30 December 2015

Extended Representations in New Media and Marketing: The Power in the Shadows

What can be regarded as the point of a new media post. If the idea is to market, then the post may: a) not actually market anything and b) not achieve the desired outcome of the marketing. But if this is done in large numbers, then it may be the case that the capacity to market works, if only for a brief perhaps shadowy existence.

But can marketing this have an existence which is not dependant on sheer numbers. Well, firstly, is it possible for a piece of new media content, which is not marketing to have anything except this kind of life. There may be features to the medium, that may make it entirely dependent on numbers.

Items created in old media may have an existence such that they do not need numbers, indeed they may emerge gradually from a small seed audience, although it may come down to marketing plus distribution. New media does not need to do this, and hence it does not tend to do it. But does it need to do this. Would this not give a stability to it, a less shadowy existence to content.

Perhaps though it is not necessary, and indeed could work against the nature and power of the medium. That is, new media content may need to have an existence wich may seem shadowy and given life by numbers, but is in fact a life which is based on short brief moments of life. That is, even if snippets of the post are read, that does not matter so much.

It makes though for a necessity to style output in such a way that acknowledges this kind of existence. But I believe this does not mean that it needs to be shallow or snippets. It just means that there needs to some kind of extended representation across the site, or app, which give it a capacity to make even complex expression possible.

That is, the content is potentially dynamically assembled from parts, and given expressive power thus. It puts power in the viewer as well. But it one would assume, also puts the onus on the creator of all this, to allow such assembly. So the point of a new media post, becomes one of enabling.

So how does this help marketing. Marketed content can be made in such a way that it is structurally optimsed to the medium. But can it go further than this, are there perhaps limits to the extent to which the content itself can be marketing material. The very nature of the medium can work against marketing content.

There needs, in effect, to be an element to hold the visitor, even if momentarily (which is the case in practical terms for any content on the Internet). I would suggest that, even though images are a clear way to do this, doing it with words may even be more effective. But the words must themselves have a meaning to them, rather than merely a message. Else the message may get dissipated into parts.