Manovich Chapter One

Principle 1: Numerical Representation is that all forms of New Media can be made on computer graphically, but behind those graphic representations are forms of computer code. The computer does not think graphically, it thinks with numbers, it then takes the numbers and translates them into images for you to manipulate. When you take a photograph and play with its contents on your computer, the computer is not seeing the photograph as a real image, it is seeing it with numbers. You are seeing it as an image.

Principle 2: Modularity is a principle that means when you make a new media project, your project has many different elements that were created separately and put together in a larger project. Those individual elements that were added together to make your larger project still retain their individual identities even though they are in a larger project. When added together they still retain their individuality. An example may be when you make a movie in iMovie. You add your favorite movie clips and photos and then render them altogether to make a movie. Even after being rendered as one project, your individual clips and pics do not lose their identity as clips and pics even though rendered together.

Principle 3: Automation is when a computer can create, edit, or generate images/small projects from internal programs that tell it what and how to do so. An example may be when you are writing a document in WORD and the computer tells you when you have spelled a word wrong and it is fixes it for you, or when you take a picture on your phone and the phone automatically edits red eyes for you.

Principle 4: Variability talks about how a new media document can exist in an infinite amount of forms. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the declaration of independence he made one master copy and then could print as many as he wanted, but they would all be identical. Relating this to new media, one can create a photograph and put it online, but that photograph will not look identical on every computer screen. I may have a larger screen than others, and that photo may look a bit distorted than the original, but it is still a copy of the original. A new media document can be copied, but will not always look like its original form.

Principle 5: Transcoding is the most important of the five principles. Transcoding is to say that human culture and computer culture are being blended together. The way that we are interacting with computers is always changing and the way that we interact with them is affecting our culture. An example would be the iPad. In the past we always interacted with our computers through mouse clicks and key strokes, but a new idea brought to the world to interact with a computer through touch. We can now manipulate the screen by simply touching it. Two cultures have blended together, the way a human finger is used interacts now with an electronic interface.

I think that the last principle of Transcoding explains the most of "culture undergoing computerization," because those two layers are meshing together. Instead of us solely influencing the computer, new technologies are influencing us and the way that we interact with each and different mediums in which we do so.