Remediation

The Term ‘Remediation’  comes from the work of Bolter and Grusin:-

We call the representation of one medium in another remediation, and we will argue that remediation is a defining characteristic of the new digital media.  What might seem at first to be an esoteric practice is so widespread that we can identify a spectrum of different ways in which digital media remediate their predecessors.

(2000:45 emph added)

The spectrum of ways new media remediates old media:

Immediacy.

• Media that aspire to a condition of transparency
• The aim is to make the viewer forget they are watching a film by using photo realistic images or immersive virtual reality for example.

Hypermediacy

• Artefacts that are aware of and wish to display their own constructed nature
• They call attention all the time to their own constructed nature by using the world wide web and computer game user interfaces as an example

Remediation can refer to a range of conventions, examples of aesthetic conventions are traded between different media. Photorealism as an example of immediacy is not the preserve of the medium of photography. Hypermediacy is very similar being that its not the aesthetic preserve of the world wide web but is being picked up by tv and newspapers. Remediation is when it takes time for a new medium to develop unique content for example media, games and video.