A History of New Media: Course

For the next semester, I am going to be using this blog for my academic writings for my course on the History of New Media. This is a reflective statement on the purpose of this course for me, and will include questions and topics to be explored through the study. This is my first draft of the purpose:

As a digital media artist, it is very important for me to know where new media is going and where it came from. By being aware of the past of new media I can put the future of new media into perspective, see what works and doesn't work, find inspiration, and see how it fits into a larger picture. Knowing about emerging areas of new media is critical for me, and through this course I hope to be able to appreciate these areas on a new level. I will also gain experience in new media through out this course by posting my assignments to a blog and by communicating with my teacher in google wave. In general, coming into a course I never can be sure what to expect from it, all that I know with this one is that I hope to be able to place new media into a larger context, and gain various philosophical and technical perspectives on it. I will also have a chance to put my technical and theoretical knowledge to use in my final project.

For now, I think that a good approach to this course is to explore one area of new media technology each week, and the theory and history behind it. Some topics I would like to discuss include:

• HTML 5 / CSS 2


• CMS


• Animation fronteirs


• Search Methods/ locating information


• Kindle / Text Readers (I'm using kindle to read my New Media book)


• Flash


• Accessibility / Usability / Human - Media Interaction


• Open source / pirating


• Advertising


• Simulation


• User-generated content


• Video Formats


• Online Identity / Community / Internet Trends

This list is evolving and changing, just as the purpose of the course itself.