The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media

Preface

preface Thanks to the technological developments of the past thirty years, computers have shed their intimidating image of number crunchers, and they have developed into what Theodore Nelson called as early as 1981 “literary machines.” By this term one must understand not only word-processing abilities but a manipulation of symbols of all kinds capable of delivering radically new forms of art, entertainment, communication, and social experiences . The study of what is collectively labeled “digital media” or even “new media,” the cultural and artistic practices made possible by digital technology, has become one of the most vibrant areas of scholarly activity. It is rapidly turning into an established academic field, with many universities now off fi ering it as a major. More broadly, the so-called digi- ff ff tal humanities—whether we conceive of them as media theory, as the study of digitalborn artworks, as the investigation of print literature through computer applications, as the design of such applications, or as the creation of online archives devoted to cultural topics—inject new life into an area of knowledge that has been steadily losing ground in academia to the other cultures of science, business, and less art-friendly technologies. Yet while a plethora of books have been published on the various cultural applications of digital technology, we still lack a systematic and comprehensive reference work to which teachers and students can quickly turn for reliable information on the key terms and concepts of the field. The fi Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media fi a lls this need fi by presenting an interdisciplinary panorama of the ideas, genres, and theoretical concepts that have allowed digital media to produce some of the most innovative intellectual , artistic, and social practices of our time. We envision this book as an easy-to-consult reference work for digital media scholars or for scholars in other disciplines wishing to familiarize themselves with this fast-developing field. fi In the age of Wikipedia, one may admittedly wonder if a project like this one duplicates information already available online. Has not digital technology, by making possible a free, easily accessible, constantly updated, and (ideally) always current sum of human knowledge, produced the total Encyclopedia that contains all partial encyclopedias and renders them obsolete? Aren’t the products of the collective intelligence which Wikipedia puts into practice more reliable, more comprehensive, and less biased than the work a of individual authors? While honesty forces us to acknowledge that some of our topics are also found on Wikipedia, and that it has been a precious source of information for many of our authors, it is our firm belief that this book has a lot to off fi er that ff ff Wikipedia does not: it targets a more scholarly audience; its entries are more narrowly focused on issues relevant to the arts, humanities, and cultural studies; and, what is perhaps most important, its authors bear greater responsibility for the content of their contributions than the anonymous authors of Wikipedia entries, a responsibility that should lead to a xii Preface greater reliability. In addition, the fact that our contributors are not merely leaders in their field but often the creators of the fi fi eld they are writing about imparts a perspective fi that could not be achieved by anonymously written entries. The main challenge in undertaking a project like this one lies in deciding what information readers will want to look up. It has been more than twenty-five years since digital fi media penetrated the humanities, and the luddites have largely died down: while in the 1990s there were still many people in academia or other professions who were afraid of computers, ignored the resources of the Internet, refused to use e-mail, or got writer’s block at the mere idea of giving up their beloved pen and paper or typewriter, these people have now either retired or been converted. We all conduct business online, and while not everybody has the time (or inclination) to participate in social media, we all do e-mail and use word processors. But there is still widespread ignorance about the more specific fi applications of computer technology in the area of art, textuality, entertainment, and the humanities, or about the critical concepts that have been developed to theorize digital culture. Moreover, as applications become more diverse, scholars specialize in some areas and cannot keep track of the entire field. For instance, video game scholars may not fi be up to date on recent developments in electronic literature, and researchers studying print literature through computer programs may...