COM257: Media History and Theory

In his article Mobile Telephone History, Tom Farley traces the development of the mobile telephony since it first appeared in 1940s until today. The history of public mobile telephony begins with the end of World War II. Mobile phones existed before, but were only for the use of the government.  Civilians expressed a need for communication, too. That need could now be met. America stepped up and led the process of development of the mobile telephony for three reasons: the U.S. was physically intact after the war, Bell Telephone Laboratories had many scientists and radio engineers to use, and the Motorola Corporation had grown a lot during the war. The service was started on June 17, 1946 in Saint Louis, Missouri, by AT&T and South-Western Bell and was called MTS (Mobile Telephone Service). The mobiles were all car-based radio-telephones. Cellular systems were first discussed in 1947; automatic dialing and the transistor were introduced in 1948.  The 1950s and 1960s brought more improvements into the service having to do with direct dialing, automatic channel selection, reducing bandwidth, increasing speed at which the signal could be caught, et cetera. Pay phones placed on board of trains were the first mobile phones. Creating a microprocessor made the phones more portable. Motorola filed its first patent for its cellular radio system in 1973. In 1974 more capacity was added to the phone by FCC.  Demand kept growing, and in 1976 the wait list for the service consisted of 3,700 costumers with 545 already subscribed. Mobile telephony was gradually spreading around the world. In 1979 INMARSAT allowed for calls to be made from aircraft. Commercial cellular development blossomed worldwide in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Europe, cellular service was first introduced in 1981 in Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway.  South Korea entered the business in 1984 to later become a leader in cellular radio. In the U.S. roaming made it possible for people from different states and citied to actually communicate, as well. Europe took the technology a step further by developing digital technologies and incorporation them in the phones. GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) began working on the issue, presenting more channels and carriers, and in 2004 had one billion costumers. Mid-1990s brought a fundamental change into the mobile telephone history by integrating a computer into a mobile phone. Not only the reception of faxes was now possible, but Internet access, as well. Since the mid-1990s the same systems were used and improved.

Today the incorporation of the Internet and cellular technologies all over the world make the base of the common-day mobile telephony. Iphones is as far as the technology has gotten us so far. The devise itself is compact, easy to use, multifunctional, makes any information easily accessible. Radio phone was new media at a certain point, but its technological development never stopped. Today iphones are new media, as Manovich would have defined it, and the development still never stops. More and more cell phones acquire functions of the optional internet connection in the phone. Copanies, at the same time improve on the basics, such as texting, voicemails, and voice to text converters. What is going to be our next destination in achieving even more comfortable and easy communication can only be guessed upon, but there is no doubt that even iphones will be substituted by another form of new media in a few decades.

Nastassia Astrasheuskaya

Video games are made of two things, according to Jesper Juul:
real rules and fictional worlds. Juul starts off his book with the discussion
of how video games came to life. He says, video games deviate from traditional
non-electronic games that are mostly abstract (Juul 1). He compares video games
to the board games of the ancient past, finding many common trends.  Video games as we know them today started with
Spacewar in 1969. By that time such
media as television, cinema, and printing press had existed and worked for
dozens or even hundreds of years. But video games were not the successors of
these media, they was not new media, but the continuation of the game history,
according to Juul. A different interface is used today, however: computer.

 The major theme of
Juul’s book is about rules and fiction coexisting in video games. On the one
hand, rules offer a challenge to the player; they set a bar for the player to
achieve in certain conditions. On the other hand, the offered challenge is affected
by the fiction of the game: the design, the underlying story, or other things
coming from the imagination of the creator and the user. Fiction allows
different people experience the same game differently. Fiction allows for
elaboration of the plot of a game. Games representing narratives (narratology)
are different from those representing something unique (ludology). Rules
however limit the freedom of playing, thus adding meaning to the action in the
game. The reason people love video games is for their interactivity: rules
create a mental challenge, which some may enjoy; at the same time some people
can simply enjoy the process, or the animation, neglecting the metal challenge.
The author uses the example of the Titanic
movie to describe why video games are fun for everyone: different people may
enjoy the film for different reasons, someone may like the love story, someone could
like the hit song, and another person would love the action scene.

Jull concludes by arguing that video games are not a silly enjoyment
solely for adolescent males, but that it is an art form to be, regardless of
its uncontrollability and dark history of many games being banned.

The view of the video games as the continuation of the old
games, such as chess, only with a different interface now relates to Manovich’s
article on new media. Although Juul argues video games are not new media, I would
say they are new media, for they use computer as an interface connecting the
database with algorithm inside the video game and the user. Thus, video games
are old media becoming new, for they use digital technology, just as photography
became new media as the photo camera became digital.

O'Reilley starts out his article on Web 2.0 with its comparison to Web 1.0. In the comparison, he uses examples of databases, websites, programs and features characteristic for each type of the Web. Corresponding to Britannica Online in Web 1.0 we have Wikipedia in Web 2.0, for example. Or, instead of personal websites, common in Web 1.0, blogging becomes popular in Web 2.0. "DoubleClick (Web 1.0) and Akami (Web 2.0) were web pioneers," railey states, "yet we can also see how it's possible to realize more of the possibilities by embracing additional Web 2.0 design patterns." This statement explains well the difference between a simpler organization of Web 1.0 and a more variable, and more creative Web 2.0.

The Internet, as we know it today, has had a long history. Having proceeded from a combination of a few networks used for research, the Internet grew into the most powerful, the fastest, the most widely used medium of information in the world. The original creator of the Internet and its backbone was ARPA which then passed the ownership to the National Science foundation, NSF. The Internet development from the beginning was focused on the simplicity of usage and the accessibility. The Internet was used for research: educational and separately military research. As NSF took over the system after the anarchy following the ARPA's "retirement" in the late 1980's at the age of about 20 years old, it became the new backbone of the system. The task stayed the same: keep the simplicity of networking, leaving the elaboration of design to host computers. Such strategy seemed to work well and made the development of the Internet rapid, adding flexibility to it. The more developed the new system was becoming, the more users it was getting, which led to the conflict of policy and practice. NSF found the way out in privatization. In 1995, the NSF backbone was terminated, and the U.S. government ownership of the Internet's infrastructure came to an end. Privitized, the Internet was becoming open to a wider public, who could now use the Internet for comercial, social, and recreational purposes. The Internet becoming so powerful, touched politics, and could no longer stay under the administration of one country - the United States. From 1970's on, nations worldwide built networks, which later came to signify their economic development and national sovereignity. Each coutry going online did not accept the American model of networking, but was now a contribution to the creation of today is known as the Web. Still, many people saw further development of the "American" Internet technology as favoring the dominance of the United States in the world.To reduce the U.S. dominance over the Internet, the Domain Name Sysytem was introduced by ISO. Now, each countryhad their own domain indicated by two letters, for example, "fr" for France, "us" for the United States. American dominance was also seen in the use of the English language on the Internet. Regardless the objections, the Internet language hasn't changed, as we see today.

The Internet today is based on hypertext, where pieces of information are linked. Introduced by Nelson, the system of organizing information through hypertext laid base for the creation of the World Wide Web, where files on the computers are linked around the world. The Web changed the look of the Internet incredibly, withthe major change being the decentralization of information, and establishment of the user-directed development.

Texts can appear in a variety of ways for people: on paper, on the screens, as well as in different shapes. In his article on nonlinearity, Aarseth talks about how the representation of a text, its shape, conventions, and mechanism may generate a different understanding of the text. Aarseth primarily refers to the physical aspect of the texts. He discusses typology (difference between linear and nonlinear texts) and forms of texts. As there are different interfaces, a narrative can be presented in a nonlinear manner, when the reading is, for example, constantly interrupted. Aarseth points out to the existence of “new” and “old” media in text representation, where the printed books are “old” media, and electronic books are “new” media. As with other media that were “new” at some time, and then became “old” media, but never disappeared, instead giving the user a choice of which one to use, printed books won’t disappear either, even though they no exist in digital format.  Readers strive for stability, according to Aarseth, who discusses how details of the text are important. For example, if a reader knows the authors name, the former expects to see similar pattern and style in every work by this author. Readers desire stability of style from the same author.

Aarseth addresses a very up-to-date and interesting issue of whether printed books will disappear, and be fully substituted by their digital versions. The information itself in both of the cases is the same, and I think both types of interface will survive. A different question rose by Aarseth can lead to changes: the simplification of information. The text itself doesn’t have to change for readers to understand it differently. This where Aarseth’s breaking down topology comes to place.

The United States were one of the major countries playing a considerable role in the establishment of television. At first, it was believed that television would be for rich people. However, this turned out to be a misconception. The number of television sets grew rapidly in the country, appearing mostly in bars at first. The year of 1948 was proclaimed “Television Year,” by Business Week.

As television sets appeared in the homes of people, cinema was losing its popularity, for TV programming now involved film. Television at once started as an entertaining medium. Shows, soap operas, and films became common on TV. There were differences in the function of television in Britain and in the United States. In Britain, television was under strict government supervision, the production was done in perfection, while the American TV was much more liberal. With the growing popularity of the TV, in both countries, the concern about freedom of expression and regulation grew. The concern was how to make the TV entertaining and plausible, and safe for children at the same time. That concern led to the establishment of censorship. Journalism was integrated in the TV work; journalists would find the events and cover them, using fully the service provided by TV companies.

TV was a stunning new medium transmitting all kinds of information. From local, TV grew national, and international, and became a link among cultures, countries and nationalities. Television in Britain and in America was different, but this allowed the two countries to learn from each other, while also maintaining uniqueness. Television showed the variety of possible types of broadcasting: it could be strictly controlled and reserved as in Britain, or liberal and entertaining, as in the Unite States. Today, the exchange of information through international broadcasting is a common thing; we can rather easily find foreign channels through the Internet, which was not possible at the starting point of television development. People in Britain would have to watch the serious news offered there, while people in America only knew television as an entertaining machine. With time, as the globalization started taking over through mobile and Internet technologies, sharing information became possible, and people today have a choice of what they want to watch, in what language, in what form, et cetera. Thus, a great innovation as the TV was at the time, it turned out to be even greater, for it lead to the appearance of the common-day modern digital technologies.    

The author begins the discussion of broadcasting by talking about BBC. Briggs calls BBC an institution rather than an organization, and thus compares it to church. The purpose of broadcasting was to offer programs to a large unseen audience. The author traces the transition from print to radio, and then portable radio, to television. Radio was widely used in the former Soviet Union, in the Nazi Germany, in the US, especially by Roosevelt. After the so called ‘pirates’ appeared offering music to different continents from the North Sea, radio had to be renovated and became available to a much bigger audience. American radio had more of an entertaining purpose: soap operas appeared, and were then transferred to television. There was a vague line between radio being a means of political influence in Britain and Germany and being an entertainment in the US, with lots of music and advertisement. Radio was widely used for education since 1924. Radio had evolved in its function of uniting people in the whole countries and in the world.

The functions of the radio shifted numerous times during its existence, which is an example of how old media can become new media, once its function is changed. A political device, at first, it came to inform, then entertain and then educate, today combines all those functions. Radio never ceases to develop as a technology, becoming better and better adjusted to the needs of today’s society. As an interface, radio constantly shifted into being new media: first it became portable, then several stations appeared, then numerous channels, FM and AM became distinct. Radio killed the physical distance, Kellermann talked about in his article on Technologies. Radio set a powerful agenda for television, the development of which is even more striking. Today we are able to watch international channels through satellite. And television still carries all the functions of the radio: informing, serving a political device, entertaining, educating, and advertisement. Thanks to radio, it took television less time to become what it is today. And the progress with television and radio as set forth with the Internet: we can watch the TV online, as well as listen to any radio station in the world. And this is a perfect example of the old media becoming new media through a different medium development.   

At one point in history, telegraph was the “new media,” an innovation that was seen as an impractical toy. Nevertheless, the telegraph turned out to be the major breakpoint between communication and transportation, making the field of the available information more broad accessible. The four major influences the telegraph had on the society were: the contribution to the infrastructure development; the new possibility of communication through transcoding; the telegraph changed language of people, they now were able to have personal conversations on paper, rather than face-to-face, in a way, it became a different personal mobility device; and finally, telegraph became an example of virtual mobility, separating geographical distance from communication. Moreover, the telegraph came to control the transportation and technology, the infrastructure and the distance. Telegraph controlled the railroad, for example, which had seemed to be a huge and final innovation. The new form of language and communication killed the distance and allowed for a different time management.

Although telegraph is hardly ever used today, the role it played not so ling ago cannot be diminished. For some people telegraph was the only means of communication. In the regions geographically isolated, telegraph sometimes came as a rescue sign. I remember the village my grandmother used to live in: there was no telephone there, no proper road to get there; the mail would come once or twice a week… And the telegraph was the means of connection between my grandmother and her kids, where the grandmother would always get her birthday wishes in time, or find out about the urgent news in time. The time I am speaking about is 1990’s, very recent. The digital technology created a huge leap in communication, but this leap would probably not be possible without the period of telegraph. So, in a way, telegraph served as a mean point in communication by traveling and the digital technology.

Nastassia Astrasheuskaya  

Katherine Hayles starts her article “The Condition of Virtuality” by describing a very unusual art installation at a recent SIGGRAPH show. Red cords hanging off the twenty-foot ceiling like the strings of spaghetti were catching the bits of information in the room, and moved according to the strength of the flow, that is the amount of information. The installation serves as an example of materializing information. Hayles leads the readers into the discussion of materiality and information, pointing to differences between the two. The author compares the way humans inscribe information into material objects to the way genetic information is encoded in the genes in molecular biology. Hayles brings up the words of Richard Doyles, who described molecular biology as “rhetorical software” with an “impossible inversion,” in which a gene produces the body being at the same time contained within the body. Dawkins’s brought the rhetorical, rather than experimental idea that genes determine the way humans behave, not the reason, and thus a pattern comes to dominate materiality. World War II made the value of information real. Urgency in the arriving of information was the key, and depended highly on the material base, on the means of transportation. Materiality determined the efficacy of information transmitted. Another striking example of information having privilege over materiality is Moravec’s Mind Children, the scenario of which has “you” download all your consciousness into a computer and destroy the body previously containing the consciousness. Moravec’s example completely diminishes the role of the material context, for it can be substituted, while the content is cherished. Such a perception of materiality is criticized by Hayles, as one seeking appeal of the religious population. There is a great dream for freedom of information, however, for the information being separate from the mortal world. Another aspect interplaying with information, besides pattern, is randomness, where the noise, for example, cannot be eliminated, for it partly creates information. Several elements of postmodernism are mentioned in opposition to virtuality. From postmodern possession principles seriate into access, castraction (absence precedes presence) seriates into mutation (randomness precedes pattern)The second part of the article talks about the virtual book. Books with elaborated graphics, design, and colors, like Verostko’s Myst, and the cheapness and portability of The Grammar of Ornament by Kopra celebrate the materiality of the codex books. Both of the books have image created through the computer, the role of which is emphasized, for it brings randomness and pattern in visually. The interplay of computer technology and print ties the history and the future together; both material, but in amazingly different ways, they help understand the virtual information.Further, Hayles engages in the discussion of the role material objects play in bringing information. She talks about book and computers, where the latter offer more possibilities for people to work with the material. Computers allow for CPU to save time and create flow, which belongs to the user, as compared to the space belonging to the computer.At the end, Hayles concludes that information and materiality are inseparable, and they complement one another.  

I agree with Katherine Hayles on information existing with the help of materiality. I do prioritize information rather than the material it is being brought to me by, but I also don’t neglect the material. In cases of emergency with my close ones, I would want to know about it immediately by any means, and it may not matter which material is used, as long as something is used to bring the information to me. I cannot disregard the role the medium plays, because the acquisition of information would not be possible without some material object, whether it is telephone, e-mail, mail, or other means of communication. Thus, information, being the main aspect of communication depends greatly on materiality.  

Lev Manovich addresses the issue of the use of multimedia information in physical environments in his article “The Poetics of Augmented Space.” The question Manovich is posing is whether our experience of the physical space changes when it is filled with dynamic multimedia information; the author calls such spaces augmented spaces. The information filling the space is normally localized for each user in the augmented space. Manovich makes a clear distinction between the virtual space and the augmented space: all the work in VR (virtual reality) is done in a virtual space, while AR (augmented reality) requires physical space. The author gives several examples of research done on AR, including E-paper, Ubiquitous computing, Smart Objects, Intelligent Spaces and other, and they all come to the same result: overlaying physical space with dynamic data. Examples of augmentation in use are Janet Cardif’s audio-walks where visual is interplaying with hearing, past interacts with present; Jewish Museum in Berlin demonstrates the architectural connection of past and present. Venturi’s concept of architecture being the “information surface” set an agenda for a new type of art to be developed from the typical material architecture into the immaterial architecture of information flows. Prada stores, which Manovich calls modern churches, give people thrills with their glass cages hanging off the ceiling, the flat electronic screens along the shelves, the Prada Atlas, and serve as a great example of the AR changing people’s experiences of physical spaces.  

Augmented spaces have their poetics. It is fascinating how the dynamic information steps into the physical space into time, and directly involves humans. Today we are able to enjoy the direct contact with information that was previously only virtual and detached from the common physical environments. Architecture, sculpture, drawings, paintings, mosaics, icons, and other physical art forms now involve multimedia, which begins a whole new era of informational art. By using augmentation in spaces, we are able to physically experience different times, senses, and styles in the same momentum. The way augmentation is applied in everyday places and objects, helps get in touch with information easier. I see how AR can be used in schools in the future for students to gather new information right in class, for example, to create visual and textual models of objects, and so on. AR rapidly cuts into everyday life and I believe the effect it will have on human lives will be tremendous.      

By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya

Kellerman’s article on Technologies discusses space-transcending technologies serving virtual space mobility. Telecommunication technologies reorganize time in order to overcome distance, and vice versa. The primary means of virtual mobility today is the Internet. It allows freedom from “time-bounded friction of distance” (Kellerman 74). There is personal communication media and public. Web media falls into both categories, for it allows the constantly expanding exposure of the self in public; personal information may be represented alongside with commercial and other public websites. The author interestingly talks about the relationship of different types of communication, such as transportation, public media, or the Internet.1969 was hen the internet was invented bringing into people’s lives replacing many previously existing means of communication. The Internet was easily adopted by families in the U.S.A. and then spread abroad. The structure of virtual media is the same as that of transportation, for example. It consists of physical infrastructure (wires, cables vs. roads, terminals, etc.), logic (software vs. road signs) and content. Through the history technological innovations came in three major waves: 1. telephone; 2. introduction of the car and its mass production; 3. free personal mobility.  The structures of telecommunication and transportation dictate their operation and use. Two kinds of networks exist in communication: commercial and voluntary social. Kellerman goes into detail about automobility as a means of transportation and also of a powerful freedom of each individual; telephony as the oldest means, and finally, wirelessness. The author concludes with a pint that the main types of communications are often interchangeable, which serves the nations in both a good way and a bad way. It all comes down to individual choices.

The telephone and even the automobile is what Manovich would probably characterize as old media, while web and the Internet media would be considered new media. Both types of media serve as interface in human communication, and play a great role in our society being able to deliver and receive messages. The fact that the main three types of technologies discussed in Kellerman’s article constantly compete with one another leads to the thought of people trying to find most convenient ways to quickly communicate, and more and more often their choice falls on the communication technologies requiring the least physical movement. The question arising is how healthy it is for the nation. Reasonable usage of all, the old and the new media interchangeably in communication would serve people best.

By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya

In the section The Forms and Database of his article, Manovich discusses the form media takes today, as well as the way it is stored, organized, and retrieved. The first form for the organization of information in media is database storing any types of documents, records or even digital clips. The second form of information storage is virtual, for example, video games, VR, human-computer interfaces, etc. Manovich shows the transition of the old media storage in museums, libraries, to its storage in a computer database. Digital databases taking over in the society have people “navigating” through the virtual world now, no matter whether they work or play. Indeed, database is argued to be the only model for all the data we have to store. And database in the Internet is like a fish in the water. Web pages are an unlimited database, which can be edited at any point in time, and thus, is never complete. The more we process into the world of the internet, the more organized the data becomes on the WebPages. The data is now organized following a specific algorithm, a hidden logic, as Manovich calls it. Database today has entered a competition with narrative. To contrast the two, Manovich characterizes database as material (paradigm) and narrative as de-materialized (syntagm). And paradigm is privileged over a syntagm. In new media, database and narrative are still at a battle. Photography, for example represents database, while film represents a narrative, and it is difficult to prioritize the two. The next step for the media would be to have narrative and database merge into a new form.

It is interesting to notice how the covered in class topics interact and merge into one another. New media opens up a possibility for the development of the digital interface, which creates computer database, which gives a possibility for a narrative development. All these concepts existed in the world of the old media having different physical forms and locations; now it is possible to have all gathered in one place, in one computer, and data storage is not only facilitated but also allows for more and more creativity.  

In the article “The Language of New Media,” Lev Manovich talks about the new media art and its evolution in time. Manovich differentiates between the new media design and new media art, based on their relation to the content. Mnovich discusses the language of the cultural interface in terms of progressing from the invention of the printed word, to that of the cinema, to HCI. Mnovich sees the cinematic language become stronger as a universal language. And the cinematic interface is transformed into the cultural interface, which is most vividly seen in computer games. With the development of the human-computer interface, we have real-time control of weapons and weapon systems, scientific simulation, computer-aided design, and office work. Much emphasis in the article is put on the screen and the user. As Manovich points out, “we live in the society of screens, screens are everywhere.” (Manovich 114). And screen is likely to take over in more and more areas of life.

The interface is a big area of study, for it represents ways of people’s communication. In one generation, we were able to witness the evolution of media of expression: from 2D to 3D, from printed word to cinema, from VC to DVD technologies, etc. And now we live in the society of the screen. We cannot imagine our lives without the TV or computer screens, without the check-out screens in the stores, or without screens in the airplanes or hospital rooms. The screen represents a new cultural language, the knowledge of which is crucial for people in today’s society.

In his article “New Media,” Manovich leads a discussion of what is to be considered “new media” in our society. Digital technology dictated the way media developed in the past few decades. As the internet, web sites, computer multimedia, computer games, CD-ROMs, and DVD, brought with the arrival of the computer into the society, shifted the way information was presented to people, as well as the way it became acquired and use by people. The media working on the basis of the computer technology is what Manovich calls the “new media.” The more Manovich discusses, the “new media,” the closer he comes to the conclusion that it is quite a broad term, which includes the idea of media, that may not seem so “new” to us today. Manovich also makes an interesting point about the old media merging into the “new media.” And example of such media is photography: it was very popular in the 14th century and is still the center of the “new media” today. Photography was not done in the same way centuries ago as it is done today, but the idea is still the same. Film photography was replaced by digital photography, and who knows what new technology may replace the latter a decade from now! Media technology doesn’t stop the process of the evolution, and the point Manovich makes here, is that we never know when what we consider "new media" today will go into the list of old media.

The development of media, and technology used in media directly affects every person in our society. I personally come from a very different culture, where the “new media” still has not taken over the old media completely. And as I came to the US, I was stunned by the abundance of the technology in everyday activities: at school, work, stores, and other public places. I had to get acquainted with the internet system (I had never worked with the wireless before). And then, just using the machines based on the computer technologies when checking out in the stores, or signing up for classes… To make a long story short, I had to spend a lot of time getting used to the “new media." And I learnt to appreciated it!