the mediascape
TRANSCRIPT
The Mediascape
Kit Laybourne-2/04/09
A Very Short Evolutionary History of Media
Ancient Media Gutenberg Media
Graphic Media Time-Based Media
New Media
• Prior to study the media of today, we must take a quick fix on the media of yesterday.• Kit’s 5 slide review of 5 eras in mankind’s communications. end
Humans are Symbol makers: its what distinguishes us from other species. A symbol can be a grunt, a gesture, an expression, a word. • Earliest media:
sign language & spoken language• followed by
drawings & marks (symbols)music & rhythm.writing (pictographs and then alphabets
Technology: hand made, one-of-a-kindDomanant awarenss was the tribe (and anything treatening the tribe)
• In 1439 Johannes Gutenberg invented the Printing Press and launched the era of mechanical printing. A huge sea-change in humankind.• One outcome was the Rise of Fields of Knowledge because of Libraries and scholarship in precise domains. Herr Gutenberg is father of the University• Technology: the printing press was the supreme media form for 300 years.• Dominant awareness was of Individual Man and the heirarchies of knowledge
• In the early part of the 20th Century, "graphics" referred to print making techniques such as etchings, lithography & block prints, or hard-set type fonts . The products where books, newspapers, flyers.• Then came magazine design, posters and - everywhere - the rise of advertising and all its pervasive ephemera, including packaging. The idea of corporate design (logos, logotypes, branded looks) hit full stride in the early1950's.• Technology evolved from Lithographic printing (dots makes half-tones) to Celluloid Image and offset printing including the rise of graphic design, type, layout.• Dominant awareness was Visual Style (as a global, culture-bound phenomena)
The term “media” began to find its currency in late 1960’s. • Marshall McLuhan played a very large role. Graphic design morphed slowly into media design.• With television, there slowly came new forms of motion graphics (based on film animation techniques). Broadcast design (logos and ID's for TV networks) emerged as its own field in the 1980's.Technology: broadcast of images and audio via analog signals
wide distribution (and marketing) of moviesDominant awareness was Celebrity (special humans, bigger-than-life-itself)
• The rapid spread of computers brought what is called "a sea change." In just a few years all tools of graphic design went digital: printing presses; drawing implements; photography; film; video. • The scope of computer graphics is still expanding. Media Design has now expanded to include all forms of "screen design", including Web, Gaming and 3D virtual environments.• Technology: digital toolset: no loss of quality. Immediate porting from one medium to the next. • Dominant awareness has turned Interface Design, Interactivity, Personalization.
As a group, this collection of mediums concern itself with Information , Entertainment and Efficacy (getting stuff done). All are environments. Each continues to in its own way, based on a mix of factors including breadth of distribution/networking, level of cost, technical innovation, business opportunities, political regulation and popular taste.
Today’s Media Ecology
• The media environment in which you will be producing is changing very rapidly, very constantly. • Your “producer radar” should stay attuned to emerging new technologies and to the opportunities they represent. • Google, arguably the most important and powerful media company today, was incorporated in September 1998 -- ten years ago. Today it has over 20,000 employees and is worth $23 billion.
end
The Mediascape
Wikipedia
Kindle
Flickret al
Skype et al
YouTube
Craig's List
Games
Metaworlds
PC & Mac
x-box, play station, nintendo, wii, etc.
Second Life
MySpace
Garage Band
News online
Web 2.0
social networks
search
collaboration
RSS
blogging
hyperlinks
Personal Media
personal computer
digital photographyPhotoshop
desktop publishing
type
layout
digital video
podcasting
slide shows
InstantMessages
Site Apps
iDisket al
Cloudapplications
storage
Broadband
iTunes
Movies on Demand
TV shows
new networks
Wireless
telephony
SMS text
PDA
iPhone (wirelsss, handheld computers)
GPS
Graphic Media
posters
lithography
photography
magazinesInDesign/ layout apps
comics
junk mail
Ancient Media
sign language
spoken word
drawings/symbolsdigital Illustration
rhythms/music
writing: pictographs / alphabets
Gutenberg Media
books / pamphets
newspapers
dictionary / encyclopeda
Thinkature et al
micro-blogs
live-
streamed
event
Broadcast & Networked Media
radio
television
cable TV
broadcast graphics
telegraph
telephonee-mail
Satellite
Radio
Webisodes
Time Based Media
film
CinemaScope
VistaVision
video
music
audio tape
records
CD's
voiceaudio books
Animation
iTunes
Mash-ups
HD camera,point&shoot,still & video
tags
Viewdle
Geotags
digital efx
audible.com
spam
Today’s Media Ecology
- This map recapitulates and extends an earlier lecture about the origins and development of the media. “Old Media” (in turquoise) = Ancient, Gutenberg, Graphic, Time-Based and Broadcast/Networked Media “New Media” (in avocado) = Personal Media, Web 2.0, Games, Cloud, Wireless, Broadband.
-The white “bubbles” are new media forms that are emerging. -This is an incomplete list. It is just suggestive. -I think its very, very valuable for you to track such items. I would welcome you to add to this list at Producer Chops site. To do this email me your additions and I shall input. Alt is to print out chart, mark it up, and give KL a copy. If anyone wants to port this chart in a collaborative space like Thinkature, by my guest. We can post it to Wiki as another collaboration.
end
Characteristics of today’s Mediascape Volatile
• unleashes deep change • deploys and morphs quickly
• outstrips conventional wisdom • challenges authority
• generates uncertainty
• The discipline of media studies (media theory a la McLuhan) will equip you to see media forms more clearly than others. This is a competitive advantage -- but only if you work at it. The impact of media forms is hard to read and predict. Characteristics are... •unleash deep change in the core meanings and experiences of our daily lives. Deep change on a massive, even global scale. •change quickly and deploy quickly, combining and recombining in months not years, and spreading widely in a viral way. •outstrips what we know. Largely "invisible" to academics, mainstream journalists and corporations. •disrupts the status quo, redistributes authority and responsibility and makes us both more autonomous and more connected. •generates uncertainty about where it's going. • end
Characteristics of today’s Mediascape Crisis in Advertising
• balkanization of mass audience (television) • rise of targeted but peripheral digital venues (internet)
• demise of want-ads (daily press) • mass promotion, short term “hits” (movies & pop fiction)
Media Ratings & MathImportance of RatingsHow Nielsen Measures TV usageGeneral definitions, calculationshow Broadcast airtime is soldTV Network Sales CycleBroadcast Upfront. Paying the Piper- this is different section than funding.- 2 hard facts:(a) producer needs to feed his or her self and family (b) we live in a commercial societyworld The Product is Eyeballs- Advertising- Subscriptions- Sales- Donations Which meadow do you graze?- TV "season"- Fdn "in program"- Network 'priorities" & "up-front"
Characteristics of today’s Mediascape Opportunities
“Times of crisis are times of opportunity...”
Who actually said this? One of the ancient sages.
• Look at these domains of work (not just technologies) where opportunities are being manufactured.