Automation- A effect of New Media

Lev Manovich states that "today we are in the middle of a new media revolution -- the shift of all of our culture to computer-mediated forms of production, distribution and communication" (Manovich, 2002, P43). This is where Manovich begins to show us how the factors of the media revolution has changed and adapted through the years; right back to the beginning; from "Babbage's Analytical Engine" and "Daguerre's Daguerreotype" till the "Modern Digital Computer" of calculations of the digital age. Manovich "reduces all principles of new media of new media to five: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and cultural transcoding" (Manovich, 2002, P44). Computers were invented at first to carry out the process of a calculation, where now new media is the process of the digital code allowing computers to become a "media processor" (Manovich, 2002, P48).

Manovich adds that "human intentionally can be removed from the creative process" (Manovich, 2002, P53). This shows that people in today's society are able to take a back seat and not physically interactive and produce advanced media forms and all with a click of a button. The arise of the 'New Media' it allows software programmes to create, edit and filter the consumers 'collective intelligence', through the use of 'Instagram' therefore for we now rely on advanced technologies to produce rather that the manual 'Old Media' form. This then enhances society's  "low level automation of media creation" (Manovich, 2002, P53). Therefore bringing up the question of whether or not that the 'New Media' forms are dumbing down the society? As Manovich adds that everyone "concerned as much with accessing and re-using existing media as with creating new one" (Manovich, 2002,P55). This clashes with Jenkins theory of 'Collective Intelligence' in where "convergence occurs within the brains of individual consumers (..) construct[ing] our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information extracted from the media flow" (Jenkins, 2008, P3) showing with help of automated technology, the production outcomes can only become stronger and that if it wasn't for this combination we wouldn't have the shaped society that exists today.


"New Media is interactive" (Manovich, 2002, P66) and Manovich shows how computerisation interlinks with communication and allows the process of virtual and reality to come together to create 'software agents', therefore this monitors our media; which is of our "abundance of information" (Manovich, 2002, P55) and ranked to occurrence of relevance, allowing to build a portfolio of selections and choices. This clearly shows that we are being monitored over, controlled and have limitations to our actions by the 'New Media' forms bringing up Manovich statement of "do we want, or need, such freedom?" (Manovich, 2002, P62).

Bibliography

Books
Manovich,L. (2002) The Language of New Media, (Cambridge, Mass: London MIT Press)
Jenkins,H. (2008) Convergence Cuture: Where Old and New Media Collide, ( New York University Press: London)