New media is simply defined as the convergence of both computer and media technologies, allowing for all existing media after that point of convergence to be “translated into numerical data accessible for the computer”(Manovich 25). Manovich breaks down this definition even further by stating how new media must be “described formally(mathmatically)” along with being “subject to algorithmic manipulation”(Manovich 27). Through these developments, which allowed for old media to transition to new media, what Manovich coins as “new media objects,” which are objects that utilize mathematical sequences and numerical data in order to function, came into fruition. These new media objects, like a macbook pro for instance, are coined as new media objects because they are hardware structures that compute and analyze new media. A great example of new media is hypermedia—which is a type of new media that allows the “users the ability to create, manipulate, and examine a network of information containing nodes interconnected by relational links”(Halasz and Schwartz 30), a great example of which is the World Wide Web. With this in mind, comparative to old media, which is analog based hardware, new media can be intangible like the World Wide Web. Another good example of new media is “the cloud” which serves as a data server for storage of numerical data, which nowadays consists of essentially everything from photos to music to rar. files. It’s kinda scary to think that the entire world as we know it right now is essentially composed of numerical data, especially as we continue to develop new media more and more. With that said, its not a stretch to conclude that “Earth is a communicative itself,” seeing that it provides the materials and resources that we as humans utilize to construct new media objects(Parikka 2). So maybe, by pulling all this information together, maybe the Earth is new media in the most abstract of senses. To sum it all up, new media serves as a medium for us as humans to communicate to one another via new media objects which we derive from the Earth.
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. London: The MIT Press, 2007. 10-61. Print.
Frank Halasz and Mayer Schwartz, “The Dexter Hypertext Reference Model,” Communication of the ACM(New York : ACM, 1994) 30.
“New Media Definition from PC Magazine Encyclopedia.” New Media Definition from PC Magazine Encyclopedia. The Computer Language Company Inc., n.d. Web. 23 Sept. 2014.