Effect of New Media on Society

New Media has definitely had an effect on society. Overall I feel that it has made our society better. There are many benefits in new media. One of the benefits is that it can expands a person social network. For example people can track down there best friend from elementary school who they haven't to in years. Another benefit is that it gives anyone that wants to, the opportunity to express themselves. For example on anybody that wants to, can make that own video and post it on YouTube. Another example is on blogger. Where anybody can make one, and this tool gives the opportunity for everyone to be a journalist. New Media has made communication within society much faster. Once big news hits, it is communicated online within minutes. While back then we would have to wait for the news to come out. While new media has many benefits, it has some negatives as well. For example the extra attention some people get from social networking had led to a couple of suicides. There need to be measures to prevent things like these from happening. Also some people can rely on social networking too much and they spend more time at there home next to the computer as opposed to actually going out, socializing and meeting more people. All in all, new media has had a very positive impact on society.

Classmate's research presentation

The classmates presentation I will discuss is Svetlana's. Her presentation was on Second life,Webkinz and the future of virtual world on higher education. This was interesting to me because I was always interested about second life, virtual worlds and how they operated. She discussed how virtual worlds like second life are being used for education. She gave examples of how top tier schools like Harvard and NYU are incorporating Second life into their education programs. Also discussed in her presentation was Webkinz and how it is affecting there education. I think Svetlana did a great job in her presentation. There were many visuals in her PowerPoint and I can tell that she did a lot of research. It was interesting to see the virtual classroom. It was also surprising to know that there is even a virtual world for kids. I never really heard of Webkinz before, now maybe when I have kids they can try the website out.

My Term Research Project

My term project was on social networking. In this project I described social networking from multiple perspectives. First I stated what social networking is; I said that It is a online technology that can lead to potential benefits such as improved collaboration and information sharing, greater productivity and enhanced communication among coworkers business partners and customers. I talked about the economics perspective and social networking is counted in our GDP and will likely show up as an increase in productivity. From there I went on to the educational perspective and discussed how a principal in high school had to protect his students from cyber bullying online through MySpace. For the technological perspective I discussed that social networking is rapidly advancing and that managers should be ready. After that I went on to my final two sections, moral and sociological. For moral I mentioned a survey which determined that people actually do non-related activities on social networking sites while they are working. For sociological I showed and discussed a video of the Star Wars kid.

The Next New Thing

New Media has been a big break in communication. I think the next step is to take new media to the streets! A few years ago before the big boom in cell phones there were many pay phone booths. My idea would be to install "easy navigation" devices in the streets. Every several blocks would have one of these devices. These devices would. for a small fee let a user access it, it can give them tips of near by restaurants, nearby trains, movie theaters, stores or anything the area. These blocks can also include reviews of restaurants to help people decide what to eat. People can search for certain types of foods they would like and it would give results of recommended. This device would basically act as a guide. This would be really useful to tourists, or people that don't know the city to well.

Old vs. New

There are a few ways to distinguish between old and new media. First off new media is a much faster means of communications. For example, the news can be reported within minutes after it happens on the internet as opposed to old media where you would have to wait for the newspaper to come out or wait till 6pm or 10 pm for to watch the news on television. For the news anyone can report it, if you are a journalist, or even just a blogger. This gives opportunities to everyone to express themselves. New media provides a faster way of access, for example if you want a certain song you can go online and download it, as opposed to old media, you would need to buy the CD. New Media has also enhanced shopping. If you can't find a item in stores, you can just online to Ebay or Amazon and download it.

Advice to Baruch College

If I was hired by Baruch College to use new media to improve the college I would make a few suggestions. First off, since you new media is an very efficient communication tool, I would try and get videos or tutorials that are accessible online to the students. This would provide extra material for the students to learn from. For the professors, I would incorporate some sort of blog or wiki system, where they can share methods of teaching and share their knowledge on course material.

Checking Out Some Social Networking Sites

The 4 Social networking sites that I checked out were, Facebook, Xanga, MySpace, and Friendster. Xanga is the older one of the bunch. It is a website that I created a profile for when I just began high school. It is a website where you are able to express your feelings, and just post entries about anything you want. People are able to comment and suscribe to each other's xanga's. This website basically was my introduction to social networking. Most of you should know what Myspace and Facebook are but if you guys don't they are basically social networking sites where users, register and create profiles. They are able to upload pictures of themselves, join groups comment on their friends profiles or even make new friends. MySpace and Facebook are two very similar sites, but they are both very popular for a good reason, because it they are so addicting! I'm sure many students waste countless hours on Facebook while they should be studying! I never had a Friendster account, but i created one a few days ago to check it out. It seems to have similar features to Facebook and Myspace, I can tell why it was popular as well.