New Media and it's far-reaching effects on society

The Onion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_onion

Many of you may know about The Onion. It is a satirical newspaper that mocks current events. The Onion however does it in an outrageous, multi-faceted way. They engage readers through print, online articles, and even a 24 hour online broadcast that seems so real, other countries have accidentally taken stories and broadcast them in their home country as truth. The Onion’s Wikipedia entry originated on July 4^th, 2008. Throughout this time there have been numerous contributors. I selected this article because The Onion is an incarnation of new media as we know it. It incorporates 3 different types of media: print, online, and video to create a strong and encompassing network. A network that is entirely satirical, with no purpose but to make people laugh. I think this is an extremely good Wikipedia article. It is in depth, and has legitimate references. The article genuinely depicts what The Onion is, what it does, and how it does it. It also has instances of other countries reporting Onion articles as truth, a “history” of The Onion, and a detailed description of the creation of The Onion from a small paper in Madison, Wisconsin, to an online phenomenon. The references are mainly to legitimate new sites such as MSNBC, The New York Times, and New York magazine. I believe that this article is very sound because there is not much about The Onion to be biased about. This is not a debatable topic where you have multiple sides debating what it is or how something happened. By removing this conflict, you can have a legitimately unbiased article. The only place where I can imagine contention is with the specifics, such as how much The Onion was sold for to Comedy Central. The discussion section of this page is not filled with debate as much as people requesting for additional information to be included or referenced. I believe that Wikis can be extremely useful if taken for what they are. Because of the fact that people can openly add to Wikipedia all entries must be taken with a grain of salt. When the topic is not debatable the article can be looked at with less skepticism. I think that with increased pressure for references and for checking information Wikipedia does have potential to become a legitimate and quotable source.

Rated: from 4 votes

Times today are significantly different then they were just a few years ago. The
internet since its nascence has been growing, expanding, and involving. Our
generation is one of the first to have almost unlimited access to the world wide
web. I believe that the advance of mobile technology is significant to how well
informed our generation is. From my blackberry I can check and send emails, visit
websites, view videos, even write this blog post. If we don't know the answer to
something, we google it. Instant answer, instant gratification.
10 years ago the world was a different place. Wi-fi was not available in most places
and 3G networks were unthought of. Where we see huge differences between then and
now is the speed and depth of information available. Nobody goes to libraries and
rifles through old volumes anymore, you use jstor or another online service. Huge
deals can be conducted between corporations in a matter of minutes, instead of days.

The world is moving at a much faster pace then it used to and our generation has
learned to become accustomed to this. We read faster, talk faster and move faster
then ever before, and we will continue to as long as the technological world follows
this trend.

Rated: from 3 votes

The National Health Service in the United Kingdom recently spent £25,000 in an advertising campaign called “Cocktales.” This campaign created two viral videos placed on YouTube with the goal of reducing teenage and young adult binge drinking. Their catch phrase, “Has too much alcohol ever ruined your night” appears at the end of each video. The videos, “have a dark humour in it which is designed to capture the imagination and show what can happen if you overstep the mark on a night out.”

The first of the two videos is titled “Bloody Mary.”  It is filmed first person on a busy street in London where young men and women stagger around drunk laughing, flirting, and fighting. At the end it shows a group of young men jeering at a woman who is so drunk she urinates in the street, then falls over and injures herself. The video received over 15,000 hits in the first 8 days. It was then removed from YouTube “due to terms of use violation.” YouTube’s community guidelines state: “YouTube is not a shock site. Don’t post gross-out videos of accidents, dead bodies or similar things intended to shock or disgust.” Although the video has been removed from YouTube you can still see it at NHS’s website:

Bloody Mary

The second video that NHS created, called “Tequila Slammer” depicts a highly intoxicated young man, dressed in a turkey costumer, wrestling a man dressed in a Viking costume. The fight spills out into the street and a passing car hits the turkey man, presumably killing him. Although blood and the “dead” body are visible, the video remains hosted by YouTube. You can see it here:

Tequila Slammer

The message of this campaign is to urge young adults to, “have at least two alcohol-free days in between nights out with drink, to set a limit on how much they drink and cash they spend before they go out, and have a snack instead of a final drink.” I believe that both videos successfully use shock tactics to get their message across. I find it odd however that one video would be found too obscene when the other would not. Who has the final say in what is appropriate and what crosses the line?

Rated: from 6 votes

Bruns describes how we have changed as a society from an industrial economy, to an information economy, and currently a networked information economy. This new networked information economy has two very important aspects that allow its functionality: it is decentralized, and it is collaborative. In this new economy users, who have positive impacts on the network whether they be active or passive, are much stronger than the consumers of the past. This act of users improving their network has been coined produsage. Produsage is, “The collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in the pursuit of further improvement.” Collective action by users can be beneficial to the network by making it stronger, more connected, or more voluminous.  Such networks are YouTube, Wikipedia, forums, and blogs.

There are three requisite functions for collective action to be successful. Firstly there must be a means of identifying people with relevant, potential interest in the public good. There must also be a means of communicating messages commonly perceivable among them. Finally there has to be a means of coordinating, integrating, or synchronizing their contributions. In order for a network of collaborative effort to work, the members must be informed, able to communicate with one another, and have access to the content created in an organized way.

Rated: from 2 votes

This document, The Declaration of Principles, which was created at the World Summit on Information Technologies is a broad-reaching, enthusiastic proclamation for the betterment of the world through the advancement of technological abilities. Their goals are, “to harness the potential of information and communication technology to promote the development goals of the Millennium Declaration, namely the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger; achievement of universal primary education; promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women; reduction of child mortality; improvement of maternal health; to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and development of global partnerships for development for the attainment of a more peaceful, just and prosperous world.” This is extremely ambitious and quite a large undertaking. Their purpose is to use technology and information to fix all the problems of the world. However, I feel that the most important problem that this summit can actually correct is the development of global partnerships that would in turn mutually benefit many nations. By developing faster, and more efficient technologies, communication can flow more easily from nation to nation and person to person. Through the sharing of ideas and resources, it is possible to create a more unified, peaceful, and prosperous world.

The biggest obstacle to the goals that the global information society wishes to accomplish is the vast difference in capabilities between the leading countries of the world, and those stricken by poverty, disease, corruption, and weak economic positions. How do you possibly compare the technological capabilities between the 3^rd world and other countries? Without funneling abundant resources to the areas that need it most, it is impossible to create a global network that functions as a whole.

Rated: from 5 votes

Twitter is a tool that should be topic restricted to only allow commenting on unimportant pop culture happenings, as it is unable to be a serious forum for discussion.

Rated: from 2 votes

Who the hell is Justin Bieber? Apparently he is a 16 year old Canadian pop/R&B singer who was discovered on YouTube and whos popularity has been growing exponentially. He is plastered all over Twitter as one of the most tweeted subjects. As I scrolled through the numerous tweets about Bieber it became apparently obvious who his fanbase is: young girls who seem to be romantically involved with the notion of this guy. IMHO, he seems like a long lost Jonas brother.

I don’t use Twitter and honestly I’ve never really seen the appeal of it. While I do believe that forums for open communication between people are important, Twitter seems to be this self-righteous garbage heap of people’s opinions that I couldn’t care less about. I don’t care what “PiNKBARBiEE” thinks the best Justin Bieber song is or what someone I barely know is doing right now at this exact moment! It has absolutely no impact on my life and therefore, I couldn’t care less about it. This is all Twitter can be used as, a posting place for your ideas about unimportant pop culture references. When “tweeters” move into the realm of political discussion it truly becomes frightening. People with no knowledge of American politics, or grammar as it seems, have free reign to say anything they want. The healthcare summit is one of the most popular topics this morning and already the abundance of irrelevant and absurd material being posted is enough to make me lose confidence in the cognitive ability of a large majority of our country. If Twitter were ever to become a serious political discussion forum, all hope for a bright future would be lost. While 140 character’s may be a way to save space, the sacrifices made in condensing ideas into a couple sentences truly shines through when you attempt to read the incomprehensible garbage that Twitter is overflowing with.

Rated: from 4 votes

The debate over participatory media as outlined by Lanier and Fake seems to have two contrasting viewpoints. One side, Lanier, argues that digital collectivism produces dull, lifeless work. Fake summarizes Lanier’s argument saying, “The self-proclaimed ‘father of VR‘ believes that people who don’t get credit or compensation for their work are lesser, humiliated beings without dignity.” Participatory Media and Why I Love it (and Must Defend It)

Lanier is concerned that this move towards large scale user generated content is lowering the value of the internet. He said, “We shouldn’t want the whole world to take on the quality of having been designed by a committee. When you have everyone collaborate on everything, you generate a dull, average outcome in all things. You don’t get innovation.” World Wide Mush

Fake on the other hand, is a staunch supporter of internet gems such as, “Wikipedia, Flickr, Delicious, Facebook, Twitter, Hunch.” She sees past Lanier’s argument that content is worthless if it can not be used to bolster the author’s ego or make the author money.

I agree with Fake in this debate. The internet is a tool that can be used by anyone around the world. The appeal of the world wide web is the fact that it is an open forum for people to share their ideas, pictures, videos, songs, or whatever form of media they choose. Does Lanier think that our class blog is just another piece of web mush? To berate and belittle the actions of the guy who created The Evolution Of Dance Video, or blogs like Broslikethissite.com is to go against one of the fundamental functions of the internet and an inherently flawed debate.

Rated: from 2 votes

The new media company that I am interested in is Research In Motion (RIM). RIM Is a Canadian company that produces the hardware and software for Blackberry Smartphones. This software for the worldwide mobile communications market, allows the BlackBerry smartphone to provide mobile access to email, applications, media and the Internet.

It was founded in 1984 in Waterloo, Canada. They currently have offices in North America, Asia, and Europe. RIM has contracts with all major telephone service providers such as AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. RIM also offers exclusive phones for certain carriers. AT&T has their recently updated 9700 Bold, and Verizon has the only touch-screen Blackberry, the Storm. Blackberry is the #1 selling smartphone in North America with more sales than Apple’s iPhone. Blackberry smartphones offer SureType full QWERTY keyboards as well as their most popular application, Blackberry Messenger. Blackberry Messenger, or BBM, allows users to send instant messages, pictures, voicenotes, and videos to each other quickly and efficiently. BBM has a distinct advantage over normal SMS or MMS because it allows the user to see if the message has been delivered, read, or if the other person is currently typing.

Rated: from 5 votes

Hello class,

My name is David Spodek. I am a senior at Cornell University majoring in Industrial and Labor Relations. I was born and raised on Long Island.

My two passions in life are cars and music. I modify cars and do amateur autocross racing. Ever since I was little I loved cars, and my Hot Wheels collection would have proven it. When it comes to music I prefer hip-hop, electro, house, and classic rock.

New media is something that affects all of us in numerous different ways. It manifests itself as commercials persuading us to buy the latest gadget or publications that spread ideas across the world. I am interested to learn about what exactly new media is and how it affects me, as a member of society.

Rated: from 3 votes