New Media in the 1990s

1
New Media in the 1990s

• The Age of the Web

2
New Media

• New Media refers to the emergence of digital
  media which, for us, designates media that are
  based on computer technology.
• We are particularly interested in new media that
  changes our everyday lives and cultures

3
Recall ourThumb-Nail History of New Media

• 1940s ideas about storing and retrieving
  information
• 1950s cybernetics (machines that think or
  compute.)
• 1960s personal computers hypertext
• 1970s CMC (computer mediated communication),
  the Internet, email, the matrix
• 1980s home computing hypercard, storyspace,
  videogaming,
• 1990s the World Wide Web,
• 21st Century video conferencing, TiVo, etc.

4
Some forms of New Media in the 90s

• -- The World Wide Web
• -- networked videogames
• -- palm computers
• -- cell phones
• -- merging media (one device serves as computer,
  tv, phone, DVD player, radio, and videogame
  player
• -- Virtual Reality

5
Consider the Cultural Impact of

• The World Wide Web
• Videogames
• Video-conferencing
• networked videogames
• palm computers
• cell phones
• merging media (one device serves as computer, tv,
  phone, DVD player, radio, and videogame player
• Virtual Reality

6
1990s The World Wide Web

• Berners-Lee set out to solve a technical problem
  of information flow, to simplify the
  communication of the worldwide community of
  physics.
• http//www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile
  /bernerslee.html
• http//www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/berner
  s-lee.htm
• He changed the model of communication from
  passing around containers of information
  (streaming bits identified by filename) to
  passing around viewable documents (Web pages).
• By displaying the documents on the screen and at
  a distance, he opened up the possibility of a
  true global library, an ultimate Alexandria.

7
The Internet vs. the WWW

• Although we frequently refer to the WWW as the
  Internet, technically the Internet is the
  underlying information global network and the WWW
  is the highly graphical network of webpages
  existing on top of it so to speak

8
Text vs. Graphics

• Internet
• http//www.uic.edu/depts/comm/courses.html
• WWW
• http//disney.go.com/home/today/index.html

9
Our Time

• We live in a new media world of
  video-conferencing, home theatres, TiVo, smart
  classrooms, and many other remarkable computer
  generated devices.
• And over the horizon is a faster connection, a
  bigger data pipe, a more elegantly designed
  indexing, retrieval, and display system, a more
  tactile interface, a more complete convergence of
  entertainment media into interactive TV and of
  museums, libraries, universities into a single
  digital information source.

10
The World Wide Web has dramatically changed our
cultures and our everyday lives.

• The Web also provides participatory experiences
  with such ease of availability that gaming is
  often described in the press as a threat to
  productivity in the office and to learning from
  kindergarten through college
• It allows for previously unimaginable levels of
  surveillance-web cams operating 24/7 in the
  service of science, tourism, exhibitionism,
  policing, stalking, and even pure whimsy,
  monitoring, for instance, the state of a coffee
  pot in a lab halfway around the world.
• It is a convenient superstore
• It is an equally convenient flea market where
  goods are bartered.
• Google is the index (card catalog) of our new
  global library and school house.

11
Exercise 7

• When you go home, look around and identify the
  new media that you use.
• Send an email to Paula listing them AND
• Commenting on the new media that have most
  changed your everyday life.
• mcoboa1_at_uic.edu
• deadline Monday, 5pm.