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© 2006 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Compétitivité urbaine à l’ère de la nouvelle économie, D.-G. Tremblay et R. Tremblay (dir.), ISBN 2-7605-1460-9 • G1460N Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés The New Media Industry in Vancouver Richard Smith This paper reviews the status and position of the new media “cluster” in Vancouver. I use the word cluster advisedly because it is a word with a lot of “baggage” these days. Later in this paper I will clarify what I mean by cluster and how I see Vancouver’s new media firms fitting that definition. This paper is the result of research I have done on new media as part of the Innovation Systems Research Network over the past five years. This research, on regional innovation systems, has been sponsored by the Social Sciences and­ Humanities Research Council of Canada and is wrapping up this year. To give some context to my remarks, I have been following the new media (or, as some call it, “multimedia”) industry for more than a decade. I am an advisor to three small new media firms in the gaming, animation, and wireless sector, and I teach “new media and society” courses at Simon Fraser University. This paper reflects that background as much as my research with ISRN over the past five years. In terms of definitions, I would like to start with a definition of new media and in order to clarify the term I will start with a comparison of two common­ definitions. The first definition is the easy one, the one that government policymakers favour, and is easy to adopt because it is so inclusive. In this view, new media is the “digital” media and can be defined most easily by what it is not: newspapers, television , radio, books, movies. Those are the old (analog) media. New media is digital (computer based) and includes computer games, computer generated images (CGI & other animation), educational software, and Web content. This definition is suitable for most purposes. It is useful to those who promote the industry (industry associations, for example), because it doesn’t leave anyone out. And it is useful for policy makers since they have a simple definition that seems easy to apply when constructing grant programs or incentives. 164 Compétitivité urbaine à l’ère de la nouvelle économie© 2006 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Compétitivité urbaine à l’ère de la nouvelle économie, D.-G. Tremblay et R. Tremblay (dir.), ISBN 2-7605-1460-9 • G1460N Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés There are two problems with this definition, however. First of all, by being so inclusive it runs the risk of watering down the real distinction between new and old media. Certainly “digital” vs “analog” is important and we shouldn’t downplay the significance of this transition. But if we get hung up on that, we’re going to run into trouble. What newspaper, for example, is not made using computers nowadays? Similarly what radio or television station doesn’t produce its content entirely from digital sources and with digital equipment? The real distinction, and the aspect of new media that makes a difference to the way in which people experience them, is the interactivity. These are not simply channels for information but computer programs that contain, shape, and respond to the user. And when the new media are used to connect with other humans, they are not “one way” but “two-way” media. We have had two-way media in the past – telegraphs and telephones are easy examples – but they were limited to point-to-point, individual-to-individual, applications . New media are important in that they enable groups of people to engage in interactive behaviour. This notion of group interactivity bears further examination, I believe, and although it is beyond the scope of this paper, I think this, in the long run, is the transformative aspect of new media that we have only just started to recognize and take advantage of (see Noveck, 2005). The second defining aspect of new media relates not so much to the “consumption ” or use of...

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