New Media

Apparently there is a prize for New Media writing! Plus, the winner last year (its first) was one of my new favorite pieces, Underbelly.

Even more interesting is the definition of new media the site offers:

New media is a broad term for communicating information dynamically and interactively. It is the amalgamation of traditional media such as films, images, music and the written word but with interactive features. Interactivity is enabled through digital means such as computer programs, games consoles, computer hand-held devices, communication technologies and the internet. Interaction such as online multi-player gaming and social networking (Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and Wikis) for example, allow users to behave actively instead of passively through creative participation, feedback and community formation.

I wonder though, how many of these pieces will be created using Flash? I decided to use this product because it seemed to be the one that offered the most easy code to learn and compatibility with most of the products I would use in conjunction for creation and publishing.

Author Jim Andews says,

HTML 5 has been publicized as an open source replacement for Adobe’s proprietary Flash. In truth, HTML 5 is far less featureful than Flash concerning audio, video, imaging, text and much else. And there are currently no tools available for non-programmers to work comfortably in HTML 5. It will take HTML 6 or 7, which will be some years, perhaps a decade, for HTML to approach the current featurefulness of Flash. But it’s coming along.

Although I have I read that while many established new media authors --like Andy Campbell--are using Javascript and HTML and learning code because they want their work to be read by apple users, there isn't one open source product out there that would unify people and allow authors of new media literature to share ideas.

Of course, there are many visual tools available for designing web pages. You can also freely build stories online using blogs, content management systems, social networking and online media creation tools – all without touching a line of code. But what about realising imaginative ideas that don’t fit into any of these pigeon-hole software packages or highly branded services? What about trying to create truly hybrid forms of fiction that place the written word onto a new kind of canvas compatible with any sort of popular device or platform? There doesn’t seem to be much out there for that.

Campbell does work to help this though. I have been looking at the Free Source Code and Resources page on the DreamingMethods website, and while I probably won't use many of these offerings, seeing how these projects were broken down into elements has inspired me to try similar methods in creating my own project. This also has links to great sites like freesound.org that may have offerings I can use.