A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 1
Running head: A PRIMER FOR THE STUDENT OF DIGITAL MEDIA
A Primer for the Student of Digital Media
Shane Tilton
Ohio University of Zanesville1425 Newark Road
Zanesville, OH 43701(740) [email protected]
for consideration of the
2006 BEA Conference in the Debut Category
in the Interest Division of
Courses, Curriculum, and Administration.
This presentation requires a computer hooked up to aprojector.
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 2
Abstract
Six years ago, Rick Shriver wrote “A Primer for the Student
of Electronic Media”, which showed new students entering the
field of digital media how to survive and thrive in the
competitive marketplace that the field of electronic media
has become. This paper will seek to inform students wanting
to work in the digital media industry. Currently, the field
of digital media is in the same place that the field of
electronic media was in twenty years ago, in terms of
acceptance by society and the people working in the
industry. To help new students who want to enter this field,
this paper will look at the issues that affect the
discipline of digital media. This paper will also look at
the different ways of viewing digital media and digital
manipulation. In addition, this paper will look at
communication theory and will apply it to the digital arena
of communication and this “new era” of the media. Students
in the first week of the “Introduction to Digital Media”
class are the primary audience of this paper.
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 4
A Primer for the Student of Digital Media
About ten years ago, many of the books used in the
introduction class of electronic media/telecommunications
discussed the future impact of digital media the field of
electronic media (Dominick, Sherman & Copeland, 1993). While
the textbooks have slowly reflected the changes in the
field, the academic community and the general public have
adapted to onslaught of new technologies and new media.
“Traditional electronic media” education is now experiencing
this force. Digital media, defined as the method of
delivering information from point to point through the
encoding and decoding of the information through a computer,
could be in the form of a webpage, streaming video, mp3,
flash document, digital photography and even a computer
game. These leads to two distinct styles in this field;
interactive and delivered (Kraidy, 2002).
The interactive media has two distinct traits: a
customized experience and non-linear storytelling. The
customized experience allows the viewer to expand from the
role as a “semi-passive” viewer to an active user of the
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 5
multimedia. It also allows the user to encounter elements of
the performance that others using the same media would not
experience (Swiss & Hanna, 2004). In contrast, the non-
linear storyteller role of interactive media, allows the
user to go through all or some of the plot points of the
storyline at the pace that the client wishes. For example,
if the user is in an interactive version of “Little Red
Riding Hood”, they could run straight to grandmother’s house
without interacting with the wolf. However, the designer
would create consequences that the user would experience
(e.g. the wolf would eat both the grandmother and Red). The
user’s reaction to the story dictates how to construct the
story (Kehoe, N.D.).
The delivered version of digital media would also
qualify as an accessible version of the media. This
programming is not any different from the programming found
on television or radio. What makes this media different is
how it is encoded, transmitted and distributed. Before the
popularity of the VCR, the only way to watch a program was
to sit in front of the television when the program was
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 6
scheduled. The use of delivered digital media allows a user
to access to almost any program the user wants. The user
could either record the program digitally or pay somebody
for the rights to digitally store the program on a computer
or other storage device. The user could then access the
program anywhere. (Landau, 2002).
Walter Benjamin, a famous writer and theorist, once
wrote that “in principle a work of art has always been
reproducible” (Benjamin, 2001, p. 49). The level of
replication has always varied between the different eras of
society. In the Stone Age, an artist had to see a painting
and try to repeat it from memory. The Bronze Age allowed for
simple stamping of paintings and repeatable etchings in
metal. The printing press allowed words to escape the
confines of the writer to the waiting eyes of an audience.
The digital media allows for a further breakdown of
barriers. Time, space, even language is no longer blocking
spectators. They can enjoy programming and experiences from
other parts of the world. Therefore, not only can these
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 7
“works of art” be reproduced, they can also be translated
for a wider audience.
As students of the media, one should recognize that
this new media allows for easier access and a unique
experience for each user. This new method of communication
presents options that would not have been present in the
“structurally limited” society of the past and can help
society become “more equitable” (Poster, 2001, p. 611).
Webpages can now feature more than text and some basic
pictures. They can also exhibit video and audio elements and
enhanced graphics. By allowing more avenues of presentation,
the creator can express him or herself in ways that were
impossible with just text.
While not seeking to answer all of the questions and
issues associated with the realm of digital media, this
paper will show how the beginning student can explore this
domain. To understand how digital media effects society,
three points should be addressed. The first point is how our
discipline relates to other schools of thought in the
liberal arts tradition. The second being how the mass
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 8
audience views the digital media. The third is the future of
digital media and how those future developments could affect
society.
The first point goes back to the key question of the
student: “why should I attend college?” If all it takes to
be successful in the field of digital media is a good
computer, the right programming, and basic understanding of
design or technique why bother “wasting” two to five years
and thousands of dollars to get a degree? This is a fair
question and is maybe one of the few frequently asked
questions that gets the instructor to give a “rah, rah
school” speech to the student asking. One of the key points
to stress when answering this inquiry is to explain that the
school or university allows the student to experiment and
explore all of the careers in the field.
It is very easy to talk statistics about the current
working conditions of the economy. In a lifetime, the
average person will work seven jobs in three different
fields. However, it is also important to note why a person
would change their occupation. Beside the obvious reason of
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 9
being laid-off, people find they no longer like what they
are doing (Lehoczky. 2004). Without a good post-secondary
education, that person who hates their job would be less
likely to have the knowledge to earn a career in another
field or have the necessary connections to find a new job.
With a liberal arts education, students will find themselves
better prepared to handle “the real world”. Students will
have the tools to adapt and survive in the changing work
environment. They will be able to network and find the
connection to get a new job. This leads to the second reason
for students to remain in school and receive a degree: the
university setting is “practice for real world interaction”.
It may sound cliché, but the university is a microcosm
of the current social environment. The liberal arts
education will require the student, at one time or another,
to work in a group setting to finish a project. Group work
forces the students involved in the process to interact with
other personality types. It also requires trusting the other
members of the group to complete the parts of the assignment
and trusting that they have the necessary skills to finish
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 10
their requested takes. Success or failure on the project
depends on the exchanges between the members of the group
(Shriver, 1999, p. 4).
Finally, it is important to find out about the other
disciplines in the college. Very rarely will a digital media
project’s topic be the digital media industry. It is common
to work on a webpage for one industry (e.g. health-care
provider) one week, and then the next week work on a digital
design project for another industry. To help survive the
flux that the digital designer and producer can go through,
it is important to not only have a basic understanding of
all of the aspects of a liberal arts education, but also how
the disciplines in a university connects to the digital
media industry.
Digital Media’s Connections to Other Disciplines
Students should not only focus on the digital media
field at the university, but they should also focus on
disciplines that closely relate to the line of work that
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 11
they want to pursue. For example, if a student is interested
in being a web page designer, he or she should study
elements of design from the fine arts school. If the student
is interested in producing video for the web, the
conventions of good video production should be learned. All
students interested in digital media should take some
computer science classes. Beside the fact that most, if not
all, work that the student will create will be in front of a
computer, a student should have a basic understanding of the
hardware, software and language because he or she will be
“expected” to help out with computer problems. Often in the
private sector, the author was the only one with previous
computer experience at the workplace. Computer science will
help explain some of the interworkings involved in producing
digital media and web ready content. While the average
graphical interface allows the designer to produce the
necessary product, one should have a basic understanding on
how that interface works, to help make the process concrete
in the designers mind. It is similar to having a basic
mechanical understand of a car before one drives. Just in
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 12
case anything goes wrong on the road, the driver may not
know exactly how to fix it, but he or she will know what
part of the car is broken. Although knowledge in these
disciplines is the foundation in the student’s experience in
college, the other classes that students take, despite the
fact that seem to have no purpose in the real world, can
help the student out later on in life.
Perhaps the best connection outside the fields of
production is one of the disciplines that parallels
electronic and digital media, the theatre. Brenda Laurel, a
researcher in the field of computer games and computer
interfaces, discusses in her book “Computers as Theatre” the
similarities between designing a multimedia project and
directing a play:
“Part of the technical “magic” that supports the performance is embodied in the scenery and objectson the stage (windows that open and close; teacupsthat break); the rest happens in the backstage and“wing areas (where scenery is supported, curtains are opened and closed, and sound effects are produced), the “loft” area above the stage, which accommodates lighting instruments and backdrops orset pieces that can be raised and lowered, and thelighting booth, which is usually above the audience at the back of the auditorium. The magic
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 13
is created by both people and machines, but who, what, and where they are do not matter to the audience” (Laurel, 2001, p. 109-110).
Theatre promotes the separation of the performance and the
support elements, much as digital media design does. A
designer in both the digital media and theatre want the
audience to focus solely on the performance and ignore the
background production. The difference between the two in
this comparison is the idea that the members of the digital
media audience can walk on the stage and participate in the
play. By learning techniques in set design and performance,
a student can take those techniques and apply them to her or
his digital multimedia design. A theatre influence is
evident in Macromedia’s Flash and Director programs. The
different assets for the projects are placed on the “stage”
and the “timeline” of the project dictate when the elements
should act.
English, in all of its forms and functions, is also an
essential academic discipline that connects well with the
field. Creative writing teaches the undergraduate plot
development and character sketching. Both skills improve
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 14
multimedia performances with the ability to tell good
stories. Critical analysis classes can teach how to look
beyond the surface of a story, performance or any media
presentation and look for some deeper significance to the
piece. English allows the students to understand the
importance of story telling and the structure of how to tell
a story can relate to the filming of digital video and
telling a streaming audio story through a blog or
journalistic web site.
Arguably, the subject that most students in the field
of media hate is mathematics. Math exists in all facets of
everyday life. Students will deal in mathematical figures in
the industry more than would like to believe. As mentioned
earlier in the paper, a basic understanding of computer
science is a necessity to survive in the field. Computer
science requires a fair background of math. Math is also
required in the production aspects of the industry.
“Calculating budgets, timing sequences, filing expense
reports, converting seconds to frames, figuring mark-ups and
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 15
discounts, or separating the lunch check; they all require
mathematics” (Shriver, 1999, p. 17).
Views on the Digital Media
As more film and television production go digital, the
demand for training personal in not only non-linear media
editing (e.g. Adobe Premier, Final Cut Pro, Cool Edit Pro)
will increase, but people who are trained in digital imaging
(e.g. Macromedia Flash) will be needed. A current example of
both parts is the film “Sky Captain and the World of
Tomorrow”. The production crew not only consisted of
traditional videographers to capture the film digitally but
also digital animators who added the backgrounds to the film
and added the special effects. The process started with the
actors standing in front of a blue screen and adding the
effects and backgrounds later for the test shots (Fenny,
2004, p. 86). The film is a combination of the live action
and digital animation to create a new type of film that
seems to leap from a comic book – all created by talented
people with experience in digital media.
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 16
The internet is the birthplace of the digital media
development. It is now the epicenter for that genre. From a
business standpoint, it is important to present a well-
thought out message with the visual and audio elements to
support that message. A good web presentation can sell a
product, idea or service. The visual image, therefore, is
the company and how the public perceives the company. A good
graphic designer or web designer is the virtual spokesperson
for the organization they represent.
Other academic disciplines view the digital media field
as a meta-field of study. It borrows from the older research
of cyber-textual studies and fine arts exploration and it
uses cultural and social science research methods in it
academic studies. It is currently trying to find a niche in
mainstream academic studies. As of right now, there are
eleven centers and organizations exploring digital and new
media (Silver, 2004, p. 55). There are also eleven academic
journals producing new research and new studies. The
professionals and professors in the field are not the only
ones leading research; graduate and undergraduate students
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 17
are producing an enormous amount of quality research papers
and projects. Research includes content analysis, cultural
studies and online interviews. However, there are ivy-coated
walls blocking the researchers and “the artists, activists
and technologists, not to mention those working in policy,
government, and industry”. The process of turning the field
of digital media from a meta-field of study to an academic
discipline is being stopped by the academics in the field
(Silver, 2004, p. 62). Digital media is a field consisting
of many different tools and creators. Therefore, the
multimedia presentations are diverse in nature. If one were
to observe all of the digital media productions, there would
be repeated patterns in the themes of the projects.
Digital Media as an Artistic Representation
Because the creative nature of the media, the creators
of the presentations apply an artistic slant on any project.
Each element of a multimedia project will “share a common
digital representation of information” (Wagmister & Burke,
2004). Those elements exist in the environment of the
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 18
performance and are connected by the theme and the message
of the endeavor. The principles and practices of each
individual medium ultimately separate those artistic
elements. When done well, the pieces of the overall
multimedia presentation can leap from the media and connect
with the audience.
Artists working in the media represent a new generation
that are now working towards their own definitions of how to
use the media and how it can define their existence. The
merger of the media allows artists to create worlds and
themes that could not have existed before the conception of
multimedia formats. Individual artists could work on the
individual medium pieces and have the final project put
together by another designer. As one artist put it “the
solitary, inspired author may be replaced by the de-centered
collector, the appropriation artist, the webmaster” (Jones,
2003, p. 2).
Perhaps, in a broader sense, it is important to place
the digital media in its correct contextual function in the
socio-economical structure of the communication mainstream.
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 19
Digital media and the grandparent of the medium,
photography, becomes a lens on the society. The visual
images presented in the ether of the information
superhighway allow the audience to experience events that
the user would not have access to or the expertise to find.
Therefore, the media is an extension of “the human nervous
system, particularly when coupled to electronic
distribution” (Hossani, 2003). It is the artists in the
field who shape the images, which are viewed by the unseen
masses. The multimedia experience becomes the canvas for the
artist to display their work.
The visual display has been the foundation of society
to advance beyond the caves and outdoor fires of the Stone
Age. The Sumerian and Egyptians used picture writing to
describe the events of the day. The language needed to be
simple in order for the populace to understand the meaning
of the drawings. Therefore, those pictures had a deeper
textual connotation beyond the simple illustration. While
most of the images and sounds used for multimedia production
and digital media lack the social understanding of those
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 20
Cuneiform and Hieroglyphic markings, those new elements of
media still present a text for the viewer to interpret.
The beauty of the digital media is that it expands the
vision of the artist. The presentation of the digital media
creates a shared social experience among the users that
encounter the production. It allows the user go beyond the
truth of the image, it permits the user to understand the
“relevant nature of the presentation”. A creator can simply
place the proper elements on the stage of the media and
allow a form of “interaction” between the presentation and
the user.
Two lines of thinking lead to the development of the
digital media. Much like its predecessor, photography, the
first line of its development is the mechanical nature of
the industry. The tools used in the field are an extension
of the dichotomy of humans’ attempt to apply the certainty
of mathematics for the purpose of mechanical reproduction,
and humans’ wanting to capture the “nature world” through
artist means. Both of the axes of this linear, concrete
method of communication strengthen the other axis. The
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 21
necessary force of the development in this field comes from
the push to advance both axes (Jones, 2003).
The second line of the thought is the creative push
that comes from the artists in the field. Without their
ability to push the tools of the trade to perform beyond
what was thought possible, the interest in those tools and
the whole field of digital media would not be as strong as
it is today. It is through this development that digital
media can maintain its artist nature by being available to a
general audience.
Digital Media as an Informative Statement
Cyberspace is the brave new world that has ships of
fools entering the docks every hour. It is through the
processes of vetting and outside sourcing that a story comes
out. The term story was chosen as opposed to the truth
because of the ability of the World Wide Web to tell many
different stories about one event. The truth normally lies
somewhere between the minutiae. Creative women and men can
use the digital media to report what is happening in their
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 22
areas. These reports can go beyond simple blogging, they can
be short flash movies, interactive web pages, or other
imaginative designs. It does not matter what format the
creator uses, the idea is to deliver the information that an
audience can understand. Users can then use upon this
knowledge and act upon it. They may choose to inform others
about the information. They may also choose to refute the
information by creating oppositional presentations.
In this era of computer-mediated communication (CMC),
the creator of digital media can dissect, trisect and
isolate the key issues of the day. It is through this
analysis that the “pure issues” can be explored. Similar to
the grammar used in any language, the issues of the day are
generative, transformational, and universal. The issues are
generative because of the almost “mad-lib” style of news
that comes from the world of the paparazzi and the political
arena. A sex scandal occurs and the reporter can fill in the
blank with the victim, the accuser and the type of crime.
The issues are transformational because they can force the
audience to judge the issue based on the “hidden” social
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 23
norms. These abstract rules can become the center point of
the story. The issues are universal because the stories can
exist in almost any country regardless of how “strict” the
country is.
Under normal circumstances before the digital media and
the realm of the modern internet, the news and information
were controlled by the elite news organizations. With the
advent of the modern internet, many of the once locked out
groups now have “free access” to a large audience (Herman &
Chomsky, 2001, p.280-281). CMC allows free flow of
information, but problems occur because there is so much
information on-line that it is hard to filter out the
useless and unnecessary, there are not enough resources to
properly maintain every website and people will tend to rely
on older established media as a guidepost. These may not be
causes for concern for the individual author as they
typically are not focused on the larger populace, but a
select group of people. This select group could be opinion
leaders that could feed the presentation to others.
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 24
Digital Media as a Reflective Mode
When dealing with the varied nature of digital media,
the idea of the creator seems to permeate the core of the
issue. By extension, the concept of identity and how one
defines their own existence is called into question. It is
very easy to change identities and create different “masks”
that suits the needs and desires of the creator and can be
presented to others via the Internet. The mask exists on two
levels; the cyber-handle (username) and the cyber-
personality (Stone, 2001). The username is the means of
identity that the cyber-community can recognize and uses to
create relationships. Cyber-personality is beyond the
typical self-awareness of inclusion to a social
organization. It is how the individual views her or his
world of existence in his or her own plot of the World Wide
Web. The use of digital media allows the creator a free
avenue of expression that may or may not reflect their real
world experiences.
A single person can exhibit several cyber-
personalities, similar to an artist going through a change
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 25
of style (e.g. “a blue period”). The difference is all of
these personalities can exist at the same time. One could
develop a retrospective of a single creator over several
cyber-personalities that took place over a year or two. One
cyber-personality could focus on the creator’s love for the
outdoors and her or his green ideology through a series of
multimedia journalistic pieces. Another could focus on the
creator’s interest in the modern gothic culture with a flash
movie on H.G. Lovecraft. Normally, those two choices of
interest are not placed together very easily to describe one
person. However, it can be done through the anonymity of the
Internet.
The idea of digital media as a reflective mode is
important on two counts. The first point is the idea of
self-reflection. People create images and cultural products
based on their perceptions of the world. People seek to
place importance on the filter they use to sort out their
world and use those filters in presentations. It is this
idea of self-projection that has led to the rise of
blogging. The other more subtle point to consider is the
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 26
idea of cultural reflection. Many researchers have discussed
cultural imperialism, the theory that one culture (e.g. the
United States of America) can overtake the natural
development of another culture (e.g. a “third-world”
country) through the bombardment of cultural products that
show that one culture is the “superior culture” and the
native culture is inferior. Other theorists (Sanes, 1996 &
Baudrillard, 1993) have argued that certain cultures take
the new media content presented to them and evolve it to
match the culture, thus the programming becomes
“transparent”. Because of how fast digital media and
multimedia presentations change, it would seem that cultures
can “mutate” the cultural works in cyber-space environment
to reflect what is happening in their society. The
individual artist-creators can best reflect what is
happening.
Reflection can take place over a long period of time.
These active decisions of style and presentation create a
series of “cultural precedents” that are accepted by the
community as whole and agreed to be “good design”. These
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 27
precedents are especially present in the realm of digital
media, were the technology and creativity allow the
presentation of information to occur in a clear and condense
state. The best example that shows this change is the design
of graphic basic websites. When the mass audience was
becoming exposed to the information superhighway for the
first time, many of the choices presented to the audience
were very “amateur” (e.g. neon colors for the text, no
consistency in the text selection, the picture chosen for
the web had no relation to any of the other material on the
page, etc., etc.). When WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You
Get) software was created for web design, many of the design
techniques used in traditional design could be used with out
worrying about how to code.
Another example of a cultural precedent is the concept
of “visual language”. Within this discursive formation, one
can place all of the scientific observations about design
(the best example of this is the Rule of Thirds). However,
where this form of representation is exhibited is the
methods of success that other designers have shown in other
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 28
medium and how that can be translated into the digital
media. It is also constituted in terms that are easily
understood and duplicated. After the creator has mastered
the literacy of design, she or he can then choose how
closely the “grammar” of the visual language is followed. It
is then that the creator turns the cultural reflections into
self-reflection.
The Future of Digital Media
Even the casual observer of the digital media can
notice some trends developing in the field. One of these
tendencies is towards digital archiving or the ability to
mediate content through the computer. The most popular
version of this was peer-to-peer networking or P2P. Examples
of this style of trading are BitTorent, KaZaa, Morpheus and
the previous incarnation of Napster. The idea was that a
user could rummage around for a song, picture or a video
with a large search engine designed to find the requested
media on other computers. Legal problems not withstanding,
there were two major problems with this method of gathering
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 29
media. The first one was that it is intrusive. In order to
use this system, one would have to agree to allow the
network to have access to the media store on one’s computer.
Therefore, the user would lose some privacy and give others
an opportunity to have access to the computer and plant
viruses and spy-ware. The second problem was that the search
engine only looked for specific types of files
(.mp3, .mov, .jpg, etc.). It did not allow for other forms
of digital media and multimedia production. Consequently,
new artists were left out of the sharing process and their
product would largely be ignored.
There is a new, centralized view of digital archiving.
At archive.org, it not only archives selected music and
videos, but it also archives whole websites. With their
“Wayback Machine”, they have created an ‘Internet library’
that allows people interested in how websites have evolved
to view older versions of websites. By giving access to
these cultural artifacts, people can understand how the
field has changed over the years and what techniques were
used to generate those cultural products. Through the
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 30
evaluation of these older web sites, we can learn more about
the direction the Internet culture has taken. (Kahle, 2004).
However, if the businesses involved in the production
of digital media want to continue to be viable and
profitable, the question of will be compensation for
creators of digital media products for their work will have
to be addressed. Two distinct lines of thoughts have emerged
regarding this question; expanded licensing vs. sweatshop.
The idea of expanded licensing comes in two forms. The first
right comes from the right to present. The creator can
present on the web and the audience can view the work for no
or minimal cost (www.sfwa.org, 2003). If they want to save
the work on their hard drive, they would have to pay a fee.
The project would then be “unlocked”. The person could not
save it on their hard drive because of electronic measures;
the creator could allow the person to save it though a
password and username system. If the audience member would
want to use the project and edit the content, they would
have to pay other license fee.
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 31
The idea of the sweatshop production is an extension of
the “starving artist”. One would produce many “low quality”
materials and sell them at a low price. There could be a
dozen of these creators selling their ware on one website.
It is a very simple way to display their talents. The
problem occurs because this method forces the artists to
produce in quantity and not quality. Therefore, their talent
might be wasted to make a few dollars. However, if there
were products the artist could use that would allow them to
easily go between projects without a lot of hassle, then
they could work on the quick projects and express themselves
on larger projects at the same time.
In order for digital media to evolve, software
companies will need to allow for open source development of
the tools of production, the software used to produce
digital media. First, by allowing third parties to have
access to the source code (the language used by programmers
to create programs) it allows for outside review of code.
This allows more people a chance to "debug" the software.
This free workspace can be rewarded by develop add-on that
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 32
will enhance the performance and usability of the software.
Another side benefit to open source is the influx of
interest in the field of digital media. Coders, people who
work on computer codes, may not necessary have artistic
talent but can still their own mark on the field.
The final trend that will affect digital media is a
trend that has repeated itself numerous times in the history
of communication technology. It is the idea that a new
medium will develop through the degradation and breakdown of
older forms of media. Some other media will supercede the
conglomeration of the Internet/home theatre/gaming system.
It may be hard to predict what form this media may take and
what hardware this new media will use. More likely than not
it will borrow content, formats and other established
conventions from the older media.
Conclusion
While the field of digital media has a “mysterium
stupendum” associated with it, there are clear paths laid
out for anybody interested in pursuing a career in this
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 33
field. In order to become a success in digital media, it is
important to know how to find and follow these roads. Making
contacts in the industry is the best advice for students
interested in this field. One of the best ways of doing this
is by attending college. College will allow students not
only to build up their knowledge and understanding of the
field, it will allow them to find alumni of the school who
are in the field. Professors, more likely than not, will
know industry professionals and put them in contact with
interested students.
In addition, there are many different ways to look at
the digital media industry. Digital media, much like its
established brethren, the electronic media, has many
different career paths and many different ways the cultural
products produced by the industry can be perceived. Digital
media can be translated, sorted, and redistributed into
numerous formats and avenue of allocation. This resortment
of data allows the digital media to become malleable to the
future creators. By seeing how their predecessors utilized
the cultural tools and materials of the time, the future
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 34
artists and architects will have a text to develop their own
talents.
Finally, it is important to note that no matter how
much training students have, there are going to be
situations that are beyond their control. No amount of
preparation can get them ready for all emergencies. It may
sound trite, but it is a necessary reminder. Students should
be told that, at least once they would fail at a part of a
project. That failure is a learning tool. By learning why
the method did not work, the students can correct the
mistake(s) and avoid it in the future. Failure is part of
the learning process. To quote Paul De Palma, an associate
professor of mathematics and computer science at Gonzaga
University: “no experts exist in the sense that we might
speak of an expect machinist, a master electrician, or an
experienced civil engineer. There are only those who are
relatively less ignorant” (De Palma, 2005, 74).
A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 35
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