Writing in the Electronic Age essays

Writing in the Electronic Age essays Although Lev Manovich presents several relevant issues in his essay, his work was utterly impossible to understand. After days of blank stares at incomprehensible words, I finally had a breakthrough. Could he be discussing databases in relation to our everyday lives and new media? That is exactly what he is saying, just in ten pages longer than it really had to be. In the first few dozen pages of his work, Manovich discusses narrative style. Narrative style tends to be a linear, or chronological, way of explaining an event or process. Typically this is done orally in the form of a story. Narrative style is syntagmatic, or following a natural order. The story is easy to understand and normally is arranged chronologically. For example, when someone is describing their day, they would explain the highlights in chronological order using narrative style. Another way Manovich thinks we present information is by the use of database. He defines databases as a structured collection of data. Databases can be linear or non-linear. Simply put they are files of information stored in a computer. The information is easily retrievable, but is not in chronological order. Instead it is situated using paradegmatic form, which is organization into natural categories. For example, if a database were used to organize my life story, there would be individual files for my birth, childhood, public schooling, and college. Of course more would be added as my life went on. There are few similarities between narrative and database forms. They both communicate to the reader, or viewer, with words or images and try to, as Lev Manovich states, "make meaning out of the world." Being competitors they tend to contrast each other in many aspects while fighting for dominance in the field. Narratives follow a certain order, usually linear, and have explainable reason behind that particular order. Databases have a random order, but all the individual files have so ...