From “Hot and Cool” to “Film and Database”

Mapping New Media Concepts

Kevin Brooks, NDSU

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Hot and cool, McLuhan, Understanding Media (1964)

Immediacy and hypermediacy, Bolter and Grusin, Remediation (2000)

Film and database, Manovich, Language of New Media (2002)

The big triangle, map of the interface universe. McCloud, Understanding Comics (1993)

Overview

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McLuhan’s Media Temperatures

Hot CoolPhotograph ComicsRadio TelephoneLecture SeminarBook DialogueFilm Television

K-log Personal BlogCMS Facebook / MyspaceAcademic genres Personal genres

Immediacy HypermediacyVirtual reality Ubiquitous computing

World Wide Web

photosVideo storytelling

FilmWeb-based comparison of film adaptation of novel;

text + video. Literature

Remediation

journal entries

emails

Social Political Economic Networks

Discrete elements combined: hypermediacy to immediacy.

The content of a new medium is an old (or another) medium.

Film (Narrative)

Database

High definition narrative. Low definition “narrative”.

VR

Simpsonize me!

“The Reality Effect”

“Today I was an evil one”

Hot objects

Cool objects

Principles of New Media: 1. Numerical representation, 2. modularity, 3. automation, 4. variability, 5. transcoding.

Immediacy Hypermediacy

The Simpsons Movie

HCI

Objects in a database can range from hot to cold; the interface (the metaphor or narrative) can be hot, cool, or abstract--so cool it burns?

Big Triangle in its simplest form

A visual heuristic for analyzing and generating visual/verbal communication

Bolter and Grusin, “In an effort to avoid both technological determinism and determined technology, we propose to treat social forces and technical forms as two aspects of the same phenomenon: to explore digital technologies themselves as hybrids of technical, material, social, and economic facets” (77).

Abstract representations

Visual icons and verbal cliches

Realistic images and scientific prose

Hig

h de

finiti

on (h

ot)

Low definition (cool)

Clichés and icons are engaging and adaptable:“May the force be with you.”

Images and words strive for veracitythrough labels, definitions, descriptions: scientistic discourse.

Concrete representations

McCloud’s Triangle, Dotting the Lines

Myth: narrativesand images are archetypal: simplein presentation, but rich in meaning.

Realism as artin images and words: immediatelyrecognizable, butmore than they appear.

Manovich’s New Media Principles; the engine under the interface:

1. Numerical representation 2. Modularity 3. Automation 4. Variability 5. Transcoding

Database

Abstract art (visual and verbal):Non-representational, highly demanding

ImmediacyHypermediacy

Film / narrative

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Works Cited Bolter, Jay David & Grusin, Richard. (2000). Remediation: Understanding New Media.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ---. “’Remediating’ McLuhan.” (2005). The Legacy of McLuhan. Ed. Lance Strate and

Edward Wachtel. Cresskill NJ: Hampont Press. 323-44 Manovich, Lev. (2002). The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McCloud, Scott. (1994). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. 1993. NY:

HarperCollins. McLuhan, Marshall. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York:

Signet. Penrod, Diane. (2005). Composition in Convergence: The Impact of New Media on

Writing Assessment. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Rice, Jeff. (2007). The Rhetoric of cool. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP. Sorapure, Madeleine. (2004). "Five Principles of New Media: Or, Playing Lev

Manovich." Kairos 8.2. Retrieved February 4, 2007 from http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/8.2/binder2.html?coverweb/sorapure/index.htm