For those who are interested in the complex marriage of culture and new media this book is a compulsory reading.
Since this is my first experience with a book on the effects of new media, it is obvious that my impressions are somehow overenthusiastic or amateur. First of all, many thanks to Manovich for bringing me back on Earth from the infinite dreaming about the innumerable possibilities of new media. After this reading, I will start to enjoy the smell of the documents and to pity the future historians who would rely mainly on the imperialism of the screen for their future research projects. Obviously, I would not like to be misunderstood: new media provides huge possibilities but it also hides important traps.
One of the positive aspects of “the digital materialism” is the rapid inter-connectivity and intercommunication of different means of information and historical sources. Nevertheless, historians are no longer mass producers of history. What Manovich calls “individual customization” is not limited to the present of post-industrial society. It actually implies customized versions of the past. Each computer user can generate infinite versions of the past.
To a certain extent, this fact generates a phenomenon, which optimists would call “democratization of historical craft” while pessimists would term to be “the end of the professional history.” Does this mean that everyone can become a historian? Still, this question is not limited only to the historian’s craft. It also applies to other “professional spheres.” I know that there is no final answer to this question but I hope that after this semester I would at least be able to carry a debate on this issue
P.S. For other thoughts on this matter you might consider my comments on the following page
