[-empyre-] Re: new media's name - who cares?

["Melinda Rackham" <melindar@acmi.net.au>]

im currently working in a media museum where the debate on how exactly to
describe these sorts of media is of part of daily practice.. is that a HTML
web site or is it a just a website? etc..

im going for the general umbrella term and calling it : networked media
ive also seen the term next media used lately
then there's locative media...

melinda




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andy Polaine" <a.polaine@unsw.edu.au>
To: <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 5:00 PM
Subject: new media's name - who cares?


> It has been interesting trying to unravel the recent discussion, not
> only in terms of the ideas but also in terms of the language, which has
> become rather opaque and arcane to say the least. There have been times
> when I have felt I had accidentally into a mid-90s hacker forum.
>
> The term "new media" is obviously problematic, but mostly because of
> its lack of agreed upon meaning than anything else. It has been a
> collective phrase for all sorts of diverse media, modes and
> combinations of technologies. Trying to have a sensible conversation
> about anything in the world without some agreed meanings to words is,
> to say the least, difficult. New Media is a term more widely used in
> Europe and the U.S. than in Australia in my experience. I have
> constantly found difficulties talking about what I do here in
> Australia, far more so than I have in Europe.
>
> So my question is, does it really matter what new media means as long
> as everyone has a rough idea what you are saying when you say it?
>
> Using a inexact phrase is still easier than describing the object or
> work in question in complete detail or saying "you know, that thing
> over there."
>
> The term will resolve into a set of more discreet terms as time
> progresses (and of course it already is starting to - we have words
> such as CD-ROMs, DVDs, and even the Web is beginning to coalesce into
> "genres" such as Blogs, Search Engines, etc.). The moniker "new" is
> almost as pointless as "digital", but not quite yet. It is still a
> useful term for want of anything else to describe something we're
> trying to describe. Of course, a generation from now it will be
> redundant for the media that we now consider new. So what's new?
>
> The danger with taking this obsession too far is that we risk arguing
> about a name whilst the world as moved on. If we were to apply this to
> cinema, we would be debating the words "film", "projector" or "cinema"
> whilst standing outside the auditorium and missing the experience
> inside.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Andy
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Polaine
> Senior Lecturer
>
> School of Media Arts
> College of Fine Arts (COFA)
> The University of New South Wales
> Cnr Oxford Street and Greens Road
> Paddington
> Sydney, NSW 2010
> Australia
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> T   +61 2 9385 0781
> M  +61 413 121 934
> F   +61 2 9385 0719
> http://www.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.polaine.com
> http://www.antirom.com
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
>




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