What have we learned from the seminar so far?

During the last weeks a number of different topics referring to new media have been covered and discussed. First of all, it is necessary to differentiate between old and new media. According to McLuhan this means that new media is anything consisting or using computer chips. However, old media are for instance also the telephone or the printing press. These media were “updated” and became cellphones and fully digitalized copy machines. This process is called remediation.  Old media are influenced by new technology, borrow or adopt these technologies or only parts of a particular technology and create a new medium. 

Analyzing specific new media, like movies or video games, one has to focus on different aspects and theories. In the analysis of movies, TV series, etc. one of the most discussed questions is the one of reality. Is the story or the presented world real and can the audience rely on what they see? This leads automatically to simulation and the concept of simulacra. Explaining simulacra on the example of the iPhone it means: there was one original iPhone once, but because of the huge number of iPhones all around the world we do not know which one is the original and consequently we do not know if our iPhone is the real iPhone. 

Focusing on video games the analysis of this medium is quite different. Whereas movies play with the question of reality, video games seem to have a great influence on other media. There, remediation works in both ways: video games can remediate media like movies, novels and smartphones whereas animated special effects, narrative structures or the development of technical equipment can also remediate video games. 

All these aspects discussed in our course so far show that new media is a very complex topic. It is more than just computerized technology or digitalization. It is more than just the Internet and the problem of information overload. It is a constantly changing process of media and we can analyze them in different ways and by focusing on different and interesting aspects.