Response to Whitaker on new media and web production

For class today, I read the chapter "New media and web production," out of the book, The Internet: the basics, by Jason Whitaker. In the first part of the chapter, much is mentioned of the significant route media has recently taken. Media has now changed over from analog to digital form. The analog form presents information that is taken in its original, continuous form. Digital information contrasts from this because it takes a piece of this original form and translates it into 1's and 0's, which is known as binary code. The computer then decodes the binary code and uses an output, such as a speaker or monitor to present this information (Whitaker, 2002). Whitaker focuses on this advancement in media throughout the chapter. He explains how this step has made the editing of audio, images and video much less complex. Instead of going through the arduous process manually, you can now digitize a picture and change its colors or contrasts through image editing software (Whitaker, 2002.)

In this chapter, Whitaker also gives an in depth and complex background of digital imaging, audio and video. Whitaker explains how the idea of hypertext originated from a draft of a "mechanically linked information retrieval machine, known as Memex" (pg. 59). This idea was created by Vannevar Bush, and had the cross referencing technology that influenced Tim Berner-Lee's, HTML creation. The rest of the chapter is a basic beginner's guide to web production. He mentions the basics of HTML code (hyper text mark-up language) and the different elements that creates a website. The part of the chapter on web development, focuses on color, images, text and layout as being a major part of creating a functional website (Whitaker, 2002).

Whitaker starts off by loading the reader with mass information on the history behind media technologies. It was a good idea to give background information, but it was rather played out in the extent that he did it in. The backgrounds on digital imaging, audio and video interested me because they laid out a concrete image of how far the internet and media has come. It is incredible how digitizing media has allowed us to use cell phones and other hand held devices to view information (Whitaker, 2002). I believe we also need to be careful in the ways we use this technology. I previously watched a segment on the news about image enhancing in movies. The case was about a movie studio enhancing the breasts of Keira Knightley. This shows that people are using this technology to try and appeal to the world in ways that seem wrong and immoral. It is a true advantage to have these new technologies such as digital imaging, but we have to watch out for the misleading information it can bring.


Bibliography

1. Whitaker, Jason. (2002). The Internet: The basics (chapter 3). New York: Routledge