Next New

Suggest a new type of "new media" that doesn't currently exist. Describe it.

This was this week's prompt It is always difficult to think creatively about what doesn't yet exist, especially when there is a lot that does exist within the same field. Therefore, I tried to think about where are as a species and what type of things we are interested in, including where our society is headed.

This talk of the future and media, naturally made me think about a masterpiece of a TV show called Black Mirror. Some of you may have already heard about it or seen it, and if you haven't, you can get a quick preview of what its about and what it involves in this Huffington Post article titled 'Black Mirror' is the One Show You Need To Watch On Netflix Over The Holidays. Because of its focus on a dystopian future that is actually very possible, it came to mind when asked bout the future of New Media.

Inspired by the first episode of the third season, I see a new form of new media taking over our lives in the not-so-distant future. A future where we are all part of a social networking system where our livelihood is based on other people's judgements. Today, a lot of what we do, a t least in a 'western' society has to do with social networking websites where we keep in touch with other by posting what we want others to see, and by responding, or judging what others want us to see. By rating each other, we will have an average rate out of 5 or 10, that will also decide our wealth, where we can buy a home, whether we can buy a home in the first place, and what school we go to.  The scores will be based on how pleasant we are to be around, personality-wise and physically.

Up till now, I have focused on the positive aspects of new media, but it is important to recognize the dangers too in order to encourage it to go in the right direction. After all, it is in our hands.

If you do not want to watch the whole hour or the episode or do not have access to it, you can watch parts of it in this YouTube video.

Wiki So Far

For the New Media wiki, I spent time reading through the pages that some of my fellow, or previous, classmates have uploaded to gain an understanding of what type of topics they are interesting in writing and reading about concerning New Media. I also made edits with grammar and typos that I found in pages.

I then went on to find pages that I would like to contribute to with the layout editing and content, and found two that I found very interesting.

Firstly, there is a page called Crowdsourcing that talks about what it is, its history, the different types that exist and the pros and cons. I thought this would be a great opportunity for me to learn more about what it is as I complete the assignment. I want to add content to all subparts and also make edits to the layout.

Secondly, I found a page created by another student called New Media and Culture, and I have always been interested in cultures, especially because I come from a weird background (Armenian from Jerusalem). I am also taking a class called Psychology and Culture and I think my knowledge, as well as studies that have been done on the topic that I have been reading and researching about, can be of great addition to the page!

Thanks for reading.

Nanar

P2P

As I sit here writing this blog while eating sharing size peanut M&Ms, I reflect on the thought that humans love to share. There are exceptions to everything, of course, but we are a social species that likes to interact with others like them, and a lot of the time this includes sharing what we enjoy (or don't enjoy)with others.

As I have mentioned multiple times in previous posts, and as it is widely known, New Media are used mostly as a means to communicate. This can be done in many different ways, be it from directly contacting others through social media or downloading a file of an episode of your favorite TV show that a stranger shared online. File sharing is a phenomenon where people allow other people's access to digital files. This is an umbrella term under which lie a number of different ways people or companies share digital media with others.

An example of a term under that umbrella is peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, where the network is decentralized, and it allows people to share digital media content directly with each other. For instance, according to an article called The BitTorrent Effect published by Wired, BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer program that allows people to share huge amounts of data by uploading and downloading the content. It is very easy and quick, sometimes taking as short as a few minutes. This can include movies, television shows, music, academic work, and even money transfers.

It is truly amazing to think about how vastly the internet and New Media are used, and so we must be careful about what we put out there.

Thanks for reading!

See you soon.

Nanar

Privacy

For this post, I decided to ask my mother what her thoughts were on privacy on New Media, as I think directly asking someone who uses New Media it is truly as raw as an answer could get.

My mother said that privacy has become a concern in New Media and social networking/blogs specifically, because when someone is in the habit of posting about themselves on platforms, others are constantly aware of what they are doing, where they are, who they are friends with, the type of life they lead (or want us to think they lead) and even what they are planning to do in the future.

As the internet is a relatively new phenomenon, there is no precedent regarding the risks and what could happen in terms of privacy and confidentiality. If someone posing as themselves posts a picture on Facebook, for instance, that picture is now available for anyone to see, download and use. Since there is no precedent, people are doing these things without realizing the consequences of their actions on themselves and the people around them. 

The consequences of new media in terms of privacy can be as harmless as people simply knowing what kind of food you like, or as extreme as where to find you in order to rob you. This was perfectly and tragically demonstrated by what happened to Kim Kardashian two years ago in Paris. As stated by Vanity Fair in an article titled The Inside Story of the Kim Kardashian Paris Hotel Heist, Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in her hotel room. According to the police chief, Christian Sainte, who had never heard of Kardashian, searched her on the internet and said "Now I know almost everything about her." Many argue that that was the reason she was robbed so easily, despite her having bodyguards. She uses platforms like Snapchat and Instagram that tell people where she is and what she is doing, and that made it easy for the robbers. 

Clearly, new media can be very dangerous, so it is important for us to realize what we put ourselves into when using them. 

Thanks for reading!

See you,

Nanar 

Advice

If I were hired by Baruch College (yay, me!) to improve the college, I would first have to think about the different ways in which it could use a little improving.

It is important to note that this post and the advice listed are coming from the perspective of a student, and that professors and staff members of the college would likely have different perspectives and different areas that need improving, which would help them in their daily lives while doing work.

Thinking of my day going into the Newman Vertical Campus(NVC) and/or the Lawrence and Eris Field Building (17 Lex), I realize that it would be incredibly helpful to have a small department in the college that directly and exclusively deals with new media. The students that come into the school are increasingly from newer generations and depend on new media for many aspects of their lives, so having a department that used new media to help students would be a great step forward for the college.

If I think about the aspects of my day on campus that could use a little improvement, they would definitely include the elevators, both in the NVC and the 17 Lex building, and I think other students would more than agree. The New Media Department would use a phone app to keep students informed about elevator status. Although this may sound as a lot of work and not worth the trouble, it would be safe to say that students are almost consistently late for classes because of the elevators. To have an app that would give information about where the elevators are at that point and which is the most efficient on to take to get from one floor to the next would be a great deal of help not just for students, but also for professors!

The New Media Department would also keep students up to date about activities/club events on campus. A Baruch College app currently exists, so if the department could use this app and improve it, it would be very helpful in that it would tell people what kind of things they can do and when. I would advise the college to also have a feature where the student/faculty member can sync their schedule into the app, so that it can give them options to be part of during their free time. I imagine this would be helpful for incoming freshmen, who have not yet had the chance to find a group they belong to.

If the proposed New Media Department could spend their time working on everyday improvements such as the ones mentioned previously in this post, it would make the college a lot smaller because it would connect the students and faculty through new media. If not for efficiency, perhaps for a huge step forward!

Thanks for reading,
See you super soon!

Nanar