Storage Issues of New Media

Question 1

Storage Issues (5)

Answer 1

CRAPL

1. Capacity
2. Reproducibility
3. Accessibility
4. Portability
5. Longevity

Question 2

Longevity

Answer 2

-How long will it last?
-Egyptian hieroglyphics lasts thousands of years
-paper and film don’t last as long and can degrade
-cinema film stacks from early 19th century are already disinegrating
-recently longevity has been sacrificed for other factors, like capacity and portability

Question 3

Capacity

Answer 3

-How much can be stored?
-print media can retain a lot more information than cave paintings
-capacity can improve over time
-floppy discs on computers surpassed by memory sticks and USB devices, which can fit a lot of content in a small space
-miniaturization: a lot of information can be stored in a small amount smpace
-minitaruization has aided capacity

Question 4

Portability

Answer 4

-How easily can the content be moved?
-cave paintings not portable
-moved from cave painting to stone tablets then to clay tablets
-improvement in portability with the earliest paper - papyrus
-portability can be tied to capacity; thousands of books stroed in e-reader which can be moved about

Question 5

Accessibility

Answer 5

-How easy is it to access/get to the content?
-need source of electricity with tv and internet , but if you have it its easy to access
-devices and standards can change and become difficult to access older devices as technology changes
Ex: may not be able to find a machine to play CDs
Ex: machine to play VH video cassettes
-modern technology is making accessibility much better (can see cave paintings on your screen!)

Question 6

Reproducibility

Answer 6

-How easily and accurately can you make copies?
-before the printing press, reproduction used to be time-consuming, laborious, and error-prone; used to be written by monks
-visual media requires artistic capabilities
-digital media makes it easy to make copies
-media quality has been sacrificed (e.g. poor sound quality with music)

Question 7

What type of administration system did civilizations that used stone/clay tablets favor?

Answer 7

Centralized administration system where knowledge was concentrated in one place with few people
Ex: Babylon
(shows that media has important political and social impacts)

Question 8

What invention enabled decentralization?

Answer 8

Papyrus; information could be spread
-encouraged widespread civilizations such as the Roman Empire
-records of business transactions encouraged widespread change