mshelle54

Final thoughts. December 9, 2008

New media what a term? I knew what it was but never before this class did I realize how it is everywhere and how much if affects what we do on a day-to-day basis. Look at this blog right now. NEW MEDIA. Where is it not? Going thought this class and looking at a slice of new media was eye opening. There are a billion and one things out there for new media. I had studied it before in other classes and knew about it, but never to this extent, and ever this in depth. It was so new to look at media this way. And what you don’t even realize is how tied together everything is in media. Going back to he basics, like what is an identity and how do we define it? And the same with community, how many can one person is apart of? Plus can a community exist if its members don’t see each other, only meeting in chat room?

The fast was amazing to me I could not at first understand how I was not going to have my Ipod for a few days and not be able to text and such. But in the end I really was more appreciate of what I had, and how I used it. New media really is ingrained in our lives. Which is so funny because only like10-15 years ago very few people had computers and now look at us.

The shift from old media to new media has been an incredible one. Just looking around at all the advancements that have happened. It shows you how far we have come and lets your mind wander to how far you can go. But then the question is can new media every go to far?

Some people may consider places like Second life and WOW as games that have gone to far. Taking a person out of the physical real world and they then transform themselves in to something or someone else. But to each his own, people sometimes have circumstances that may allow them to meets and keep good friends through the Internet. The whole class was really a great look at new media and what that really means. It showed us where new media and technology has come from and it only shows us the possibilities of where it can go.

Reading for 10/27 October 27, 2008

For this posting I’m going to mix it up a bit, and go from the end of the reading to the beginning (inventive, I know!) I have to make this commit first, on page 213 of Lister, in the case study 3.2 Time-Warner and AOL: the world’s biggest merger (so far). This “so far” I feel hits the whole idea of anything and everything having to do with the Internet on the head. Everything that happens within that world is more then likely going to change. Just looking at the beginning of the Internet to now. Talk about 10 million steps forward. Where is the whole thing going to go? There is no way to tell or even imagine.

People thought that they were going to be able to make money off the Internet forever, but that was a bad idea. On page 209 Lister writes, “A particular problem has been how to secure an income stream in the absence of control over distribution, an expectation that by users the wed should be free…” Now the companies that were going after the money stream have realized that there is almost nothing that can be done. Look at the television studios. Even before they had the great idea to put their TV shows on line for free, there were already people out there doing it for us. Once these studio’s realized that there were losing money, they all quickly put their shows on line, and some even when as far as creating sites like Hulu.com. The Internet not only affected their viewer ship which then of course affected add sales, they say their new opportunity.

Lister quotes Manuel Castells on page 188 as saying “The internet is the fabric of out lives.” Earlier Lister says, “…online is thoroughly entwined with the embodied and material conditions of our social and everyday lives” (181). These two statements I feel are not off the mark at all, if the Internet is apart of your life. Having given up the Internet for a few days, I can easily say that yes it is ingrained in our lives, in very aspect. It has almost become as essential as breathing we need it. It has become a necessity not a want.

Could people really give up the Internet?

What would happen if we went back to a time with no Internet?

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002382.html

http://www.centernetworks.com/news-corp-nbc-names-jason-kilar-ceo

Reading 10/13 October 13, 2008

While reading Jenkins I could not help the whole time thinking isn’t this what these people want. They start these spoiler websites to spoil it for everyone that wants to know all the information that they can. But once the tables where turned and someone other then them was giving away the answers. They didn’t like that and the game that they were playing was no longer in their control and was not being played by their rules, so they got upset. These Survivor spoilers are doing the same thing that ChillOne did to them. Except this is the thing, ChillOne did not backup his information with any really facts. It was what he knew, and these other people did not like that. They have a set of rules and standards that they play within, but at the same time they are not telling everyone what those are.

Jenkins focus was on “the knowledge of a community” (25), Lister was more focused on life on line. Whether it was you on line as the person you are or a newly created persona. Being online allows for people to be something that they are not. It could be the everyday person that they are or it could be someone new they these people create. Either way this ability to be who you are or remain a mystery allows for people to do and act in ways that they might not be able to in their everyday “real” lives. This can be beneficial, these people now have the ability to be someone different and live a different life. You are able to meet new people and learn new things. But on the other hand there can be a down fall to this. Depending on how involved one becomes in their on-line life it can begin to effect the off line life of a person. In reading this section I could not stop thinking about The Office when Dwight created a Second Life character that was exactly himself, because his off line life was so awesome. Jim went on and did the same thing, but he created a totally different person then he really was. Which is almost the point of a game like that, to be someone that you are not. Hence the name, Second Life, you have a second chance to do what you want.

The same is said with the video games that are so real that they suck you in. You play as the person, you never see a face, but your moves move them. It’s a trick that the mind plays. I do and have played games where you are in the first person, and it is so intense. It’s not like when say I am playing Mario cart, I can see the character that I am, but something about playing in the first person mode really sucks you in. I find myself being more caught up in the action. And for some people, video games are their second life. There are always stories about how a shy, quite kid who is always the leader of his troop in a multiplayer game like World of Warcraft. How once he is online he is a different person and takes control of the group and leads them to successes. Which is the point of any of these things, they take us from somewhere and put us somewhere else.

http://www.survivorsucks.com/topic/38958/t/Re-Episode-2-CBS-Website-Clues.html?page=-1

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/guide.html

Can you have both? A fully developed online and off line life?

Can their be rules on a spoiler website?

Reading for 9/22 September 22, 2008

For real my first real introduction to comics ever, I think this was the way to go. Not only did I learn all about comics and their various forms of art, I was able to see the parallel between comic’s and media (old and new). In the beginning when McCloud went all the way back in time to talk about other forms of comics, like the Egyptians with their hieroglyphics. He takes us through other time periods to show their form of sounds. What had me thinking was that back when these pictures where used for everyday life, people knew what they meant, those hieroglyphics were their words. But now as society is advancing we have taken their hieroglyphics and made them into just that, symbols. No longer used for what they where now they show us the past, this at the same time lets us see how far we have come. Which is similar to media, to understand where we are going we need to look back at where we have come from, all the way back. This will not only give perspective on where we have been but more important where we are going.

Where do comics fit in the whole old media new media discussion?

In chapter two “The Vocabulary of Comics” McCloud writes about how comics are able to take you to another place, you can place yourself as the adventure of the comic “you mask yourself into the character” (McCloud p.49). This sounds very similar to what you can do on line now, with games like World of War Craft and Second Life. You can take yourself or who ever you want to be and enter into these online worlds and do crazy off the wall things that you would or would not do in real life. This then begs the question above.

Are comics’ old media in that now people can be anyone they want on line or are they new media within the world of pictures and symbols working together?

http://secondlife.com/whatis/

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

Reading 9/15 September 15, 2008

Last week when I can come from class I was talking with a friend about what we had discussed, was old media new or was new media really new. At some point within our discussion it was brought up that maybe new media was not totally new but the way that we received me media is. Even then when we were in groups last week in class talking about old media vs. new media. We as a group had come to the idea that again there were parts of new media that where really new, but what is changing it is really the way that we are now receiving media. While reading “Convergence Culture” on pages 13-14 this historian Lisa Gitelman even suggests, “…that old media is always going to be around, but what is going to change is the delivery system.”

Just looking at the past 10 years and all of the innovations within technology has been amazing. Henry Jenkins writes about wanting to find a cell phone that will just make calls, not take picture or listen to music on it. This really got me going, is there new media? Or are the ever-changing technology devices that deliver the media, are those changing what is seen as new media?

http://hot-gadgets-today.blogspot.com/search/label/smartphones

Reading 9/8 September 8, 2008

While reading the text I was struck by the many discussions about old media and new media or really old media verse new media. There was a discussion if new media was really old media “refashioned” as Jay Volter and Richard Grusin have said. This hit me, in my study of communications, which always includes new media and old. Never once have I even had that thought or had it presented to me in some other class where we did study new media.

After reading this idea, that new media is old media reworked, it all made more sense to me. Yes I do realize that someone has to have the first idea, like say the camera. Once that was invented people took it and ran with it, now you look at today’s world and where cameras are now. It is still called a camera and does the same thing that it was intended to do from the first camera that was invented.

But people want to call it a new media device. Why? Does it not do what its old media predecessor did? This just keeps reinforcing the point of where does old media end and new media begin? Can there really be a competition between old media and new media? Where does new media go from here? What would it be called?

Questions:

Can we just throw away old media even if it is the foundation that new media is built upon?

What will happen to old media?

Outside source:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/26/old-media-still-needs-to-get-over-its-control-issues/

First Post August 25, 2008

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