We began with defining what “new media” meant.  Since this is such a new topic for college students to be studying, it is important that everyone is on the same page as to what defines the point of our class.  We taught each other that new media meant the internet, DVDs, Facebook/Twitter, HDTV, GPS, and the new Kindle. and suddenly our class formed a community surrounding the term new media.  Outsiders would surely affect the dynamic of discussion.  Due to class discussion, I now understand new media to be always changing and defined by the prosumers (producer&consumer) who use it. Some differences in new media compared to old media include:

• immediate response
• rich in personality
• less formal
• changing ideas
• radically different consumption patterns

I once believed new media to be an unambiguous topic.  Now it has lost its confusion, but increased its intensity.  We transitioned into how to express our own new media. Our first step was blogging.

Before we began our blogs we learned what they were and learned the history of technology. In a piece by Vannever Bush called “As We May Think“, we pretended we were looking into the future from 50 years back and transitioned into modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding in The Language of New Media by Lev Manovich.  From this, all information took a mold.  Every other site we examined embodied what Manovich discussed, digital modularity with unlimited types of version.  The areas we studied included, tech design, identity on the web, social constructs online, politics, mash-ups, MMOs, and legal issues.

Parallels can be drawn between politics, mash-ups, and legal issues, while MMOs have a lot to do with social constructs and identity on the web.  Open Source Democracy by Douglas Rushkoff touches on grassroots advocacy and free labor, which ties closely with privacy and copyrights in Daphne Keller’s Musician as Thief.   I learned that corporations try to copyright and charge anything and everything, including what is considered art, and in a transition to mash-ups, I understood why.

World of Warcraft and Second Life are not common programs many students get to study and play during class.  We were able to create avatars on Second Life, which at first I thought was extremely nerdy, but now I can imagine myself getting hooked and being on the site everyday.  The types of things you can do on Second Life are unprecedented and make for an interesting social network.  As for World of Warcraft, the movie we viewed in class definitely scared me into ever trying it.  Freak Out 2- Betray also plays a major role in my reluctance toward WoW.

I can’t turn on my bathroom light without thinking about design of technologies discussed in Donald Norman’s, “The Psychopthology of Everyday Objects“.  Almost like web architecture, Norman talked about why certain objects were made how they were.

There are psychological principles that can be followed to make these things [objects] understandable and usable.

I enjoyed making a Wikipedia account, Jamglue account, delicious account, and searching for culture jams on adbusters.org.  I also enjoyed analyzing Facebook.  The “RL Friends” poster I made hangs up on my wall as a decoration and a reminder that my “FB Friends” (all 1,247) have no comparison with them. We learned that people can have lives on social networking sites that are completely different from reality. Sites like Second Life acts as a type of escape for some, and I have no doubt that sites like Second Life will become increasingly popular as new media starts to slowly become old media.

This brings me to connections with another class I am taking, CMUN 160.  Yesterday, I turned in a paper titled “Interpersonal Analysis” where I discussed Michael Bugeja’s book called Interpersonal Divide: A Search for Community in a Technological Age. I talked about the blurring line between home and work due to endless technologies and I briefly referenced topics from CMUN 240 such as MMORPGs and Jamglue.  Taking both classes at the same time has allowed me to learn more and at a much quicker rate had I taken them separately.  Next semester I am taking Mass Media Advertisement and plan on using much of what I learned in this class to excel in the spring.

picture me, a song floating around on Limewire, Torrent, or my personal fave, Bearshare.  I am accessed by thousands of people and circulate all over the world.  Described by Daphne Keller as

freely spread ideas

People search for me, download me, and add me to a playlist, where I may be put on a CD or mixed or mashed on YouTube with a video or slideshow.

I can be punishable by means so fierce that they are

unthinkable for tangible property

which means I can get a lot of “normal” people into a lot of trouble.  The law says I can exist and be shared on my peer sharing sites as long as I promote learning within culture where

free ideas flourish and I am able to promote the progress of science and useful arts.

Except, who’s to say I do not contribute to the useful arts and who’s to say I am good or bad for the general public?  The criteria in which I am able to exist legally falls within these following rules.

1. work must be creative
2. work must be transformative
3. displace the first product

A major problem in why there are such strict rules for my existence lies within the fact that society is still taking into consideration laws from 1790 & 1863.  Just as music and art allow people to be

processesors rather than passive consumers

culture is also an active, changing, thing.  My relation to culture is in fact so significant.  I allow users to use sites like Jamglue where culture can be transformed and constantly displaced from its original form.  Not only has culture changed rapidly from 1790, the means in which people are changing it have quadrupled in speed and ease, making it that much easier to be an active participant in the production of art and culture.

I’m tired of people neglecting to use me due to fear of infringement laws.  I am available in the world thanks to the freedom of creativity and technological advancements, and should remain available to continue to shape culture and promote learning in a useful way.

–A picture altered and used in a different context:

I am copied and pasted from an original site, someone puts their face in place of the face in my image, and instantly the image takes on new meaning, in his particular case let’s say it is for personal entertainment shared with friends.

Though not as big of a problem as copyrighted songs on the web, pictures that are altered for the enjoyment and  artistic advancement of users are in violation of certain laws.  In photo shopping a picture, inserting your face on a famous persons head and body for example, has given users a new form of art.  Our relation to culture at this point has changed and people create it rather than absorb it, they are active rather than passive consumers, as stated above.  Photo shop, once used in offices by professionals, now can manipulate images for personal entertainment.  Who’s to say I’m not a form of a fluid flowing and changing culture? Music and I simply cannot be quantified and labeled, since we are always changing, which makes the law so ambiguous and hard to concretely visualize.

Hopefully you enjoyed stepping outside your element and being media art on the web for a few minutes and got to see the positive sides of using such media as changing culture.  I’ll leave with this last question: “Since these laws are clearly not working to enforce proper use (as millions of users on Limewire, Torrent, and Bearshare continue to rip music) how can the law be changed for mold to our culture in 2010 rather than follow copyright laws from the 21st century?

a sociological concept used in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, public health and the social sciences in general to refer to connections within and between social networks.

In a nutshell, the people I know give me a significant amount of leverage.  For example, an internship I receive through a professor I know allows me to utilize a rich social capital.

Since this is a major aspect of life and sometimes determines your life path, is it possible to have social capital in a virtual world?

In fact, “From Tree House to Barracks” says that:

MMOs are…unique in he fact that they collect and mix people pursuing goals in three-dimensional space.  Results…suggest that WoW (World of Warcraft) is in fact a vibrant third place, populated with a range of social experiences.

Though WoW has millions of users that have collectively many experiences, it is still hard for me to believe that WoW works as a legitimate form of social capital, probably because of my mindset I reflected in the example I used about an internship.  Since WoW creates an environment where people can exist upon false pretense, social capital is that much harder to collect.  The terms in which the game was created also impact the social capital users recieve.  For example, a gamer may only know characters in his guild; therefore, limiting his social capital in the game.  In this sense, their interactions are almost dictated by WoW norms. In real life, there no guild leaders nor can you slaughter and enemy.  With a lack of legal rules, it makes it that much harder (or easier) to decide on social capital.  I know if I saw someone machette a man in real life, I would not offer him/her my social network.

Social capital on the web has become a very useful tool; nonetheless, especially as seen with the social networking site, LinkedIn.  In a more professional environment, more professional social capital is shared.  What does that necessarily say about the social capital offered in WoW?

These cites were able to mimic the person behind the screen so well, that mny people came to be known as their MMO characters more than they reflect their real life personalitiy.  Since this medium of communication and representation is available to such a massive amount of people, the MMO programs’ influence on politics and pop culture are undeniably present.  With the Coca-Cola rooms, every child moving around Coke furniture was receiving advertisements left and right telling the consumer what to buy, how to think, and where to look for your MMO needs.

For Habbo, the meme that one can become a whole nother person when at a hotel taught our generation the value if identity fraud, and how simple it could be executed online.  Now, a very real world site like Second Life personalizes your character to the extreme, but do the regulations assign more boundaries and definitions for individual identity.

Upon making my Second Life account, I had to choose a name for my avatar.  I realized they had a variety of last names you could choose from, so I chose the French last name to match my French first name.  Those who encounter me in the virtual world may think I’m French, when in reality, I am Filipino.

It is easy to see how and who can influence people online, just pay attention to whos paying for the ad spots.  The compandies that fall under this category are often pushing a political and busienssperspective -if they’re smart.

Questions:

Is the use of MMO’s fair during a campaign?

Are MMO’s ruining your true identity?

I searched FRIENDS to edit, and realized there was virtually nothing else I could add.  I then searched the TV show Alias.  My first edit was very miniscule, but it was in the second sentence.  It starred Jennifer Garner as Sydney Bristow, a CIA/double agent.  My addition is bolded, and in all honesty, I don’t think they’ll accept it.

Discouraged, I returned to the Loyola site.  I realized that they only had two aspects of student life covered, sports and Greek Life.  I decided to add USGA…

It was a hefty paragraph that matched the first two in size; however, I was unable to link to other sites.  It looks less credible, but hopefully they keep it on the site.

This anecdote has a few main points.

-The internet has allowed for sharing massive doses of  information in a quick and easy manner, even important political information

-organization and advocating a particular political party has become much easier, especially with new media coming into play

-there is a larger margin for misinformation, which could result in a misinformed political opinion

Let’s skip to bullet #3 for a minute.  In the introduction, Rushkoff talks about a revolutionary way people can communicate politics.

The values engendered by our fledgling networked culture may, in fact, help a world struggling with the impact of globalism, the lure of fundamentalism and the clash of conflicting value systems.

But how?  I’m already on my way to being misinformed…

In this post-modern type explanation of creating our new narrative, it is almost frightening to think I, myself, could speak in detail on behalf of politicans and be taken seriously.  (This presents a probelm because I don’t know much)  Yet, as a child of New Media, I concur when Rushkoff refers to obtaining multiple points of view.  I believe this to be the main goal of life, and as a result, in politics as well. This calls for a constant change in thought, and as a result, in politics.  But how many times can we amend the Constitution?

I am a member of the Constitutional Review Committee for USGA (Unified Student Government Assiiation) and we find new legislation to draft after every Senate meeting.  It seems that with every arrival of a new action, outcry, or formality, we have to make a rule for it. The five members practice open source decision making, the new revolution of thinking.

Cybertype: To describe the distinctive ways that the Internet propagates, disseminates, and commodifies images of race and racism.

Lisa Nakamura explains in her article the new definitions of race in the era of digital reproduction. She refers to many new age terms in cyberspace, including “cybertype”, a word she coined to decode the language of race online.  Along with race, she discusses feminism and age.  Thinking back to middle school, I recall using Habbo hotel, an online international cyberhotel where most users were from the UK or Australia.  I remember being asked a/s/l all the time, almost like it was the job of the “person” who was asking.  For a while I didn’t know what it stood for, then I asked “someone” via Habbo chat and they answered, “age/sex/location”.  Shortly into using Habbo Hotel, I realized with many others that it was natural to lie when someone asked you a/s/l.  I, personally, thought it was a little creepy considering you have no idea who this person may be.

But anyway, I kept at this Habbo Hotel hobby of mine for a while and started to the learn the tricks of online life.  First of all, my avatar got to be whatever I chose it to be.  Being secure in who I was at the time, and now,  I allowed my avatar to resemble me in the most it could.  I had a tan, dark haired girl in a high pony tail and skirt and shirt represent me as I paraded around the rooms at Habbo.  There were other avatars decked out in chains and some in outfits you would only find at the costume store.  Clearly, this was a way people anyone could be “someone ” else, but it was slowly eating away at one’s individuality as a real life person.  Now a days, you hear about young boys spending days at a time at the computer playing World of Warcraft.  Is it safe to say that since they spend so much time on the Internet, that it is actually their “real” homes?

What I learned on Habbo Hotel taught me a lot about the possibilities that can arise online.  You can be 13/f/california one day and 20/m/brussels the next.  Creepy right? or just adventurous and creative?

2 Questions: Do you think using inline avatars is actually taking us a step back? A production of a postcolonial modernity? And do you believe in Nakamura’s ideas on “identity tourism” (pg 323).

Once on facebook, I immediately checked my FB chat to see who was online.  My first group is made of my sorority sisters.  Under “ASA” i found a girl named Karen. I don’t talk to her often, but I asked her a favor.  I asked if she had my roommates’ numbers (they are both in ASA).  She responded with no, and I asked if she had a girl named Sherri’s number.  She did and  I ran downstairs to the security guards who work at the door to call her.  I called Sherri and asked for Mari’s number, she had it.  I then called Mari and asked if she was upstairs.  She had been napping and wasn’t sure where I was.  I rode the elevator back up to 19 and entered my room relieved I didn’t have to pay $25 for an RA to unlock my door.

This would never have happened so smoothly if FB hadn’t been such a crucial part of college life.  I wouldn’t have known to chat for a cell number and Karen wouldn’t have been online checking her own FB.

Here’s the link for this weeks post.  The Tiger game is tonight, deciding if they will win the central. haha, enjoy.

2 questions:  What else could I have done besides go on FB to contact my sleeping roommate?

Will the Tigers win tonight? Keep in mind I am from Detroit, please don’t be cruel.

The established Friending norms evolved out of a need to resolve the social tensions that emerged due to technological limitations.

Being the generation that was raised in these norms makes it even harder to solve them, so we lessen the tension with ways to constantly stay connected.  This action = counter-productive.  Sure in ways you can keep up with friends’ birthdays ( I didn’t know my friends birthdays off the top of my head before I started checking facebook) but are you really keeping up with their lives? Sites like myspace and facebook make it so easy to fake a complete persona. You really don’t know anything about your friends anymore which is a scary thought. (<that is an arbitrary example)

The context of what we communicate has changed dramatically. Instead of asking someone how their day was (that takes too long), I simply read that he/she just returned from an event and question the friend accordingly. Who’s life is twitter making easier? The person who updates it, or the one who reads it?

Many people that I know have told me that I know everybody.  Sure, I am involved in numerous clubs and try to be nice to everyone I meet.  Some of my friends don’t like to walk around campus with me because they say they have to stop too often to wait for me to finish talking to a passerby.  I’m not bragging at all about the number of friends I have at Loyola, becuase if I were to properly analyze, the results would not be satisfying.  As busy as people perceive me to be, I still find myself struggling to find someone to call for lunch.  I look through my phone book.. I think to myself..’No, none of them, we’re not quite friends of that caliber’..or, “I haven’t talked to that person in a week, that would be awkward.”  Back in the day of pony express, a week was how long it took to deliver a simple correspondence. With that though, I ask you this:  Could you knock on your neighbors door when you get home and ask for a basic need?  This was a common practice once, now I feel that personal touch has been lost.

The times have undoubtedly changed, and unfortunantly ( I feel) we are changing with them.