Remediation

What is Remediation?

Remediation is the representation of one medium in another. This is something that is often done by new digital media.

There are two methods of how new media re-mediates old media;

Immediacy

This tries to immerse the watcher or player into the story and atmosphere, by making the scene feel realistic (even if it is fantasy).

This method would require less interface and more realistic images and graphics.

Example: A drawing that greatly resembles something you could see in real life.

Hypermediacy

On the contrary to Immediacy, this method makes use of HUDs and constantly reminds the watcher/player that they are using an artifact of a constructed nature, with references to other things outside of itself.

 Example: an online news website, with an interface containing links and references to other things all over with internet.

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It is interesting that the new technology of wide screen television had actually been inspired from a wide painting canvas, which had to purpose of showing a landscape view.

Remediation takes place because when new technologies have been created, it takes a while to generate content specifically for it, thus existing ideas could effectively be used on a new technology.

The goal of a proposed technology and its actual use a few years down the line are often not the same!

Films and Games often remediate from eachother, films such as the matrix and the tenth victim clearly show gaming elements to them, where as games such as final fantasy and metal gear solid, show a story so deep, that viewers watching players playing the game can actually be entertained just by seeing the story unfold alongside several cinematics and animations.

Sometimes films go all the way and are revolved around a game, a good technique to get fans of a popular game to watch the film, though these have often been critiqued for the low quality of the scripting and acting.