Creativity and New Media

Creativity

In an IT-configured society, information flows quickly, easily, and in a variety of directions. New media serve as platforms for individuals to communicate their information/ideas to the public almost seamlessly. We live in a copy-cat world. It’s very difficult to come up with a great creative idea/invention from scratch. Instead, people see something that has already found success, and they piggyback off of it in an effort to make it better. New media fosters creativity in this interconnected world by allowing content of all kinds to be viewed, modified, compounded upon, and shared with the world. “Mashups” are an example of using new media to put a creative new spin on already-established ideas. Mashups are generally recordings created by combining and synchronizing two or more songs. Characteristics of each individual song are still meant to be kept the same, but the idea is that when put together, the end product has a completely new look and new feel. Sasha Frere-Jones, in her article, “1+1+1=1,” talked about some popular mashups. DJ Reset, as Frere-Jones explained, successfully took elements of Beck’s song “Debra,” and combined it with parts of Jay-Z’s “Frontin’,” to create “Frontin’ on Debra,” a mashup which he posted on his own site and was eventually made available on iTunes. Frere-Jones sums mashups up, explaining “mashups find new uses for current digital technology, a new iteration of the cause-and-effect relationship behind almost every change in pop-music aesthetics: the gear changes, and then the music does.” Mashups are just one of the many ways through which media encourages creativity.

Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

Computer-based simulated environments contained in virtual worlds are made available to numerous users either simultaneously or independently to explore, participate in its activities, and communicate with others. Virtual worlds are great in the sense that they allow for physical human interaction that would be otherwise impossible. Companies can use these communities to facilitate meetings and conferences. Rather than going through the hassle of planning a trip and incurring travel costs, a virtual meeting could be set up that participants can take part in from the convenience of their office desks. Virtual worlds also have a place in education. Whether it be by use of virtual classrooms that students can attend, or by situated-learning situations like those discussed in “Situated Learning in Virtual Worlds andImmersive Simulations,” by Lisa Dawley and Chris Dede, virtual environments “are designed to create a compelling, collaborative, and participatory experience… and often contain a variety of features not possible in the real world to enhance users’ engagement and learning.” Dawley and Dede use an example of how a computer simulations gave two fifth-grade students a second-hand look into life during the Industrial Revolution.

Other benefits brought by virtual reality include cutting risk when training individuals in certain fields such as medicine, aviation, and law enforcement, expanding users’ network of people they interact with from their general location to anyone connected to the internet, and making tourism easier through virtual tours, among others. With that said, virtual reality is by no means perfect. A lack of laws in the virtual world, renders some conduct deemed illegal in the real world legal in the virtual world. Furthermore, virtual reality can be addicting, resulting in users neglecting their real-life responsibilities. Research talked about in “Virtual world may impact real-worldbehavior” “suggests that how you represent yourself in the virtual world of video games may affect how you behave toward others in the real world.” This could also be seen as a positive impact, but with the fact that anonymity results in users acting in a way that is not socially acceptable, its negative implications are a cause for concern.

As technology improves day by day, the next breakthrough in virtual reality is always right around the corner. I see many of the kinks continued to be worked on, with improved graphics and expanded geography able to be explored. Rather than using avatars, I can see users being able to project themselves into the virtual universe. The evolution of virtual reality is definitely something to keep an eye out for.

Blog about Twitter

     A Twitter discussion is most similar to a BlackBoard discussion in the sense that both generally consist of asynchronous communication. Rather than conveying words to somebody and immediately getting a reply or response, both Twitter and BlackBoard discussions are in a sense "leaving a message" for somebody to read and reply to at their own time. The two differ mostly in terms of message size. Whereas Twitter uses 140-character limits to their posts, a BlackBoard entry contains no limit.
    With that being said, a Twitter discussion differs from an in-class discussion because the in-class discussion is a type of synchronous communication. Typically, you don't have a face-to-face conversation with somebody and hear them say, "Hold that thought, I'll get back to you later." The two (or however many) parties go back and forth in engaging in the conversation at the same time.  

Social Networking Sites

     My first impression when I log into Facebook now is that it looks cluttered. There is too much going on. You look to your left and there's groups, friends, apps, pages... look in the middle and there's your "timeline" or feed, with friend recommendations and advertisements thrown in... and then you look to the right and there's more friends, advertisements, and suggestions. I'm one of the few people who didn't make a Facebook when it got very popular. I actually made my Facebook after I made a Twitter, and I hated it. I never got into it for the lone reason that there was too much going on.
     Twitter on the other hand, has a very user-friendly interface. It has a very clean look and feel to it. You can see your profile and current trends on the left hand side, your timeline in the middle, and suggestions on who to follow on the right. Twitter uses advertisements as well, but implement them almost seamlessly into your timeline in the form of "sponsored tweets." Furthermore, the Twitter app is even easier to use than the web version.
     Instagram is in the same boat as Twitter in terms of simplicity. They too, use a scrolling timeline feature to display content for the user. Instagram makes it easy to view. like, edit, etc. photos and more.
     I found that I had to play around with Pinterest a little bit longer than Twitter or Instagram before I got the hang of it, but once you get used to it, it is pretty easy to use. Like Twitter, it has a very "clean" design to it. Pinterest is another platform whose app is just as good, if not better than its web-version. They make it very easy to search, browse through categories, pin, and re-pin.  

Social Networking

         Social Networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have many uses in the corporate world. In his article, “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting,” Frank Langfitt addressed the value of the use of these technologies, specifically LinkedIn, with regards to job recruiting. LinkedIn is a relatively new technology that allows job recruiters to search an entire network of eight million professionals to find high-quality candidates for a particular job in mind. This is beneficial to both recruiters, by helping them connect with candidates much faster, and to job hunters, by allowing them to be found more easily. 

Of course, there comes a dark side with Social Networking, most notably with anonymous-user forums such as Campus Gossip and CollegeACB. As they are addressed in Jeffrey R. Young’s article, “They’re Back, and They’re Bad: Campus-Gossip Web Sites,” these forums encourage bullying and defamation, as racy comments can be made by anonymous users “hiding” behind a screen. Social Networking technologies are ever-evolving, and campus-specific forums are no exception. Yik Yak is a campus specific act that uses a “voting” or “like” feature. When a comment is down-voted or un-liked 5 times, it is removed. They encourage users to either down-vote or report posts containing hateful/harmful comments towards a specific person, posts containing names of people, etc. While still not perfect, it is a step in the right direction. 

Social Networking technologies burst onto the scene with countless practical uses with seemingly no limit. While there is a “dark side” to these technologies, as there is to almost everything in the world, it is safe to say that these ever-changing technologies have a net positive impact on society.

Blogs vs Wikis

     Convergence, or the process of coming together and working in unity, is ever-important in today's uber-networked world. We now have a plethora of technological tools to use at our disposal in order to facilitate this attempt at uniformity. Blogs and wikis are two networking platforms that have come to light in recent years in this regard. They both possess some of the same general characteristics, allowing for group collaboration and the publishing of thoughts and ideas to the web, while encouraging reactions by readers/participants. However, depending on what is to be accomplished, there is one clear-cut choice as to which is better than the other.
A wiki can be thought of as a sort of "open-sourced" website, allowable to be edited by any participant. Wikis are best used for collaboration by many with one centralized goal to be accomplished, for example, a group project. Margaret Lacher wrote about the benefits of wikis in her article, "More on How to Build Your Own Wikipedia," explaining, "By making it easier to gather and share information as well as record discussions about a subject, wikis... can help people improve their processes and get projects done faster." Every participant can add content to the wiki, which is to say, they all have an equal voice on an equal platform.
Blogs are more about one author (or group of authors) posting his/her own opinion on a subject. The blog posts are usually meant to inform or reflect, and encourage readers to add their insight in the form of a comment. Readers typically do not add their own blog posts, and thus can be thought of as secondary voices, while the author is the main, primary voice. That is not to say that the commentor's opinions are not heard. In his article, "Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write Unfiltered Blog," Michael Barbaro explains how Walmart set up a blog to gather insights on their products from little known consumers, rather than a few executives. He explains, "The result is an intensely personal window into the lives, preferences and quirks of the powerful tastemakers at Wal­Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, who have spent years shielded from public view." Barbaro goes on to state how the consumer's opinions have an enormous impact, earning or costing vendors millions of dollars. When a blog can be used in this sense, valuing the opinions of the readers just as much as the opinions of the author, it can serve as a great platform for collaboration.