Lecture notes and comments
Week #2
Date: September 8
Outline: Today’s lecture brought a lot of information with it. Attached is a copy of the notes I took in class NMD 100 Journal Sept. 8. It was on a man I had never known about until I’d read the assigned reading over the weekend pertaining to Vin Crosbie’s view on New Media. While the man himself was interesting, I found his views on New Media fascinating.
One point he discusses is society’s traditional idea of what a “medium” is, and how he disagrees with the traditional viewpoint. He argues that magazines, television, radio, or even computers are not media, but rather are simply “vehicles for media”. At first, I thought this idea was a little strange, but it seemed to make sense. However, I wasn’t totally convinced.
He goes on to talk about different aspects of what he believes to be “communication media”, like roads, boats, and planes, or technology that allows us to communicate with one another across great distances and through terrain that we would not be able to cross otherwise. This makes sense to me, though I see them as more a mode of transportation than an actual communication media.
Comments: The lecture went on to describe how our age is the are of mass media. It is the communication of ideas from one person to many, with little feedback allowed. I find this a little scary, because it seems to me that this is a very accurate representation of what our society is like today. Advertisers, politicians, corporate giants, and more can send the same message to a multitude of people in the blink of an eye. It’s all very structured, and it’s a very impersonal way of communicating with your audience. Vin Crosbie would agree with this statement, being a part of his theory on where technology is headed.
Crosbie believes that “New Media” will not overcome the old media, but rather integrate into it over time. Since this is something we have seen in the past, such as the continuation of radio even after the success of the television, I find myself agreeing with this statement. I can see the New Media giving the old media a new outlet, and in some cases a much larger audience than it ever had before. It may sacrifice personalization of the medium, but the distribution increases exponentially. I can easily see this in our future. How will it be done? I don’t know. At least not yet.
September 10
Lecture notes and comments
Week #2
Date: September 10
Outline: In today’s lecture, given by my instructor Bill Kuykendall, we learned about four out of five of the attributes of New Media. Here are my notes for the lecture NMD 100 Journal Sept. 10.
In this lecture, I liked the methodical and logical progression that Bill used in his slide show to illustrate the points he was talking about. His slides were colorful and artsy, which made them fun to look at. Almost every slide had a visual that pertained to the topic of the slide, giving a clear example of what he was discussing. The important parts he wanted us to understand he highlighted in a different color, which made understanding his point and taking notes on his presentation very easy, allowing me the student to comprehend more easily the topic that was being discussed.
One thing I found interesting was the information on digital photography, a subject that I know almost nothing about. The process of digitization, like a t.v. uses to convert packets of energy into colors and pictures, I was slightly familiar with. I wasn’t aware that this exact same process is used in a digital camera. Quantification was new vocabulary as well. This word refers to the 8-bit system that was used previously as a palate for color that they system could choose from, which has now evolved into the 24-bit system; eight bit for blue, eight bit for green, and eight bit for red. Useful information I could use next time I go camera shopping.
Comments: The presentation continued, talking about aspects such as modularity, automation, and variability. The big aspect out of the three was the variability, which is basically production on demand. This seems like a very important aspect to understand if you want to use New Media in a business environment, which is one of my goals. This is one aspect that I would like to study further and learn more about in the coming years of my New Media career at UMaine.
All in all, a very interesting lecture.
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