What is New Media?

Manovich attempts to explain to the reader on what New Media is. It’s amazing how Manovich’s approach on the principles of new media ties in together.  They all are coherent when it comes to how they influence what is known to be new media.  Manovich’s explains to us that it is not new media we speak of, but simply human interaction with computers.  We as humans are losing our originality because of computers.

He proposes five principles.  The five principles are: Numerical Representation- this refers to the fact that computers operate in response to numeral codes that helps complete the basic functions of it, Modularity- the fact that all new media has the same modular structure throughout, Automation- the computer user modifies or create from scratch a media object using templates or simple algorithms, Variability- instead of identical copies, a new media object uses a compilation of many different versions of something, and the computer puts it together, and finally, Transcoding- convert (language or information) from one form of coded representation to another.

Examples of these principles are as followed: numerical representation, me being in a film, how films are continuous movements of pictures.  Modularity would be more of editing the film.  Automation would be the editing part of the film, where you make cuts or add music.  When we look at different variables we see that we add all of these things and the computer joins it all together.  Finally transcoding is the process by which we can convert the movie to a DVD.

Are these principles true as far as how new media is viewed?  Does the principles gives us a rough generalization of what new media is?  I say yes we see those points that he brought out are self-evident in our environment and our culture.  This is not necessarily a bad thing but we must not leave behind our own originality.