My name is Dee Kapila. Here are the essentials:
-Moved to the US from Curacao, Netherlands Antilles in 2001 to go to UT.
-Graduated in 2005, BS in Creative Advertising (copywriting sequence) and minor in Business Foundations.
- Worked for a 1-1.5 years, the most depressing time in my life thus far, but did discover a slew of amazing takeout restaurants, most of which Chinese, so all was not in vain
-Came to Texas State in '07, this is my last semester!
-I live in Hyde Park, in central Austin, same neighborhood as Cindy, and I bet we're both pretty proud of it-its really great and I don't ever want to move.
-I speak 4 languages, just purchased some French cds from half price to listen to on my commute, so hopefully will soon speak 5.
-Love videogames, dogs, guacamole, fashion, music
-Am addicted to internet
-Favorite band: Hot Chip Favorite movie: Mirrormask, featuring the art of my favorite artist, Dave Mckean Favorite show: Lost Favorite color: Red Favorite author: Kurt Vonnegut
Now, the educational stuff:
Before doing the assigned reading:
Before I attempt the assigned readings, I’d like to define “new media” and what it means to me. Currently, when I think of new media, the first thing that pops into my head is social networking sites- I think of myspace, facebook, all those sites we all deny we spend way too much time on. I think of blogging as probably the eldest sibling of new media. It’s taking media as being this sort of vehicle that others feed to US, and making it into something we not only consume but can potentially feed to OTHERS. I think today’s new media is tomorrow’s slightly older media, but whatever it is, it will be a two-way system of communication that allows us to much more conveniently, efficiently, and frequently communicate with one another. I also associate new media with being paperless. Now, let me do some reading and see what I think after.
After doing the assigned reading:
According to Manovich, my previous definition is more cyberculture than new media. He defines cyberculture as the “study of various social phenomena associated with Internet and other new forms of network communication.” He goes on to define new media as “computer technology used as a distribution platform.” His definition is a lot broader than mine, because it includes advertising and film, whereas mine did not. A prime example of Manovich’s broader definition would be the recent promotions for the new Batman film, The Dark Knight. The studios have invested in loads of viral marketing, which would fall under Manovich’s definition of new media, and not my previous one. I previously simply considered that Alternative advertising. To read more about the Dark Knight’s marketing/new media efforts, you may check out http://www.firstshowing.net/2007/12/05/the-dark-knights-viral-marketing-gets-very-real-cakes-cell-phones-and-all/
(p.s. is anyone else shocked by the random death of actor Heath Ledger, who is the Batman franchise’s new Joker today? Well they just released an article that said his family found out about his death from the media. The quickest media vehicles today are blogs, and they were quicker than mainstream news outlets to report his death, so there’s another example of new media at work for you, in a sort of heart-breaking way. )
Back to the point: Manovich seems to crave a broader definition for new media because he doesn’t want it to “lose any specificity.” Manovich also considers computer/video games as part of new media. This excites me because perhaps in the future, children will be required to take video gaming classes in school. You laugh at me, but I cannot tell you how much I have learned about myself and life from video games. Go on, laugh. We’ll see which one of our kids gets straight As in
Manovich also looks at software such as Final Cut Pro and Photoshop as being part of new media. This is something I would not have thought to include in my definition although it is definitely entrenched in much of the internet based information we consume. This technology is constantly developing and coming out with new versions, and these new versions become new versions of new media. However, this means we should probably consider Microsoft office new media, and I just don’t think the definition should apply to EVERYTHING computer related. This sort of seems to be the way Manovich is heading.
1 comment:
" This excites me because perhaps in the future, children will be required to take video gaming classes in school."
That's not such a far fetched idea.
In fact, there's an IT department on campus, Instructional Technologies Support (they do TRACS and Blackboard and the ITV stuff as well as help faculty develop online classes) that's been poking around at ideas of "serious games" - using video (and online) games for instructional purposes. Right now they are just learning about the possibiliies themselves, and how they could support faculty who'd like to do something like that. (We'd started a blog too, but only Sean McMains and I were posting to it: Play2Learn.)
In fact, there's a whole conference devoted to it: Serious Games Summit.
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