LEARNING!

Troughout the class, I have learned new ways to interpret new media. This class helped me understand the meanings behind new media such as blogs, social networking websites, computers, virtual communities, YouTube videos, etc. I learned that depending on what perspective/lens you take, there are different ways to interpret things. For example, McLuhan thought that the medium is the message and that technology created a new society and new social conditions. From the viewpoint of Williams, however, technology shouldn't be viewed as a cause-effect situation. Instead he argues that new needs/possibilities led to the development of certain technologies. Another example good example of the whole lens thing is the Kaycee Nicole Swenson article about skeptics and optimists in virtual communities. It's all a matter of perspective!!


My favorite thing about the class was probably the two major projects. It was a lot of work (O__o) BUT, I ended up learning a lot of interesting facts. I especially enjoyed the Facebook Project since it made me do a whole self reflection process. I am glad I can do a Facebook Cleanse now and be more cautious of what I post rather than find in out in the future that a company didn't hire me because of a stupid picture or updateI posted on my wall.


My least favorite thing was probably finding an interesting new media article to write about. It always took me awhile to find an article that I liked and I thought was relevant somehow to our class. It's not that I didn't like the assignment it just was really time consuming for me! It was hard to find an article that wasn't about Facebook or the Iphone!

What's Interesting??

I found the “Bus Uncle” article we read this week to be really interesting since it provided me with a new perspective on YouTube videos. I have always viewed viral videos on YouTube as mere entertainment pieces but after reading this article, it is obvious that there is much more to these videos. As Chu explained, YouTube videos are a specific form of public opinion known as collective behavior (pg 338). Viewers and consumers of the videos could re-create and rework the videos to become producers (aka “prosumers”) during moments when norms/conventions are unclear or challenged (339). Additionally, I thought the concept of collective behavior was interesting because it was easy for me to see how blogs and wikis could be classified as collective behavior but it never occurred to me to view YouTube videos that way. The Bus Uncle case, however, emphasizes how YouTube videos serve as a public space and how it could be seen as a cultural public sphere. 


Another reading which I thought was fascinating was the one about the Kaycee Nicole Swenson hoax. To re-iterate what I wrote in a previous post, I enjoyed the fact that this article explains that the events/actions in virtual communities should be seen as lying on a continuum rather than being viewed as either representing the good side of the internet or the evil side of the internet. When we get pass viewing things as being black or white, I think we can learn a lot about the gray stuff in the middle which is usually where the interesting stuff occurs.