Remediation Is New Media

Remediation is, according to Bolter, the term used to describe "the representation of one medium in another" (2000 pp. 45). To clarify this he goes on to give a fairly easy to understand example by discussing DVD picture galleries. In doing this, he raises an interesting point in that they are essentially "digitised paintings or photographs" (ibid.). This is interesting because, along with his description of remediation, we can see implicit links when talking about Manovich and his work on New Media. Furthermore, by referring to remediation as being "a defining characteristic of the new digital media" (ibid.) we can again, unquestionably, relate this to Manovich.

Numerical representation is Manovich's first characteristic of New Media, and decrees that "all new media objects... are composed of digital code" (Manovich, 2001 pp.49). We can argue here then that Bolter's cleverly chosen example candidly alludes to this, as the new media objects in this case are the digitised paintings/photographs in the picture galleries.

Another characteristic of New Media associated, perhaps even more overtly, with Bolter's idea of remediation, is transcoding which is described by Manovich as a process which "turns media into computer data" (2001 pp.63). This can be clearly seen in analysing Bolter's example, given that the physical paintings/photographs have had to be transcoded to be able to appear in the digital galleries on the DVD.

In relation to Jenkins, then, this process of taking the physical pictures and digitising them for use in a DVD picture gallery is a clear example of the fact that we live in a convergence culture, where "old and new media collide" (Jenkins, 2006 pp.2) and how easy "the flow of content across multiple media platforms" (ibid.) has become.

Bolter, J.D. (2000) Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Press)

Jenkins, H (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (NYU Press)
Manovich, L. (2001) The Language of New Media (Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Press)