Manovich - New Media and What It Isn't

Manovich explains in this book the different processes in which the media from becomes New Media. He explains how new media first came about. Louis Daguerre developed a new process called the 'daguerreotype' (Manovich 2002). After reading where the beginnings of how New Media began it is apparent that the consumers demanded the New Media product. Manovich mentions "two years later, after various technical improvements to the process, portrait galleries were opened everywhere — and everybody rushed in to have their picture taken by a new media machine" (Manovich 2002, pg:45) This shows us the development which took place in New Media because of the demand and popularity of it with the people. They give the consumers what they want. This in comparison to the 21st century and the demand for New Media is more in the form of the internet, the internet has taken over the traditional television, were sites such as Netflix and YouTube are in higher demand by the people.

New media in overall terms can be thought of consisting of two general layers as Manovich mentions in this book as the 'cultural' layer and the 'computer' layer. So the cultural layer can consist of short story and plot and the computer layer can consist of process and packet, a computer language and data structure. (Manovich 2002, pg:63)
 

I believe that this is fundamental in the growth of New Media and where it is heading because there is rapid change and growth in computer software/hardware and that means computers are being asked to take on more and more.  Manovich mentions how the two layers influence each other (pg:64) and that they complement each other in a way. Mobile phones rely on transcoding and the use of New Media such as when sending a picture through MMS is required. The image will appear to be large at first but the transcoding will lower the quality of the image and colours if necessary so that the image can be sent.

  Manovich explains that there are 5 principle of New Media. Each of the five cannot exist without the one before it. This tells us the New Media did not just suddenly come about and it was a process which took time to evolve. 

    

References - http://andreknoerig.de/portfolio/03/bin/resources/manovich-langofnewmedia.pdf
Manovich, Language of New Media, 2002.