New Media 1

What is New Media? Yeah, from the name itself, we can judge that it must be a media, that is "NEW". OK, it still sounds abit vague right?

So, let us see. **flipping the pages of textbook** All right, here is it. According to Lev Manovich in his book The Language of New Media, New Media is an evolution of Old Media with the integral role of computers. Thereby, not only the way of communication has changed, the kind of messages has altered too. Anything ranging from graphic, text to music and sound become computable.

The invention of internet has changed the Old Media tremendously. For instance, instead of reading physical tabloid newspaper, we can now access to online newspaper website while making comment on the editor's blog too. Also, vary from the old old Disneyland cartoon; we now have animations that look so real and with better color saturation.

Therefore, what makes up the New Media? Manovich defines the central principles of New Media as: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and cultural transcoding.

First, numerical representation means sampling the analog signals to digital form. Analog signals are now transformed into numbers whereby each number represents different elements or characteristics. To those who are not from mass communication background, you may not understand this 50%. Imagine this: decades ago, when you wanted to keep in touch with your girlfriend studying oversea, you have to make IDD calls. If you wished to see her, you have to ask her videotaped down and post to you. On the contrary, with the digital technology available now, you can now call your girlfriend through the internet and even “see” her by using a webcam. Another typical example is instead of using tape to record sound, we can now use CD to record sounds and even images. Telephone-calling and tape recording are analog form. Whereas, internet and CD are digital form. Although sound and images are digitally coded, it holds most of the analog qualities and betters them.

This is followed by modularity, which means a group of separated samples can be gathered together and form a bigger objects without losing the identities of each samples.

This makes me think of the MIDI composing. In CUBASE, a MIDI-composing software, users are able to compose the melody for each instrument separately before he/she combines all the melodies together to form a song or music piece. For instance, I will play the bass guitar melody first by using the keyboard, then, the analog signals will be transferred from my keyboard to the PC, next, a wave line will appear on the screen. After that, I try out with the drums (in a drum set, there are different drums; with CUBASE, you can even design the beat for each drum separately). After playing all the instruments needed, I can now group all the melodies together and listen to the full song and make changes from there. When I group the melodies, their tunes and notes are not disturbed either. They play like how they are actually, to make a final song or music piece. If I wish to discard a melody of a particular instrument, I can simply ungroup that easily.

**to be continued** (Plz allow me to sleep, i really can stand already, falling down anytime)