Response 1 (UPDATED with 1B) – ElizabethD

Response 1 (UPDATED with 1B) – ElizabethD

RESPONSE 1B

1- The American prison systems are harsh and really need reform.  It encourages future behavioral issues instead of successfully integrating ex-cons back into society.  This issue should seem more important to the American people, but most don’t care because they don’t quite understand it.

2- My top strategy is to create an interactive game that people can choose to play.  They can choose which country they would like to play in, and that would change the rules of the game.  They would play from the character’s early childhood into jailtime.  They would personalize the character and make decisions so that they feel close to it.  They will all end up going to jail for one reason or another, and after getting out, they have to rebuild their lives.  This would make it so that they see how hard it really is to try and become a good citizen after being convicted of crime.  They would be given options for fast cash making schemes, which will most likely be illegal.

3- I would attract an audience by making it seem like a really fun and normal game to play.  Maybe advertise it like a GTA game or even a Sims game so as to attract a diverse audience that doesn’t quite know what they will get.  Another option is to make it playable in an art installation.  The one concern though is to make it resonate with the player, and to make them feel as though the game is extremely unfair towards them.

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WHAT IS NEW MEDIA?

I will start start off this response in agreement with the sentiment that new technologies have revolutionized the method for human communication and interaction, making the delivery of information extremely diverse and easier than ever.  The term “technology” does not necessarily refer to tools that rely on electricity to run.  Writing is even considered a technology.  All of these inventions have seriously revolutionized the way that we as humans interact.  However, now is where I begin to disagree with the article.  The article mentions that there are only three mediums that exist.  One allows for one-on-one communication, another is a one-to-many form of communication, and then finally one allows for a one-to-many conversation to happen while having the content altered for the individual.  This is where I disagree with article.  While yes, emerging technologies have made it easier to convince the reader that the conversation is geared towards them, that is all; emerging technologies have made this feat easier, not make it possible.  If this were true, then targeting advertising may not have ever existed.  For example, in the 1950’s, if you were watching a television program, advertisers and different television channels may have picked and chosen the advertisements that they create and show based on the types of people that may watch that particular program.  These advertisements are not centered around the channel itself, but also around which type of show is playing at the moment, because its audience is ever changing, just like now with just about any website found online.

Not only this, but the article also argues that the new medium also allows for content viewers to edit and have a say in what they are shown and the news is providing for them.  It argues this by saying that before the new medium, newspapers for example, controlled what the readers saw and how they viewed the world.  However, the article forgets to mention that the viewer still has the choice to choose which outlet they receive their news from, as they do now with which websites they choose to view.  Newspapers and websites now are still and always have been hard geared to pander to a certain audience or demographic.  Additionally, news stations still choose exactly what to show its consumers.  They still heavily control the content that we receive.

 

NEW MEDIA STRATEGIES

Exercise #1

Problem: A disappearing language

Ian Larson wanted to help preserve the Passamaquoddy language from extinction.

Solution A

Create a taskforce from a select group of Native American language experts, and ask them to write down a dictionary of words and their definitions. Enter these definitions into a database and build a Web site that allows anyone to search for terms and hear their pronunciation. Hire a high-profile Web designer and marketing firm to ensure that as many people as possible learn about this resource.

Solution B

Distribute laptops with video cameras to schoolkids in the Passamaquoddy community, and ask them to record their grandparents telling stories in Passamaquoddy. Upload these to a Web site along with the grandparents’ definitions of particular words used in the story, and make these words searchable via a tag cloud.

The prompt for this exercise asks us to identify which solution best embodies the “many-to-many” idea talked about in the article. Because I have to answer the question in order to fit the prompt, rather than what I believe the better solution to be, I have to say that it is solution B.  This is because with solution B, the consumers of the product can choose to see what they view and it is on a much more personal scale, rather than solution A, which is a hard, defined type of content that every viewer will see, and they cannot choose which content to view, as it is not personalized as well.

Problem: Neglected ruins

Evan Habeeb wanted to make people aware of the beauty of abandoned buildings.

Solution A

Assemble a film crew and visit abandoned homes, factories, and other buildings. Bring lights to illuminate these spaces dramatically, and record ambient sounds like dripping water. Edit the footage onto a DVD to create a compelling account that documents these relics for posterity, and distribute copies to historical societies across the state for their collections.

Solution B

Build a Web site that allows adventurers to print stickers they can leave behind in abandoned buildings they explore. Create the stickers so they can be scanned by a mobile phone to reveal a Web site built to feature photographs taken by those explorers.

Solution B is the obvious answer to which strategy allows for a “many-to-many” type of conversation.  The content is highly specialized, as only explorers will be able to view content, as they are the only ones that will be able to find the stickers.  This type of idea would become sort of like a game, where the user will want to explore more in order to find more stickers so that they may view more content.  The only problem with this solution is that the people doing this exploring are already aware of the beauty of abandoned buildings.  If you wanted more people to be aware of their beauty, then solution A would be the answer.

Problem: Misunderstanding computer animation

Ryan Schaller and Jason Walker wanted to help people understand the many layers required to create a computer-animated film, including wireframe, textures, and light effects. As a case study, they created an animation depicting a cartoon archeologist digging for ancient artifacts.

Solution A

Design and build a touch-screen interface that allows viewers to “rub” away layers of the film with their hands to reveal previous stages of the animation as it plays.

Solution B

Create an iPad application that documents each stage of the animation process, using stills from the archeologist film as illustrations. Explain techniques such as ray tracing, motion capture, and morphing. Include links to companies that create animation software such as Autodesk.

Solution B would allow for the most number of people to interact with the app.  Not only this, but the users have to decide how in-depth they would like to get with the information, as they are provided links to outside sources and software.  With solution A, the audience is given a set type of content, where they can only reveal and interact with so much, and it will be the same for every user.

Problem: A broken fountain

Danielle Gagner wanted to renovate the waterfall fountain under the skylight in the middle of the University Union, which had fallen into disrepair.

Solution A

Repurpose the existing plumbing to irrigate a garden planted in the former fountain. Research the types of plants that would grow well together at different levels of the fountain, and meet with dining hall staff to find out what herbs or vegetables they might add to salads and other offerings. Then plant these in collaboration with the sustainable agriculture club on campus, and invite students to pick the resulting parsley, strawberries, and other fare from the garden for their lunch.

Solution B

Use Google Image Search to download photographs of natural bodies of water such as streams, rivers, and the ocean. Combine these with nature footage from sources like National Geographic and the Discovery Channel to create a multichannel video installation that projects images of flowing water and rippling waves onto the fountain, which has been covered with theatrical screening. Supplement the moving images with the sound of a babbling brook emanating from surround-sound speakers mounted on the ceiling.

This seems like an opinionated answer.  This all depends on what you want the end result to be: a fountain, or not a fountain?  Solution A seems like it would be the best “many-to-many” solution, as it allows for outside input (from dining hall staff) and allows for outside collaboration (sustainable agriculture club and students picking the resulting vegetation).

Exercise #2

Student films are always set in dorms

How can you help filmmakers find better locations for their videos?

Solution: I think a great solution to this problem would to be to employ a similar idea like that in solution B of the abandoned house problem.  Student filmmakers or even photographers can use an app where they find locations based on keywords in a searchable database.  The database is filled by these filmmakers and photographers by including their work.  It would be like a photo and video sharing app, where the main purpose would be to see the work for its location.  Then, it would give the option to add the point to a google map of some sort, so that you may find the place where the photo or video was filmed.  Additionally, there would be a user page, where the user could create categories, add videos/photos to their favourites list so they don’t lose them, of they could compile a list of scenes and locations that they need, and fill them in with the locations that they find on the app.

 

THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED

How does media oppress people in this article, and how does Boal try to give that power back to people? How does he use humor to do this? (2-3 paragraphs)

How can New Media accomplish similar goal? give a few examples. You can add projects we review in class, but you might want to start by trying to think of some yourself. (2 paragraphs)

The first person that we learn about being oppressed by the media is Boal himself.  Boal is the main character this article focuses on, and was jailed, tortured, and exiled because of his rebelliousness in the form of giving the oppressed a platform to take their power back.  Not only this, but the government would also torture, jail, and murder those that chose to participate in this activity.  Boal uses humor to do this by basically giving comedy back to the people.  Laughter is one of the most freeing things you can experience.  It’s what brings us together.

Boal created interactive performances for the oppressed.  New media can very easily accomplish a similar goal.  The advent of new and evolving technologies has made it easier than ever to create new and invigorating interactive installations between the performer and the audience.  A great example of this would be audience motion detection or audio detection effecting the outcome of a performance, or the supportive pieces of a performance, such as lighting or audio.