First, I would like to inform everyone that you can read this whole book online from author’s web site (http://www.manovich.net/LNM/Manovich.pdf).

In this book, the author considers new media from various perspectives such as cinematic perspective and computer games. I think an important underlying idea in this book is to define what is unique about new media. From this perspective, the author states that new media represents a convergence of computing and media technologies. Furthermore, the author identifies five principles of new media: Numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding. The first principle implies that new media objects are programmable because they can be subjected to algorithmic manipulation. The author also provides brief information about the process of digitization in this section. The second principle means that new media objects consist of discrete elements. However, these elements maintain their separate identities when combined into large-scale objects. This principle reminds me the mediawiki mods we installed in the IS346 class because these mods were stored separately in the extensions folder and they could be modified at any time without changing the core mediawiki installation. According to Manovich, these two principles allow the third principle (automation), which indicates removing human intentionality from the creative process “at least in part” (p. 32). Today many photo editing programs have this feature. For instance, Photoshop automatically corrects scanned images to improve quality. The fourth principle, variability, suggests that new media objects are “not fixed once and for all, but something that can exist in different, potentially infinite versions” (p. 36). It appears that customization and scalability form the basis of this principle. The last principle, transcoding, points to translating a new media object into another format, which has implications for compatibility.

In some parts, I had difficulty understanding the book because I was not sure which computer users the author was talking about. For instance, there were sections about computer games and virtual reality. Also, do not forget the part on cinema. I think the author intends to talk to broad audience due to the many forms of new media objects.