My New Media Class So Far

What kinds of technologies are part of new media?

New Media involves many different array of technology that mostly involves the internet. With access to the internet, many applications has made it possible to expand media and create new uses of the web. As such, these web applications made it more convenient to the general public to communicate and interact with others with just a single hit of a button in an internet interface or network connection anywhere at anytime. Because new media has evolved so much, our tools of communication has revolutionized to a myriad of different forms. These include blogs, wikis, social networking sites, voip, virtual worlds, etc.

How important is the Internet to the new media?

The Internet is a very essential ground for new media, because the web helps facilitate new media throughout the globe. With internet access, many forms of new media can amass a multitude number of information and enable the user to take advantage of many applications available at the web interface. Because internet is regarded as such an important factor in developing new innovations, it can be considered the soul of new media.

Why and how are the new media replacing and/or enhancing the old media?

New media is not replacing any old media as believed by many. Instead, it is augmenting and enhancing old media with up-to-date technologies. New media is only the polished version of old media to properly suit the new generation. The only changes between the two are that new media has more to offer, easy to use, convenient, promote interaction and communication with others, globalized, and efficient, but the main purpose and the backbone of new media are the same as old media. This is applicable in the television and newspaper industries, which are suffering from business problems and inefficient amounts of revenue. This is due to the the revolution of new media in which news are very much available through the internet, where where they could reach a larger audience than before.

According to Old Media Hits the Skids as New Models Roil Market, "Newspapers also struggled mightily in 2007, in ways that hinted at underlying problems in the business. The New York Times canceled its Times Select online tool because not enough viewers were willing to pay for content.

The Times may be about to face a street fight from the new owner of The Wall Street Journal. In another sign of the chaos overtaking the print world, the Bancroft family sold its controlling interest in Dow Jones & Co. for $5.6 billion to media baron Rupert Murdoch, causing a hue and cry among observers who worry that the owner of Fox News and the New York Post will dumb down the Journal.

Some of the city's most well-respected magazine brands got into in trouble as the year wore on. The world's largest magazine company, Time Inc., saw ad pages decline at Time, Fortune, MoneyBusiness 2.0 and finally killed the last title. Critics said Time Inc. had been too slow in developing a Web presence for its magazines." and

Old Media Hits the Skids by Joyce Hanson Crain's New York Business, Dec 22, 2007. available at http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007465255421

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

New media has made dramatic steps into our lives that it is seen everywhere we go and turn around. In our society, the role of a medium has essentially played an important role that even the current president used it as a tool to connect with us throughout last year's presidential campaign until he caught everyone's attention and won their votes. Technology has accommodated many people but not limited to the entertainment industry, education, politics, and businesses. This new technological approach has built in a nest where it is developed in order to better serve the needs of the people. Another form of new media is the virtual worldl.

A virtual world is a computer-simulated environment in which many people can interact with others via avatars, a representation of himself/herself. Created and played by real people, this modeled world is almost like a representation of reality via a digital world. The use of virtual world can extend from a simple diversion to even business and professional-related uses. Major corporations have turned to virtual world as they have used other new media such as social networks and wikis. I never knew that virtual worlds can be used to help train potential employees and personnel to properly prepare them into their respective job positions. For example, a personnel can use the virtual world as a practice to market a certain product to clients. Although this is a faux practice, it makes the user notice his or her mistakes as others critique their presentation and notify them what they are lacking and need to improve. This helps employees to come up with a different approach to the promotion in order to appear more convincing and effective in front of the clients. Also, the employees can make as much mistakes as they can and repeat the process over and over again to develop their skills and to strengthen their representation of themselves and the product they are trying to sell to the respective clients. Virtual worlds offer an environment where people can build up their confidence and skills at little cost (time). In the article "IBM Learning Programs Get a 'Second Life,'" "[New IBM employees] can learn real-life working skills such as signing up for benefits, developing code as part of a global team, and ramping up sales skills before they meet with IBM clients” (Frauenheim) as stated by IBM vice president Ted Hoff. The virtual world or in this case, second life, helps its users to improve their communication skills and properly integrate it into their workplace and their lives. Because other people also suffer from low self-esteem and cannot speak to others, the cyber world will help them converse with others with the representation in their avatars, which can lead to an improvement in their social lives while their second lives foster interactive skills.

As much as there is such an advantageous side to virtual worlds, there are also downsides to it. Some people dedicate most of their time to playing their second lives and almost not living their primary lives to the point that this virtual world is almost replacing their real lives. Also, another important dark side to this medium as mentioned last lecture class is that now the military and the army are reverting to virtual worlds to train potential soldiers to fight in a virtual battlefield against game experts in order to prepare them to the real combat zone. Through this virtual world, young soldier learn how to shoot and kill people, the skills in which they need to foster before being launched in a blitz. Although this is helping the military and the army to cultivate their scouts into disciplined and skilled soldiers, this is also promoting the idea that killing is widely conventional and not evil as it conditions those players (who are still in their youth) this notion. Therefore, the representation of virtual worlds in this way will impact the way of thinking of our future generations and will become a bad role model for these children.

Frauenheim, Ed. "IBM Learning Programs Get a ‘Second Life'". Workforce Management. October 19, 2009 http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/24/61/08.html.

Social Networking

Social Networking is a very powerful tool of communication in new media, which can also be used for many purposes as well. It helps to interact with family and friends conveniently and allows an individual to reconnect with past acquaintances, create new relationships with others and build those via social networks, put up updates about what is going on in your life, and also establish networks in order to market oneself for an available job. Because mere individuals can use social networks for these functions, just imagine what big companies and corporations can do with these. With more resources at hand, companies are able to market and promote their products in these social networks better while maintaining customer relationships. They also use these social networking systems in order to get feedback from customers who rate their products in order to improve the service and/or products. Through professional social sites as LinkedIn, many professionals are able to recruit potential new talents suitable for the job (Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting). Also, corporations attract and screen employees through social network systems in this virtual world and create and build relationships with suppliers, customers, and potential business partners (What's Next: Your Future in Social Networking).

Of course, there are benefits that come along with social networks just as there exists some disadvantages to it also. As previously mentioned by the above paragraph, users are able to interact and connect with family and friends so easy that they are able to keep in touch even in different parts of the world. Also, people are able to find jobs through social sites as LinkedIn while corporations look for viable potential recruits with a simple click of a button to find a talent suitable for the job. The negative sides to social networking is the permeability of people into the system, who friends one and use social networks as a means of a stalking, harassing, and a bullying device. People also put false information into their profile and pretend to be someone they are not just to follow and get updates from a certain individual. Other unfortunate events even led to child harassment, sex offenders, and suicide.


Social Networking at IBM: Maclean's Feb 4, 2008 "What's Next? Your Future in Social Networking" vol 121, p. 42. http://ibm.rogersconsumerpublishing.com/macleans/downloads/social.pdf
Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt, NPR, March 16, 2008. available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf