In The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich
proposes five “principles of new media”—to be understood “not as absolute laws
but rather as general tendencies of a culture undergoing computerization.” The
five principles are numerical representation, modularity, automation,
variability,and transcoding.
1. Numerical
representation: new media objects exist as data
Because all new media objects are composed of digital code, they
are essentially numerical representations. That is, all new media objects can
be described mathematically and can be manipulated via algorithms. According to
Manovich, the key difference between old and new media is that new media is
programmable. The closest we can get to the ‘materiality’ of a new media object
is to talk about the numbers and formulas that constitute it. In new media
compositions, the opposition between visual and verbal is bridged in the sense
that both are code—both image and text are programmed and programmable.
2. Modularity: the different elements of new media exist independently
Pixels, images, text, sounds,
frames, code—independent elements like these combine to form a new media
object. These elements can be independently modified and reused in other works.
The modularity of new media is related to the modular character of structural
computer programming.
3. Automation: new media objects
can be created and modified automatically
Automation is seen in computer programs that allow
users to create or modify media objects using templates or algorithms.
4. Variability: new
media objects exist in multiple versions Different versions of same programmes is usable
in all programmes. Manovich writes, “a new media object is not
something fixed once and for all, but something that can exist in different,
potentially infinite versions” For Eg. Documents can be read in all versions of adobe reader i.e. Adobe 7,8,9. But the reading experience in each case differs. Adobe Version 7 and 8 has fewer features than Adobe 9.
5. Transcoding: a new media object can be
converted into another format
Transcoding refers to the translation of a new
media object from one format to another (for example, text to sound) or the
adaptation of new media for display on different devices. Broadly, transcoding
designates the ways in which media and culture are being reshaped and transformed
by the logic of the computer. The computerization of culture is a process of
transcoding, as “cultural categories or concepts are substituted, on the level
of meaning and language, by new ones that derive from the computers
ontology, epistemology, and pragmatics”
The history of internet is simplified and explained in the above video.
While
computers were not a new concept in the 1950s, there were relatively few
computers in existence and the field of computer science was still in its
infancy. Most of the advances in technology at the time - cryptography, radar,
battlefield communications - were due to military operations during World War
II, and it was, in fact, government activities that led to the development of
the Internet.
On
October 4, 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, man's first foray into outer
space, and the U.S. government under President Eisenhower subsequently launched
an aggressive military campaign to compete with and surpass the Soviet
activities. From the launch of Sputnik and the U.S.S.R. testing its first
intercontinental ballistic missile, the Advanced Research Projects Agency
(ARPA) was born. ARPA was the U.S. government's research agency for all space
and strategic missile research. In 1958, NASA was formed, and the activities of
ARPA moved away from aeronautics and focused mainly on computer science and
information processing. One of ARPA's goals was to connect mainframe computers
at different universities around the country so that they would be able to
communicate using a common language and a common protocol. Thus the ARPAnet --
the world's first multiple-site computer network -- was created in 1969.
The
original ARPAnet eventually grew into the Internet. The Internet was based on
the concept that there would be multiple independent networks that began with
the ARPAnet as the pioneering packet-switching network but would soon include
packet satellite networks and ground-based packet radio networks.
A
brief timeline highlighted below mentions some of the major occurrences over
the past 49 years that have shaped the Internet of today.
1958 President Eisenhower requests funds to create ARPA. Approved as
a line item in Air Force appropriations bill.
1961 Len Kleinrock, Professor of Computer Science at UCLA, writes
first paper on packet switching, "Information Flow in Large Communications
Nets." Paper published in RLE Quarterly Progress Report.
1962 J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark write first paper on Internet
Concept, "On-Line Man Computer Communications."
Len Kleinrock writes
Communication Nets, which describes design for packet switching network; used
for ARPAnet
1964 Paul Baran writes, "On Distributed Communications
Networks," first paper on using message blocks to send info across a
decentralized networktopology(Nodes and Links)
Oct.
1965 First Network Experiment: Directed by
Larry Roberts at MIT Lincoln Lab, two computers talked to each other using
packet-switching technology.
Dec. 1966 ARPA project begins. Larry Roberts is chief scientist.
Dec. 1968 Arpanet contract given to Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN) in
Cambridge, Mass.
Sept.
1, 1969 First ARPANet node installed at UCLA Network
Measurement Center. Kleinrock hooked up the Interface Message Processor to a
Sigma 7 Computer.
Oct.
1, 1969 Second node installed at Stanford Research
Institute; connected to a SDS 940 computer. The first ARPANet message sent:
"lo." Trying to spell log-in, but the system crashed!
Nov.
1, 1969 Third node installed at University of
California, Santa Barbara. Connected to an IBM 360/75.
Dec. 1, 1969 Fourth node installed at University of Utah. Connected to a DEC
PDP-10.
March 1970 Fifth node installed at BBN, across the country in Cambridge,
Mass.
July 1970 Alohanet, first packet radio network, operational at
University of Hawaii.
March
1972 First basic e-mail programs written by Ray
Tomlinson at BBN for ARPANET: SNDMSG and READMAIL. "@" sign chosen
for its "at" meaning.
March
1973 First ARPANET international connections to
University College of London (England) and NORSAR (Norway).
1974 Intelreleases the 8080
processor.
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish
"A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection," which details the
design of TCP.
1976 Apple Computer founded by Steve
Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
Queen Elizabeth II sends out an
e-mail.
Vint Cerf joins ARPA as program
manager.
1978 TCP split into TCP and IP.
1979 Bob Metcalfe and others found 3Com (Computer Communication
Compatibility).
1980 Tim Berners-Lee writes program called "Enquire
Within," predecessor to the World Wide Web.
1981 . IBM announces its first Personal Computer. Microsoft creates
DOS.
1983 . Cisco Systems founded.
Nov. 1983 . Domain Name System (DNS) designed by Jon Postel, Paul
Mockapetris, and Craig Partridge. .edu, .gov, .com,
.mil, .org, .net, and .int created.
1984 • William Gibson writes "Neuromancer." Coins the term
"cyberspace".
• Apple Computer introduces the
Macintosh on January 24th.
March 15, 1985 . Symbolic.com becomes the first registered domain.
1986 . 5000 hosts on ARPAnet/Internet.
1987 • 10,000 hosts on the Internet.
• First Cisco routershipped.
• 25 million PCs sold in US.
1989 • 100,000 hosts on Internet.
• McAfee Associates founded;
anti-virus software available for free. Quantum becomes America Online.
1990 . ARPAnet ends. Tim Berners-Lee creates the World Wide Web.
1992 "Surfing the Internet" is coined by Jean Armour Polly.
1993 . Mosaic Web browser developed by Marc Andreesen at University
of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
. InterNICcreated.
• Web grows by 341,000 percent
in a year.
April 1994 . Netscape Communications founded.
• Jeff Bezos writes the
business plan for Amazon.com.
. Java's first public
demonstration.
Dec.
1994 Microsoft licenses technology from
Spyglass to create Web browser for Windows 95.
May 23, 1995 . Sun Microsystems releases Java.
August 24, 1995 . Windows 95 released.
1996 . Domain name tv.com sold to CNET for $15,000. Browser wars
begin. Netscape and Microsoft two biggest players.
1997 . business.com sold for $150,000.
January
1998 . Microsoft reaches a partial settlement with
the Justice Department that allows personal computer makers to remove or hide
its Internet software on new versions of Windows 95.
. Netscape announces plans to
give its browser away for free.
1998 US Depart of Commerce outlines proposal to privatize DNS. ICANN
created by Jon Postel to oversee privatization. Jon Postel dies.
1999 •AOL buys Netscape; Andreesen steps down as full-time employee.
• Browsers wars declared over;
Netscape and Microsoft share almost 100% of browser market.
• Microsoft declared a monopoly
by US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.
•Shawn Fanning creates Napster,
opening the possibilities of peer-to-peer file sharing and igniting a copyright
war in the music industry.
2000 . Fixed wireless, high-speed Internet technology is now seen as a
viable alternative to copper and fiber optic lines placed in the ground.
. The Dot-Com Bubble bursts. A
majority of the dot-coms ceased trading after burning through their venture
capital, often without ever making a net profit.
January
10, 2000 • AOL Merges with Time-Warner. AOL
shareholders take 55% stake in newly formed company.
February
2000 . A large-scale denial of service
attack is launched against some major Web sites like Yahoo! and eBay, alerting
Web sites to the need for tighter security measures.
. 10,000,000 domain names have
been registered.
September
2000 There are 20,000,000 websites on the
Internet, numbers doubling since February 2000.
July
2001 A federal judge rules that Napster must
remain offline until it can prevent copyrighted material from being shared by
its users.
The Code Red worm and Sircam
virus infiltrate thousands of web servers and email accounts, respectively,
causing a spike in Internet bandwidth usage and security breaches.
November
2001 The European Council adopts the first
treaty addressing criminal offenses committed over the Internet.
First uncompressed real-time
gigabit HDTV transmission across a wide-area IP network takes place on
Internet2.
January 2002 name
begins resolving
January
2003 The SQL Slammer worm causes one of the largest
and fastest spreading DDoS attacks ever, taking only 10 minutes to spread
worldwide.
The Internet celebrates its
'unofficial' 20th birthday.
September
2003 The RIAA sues 261 individuals for
allegedly distributing copyright music files over peer-to-peer networks
December
2003 The Research project "How much
information 2003" finds that Instant messaging generates five billion
messages a day (750GB), or 274 Terabytes a year and that e-mail generates about
400,000 terabytes of new information each year worldwide.
2005 YouTube.com launches
2006 There are an estimated 92 million Web sites online
May
2006 . A massive DDOS assault on Blue Security,
an anti-spam company, is redirected by Blue Security staff to their Movable
Type-hosted blog. The result is that the DDOS instead knocks out all access to
over 1.8 million active blogs.
August
2006 . AOL announces that they will give for free
virtually every service for which it charged a monthly fee, with income coming
instead from advertising.
October
2006 There are an estimated 92 million Web sites
online (some stats say over 100 million)
Google Inc. acquires YouTube for $1.65 billion
in a stock-for-stock transaction.
January 2007 . Microsoft launches its
various consumer versions of Microsoft Vista.
February 2007 . Apple surpasses one billion iTunes downloads.
March 2007 . 1.114 billion people
use the Internet according to Internet World Stats.
April 2007 .
Search engine giant Google surpasses Microsoft as "the most valuable
global brand," and also is the most visited Web
Cyber warfare
is Internet-based conflict involving politically motivated attacks on
information and information systems. Cyber warfare attacks can disable official
websites and networks, disrupt or disable essential services, steal or alter classified
data, and cripple financial systems -- among many other possibilities.
According
to Jeffrey Carr, author of "Inside Cyber Warfare," any country can
wage cyber war on any other country, irrespective of resources, because most
military forces are network-centric and connected to the Internet, which is not
secure. For the same reason, non-governmental groups and individuals could also
launch cyberwarfare attacks. Carr likens the Internet's enabling potential to
that of the handgun, which became known as "the great equalizer."
The video shown below answers the question whether cyber war exist or not.
Examples
of cyber warfare:
In
1998, the United States hacked into Serbia's air defense system to compromise
air traffic control and facilitate the bombing of Serbian targets.
In
2007, in Estonia, a botnet of over a million computers brought down government,
business and media websites across the country. The attack was suspected to
have originated in Russia, motivated by political tension between the two
countries.
Also
in 2007, an unknown foreign party hacked into high tech and military agencies
in the United States and downloaded terabytes of information.
In
2009, a cyber spy network called "GhostNet" accessed confidential
information belonging to both governmental and private organizations in over
100 countries around the world. GhostNet was reported to originate in China,
although that country denied responsibility.
The
most effective protection against cyber warfare attacks is securing information
and networks. Security updates should be applied to all systems -- including
those that are not considered critical -- because any vulnerable system can be
co-opted and used to carry out attacks. Measures to mitigate the potential
damage of an attack include comprehensive disaster recovery planning that
includes provisions for extended outages.
In 2009, Hillary Clinton warned that ‘countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century’. The Chinese, she warned, were standing in the way of the net’s inherently democratic instincts. Little more than a year later, her tone had changed remarkably little, despite the US Government’s vicious crackdown on Wikileaks: Bradley Manning imprisoned under the same conditions reserved for war criminals, donation routes blocked by Visa and Mastercard, and furious accusations that the organisation had caused the deaths of sources and informants. And yet, Clinton insisted, ‘We are convinced that an open internet fosters long-term peace, progress and prosperity. The reverse is also true. An internet that is closed and fractured, where different governments can block activity or change the rules on a whim – where speech is censored or punished, and privacy does not exist – that … is an internet that can cut off opportunities for peace and progress and discourage innovation and entrepreneurship’. This while the US and Israel brew up vicious software to wreck the infrastructure of its enemies.
This is the kind of rhetoric routinely employed by politicians across the globe: asking them to recognise complexity in any sphere is a fool’s errand, but nowhere is the gap between words and actions more obvious than in governmental approaches to electronic media.
It’s hard not to believe that the Internet – if we can still refer to it so baldly – is cracking up. As Curran, Fenton and Freedman’s Misunderstanding the Internet demonstrates, it’s a sea of contradictions. A military device which became the preserve of gentle, libertarian university and tech geeks, it mushroomed into a field of battle between neoliberals, Open Sourcerers, Big Media, Big Money, Big Tech, fans and a host of competing interests. And yet most user sail blithely on, believing that web access is a charitable gift from, well, somebody out there, secured by the payment of a small monthly subscription to their ISP.
This vision is soon (hopefully) to be shattered – or reinforced. The growth of App-based access: on iPads, iPhones and similar devices should be seen as the equivalent of the United States’ policy of establishing ‘strategic hamlets’ in the Vietnam War, or the USSR’s Potemkin villages. Within the corral, everything’s shiny, easy and nice. As long as you stick to the rules (essentially: buy stuff and don’t get into the weirder porn or any sort of politics, particularly tech-politics), you’ll be left alone to shop, update your Facebook page and join the conversation. Stray outside (seek out ‘lost’ TV shows on torrent sites, for instance), and you’ll find your access withdrawn and a ‘cease and desist’ letter in the post. Search for The Pirate Bay on a BT internet connection, and you’ll see only the infamous – and dishonest – 404 Error: Page Not Found. No wonder, then, that some activists are campaigning for a new error code which makes it clear that corporate interests, rather than DNS problems, have blocked your access to torrent sites. Discouraged from tweaking our devices and the programmes they run in any way, we have outsourced our freedom to these gatekeepers.
The book, 'Misunderstanding the Internet' is a decent guide to the history and current condition of the internet for undergraduates. It takes an essentially Marxist approach, applying the theory of labour and surplus value to our online existence. What, it asks, is the virtual equivalent of labour? The answer is that we’re are all labourers in the online vineyard: while many people believe that Facebook, for example, is a service, it is in fact a vast surveillance network. The genius is that its owners have outsourced the reporting to its users: billions of Westerners (other areas of the world have alternative sites) constantly letting the company know what they like doing, buying, reading and watching. This is then sold, lucratively, to advertisers. The same model applies to Google and all the most familiar names: Amazon in 2009 claimed almost 20% of all US e-commerce, giving it a virtual monopoly.
Where the book shines is it’s demolition of the oft-cited claim (as in Clinton’s speech cited above) that the internet is inherently democratic. Drawing on economic analysis, they paint a picture of the web (in particular) as the domain of the corporate giants, especially in news and commerce. Millions of us blog –– but the vast majority of readers stick to five or six authoritative sites: in the UK, those will be the BBC, Amazon, Google and either the Guardian or the Mail. News gathering is difficult and expensive, hence the dominance of meat-space entities in the virtual world, but brand recognition is also important. Impressive, too, is the book’s clear-eyed scepticism about the new media’s apparent benevolence: Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ is vague enough to allow it to censor widely, while Blogspot’s new country-specific URLs (hence the ‘.co.uk’ on my blog’s address) enables it to easily block access to whole swathes of its pages if that’s the price of doing business in various countries.
Misunderstanding the Internet is particularly strong on economic and regulatory analysis of the state of the Internet, and offers an excellent corrective to the starry-eyed boosterism of the libertarian-capitalist cheerleaders of the previous generation. Where it’s somewhat lacking is in the cultural sphere and – to a lesser extent – in the wilder reaches of the web: the Electronic Freedom Foundation, the battle for Open Educational Resources (OERs), the left-liberal thinkers centred on BoingBoing, and Darknet aren’t mentioned, while the copyleft/IP movement is given little attention. The law’s failure to keep up with new media – such as the widespread use of Twitter to break injunctions and super-injunctions – and the disconnection between states and the partially stateless internet also needs exploration. More seriously, post-structural aspects of the internet are left unexplored: some discussion of the net on notions of personal identity and social structures is desperately needed, yet Baudrillard’s concept of simulation, Foucault’s ideas about agency and Bourdieu’s cultural capital all go unmentioned. Amongst the acronyms covertly controlling us (or your children), SOPA, PIPA and MMORPGs aren’t mentioned, yet they are the new battlegrounds of our political, cultural and economic futures.
Fair
use is the right, in some circumstances, to quote copyrighted material without
asking permission or paying for it. Fair use enables the creation of new
culture, and keeps current copyright holders from being private censors. With
the Washington College of Law, the Center for Social Media creates tools for
creators, teachers, and researchers to better use their fair use rights.
Social networking websites build upon the concept of traditional social networks in the “real world,” connecting users to familiar and new people through mutual acquaintances and common interests.
The very nature of such sites encourages users to provide a certain amount of personal information. But when deciding how much information to reveal, people may not exercise the same amount of caution on a Website as they would when meeting someone in person. This happens because:
the Internet provides a sense of anonymity;
the lack of physical interaction provides a false sense of security; and
they tailor the information for their friends to read, forgetting that others may see it
Sharing too much information on social networking sites can be problematic in two ways: first, it can reveal something about you that you’d rather your current or future employer or school administrator not know, and second, it can put your personal safety at risk.
Journalists
have created a set of principles that allows them to stop censoring their
journalistic choices, especially in emerging digital environments. This Set of
Principles reduces risk of copyright infringement by clarifying professional
community standards. It identifies seven situations in which journalists
routinely employ fair use, and what its limitations are: Incidental capture;
proof; use in cultural journalism; illustration; historical reference; to
foster public discussion and advancing the story.
This
Set of Principles was created by journalists convened by chapters of the
Society of Professional Journalists and in some cases the Association of
Alternative Newsweeklies. In 10 cities nationwide, they conducted 17 meetings,
facilitated by Profs. Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi of American
University. Endorsers include the Poynter Institute, New America Media, and
others.
Social Media Editor is a person who manually handles tweets for
his newspaper. The job of social media editor came into scene because of the
growing importance of social networking and its huge part in the people's
life. This includes posting stories and videos, sharing tips about campus,
helping reporters find sources, responding to question answers etc.
It also involves picking up on breaking news we might cover and
just keeping an eye on what folks in the community are talking about.
It was three years ago when Matthew Keys, a young social media
editor from Reuters, hacked the LA Times website. He was immediately fired from
his post and subjected to federal charges. During the debacle, his role and the
role of thousands of social media editors was thrust into the public eye for
the first time. A New Way to Engage Social media editors may seem like they
simply click and post chatter all day long, but these professionals actually
fill an important role. They take information from their media outlets and
optimize it for the social networks.
Social media editors attempt to engage audiences in the news
process by posting comments, photos, or opinions from them. Rob Fishman, a
former social media editor for the Huffington Post, took a different approach
to the position. He says that most of his colleagues already have an incredible
understanding of social media networks. Many of his colleagues have their own
accounts and their own loyal followers. Fishman decided to focus more on the
technical aspects of the job. He worked closely with the technical team to
develop products and create partnerships that would draw more attention to his
parent company, according to BuzzFeed.
On the go regardless of the
exact role these professionals take, their unconventional jobs can be completed
from any location. One social media editor may be glued to his desktop computer
all day while another one may work on the go using an HTC Windows phone from mobile.
A kid on a smartphone with a Twitter account may not seem integral to an
international news agency, but these gurus of social media have the power to
draw new readers, engage old readers, and change the face of the journalism
industry in general. Even in small markets, a social media editor has the power
to determine whether or not a news publication is successful. Newspapers like
The Berlin Citizen and The New Britain Herald have social media editors. But
with less than 250 Twitter followers each, neither of these organizations is
making much of a splash in the social media world. This may indicate that these
papers do not need a social media editor, or that they simply need to hire
better social media editors. Jan Westphal, the former social media editor for
The Pioneer Press and TwinCities.com, says that roughly 193,000 people read her
paper every day. An additional 42,000 engage with the organization on Twitter
and Facebook.
Westphal, who is now the deputy editor of digital news and social
media, says urgency is the most critical element of effective social media
editing. Keeping News Outlets Relevant the average newspaper is simply a
compendium of the previous day’s happenings. But social media can help people
stay abreast of news throughout the day. People check their social media
accounts all day long, and will go where the freshest information is. Whether
working in a small market or for a global giant, a good social media editor has
the power to attract or repel readers with their work.
Non-profit journalism(NPJ) also known as a not-for-profit journalism or think tank journalism is the practice of journalism a non-profitinstead of a for-profit business. They work to benefit people without concerning about the debt, dividends and the need to make a profit. Their outfits depends on private donations otherwise the foundation grants to pay for operational expenses.
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
According to the research which they conducted recently in June, they found out that the growing number of nonprofit news websites need more help from business experts than journalists. The owners however are optimistic regarding the future of their organisations. But the fact is many of these organisations also face difficulties to survive for long term due to financial breakdown. One time seed grants from foundation help these NP-J's to run but as soon as these grants expire, the organisations do not have resources necessary for controlling business activity and fundraising tasks.
The Pew Research center in its survey in late 2012, had identified more than half (54%) of the non-profit organisations required staffs for business, marketing and fundraising activity. Compared to that only 39% said that the need for editorial employees was more. Adding to that, 62% of the non-profits cited "finding time to focus on business side of the operation" as a challenging task; compared with 55% who felt the major challenge was the "increasing competition for granting money".
