If I hadn’t just read Weinberger, I certainly wouldn’t have noticed how often Manovich referred to information organization. Maybe it isn’t as important as it seems to me now, but being that those details are the ones that jump off the page to me at this point, it seems a detail worth examining.
In the sub-headed category “The Terms: Language, Object, Representation,” Manovich explains that he specifically chose the word language over other options: “to signal the different focus of this work: the emergent conventions, recurrent design patterns, and key forms of new media” (12). Based on Weinberger’s argument that the internet is most productive when least organized, or is “miscellaneous”, it seems that the organization of information could actually fit all three of Manovich’s points of focus. Is lack of organization an emerging convention of information organization? Can miscellaneous be a design pattern? And would new forms of internet media be possible without the lack of order within the web?
Manovich says that he aims to find the position of new media within the media culture through development of his idea of “information culture,” by examining how other media and art forms organize their information and examining the internal organization of “contemporary visual culture” (13). Why does organization play such a large role in this process? Manovich writes: “… information culture also includes historical methods for organizing and retrieving information… as well as patterns of user interaction with information objects and displays” (14). Information culture examines how information if represented, or organized (13). By understanding information culture, one might be able to have a better understanding of its purpose, and by tracking and continually monitoring information culture, one could possibly have a historical record of the progression of the role of technology in our world.
What this means is that by understanding the development of information representation, one might be able to better understand the growing role of the technology behind that information in our society. So why is this important? Near the beginning of his introduction, Manovich explains that he regrets the lack of a “comprehensive record” produced by someone who “had realized the fundamental significance of the emergence of the new medium of cinema” (6). His reaction to this regret is to ensure that a comprehensive record for new media is created. All of the details from cinema that Manovich wishes he had a record of are being recorded for this new form of media in detail, including the organization of information within it which will demonstrate its growing importance.
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