The Next New Thing

This is a very difficult thing to do, since it seems like every form of new media exists in our world today! What I am thinking is a way for people to use new media in order to find clothing. Here is the problem that I often find and maybe new media can solve it: I often see people wearing things that I like. Let's say I see them wearing a shirt or hat that I really want, but they are a complete stranger on the street so I wouldn't just go up to ask them where they bought it. So I would take a picture of the outfit and post it on some form of new media. This would be a type of forum that people can connect on in order to talk about fashion and clothing. I would post the article of clothing and people would respond where I can find it or find something similar. I am very into fashion and I find that there are not many social media outlets out there that allow people to come together to share ideas about fashion. Of course, there are all the websites and things like that, but I am talking about communication with people from all over the world. It would be so cool if I posted something that I saw and then someone from Paris or Dubai responded about it and gave me ideas from a completely different country and culture. I think it would be such a unique way to utilize new media, a way for people who share interests and ideas to come together and collaborate. I'm not sure if other people would find this helpful, but I know I definitely would want to use something like this. (I also really hope nothing like this does exist already!)

Wiki So Far

So far I have been working on a few things for the Wiki and have made several contributions:

I have added a section under New Media in Politics and how new media has allowed politicians to convey their views more efficiently than before. New Media creates more opportunities for politicians to develop their fan base and show their constituents what their political agenda is. Politics are influenced by new media as more people use new media as a way to receive information about current events in their world. New Media changes politics in many ways. Since the news is online and there are various sites to choose from, people are more selective in choosing what they want to read. I basically just added how new media can enhance politics.

I also added a section in New Media in Politics called Registering to Vote through social media. Here I just described how Facebook had an option this year that if people clicked a link it took them to a site that allowed you to register to vote.

The next section I added to was How the New Media are used in Business. Here I just made some small edits.

Then,  I made a contribution in the section for New Media in Toys. I created a new section called Terrorism and Toys. Here I explained how Terrorists have found a new way to communicate through technology via toys, such as the PlayStation 4. It has not been confirmed that attacks were explicitly discussed over PlayStations, but there has been evidence that has shown communication between terrorists members. I went through the Paris attacks in November and how gaming consoles may have been involved.


The last big section I am working on right now is New Media in Love. I have started a section called Marriage. I started by explaining what marriage is all about and what it is exactly. I also explain how it is incorporated in new media and how things are changing today. I am still researching this section, but I know I am going to have five sub-sections of five different religions. I will have one for Judaism, Buddhism, Catholocism, Christianity, and Islam. I will be explaining how marriage is different for each of these religions and how new media plays a role in each one of these. I will be focusing on this section for the remaining time of the semester and will hopefully be adding some images and interesting content here.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is the practice of or ability to transmit files from one computer to another over a network or the Internet. File sharing is the public or private sharing of computer data or space in a network with various levels of access privilege. Files can easily be shared outside a network. The term file sharing almost always refers to sharing files in a network, even if it is a small local area network. File sharing allows a number of people to use the same file or file by some combination of being able to read or view it, write to or modify it, copy it, or print it. Typically, a file sharing system has one or more administrators. Users may all have the same or may have different levels of access privilege. File sharing can also mean having an allocated amount of personal file storage in a common file system.

P2P (Peer-to-peer file sharing) file sharing allows users to access media files such as books, music, movies, and games using a P2P software program that searches for other connected computers on a P2P network to locate the desired content. The nodes (peers) of such networks are end-user computers and distribution servers (not required). P2P file sharing is different from regular file downloading. In P2P sharing, you use a software program, rather than your Web browser, to locate computers that have the file you want. Because these are just regular as opposed to servers they are known as peers. This is how the process works: you run P2P file sharing software on your computer and send out a request for the file you want to download. In order to locate the file, the software on other computers that are connected to the Internet and running the file sharing software. When the software locates a computer that has the file you want on its hard drive, the download begins. Others using the file sharing can obtain files they want to from your computer's hard drive.  The file-transfer load is distributed between the computers exchanging files, but file searches and transfers from your computer to others can cause trouble. Some people download files and immediately disconnect without allowing others to obtain files from their system, which is called leeching. This limits the number of computers the software can search for the requested file.

Example of P2P file sharing:

-BitTorrent is one of the most popular peer-to-peer file sharing protocols used on the Internet and it accounts for a significant amount of traffic on the Internet.
-Tribler, developed at the Delft University of Technology and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, is an open source social interactive Peer-to-Peer client with integrated search engine, video and audio player.
-Pando is a personal P2P program, much like BitTorrent but geared toward those looking for a simple and secure means of file transfer. Users may email, IM, or post to their website a .pando file. When the intended recipient downloads the .pando file, the Pando software contacts an secure Pando server (much like the “tracker” in the BitTorrent system) and allows the sender to initiate a direct P2P transfer to the recipient.
-Freecast is a P2P streaming audio broadcasting program. Typically, residential Internet connections have a much lower upload capacity than download capacity. Thus, it was impossible in the past for residential users to broadcast personal audio streams to more than one user at a time.
-Joost distributes TV and other video shows for free over the web using P2P and has major contracts with Viacom, Fox, Warner Music, Indiapolis Speedway Productions, Ministry of Sound TV, Aardman Animation, Warner Music, CBS, CNN, Sony Pictures.

On his blog, Jamie King explains why content producers should take advantage of P2P and not be afraid of it. He continues by explaining why they are so helpful. Jamie King states "as creators, we need to stop asking how to stop people from enjoying our work and start asking how to help them do it. Given the right opportunities, we believe they will help us in turn" (Jamie King).

Works Cited 

https://econsultancy.com/nma-archive/56421-content-producers-should-take-advantage-of-p2p-not-fear-it
 

Blog: Privacy

Privacy and confidentiality are extremely important to consider when discussing new media and technology. We have a sense that others should have limited access to our sense of selves and that we should be allowed some privacy about our personal information. We have the sense that if we choose not to live in the public eye, that decision will be respected by others. The problem is that with the Internet everything is available to anyone. If you put anything online you are saying it is available to the world. You are putting whatever information out there for anyone to have access to and you have to keep that in mind when using new media and social networking sites. We have the right to control our identity and image from unauthorized use. Yet, despite these protections, our privacy is compromised by a wide-ranging collection of data that is manipulated in various ways. It is aggregated and mined and sometimes, people are identified via these collections and investigations. Most of all, it is shared with a variety of others via commerce in which massive amounts of data change hands for profit. Sometimes that data is released unintentionally. It is almost always exchanged outside of our conscious awareness, without our direct permission or even partial understanding of the uses to which it is put.

It is extremely important that people understand what privacy and confidentiality mean in relation to technology and new media. Privacy concerns with social networking services involve the right of assuring that people's privacy is kept somewhat intact and that they do have some control over who is viewing what they put on the Internet. There is, unfortunately, an overall lack of privacy on social media. There are sites that encourage personal disclosure and there are ways to keep your personal information to a certain degree private. With that being said, it is very had to keep everything that you put online to remain unidentifiable. Social networks rely on its users' lack or perceived value in their data. Users need to understand the value of privacy. New media allows users to publish details about themselves and their lives. However, some of the information revealed in these networks really should remain private and shouldn't be published on the Internet. Users often publish detailed person information, which can cause all sorts of problems. This allows an opportunity for identity thieves, scam artists, debt collectors, and stalkers to use information that people themselves have voluntarily provided in ways harmful for the person who provided the information in the first place.

It is essential that people understand the repercussions of posting personal information online. It is of course a personal decision, but I don't think a lot of people understand completely what it means to put information on the Internet. It is a serious thing because privacy is really limited in the online world. New media has opened up a different outlook on confidentiality and how we approach privacy in general. Although the Issues of online privacy has been a problem for the general public for a long time it has started to grow rapidly due to technology, specifically due to new media. The devices we have accessible to us today easily enables anyone to make content and share it with just one click of a button. The amount of personal content available online is has been increasing rapidly in the last years. Posting Content such as picture and video arise new privacy concerns due to their context revealing details about the physical and social context of the subject. It is really important for us to be educated about what it means to have privacy with new media and how it differs from the real-time world.

Blog: Advice

I am a new employee at Baruch College hired to use new media to improve the College. Here is a list of suggestions I would make to the school about how they can incorporate different aspects of new media in order to enhance the education of the College: 

 I would say that most importantly, professors should be utilizing social media in a way that facilitates learning. There is so much that can be done online. I have had classes that have used wikis and blogs and other forms of social media. There are things that can be done in class and from home. Since college students do like to bring their computers to class, professors should use that to their advantage. Have them do assignments and group projects by using new media. 
Here is a list of some ways new media can be used in the classroom: 
-Having students create a Facebook page for a character from the literature they are studying
-Have students create a website that allows visitors to hear from students and professors about their daily lives. 
-For computer programming classes, the professors can have students create their own applications. 
-Computer science classes can certainly use work over social media. 
-Creativity is simply endless with new media. You can do things like having students use Twitter to have imagined conversations between famous literary figures.
-One strong suggestion I would make to the College, especially since Baruch is a commuter school, is to have more online and hybrid classes! It makes things a lot easier knowing you can do the class from literally anywhere you have Internet. This is an excellent way for new media to be incorporated into the College. Having online classes facilitates new media. 
-Twitter can be an excellent tool for a Journalism class. The fact that Twitter limits 140 character can be really helpful for people majoring in things like journalism. 
-Social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter offer a great way to enhance communication among students and teachers. 
-Teachers can post homework assignments through Facebook to provide easy access for students and to put the assignments and due date in writing. 
-No matter the size of your class, having all the students on a social media outlet brings them all together.  
-When teachers and students can easily contact each other they create better working relationships. They are also good for keeping updated on any occurrences.
-One benefit of social media is the ability to write down thoughts any time they occur. Encouraging students to brainstorm on class topics outside class time provides more opportunities for sharing great thoughts.
-These are all ways for college students to apply what they learn in a more interactive way. It gets them involved and interested in a way that lecturing just doesn't do. Using new media is also so beneficial because some kids just cannot focus in a long lecture. If a professor breaks it up by incorporating new media aspects this will really help kids who are more visual. Showing videos and things like that are also really helpful. 

Creativity and New Media

I created a Second Life, the avatar I choose really looks like me because it represents the way I see myself. I can go to as different places I want and I can make it that I visit regular places like I do in my everyday life or places I don’t get to go to all the time. I chose to let me avatar travel to different countries that I have never been to, but ones that I hope to get to in the future. I love to travel and this is one aspect of Second Life that is so cool and fun. You can choose to go anywhere! I feel like going to a destination and traveling and I can do that through Second Life. I can change anything I want in this life, which is really cool. It is like I am in a completely different universe. I never used an avatar and I think it is such a different experience. Here are some snapshots of me in my Second Life universe:

Here is my avatar in Moscow, Russia:

  

 

Here is my avatar in Hiroba, Japan:

And here is my avatar on the beach:

Creativity

New media is an excellent way to encourage and enhance creativity. These technologies encourage children to bring out their hidden artistic selves and express themselves in ways they had never been able to before. Neuroscience research has proved that all children are born with innate creativity abilities and as they grow up some of them keep their creativity active while others unconsciously let it just stay still. Everyone has the potential for revolutionary creativity and new media allows people to realize their potential in every person's unique manifestation of his or her creative abilities. Technology allows us to keep creativity intact and flowing. The school system has actually contributed to the deterioration of creativity of children. Certain subjects and skills are prioritized over others to prepare students for the real world. This limits the opportunities they have to express themselves in a creative fashion and use critical thinking and intellectual creativity. Technology can be used to help enhance people's creativity. For example, blogs are an excellent way for the development of creative thinking and writing. They provide freedom to students to post whatever they want and comment and share each other's material. People can openly write on topics that intrigue them and give them idea without having to worry about grades. Blogging makes people feel responsible for their own thoughts and ideas and it encourages creativity. New media fosters creativity because it combines the old and the new. Creating mashups is a way in which new media really encourages creativity to be brought out. The article Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of it's Critters, But Why? discusses how YouTube users can make videos of Disney characters such as Simba, Bambi, and Winnie the Pooh and edit them together with rap videos. These videos take new popular songs and old popular Disney characters to create something completely new and innovative. This brings more attention to the popular song while simultaneously bringing attention to these old characters. This is such a fun and creative way to get kids to use their imagination in a way that was never possible before. Clearly, technology has transformed the human experience. There is so much knowledge accessible because of technology. Whether through social media or web video conferences it is easier for people to meet and collaborate than ever before and this allows for creativity between people to blend. New media has provided the opportunity for people to come together and share their ideas and encourage one another to be creative and come up with new things.

References:

Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why? The New York Times, September 24, 2007; available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24crank.html


http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/01/27/how-technology-enhances-creativity/#79048c1483b1