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.