29 June 2007

On 20 June 2007, The New York Times published Stuart Elliott’s article, “Embracing Change, TV Networks Find Stronger Demand for Ads.”  Elliott brings up an interesting phenomenon of advertising agencies employing new mediums and methodologies to capture, analyze, and understand what has been the most elusive, erratic, and unpredictable: consumer audience behavior.  However, as I read the article, I am reminded very strongly of what Bolter and Grusin (2002) describe as remediation. 

As Bolter and Grusin use the term, remediation applies to new and old media and the action/reaction of each to revise, enhance, or improve upon itself to end-up as a new compound media.  Examples can be categorized into three general levels:

1. Old media responding to new media, such as when the camera responds to digitization and we end up with the digital camera.
2. New media responding to old media, such as when the internet responds to music, radio, and videos, we end up with podcasts, i-radio, and i-video (i.e. – You Tube).
3. New media responding to other new media, such as when the computer responds to music and video, we end up with a CD player and DVD player/recorder, or when the cellular phone responds to the internet and we end up with a cellular network, mini-computer, or i-phone.

In communication alone, there is endless remediation:

1. letter – using pen and paper,
2. electronic mail – using the computer, cellular phone, and blackberry, among others,
3. text message – using the cellular phone (response to the computer), and
4. instant message – using the computer (response to cellular phone).

In a twist, remediation as it applies to Elliott’s article is a sort of advertising methodology and strategy to respond to the internet and such digital recorders as TiVo, and to capture, analyze, and understand better consumer behavior – a phenomenon always known as problematic because of its inherent whimsical nature.  What is interesting here is the use of remediation as a strategy within a business whose medium is an older media (television) that has itself undergone relatively little remediation.  We have seen the radio take on new forms and mediums, from the computer to the cellular phone via the internet.  As mentioned earlier, the camera has become digital and computerized.  Of course, the phone has become cellular, computerized, and morphed into a radio-playing, internet-transmitting, video-playing handheld entertainment device.  Yet, for all the relative ‘non-remediation’ of the television, the strategy utilized by advertisers and television programming (the workings behind the television medium) is heavily remediated, and this is an ironic phenomenon of ‘disguised’ remediation of a medium that is itself not remediated.

So how does this tie-into hyphenation?

Hyphenation in its most basic simplest ‘form’ encompasses remediation taken as a bridging between two mediums.  Because the end result in remediation is not completely one or the other medium, it is a virtual ‘hyphen’ of its former ‘entity’.  For example, the computer is not just a computer anymore, at the same time it is not just a DVD, CD player, radio, and television.  It has become a fully loaded entertainment medium that is also a virtual social sphere and networking tool through the internet portal it mediates.  On a smaller scale, the digital camera is no longer just a camera, but a type of digital photographing computer complete with a screen, memory to store photographs, and inputs for conversation with the personal computer.  And now, with the recent announcement by Ipevo, their new Free.2 phone is not just a phone that makes calls over the internet, but also a device that can record calls and store them on a computer (“A Phone for the Sly Can Record Calls and Store Them on a Computer”, The New York Times, 14 June 2007, Roy Furchgott).