What really is the potential which can be enabled in new media content. Disposability seems to be a fact of life, and tied into the way content exists on the Internet, and indeed such disposability can be embraced. But is this really what work best on the Internet. Or more interestingly, is this an approach which truly allows new media to have the effect it can.
To what extent can internet content have a stronger functional effect. It probably is the case that content can have some persuasive effect, if only by continuing production of variations on a message. But I'm thinking of something more than this, an idea of content which is itself a kind of device which has its own functional life. That is, it is not there to persuade, but to have an existence in and of itself.
What might this be. I am thinking perhaps of art, of a certain kind, which may not have any intention to change or persuade, and can be considered as having a life of its own. This life exists in its viewers, but also exists in its value. It also exists in the components and their composition. Can one say this about a website. Perhaps one can say this about a new media website, potentially.
But I feel it is still a different kind of existence from that of an artwork, it has its own unique kind of being. One could ask is it seen in a different way. It potentially is different because it can contain expression of a sufficiently varied kind, a kind of macro rather than micro variance. But of course the issue is the coherence of that expression. But from this coherence on perhaps disparate content and design may come a greater sense of functional value, rather than an artwork existence.
So the existence of the new media website, becomes a potentially effective one as well. But this may be dependent on sufficient variation in the parts. The trick is to cohere this variation. One might expect this is something which would need growth rather than instant development, which may though be the case with all things of value.
However, is this effective power dependent on how such content is seen. It may be to some extent, in may be the case that how this content is delivered is key, in a way it may not be for other content. So delivery, rather than being a way to get content to an audience is part of the way the content works. The variations on delivery, can perhaps find some of that variance.
This puts a quite functional view on content, as functional processes work to enable it and to some extent make it. However at its core, it is still something generated by the mind, usually, but this generation may be key to making the elements which make it effective, work. So too much mechanisation, may result in an essential part of the way content can work, being missing.
As for disposable content, it can be an essential part. For example, it can be time limited content, which has nearly all of its functional and other value in a time period. Or it can be content which it not limited in this way, but effectively is, as its effect is short lasting and may not have any effect after this time, unless extended by variations. But even here, such parts can make up a whole which is an effect. So it may be, for a whole made by the material requirements of a website, that such content is a necessary part of it as well, assuming it can be integrated. In terms of a practical recipe, then variations on a theme may be a good way to go.
The question then is how much and what kind of variation. Does time matter. I would see it like this: time does matter, in the sense that too much or too little can create a kind of decay. But what matters from a more functional perspective, is perhaps the way variation occurs, and the extent to which it makes use of the elements of the whole.
