Confronting the Software-ization of Media

[Commentary] Welcome to “the software-ization of media.” Over the last 20 years, media has transformed from a brush stroke into a sort of software. We sketch structure with CSS today, code functionality with JavaScript and transcode content into binary. Then we merge it all together into a big package of computer code.

Fact is, media is a code-based medium now -- and the time has come to face it. As a creative art, media is defined by the tools that produce it. For instance, we use big presses to create broadsheet newspapers, and sophisticated transmission systems to create 24-hour news networks. Digital media is no different. It’s defined by the tools that produce it. The better the tools, the more we can do, and the more easily we can do it. The question is, as Internet publishers, what kind of tools do we want at our disposal?

[James Abels is the founder of Three Minute Media]