Transparent Immediacy
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| Bolter and Grusin describe transparent immediacy as the desire for the media user to experience a medium without realizing that the medium is present (pp. 22-23). An example of immediacy would be the first-down line used on live broadcasts of football games; you can see the line, and players freely run over the line as if it is actually painted on the field, but you cannot see machines or computers creating the line. |
Hypermediacy
| McEwan defines hypermediacy as "...increasingly sophisticated and intensive use of new digital technologies in mediating content" (p. 11). Hypermediacy is a practice that Mitchell says "...emphasizes process or performance rather than the finished art project" (qtd. in Bolter & Grusin, p. 31). An example of the practice of hypermediacy is the smartphone. You can use your smartphone for many different tasks during the course of a day, but it is very unlikely that you completely grasp and possibly reply to all of the messages communicated to you. You may see a QR code and scan it but not actually read the webpage to which it leads you, or you may miss a phone call from a friend. In hypermediacy, it is not what you complete but how much information can be given to you. An interesting example of hypermediacy that relates to QR codes is the use of the codes in television commercials and in presentations. A recent GoDaddy.com commercial features a QR code that leads to an online video, while a screen in the 24 hour computer lab at Southwestern displays tips on computing with most of the slides showing a QR code that leads to more information on the subjects. |
Ubiquitous computing, which Bolter and Grusin describe as "...an extreme form of hypermediacy" (p. 218), is the idea that due to the proliferation of computers, any object in theory could become or be used by a computing device. Therefore, "...ubiquitous computing offers the user a world in which everything is a medium..." (Bolter & Grusin, p. 217). Okazaki et al. call the term "ubiquity" and write on the subject: "Ubiquity widely is understood as being synonymous with flexibility in time and space. In a ubiquitous context, environments are not defined by physical boundaries and, therefore, users have increased freedom of mobility. The increase in mobility creates situations in which the user's context -- such as the location of a user and the people and objects around her or him -- is more dynamic" (pp. 108-109). Due to ease of access to smartphones, it is safe to say we have truly entered an era of ubiquity where general computing and access to the Internet can be had anytime, anywhere, by anyone as long as they are carrying a smartphone.
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