Next New

New media has gone through a speedy evolutionary process and is continuing to grow at a tremendous rate. Just two years ago the word 'twitter' would have been considered jibber-jabber. Just five years before that the word 'facebook' was used by a select few at Harvard University. Today those are both households words not only in the U.S. but around the world. While it is tough to predict the next new big thing I think would be fun and ultimately could be the future. It is more a combination of existing technologies than anything else, but that is how many new media tools come to be. My idea is to take video-chatting, projector and 3D technology and combine them into virtual 3D projections of friends, workers, etc. that would bring conversations to life. Imagine being in your office or living room and having the exact life-sized 3D image facing you and engaging you in conversation. While this idea might be year away I hope it comes to fruition in my lifetime.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

When we first started the class I read over the class wiki for politics and was impressed. However, not until being a part of the creation did I really appreciate how cool it really is. This site has been created exclusively by students such as myself. As the editor of the politics page I first checked the page for grammatical errors and made minimal changes. After doing my term paper I felt I had sufficient information to add my own information to the page. Most of my research was on New Media in American Politics and so that was the topic I added to. However, I hope to add more to other topics as well in the near future. I then proceeded to check and remove the links that other contributors had posted in past semesters that are now inactive or whose host site has been moved. I think the page is already better than it was at the beginning of the semester, when it was already good, and think that it will continue to improve with my classmates contributions.

About My Term Research Paper

I chose my topic, New Media in Politics, because I am a political science major. I know a decent amount about politics and love to learn more about my field. The pervasiveness of New Media in politics is obvious and even people that don't know anything about the issues know that politicians have begun using youtube, facebook and twitter as methods of communication with the public. I searched the web primarily using google and also looked through the baruch library system. I found numerous articles proving the importance of New Media in Politics, everything from empirical findings to subjective opinions. Politicians and the public are increasingly using new media to further their agendas and it seems they will continue to do so as new media technology advances. I hope to contribute early next week to our classes wiki page on politics and will post a link to the page when I do, so make sure to check back soon.

Privacy & Confidentiality

Privacy has become an increasingly problematic issue as new media has grown. As I discussed in an earlier post, new media has enabled more information to be made available to the public. With more information comes more challenges to maintain certain information people might regard as private.

Especially in regard to social networking sites privacy is an issue. The problem with these sites is that people agree to share a tremendous amount of personal information with people they consider their friends. For years people had to made the decision of which friends to trust and once in a while a friend would promise not to say something and then say something, breaching the bond of trust. When people post information online the social networking sites they are not only trusting their friends, but also the sites. The sites do a decent job of protecting information relative to the about of information they hold, but there are endless stories of people's information being compromised in one way or another.

One of the most prevalent ways of this happening is in the field of employment. Whether someone is in the interviewing process or employed by a company, the company always wants to know as much as they can about the individual. There have been stories of people being fired or not hired as a result of something the company found out about them online. While safeguards have been put in place to stop this from happening, it still occurs. The ideal solution would be to increase morality in society so no one will look at anything they are not supposed to, but that is far from happening.

Advice to Baruch College

Baruch has done a decent job so far, especially in relation to most colleges, in using new media to advance its goals and curriculum. Blackboard in itself is a combination of many new media tools and has been integrated pretty well. If every teacher understood how to use blackboard everyone would be much better off, so the first thing I would do is have a seminar for all teachers so they can learn blackboard inside and out.

The next thing I would do is have every class recorded and posted online. The main advantage in this is obvious in the fact that kids would always be able to access the information taught in their classes. A secondary advantage, which could end up being more important, is that it would hold teachers much more accountable. Often teachers don't want to be there or teach just as much as the students don't and the class ends up being nothing short of pathetic. Teacher accountability is of utmost importance and the only way to drastically improve our system of education.

Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds are fascinating in the sense that they are the most realistic model of the real world in existence today. Due to that closeness they can be used in many ways. Similarly to social networking sites, virtual worlds allow users to interact with each other, although these interactions seem much more real since there is a stronger visual aspect when seeing someone else's character. This can have the same drawbacks as social networking sites in the sense that it is still not the same as real interactions and so, in my opinion, does not contribute to strong relationships like those that development during real life interactions.

Virtual Worlds also allow people to act in ways they might not be able to in real life. Any mental or physical limitations that people have in real life can be forgotten in the virtual world. This could work as a pro or a con. These people are able to experience things they cannot do in real life, which can either help them feel relieved that they are finally doing the thing or possibly even more frustrated and angry that they can't do it.

A final possible way for virtual worlds to be used that I will discuss is in the business arena. Mark Tuttin writes in his article "Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life" about how companies are now using virtual worlds to hold meeting and literally do work in a virtual office. While this could be a pro because their is much more flexibility as to where employees have to live and the amount of office space needed by a company, I think it is ultimately a con. In my opinion people work most efficiently in an office environment where everyone around them is working. In a virtual office people can be sitting at home distracted by a tv or by their kids. Also the relationships that develop between office workers would most likely not be as strong.

I think with the advancements in 3D technology the future of virtual worlds will be even more realistic than they are today. However, I think the business spectrum will shift to video conferences as opposed to virtual conferences, also due to 3D technology. Imagine an office meeting where everyone is there via video feed and everyone looks 3D...amazing.

Social Networking

There are many ways in which social networking sites can be used. Most networking sites were started with the intent of connecting people most efficiently. Years later we can look at whether they have succeeded or not from different perspectives. On one hand people are now able to interact much more easily and frequently with more people more often. On the other hand these interactions between people tend to be less personal. In Stephen Dubner's article 'Is Myspace Good for Society?', prominent professors and journalist debate whether social networking sites are good for society or not. Some, such as Steve Chazin, believe that even though there are some negative effects, social media has ultimately changed our lives and society for the better. Others, such as Nicole Ellison, couldn't understand the appeal of people disclosing personal information and seemingly wasting time doing something that she does not feel is productive. There are also some who don't this there is enough information to decide one way or the other. William Reader comments on the issue from a psychological perspective saying that it is difficult to answer the question with any certainty at this point. I believe that it is ultimately an issue of quality vs. quantity. My experience with social sites is that it creates an idea that it is better to have more friends than better friends. The balance between quality and quantity is important to find and I think people that overuse social networking sites tend to throw off that balance in favor of quantity.

Another way social sites are used it by businesses. The pros are that it allows recruiters to find and connect with potential employees more easily. However, this can also act as a con. Businesses will analyze people's profiles (regardless of legality) in order to gain as much information about an individual before hiring them. This, in my opinion, creates issues of trust in society and something I am not particularly happy about.

I think social networking sites are here to stay. There was a debate early in its existence as to whether it would just be fad, but after years of growth and popularity in societies all over the world it seems that it has become part of our culture. Soon video chatting capabilities will be integrated into social networking sites and I believe that will help curb the growing problem of quantity over quality.

Social Networking Sites

Of the three main social networking sites I am most familiar with facebook. I have been a member for years and use it daily. I think that because it began as a site tailored towards college student I feel that the site fits me better than myspace or friendster. My impressions of myspace are that it is less professional, although facebook has become less and less professional as time has passed. In fact, linkedin has become the premier professional social networking site something that the main 3 social networking sites seem to has accepted. While I don't have that much experience with friendster, I recently joined as get the impression that it is similar to facebook. The biggest difference I see between the two comes in the form of advertising. Friendster seems to have larger, more graphic advertisements from big companies, while facebook earns its revenue by tailoring advertisements from companies of all sizes towards the interests, gender and age range of the individuals. Myspace has gained a reputation for its popularizing artists. The fact that individuals can post their songs on their pages allows for artists to be discovered on myspace, as well as fans to listen to their favorite artists on their pages. Facebook also took a little to long breaking into the international markets, allowing for friendster to enter those markets and main a legitimate name for itself. It is clear that friendster still has catching up to do in the U.S. market.

Wikis Vs. Blogs

Blogs and Wikis are both phenominal advances in media that sum up the pros and cons in my last post about New Media. The big plus of both of them is the access they allow for everyone. However, there is a big difference between the two as far as access is concerned. Blogs allow for everyone to read them as well as comment on them. Wikis on the other hand allow people to read and not only comment on them but actually edit them. Blogs are somewhat of a hybrid of new media and old media because of the fact that not anyone can edit it. Blogs are run by an entity, whether it be a person or a group of people, and that entity has more control than other people since they control the website. Wikis on the other hand are left to the users, who are trusted to provide accurate information. This is a concept reviewed extensively in John Sutter's article 'No Longer the Wild West.' Sutter notes that the concept of giving more power to the users has been adopted by Youtube and Digg. Cnn's iReport on the other hand has managers who monitor content and decide what is appropriate. The question in relation to blogs are whether the owner of the blog has too much control. The ability of users to comment somewhat checks that power, however most people do not view all the comments on blogs, stopping after the first couple, if that many.

A possible new use for Wikis could be in the gaming spectrum. Most online games foster competition between people and the concept of collaboration of the minds are generally not seen in the gaming arena. People working together, however, is the essence of blogs and wikis and perhaps wikis can find an area of brain teasers or word games where people can collaborate in order to achieve the best possible result.

Old Media vs. New Media

In my opinion the biggest difference between Old and New media is that the latter is faster while the former, up until this point, continues to be more accurate and more scholarly. The biggest reason for the differences are the amount of people and what type of people have access to each. Old media is dominated by paid professionals who have often been schooled in reporting and fact checking and rarely report false information. On the down side the due diligence they must complete in order to be more scholarly and accurate means that it takes them longer to produce and distribute their articles. They also often expect to be paid for their information and therefore will not freely distribute it, which means it takes longer for it to get out. New media has therefore become much more apparent as it is constantly updated and almost always available. However, the fact that the majority of new media is run my amateurs it is more susceptible to having untrue information. The ideal thing would be to combine the two and allow them to work together to achieve a perfect balance.

My Research Project: New Media's Impact on Politics

As a political science major I thought it would be interesting to look at New Media's impact on politics. The two main areas in politics I will focus on are campaigning and public policy. Campaigning is a tremendously competitive area of politics in which candidates are always looking for an edge. I will first talk about the media's affect on campaigns until now and then analyze the up and coming trend of politicians using new media in their campaigns. Finally, I will attempt to predict the future of new media on campaigns. I will analyze policy from a new media perspective. The idea behind American politics is that we are a democracy, in which the people should have a say about the issues. Politicians have increasingly been using new media to gain public support for their policies as well as defend the policies they have implemented against criticism. While these issues will be the focus of my research I hope to discover other impacts new media has had on politics and include those in my paper as well.

What is New Media

New Media has become a term used for the various innovations in technology that allow for information to be distributed differently than it used to. A couple of technologies that are part of new media are blogs, social networks, video sharing websites, portable electronic devices that can connect to the internet, and websites in general. The internet is really the key to new media as it allows for widespread access to information in a variety of areas at a variety of times. With old media people would be required to take time out of their schedules to go to a store and buy a newspaper, magazine, or any other object containing news. With the rise of the internet people have access to this information almost wherever they are, nearly whenever they want. Essentially there are newspapers being reprinted with new news every couple of seconds; it is a great upgrade from the limitations of old media. New media also allows for everyday folk, as opposed to professional journalists, to publish articles and information they deem newsworthy. There are also advantages for businesses. James Manyika notes that business are now able to involve customers in their business process much more easily, allowing the companies to gain important feedback and improve their products. Video websites are also important as they are shifting the way television is watched. Youtube and Hulu allow people to watch tv and listen to music whenever they want, whatever song they want. Laura Holson notes that the necessity for a tv in one's household is decreasing to the point where some people will only watch tv online, saving money on cable bills. From a personal perspective New Media seems to be beneficial as it makes life less complicated, but the impact New Media has had and will continue to have on businesses should be watched closely as it could completely shift the way businesses operate.

Favorite Topic in School

Since I have been a student for as long as I can remember and the fact that I am starting this blog for a class in school, I decided to talk about my favorite subject. After years of learning I have decided on a major of Political Science, which also happens to be my favorite subject to study. Government is a man made structure that has greatly influenced the way people live, regardless of it's form. The science behind choosing the correct government fascinates me, partially because it has had such an impact on history and partially because it will have such an impact on the future. Under my blog posts you will find a poll: what is your favorite subject? Feel free to comment on this post and explain what it is and why.

Welcome to Danny's World

Hi World,

My name is Danny and this is my blog. The goal of this blog is to inform you of the news that I care about. Some of it might involve me and some of it might be something I just feel is important. I hope you enjoy getting a different perspective on the world and am always open to comments or suggestions.

Let the blogging begin...