elements are also subject to be changed, thus altering the larger object that they are a part of. Both of these principles allow new media objects to have an almost infinite number of possible new versions.

5 - Transcoding

New media objects are said to have two "layers". First, is the "cultural layer", which can include story, plot, point of view, style, etc. The second is the "computer layer", which includes the digital code associated with the object. This can include file size, bit rate, file format, etc. The "computer layer" is constantly changing because of increasing dependence on computers to create media.

I hope this didn't suck.

What is New Media

In chapter one of his book The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich talks about new media as more than the use of a computer to distribute media (19).  To prove his point, he talks about the beginning of photographs, cinematography, and computing machines.  He goes on to explain how each of these things become similar in make up and start using similar systems to store data.  Then they divide—visual media uses film for storage while computing systems use a binary system (using discarded movie film) for storage.  Manovich goes on to show how the medias came together again when it all went digital.  He then talks about how new media follows five principles: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding. 

Numerical Representation

All new media objects have digital code or numerical representations.  In other words, a new media object is described using a mathematical function and it is programmable.  While many new media objects are created on the computer, others have to be converted to a digital format or digitized.  Digitization involves sampling and quantization.  Sampling is like taking a look at an image or word.  The more frequently the image is looked at, the better the image appears on the screen or the better resolution it has.  Sampling turns the continuous data from the media being digitized into what is called discrete data or data occurring in distinct units (28).  A sample that is quantified has a numerical value given to it.  This process gives the new media a means to be broken down into smaller parts the this page can broken down into paragraphs, sentences, words and then letters. 

Modularity

New media objects have the same structure throughout the media.  In other words, the elements of the media are represented as discrete samples and then assembled into larger objects while maintaining their identities.  These larger objects are then combined into even larger ones while maintaining their identities.  And the cycle continues.  It’s like the sample above.  Letters are combined into words, words into sentences and into paragraphs.   The letter does not lose it’s identity while neither does the word and so on.  Because each object has retained its identity, it can be changed at any time without having to change everything.

Automation

Automation is when the coding and modular structure of a media object allows a program or media to automatically create an object or document upon accessing it similar to an Excel file.  When it is opened up, it already has gridlines, cell names and basic functions ready to start inputting information.  It also has command buttons at the top of the screen for easy formatting.  In many cases this automation is like an artificial intelligence.  To some degree, it can keep track of what you are doing, like in a computer game.

Variability

A new media object can exist in different versions all at the same time.  While old media is exactly the same when it is copied, new media typically has many different versions when copied and these versions are often automatically created by a computer.  An example of this is when a Word document is opened and then saved again in WordPerfect.  The document looks slightly different in the other word processor.  If the different programs don’t have the same font available, the computer will usually select one that is as similar as possible.  Modularity makes variability possible because the media elements are stored digitally and can be put together in different sequences while controlled by a program.  Also, because each element is broken into a discrete sample, media can be created and customized right now.  This blog was created for you when you brought it up on the web.

Transcoding

New media exists in human culture and in digital files.  New media can be expected to influence traditional cultural media because it is created, stored, archived, and distributed by computer. Computer software and hardware is always changing for new uses and tasks, which is having an effect on the level of how people interact with the computers.  Therefore, culture and computers are affecting each other.  Thus, to transcode is to translate into another format like from computer to cultural and visa versa.  A digital camera is a good example of this.  Film cameras are still better at creating a picture in many ways, but they are old media.  Digital cameras were developed to work with computers and they have gotten better and better each year so that the pictures are as clear as film pictures.  On the other hand, it is getting more difficult to find film and even good cameras that use film because more people are using digital cameras so that they can work with the pictures on their computers.

With each of these principles, the one that is the most powerful in what Manovich calls a culture undergoing computerization is Numerical Representation.  This is the most important because it is the foundation for the other four.  Without the ability to digitize media, we would not be able to work with it on the computer.  We would not be able to create media on the computer either.  All of the programing and digitizing rely on numbers to work in the binary code.  After the digitizing, we are able to create modalities and make them function automatically.  We can then change them and expect them to change in different venues.  All this because the elements of the media were all given their own number.