New Media Suggested Reading and Viewing

From Gerald R. Lucas

An annotated bibliography for the study of new media compiled for my NMAC 4460 course.

This collection of essays, articles, videos, and fiction explore the many facets of "new media". Use these suggestions as a basis for your investigation into these various topics that make up our current understanding of new media. This is an on-going project, so if you have suggestions for articles to include, please suggest them on the talk page or below.[a]

Anthologies

  • Gray, Chris Hables; Mentor, Steven; Figueroa-Sarriera, Heidi J., eds. (1995). The Cyborg Handbook. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415908493.
  • Spiller, Neil, ed. (2002). Cyber Reader: Critical Writing for the Digital Era. Phaidon Press. ISBN 0714840718.
  • Wardrip-Fruin, Noah; Harrigan, Pat, eds. (2004). First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 0262232324.
  • Wardrip-Fruin, Noah; Montfort, Nick, eds. (2003). The New Media Reader. Cambridge: The MIT Press. ISBN 0262232278.[b]

Defining New Media

  • Lucas, Gerald (Dec 23, 2013). "New Media". LitMUSE. Medium. Retrieved 2018-08-12. New media studies involve the digital technologies of human participation and communication, and the study of the social and cultural changes that these technologies precipitate. Includes presentation slides and audio.
  • Manovich, Lev. "New Media from Borges to HTML" (PDF). In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR. p. 13–25. Retrieved 2018-08-11.
  • Murray, Janet H. "Inventing the Medium". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR. p. 3–11.
  • Spiller, Neil (2002). "Introduction". In Spiller. Cyber Reader. p. 6–19.

Fiction

  • Borges, Jorge Luis (1945). "The Aleph" (PDF). Sur. Translated by Di Giovanni, Norman Thomas. Buenos Aires.
  • — (1941). "The Garden of the Forking Paths". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR. Translated by Yates, Donald A. p. 29–34.
  • — (1998) [1941]. "The Library of Babel" (PDF). Collected Fictions. Translated by Hurley, Andrew. New York: Penguin. p. 112–118. ISBN 0670849707.
  • Di Filippo, Paul. "A Short Course in Art Appreciation". Babylon Sisters and Other Posthumans. Canton, OH: Prime Books. pp. 33–41.
  • Forster, E. M. (1909). "The Machine Stops". NCSA. Retrieved 2018-08-18. Paul Rajlich states: "Anybody who uses the Internet should read E. M. Forster's 'The Machine Stops'. It is a chilling, short story masterpiece about the role of technology in our lives. Written in 1909, it's as relevant today as the day it was published."
  • Liu, Ken (October 2001). "Staying Behind". Clarkesworld. Issue 61. Retrieved 2018-08-18. Audio version available.
  • Stephenson, Neal (1992). Snow Crash. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0553562614.
  • Sterling, Bruce (1999). "Deep Eddy". A Good Old-fashioned Future. New York: Spectra. pp. 141–187. In this techno-allegory, spec-wearing Eddy travels to Europe on a quest for love and enlightenment.
  • — (1999). "Maneki Neko". A Good Old-fashioned Future. pp. 1–19. A god-like, network panopticon guides the action in this near-future tale, but all people are not happy with its beneficence.

Foundational and Transitional Thinking

  • Babbage, Charles (1864). "Of the Analytical Engine". Passages from the Life of a Philosopher. London: Longman, Roberts, & Green. p. 112–141.
  • Benjamin, Walter (1936). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Translated by Zohn, Harry.
  • Bush, Vannevar (July 1945). "As We May Think". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2018-08-12. A seminal essay that calls for a new way of organizing, accessing, and sharing an ever-increasing knowledge base. Bush's answer is the Memex.
  • Dixon, Chris (March 2017). "How Aristotle Created the Computer". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2018-08-12.
  • Englebart, Douglas (1962). "Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR. p. 93–108.
  • Licklider, J.C.R. (March 1960). "Man-Computer Symbiosis". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR. p. 73–82.
  • McLuhan, Marshall (1964). Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415253977. Very important work. In particular, see "The Medium Is the Message" (chapter 2, reprinted in NMR) and "The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis" (chapter 4, reprinted in Spiller).
  • Merchant, Brian (September 15, 2017). "The Father of Mobile Computing Is Not Impressed". Fast Company. Medium. Retrieved 2018-08-13. He influenced Jobs and dreamed up a digital future designed for learning and thinking. Fifty years on, Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true. An interview with Alan Kay.
  • Mims, Christopher (November 26, 2017). "The Six Laws of Technology Everyone Should Know". The Wall Street Journal. Tech. Retrieved 2018-08-13. Professor who summarized the impact of technology on society 30 years ago seems prescient now, in the age of smartphones and social media.
  • Turing, Alan (1950). "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR (PDF). p. 49–64.
  • Wiener, Norbert (1954). "Men, Machines, and the World About". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR (PDF). p. 65–72 ref=harv.

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Advanced Computing

Being Digital: Revolution and Democracy

  • Andrew-Gee, Eric (January 26, 1018). "Your Smartphone Is Making You Stupid, Antisocial, and Unhealthy. So Why Can't You Put It Down?". Globe and Mail. Digital Distraction. Retrieved 2018-08-13. Eric Andrew-Gee explores the growing body of scientific evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds.
  • Barbrook, Richard; Cameron, Andy (1995). "The Californian Ideology". Imaginary Futures. Retrieved 2018-08-13.
  • Baudrillard, Jean (1972). "Requiem for the Media". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR (PDF). p. 277–288. A reaction to Enzensberger’s essay below.
  • Boal, Augusto (1974). "Theatre of the Oppressed". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR. p. 339–352.
  • Enzensberger, Hans Magnus (1970). "Constituents of a Theory of the Media". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR. p. 259–275.
  • Leonard, Andrew (August 16, 2018). "Meet the Man With a Radical Plan for Blockchain Voting". Wired. Backchannel. Retrieved 2018-08-18. A new movement says that crypto-voting can purify democracy—and eventually eliminate the need for governments altogether.
  • Negroponte, Nicholas (1996). Being Digital. New York: Vintage. ISBN 0679762906.
  • Nelson, Ted (1974). "Computer Lib / Dream Machines". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR.

Cyberdrama & Ludology

Cyberspace, VR/RL, Augmented Reality

Cyborg(ology), Transhumanism, Posthumanism

Digital Humanities

  • Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. (2010). "What Is Digital Humanities and What's It Doing in English Departments?" (PDF). ADE Bulletin (150). Retrieved 2018-08-22. [DH] harbors networks of people who have been working together, sharing research, arguing, competing, and collaborating for many years.... a culture that values collaboration, openness, nonhierarchical relations, and agility.
  • Lucas, Gerald (September 3, 2013). "Defining Digital Humanities". Digital Humanities. Medium. Retrieved 2018-08-19. DH stands at the intersection of art and science; it makes technology explicit in our understanding and interpretation of culture. DH makes clear that the humanities and technology are inseparable.
  • Presner, Todd; Schnapp, Jeffrey; Lunenfeld, Peter (June 22, 2009). "The Digital Humanities Manifesto" (PDF). Todd Presner. 2.0. Retrieved 2018-08-22.

HCI, Information Architecture, Hypertext, and the (e)Book

How does the digital influence the way we think? Or, is the medium truly the message?

  • Coover, Robert (1992). "The End of Books". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR. p. 705–709.
  • Harris, Tristan (May 18, 2016). "How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist". Thrive Global. Medium. Retrieved 2018-08-16. When using technology, we often focus optimistically on all the things it does for us. But I want to show you where it might do the opposite.
  • Lucas, Gerald R. (Fall 2011). "Norman Mailer and the Novel 2.0" (PDF). The Mailer Review. 5 (1): 248–263. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
  • Moulthrop, Stuart (1991). "You Say You Want a Revolution? Hypertext and the Laws of Media". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR. p. 691–704.
  • Rosenberg, Scott (April 11, 2017). "How Google Book Search Got Lost". Wired. Backchannel. Retrieved 2018-08-16.
  • Winner, Langdon (1986). "Mythinformation". In Wardrip-Fruin; Montfort. NMR. p. 587–598.

Open Source, Free, and Proprietary Software

Software and code determines how we work and play.

Participatory Culture & IP

Issues in open, free, and proprietary culture and its creation and consumption.

Privacy and Security

The Future & the Singularity

Social / Cultural / Educational Media

Notes

  1. I try to link all sources if they are available online, even if the reference points to a book.
  2. NMR refers to Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort. If an online version is available, I will supply the direct link. Other references are linked directly.

References