Response 1- HaleyC

1. WHAT IS NEW MEDIA?

New Media is the content of what is being exchanged via the medium, many-to-many. There’re more than one medium a media can travel through, such as the interpersonal, mass medium and new medium. The new media is very powerful, making the recipient the controller of what he or she sees and receives as media. Which is then also dangerous since they’re not getting other perspectives, instead they’re just getting the opinions they already agree with, whether it be right or wrong. It puts them in a sort of bubble. Which I think is also why our generation has become very self-absorbed.

This development of the new media changes the power to define reality entirely. Before the new media, people were given all information up front, in sort of a packaged way. While this might not have all been true or not, people were not given the choice to decide exactly what they were signing up for. With new media we can choose exactly what kind of information we receive, all that we see on our phones and laptops, almost 100% is chosen by us. A lot of websites even make us “tell us a little about yourself” while signing up to customize your experience. That is new media. I find this new media powerful, but also dangerous. With everyone customizing their own media, what is right and what is wrong? I think the media has also taken over politics and the news. We watch what we want on tv, and follow only the social profiles of those who give us the information we think is correct, furthering possible information. It is easy to get caught up in our own bubble when all the information we receive is reaffirming what we read yesterday from the same place. I think it is easy especially for young people to get caught up in this, growing up and only listening to one side and forming their opinions without listening to both sides. Newspapers are dying because people are selfish.

1. NEW MEDIA STRATEGIES

PROBLEM A: A DISAPPEARING LANGUAGE

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

Solution B –This solution uses the many-to-many principle by having more than one person’s story be recorded and put on a website to reach many others.

PROBLEM: NEGLECTED RUINS

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

Solution B –This solution uses the many-to-many solution by having a website make stickers available to many people, to put many places. If it were just one person distributing these stickers to others it would not be many-to-many. This interaction with the stickers creates a network of people doing something collectively.

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 B –This solution is a better example of the many-to-many by creating an app for many users to download and use. Also including links to further their learning of animation is an example using new media.

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 –Getting the students involved to use the new garden around the waterfall is a better example of many-to-many.

NEWSPAPERS ARE LOSING SUBSCRIBERS AND ADS

Newspapers have been a long-standing source of media for people, it is just since the revolution of new media that the newspapers are dying. Technology is not the newspapers downfall, it is new media.

Knowing that the new media is not the enemy but rather the solution, the newspapers should take a more personal user-based approach to delivering the news. The newspapers need to change how they interact with the individual consumer. Creating an app would be a good first step for a newspaper company. Then having different sections of that newspaper be optional. One person might want to read the want ads, one might not. Let it be customizable. Have clickable links and lots of pictures, facebook, Instagram, snapchat, all the most popular social apps are centered around pictures and videos. Videos should also be embedded, not bring you to a new page when viewing. Physical newspapers may die, and that’s okay. Not using paper could also be a positive side-effect of this, saving trees.

III. THE THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED 

In this article media oppresses the people in the article by taking away power from the people with typically all the power. Boal is merely trying to give power back to the people of the masses by adding humor and making the experience more interactive, which gets them more involved. It feels like he’s exploiting the upper class and bosses. He wakes people up, making them realize these people aren’t so scary and that they are more like them than they knew.

The invisible theater is an example that illustrates how Boal is trying to give the power back to the people. He brings up real problems in his theater to make it seem light-hearted and fun, while also being informational and true. While he is scrutinized for this, he is also applauded.

New Media can accomplish similar goals by using the media to get out factual information in a more interactive and customizable way, almost disguising what youre seeing or reading is actually news. Again, needing to be cautious of “fake news”.