ENGL 680M: New Media

as i've been reading manovich, i have been intrigued by his trope of defining against, of delineating new media by offering what it is /not/. given our conversation in class, in which we decided, essentially, that mcluhan's the medium is the massage is actually a new media text, i'm finding manovich's assignation of elements of new media a bit limiting. he suggests that new media texts include "numerical representation," and his explanation is fairly thorough. as i read it, i thought--"yeah, i'm with you." but that would omit mcluhan's text from new media work. as i've been wrestling with this: is it new media is it not? and what is new media anyway, i returned to wysocki's chapter in "writing new media." i've found her simple explanation quite helpful. she basically (i don't have it in front of me, so i'll paraphrase) says, new media is any text that draws attention to its materiality. which /would/ include mcluhan's book.

the question reminds me in some ways of genre debates. some genre scholars see genre as a classification system, organizing principles and elements that help us understand the given text. carolyn miller proposes that we discuss genre in terms of what it /does/ in the world, genre as social action. i wonder what happens if we think of new media that way--new media is that which does something specific in a context, rather than new media is something that possesses these qualities.

just food for thought. so, /is/ mcluhan's book new media?