Jay David Bolter and Richar Grusin, Remediation: understanding new media. Cambridge: MIT Press, 199.

Part 1: Theory
Diana Ingrid Montes Vega

What Bolter and Grusin pursuit with this book is make us aware that new media is old media remediated, this is to say, reinvented media with new features, usually related to digital terms. According with the authors, our culture wants both: to multiply its media and to erase all traces of mediation (5), however, no medium or media event today seems to do its cultural work in isolation from other media anymore than it works in isolation from other social and economic forces (15), this is, every media utilize others as well to achieve their goals. The process of remediation makes us aware that all media are at one level a play of signs (poststructuralist literary theory and semiotics) (19) They explain three basic terms to take into account while using the theory of Remediation: Immediacy which is supposed to make the media disappear and that the subject only recognizes the final achievement ignoring the media (21). Hypermediacy which is a fascination with media and emphasizes process or performance rather than the finished art object (31) and finally Remediation itself which is borrowing or take a property from one medium and reuse it in another (45) which they argue and I agree is quite common in popular culture today. This main theory of them based on Marshal McLuhans remark that the content of any medium is always another medium (45) The authors cite Erkki Huhtamo when saying that technology is gradually becoming a second nature, a territory both external and internalized and an object of desire. There is no need to make it transparent any longer simply because it is not felt to be in contradiction to the authenticity of the experience (42) which I believe came along with the affirmation that web and computer applications are creating a digital culture that will revolutionize commerce, education and social relationship and we are experiencing that revolution that make media modify our habits and perception of the world. I was amazed of their perspective of Rock Bands concerts are a celebration of media and remediation (43) (such as U2 or Kiss) because usually they are part more of pop culture than a cultural perspective but I also believe that they saw this phenomena from a very narrow perspective as they do not only remediate in the live concerts but also in all the media and any mean of communication, but perhaps this is more a study worth someones thesis. Finally based on McLuhans affirmation, the authors come to the remediation the representation of one medium in another remediation and argue that remediation is a defining characteristic of the new digital media (45) and establish 3 premises: 1) The digital medium wants to erase itself, so that the viewer stands in the same relationship to the content as she would if she were confronting the original medium. (45) 2) The digital medium can be more aggressive in its remediation. It can try to refashion the older medium or media entirely, while still marking the presence of the older media and therefore maintaining a sense of multiplicity or hypermediacy (46) 3) The new medium can remediate by trying to absorb the older medium entirely, so that the discontinuities between the two are minimized. The very act of remediation, however, ensure that the older medium cannot be entirely effaced, the new medium remains dependent on the older one (47)

This theory is something I will work on (if I find the exact topic) in the thesis of DC because nowadays we are bombarded with information by all flanks and if a movie become successful, then there is a lot of paraphernalia related to the movie in each and every media and medium possible, likewise for other products like TV Series, Video Games, Books or Toys for example, then, remediation becomes relevant and accurate. However I do not know if the authors implied this term to be used as I mean or if it only applies for digital media and not the publicity and products generated by one of the hits of the digital media, which is the use I want to give it.