RESPONSE 1B

The New Media curriculum is poorly structured, communicated about, and executed.

There needs to be student intervention in the creation process of said curriculum. There is no way for UMaine faculty to obtain an absolute understanding on what sort of impacts their individual agendas have on each student, because they cannot see how each agenda stacks on top of the student like the student can.

Top 3 Strategies

Tap Into Local Networks

To tap into local networks means to engage the nearby people or environment to solve a problem, whether it is social, technological, or ecological.

The UMO student body is a resource to be used for this project. Students are more often than not waiting for the next opportunity to join some sort of movement.

Distribute and Connect Information

To distribute and connect is to break up a problem into parts that can be solved by decentralized people or computers and then connect their results to piece together a solution, whether evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence or a cure for AIDS.

We need to use communication in order to solve this problem. The lack of communication is the problem in the first place, and this is a wide-scale problem, that affects a wide-scale amount of people, and there needs to be a connection.

Mobilize People

To mobilize is to energize people on the streets or other public spaces, especially using mobile devices such as smartphones or tablet computers like iPads.

Taking advantage of technology to spark an interest and compassion in people to solve this problem should be fairly easy.

As for reaching our audience… we’re at an advantage because there are a lot of students in the New Media department who have experienced the strife that comes with it, so making our audience understand and develop a passion for the problem should be mostly done already. The real challenge will be organizing this energy into something that means something and can accomplish something.

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RESPONSE 1

I. WHAT IS NEW MEDIA?

Describe the hallmark characteristics of New Media.  How do you think this changes who has the power to “define reality” via the media?  Give an example of where this might be the case. (2-3 paragraphs)

One of the biggest hallmark characteristics of New Media is the spawn of many-to-many interactionism. Communication has evolved into a source of power or a tool that virtually anybody can use via New Media, which is a world-changing dynamic. This new form of communication has the potential to shape reality itself, because anybody can say anything they want, with nearly no boundaries. To articulate, one could create a lie of any scale, and act as if it were true, and the only thing that would stop people from believing it would be their own discretion. The consumer is responsible for establishing what is and is not trustworthy information in New Media, and sometimes it’s a difficult task. As a result of this, it’s possible for nearly anybody to manipulate reality.

Trump, 45th President of the United States of America, provides us a look into how this power can be used to define reality. Using New Media, he controls what people think, what their focus is on, and hijacks all control from the media. Just by crafting a Tweet about nothing he can redirect the attention of an entire country in order to weave his way through an agenda that he can add whatever he wants to, because not only does New Media facilitate this sort of interaction between this one man and the many, but also encourages it. Society thrives on the drama that is created in this show of smoke and mirrors, and New Media is what society wants it to be. This point is not made to shun New Media, but it speaks to its power, and to the power that it puts in the hands of the people.

II. NEW MEDIA STRATEGIES

After reading the article, answer the following questions (you should cut/paste the questions from exercise 1 into your post, then your answer of solution B or B copying the full answer, then  your explanation for why this is the correct answer; for exercise 2, just post the single problem you are choosing and follow with your brainstorm/solutions)

EXERCISE 1: WHICH IS THE NEW MEDIA SOLUTION?

For each of the following past capstone ideas, identify which solution embodies the “many-to-many” principle and which one doesn’t and explain why in 1-2 paragraphs.

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.

In this scenario, Solution B would be a better embodiment the many-to-many principle. It would be outsourcing the solution by having the Passamaquoddy community create work out of the tools the solution would give them. It casts a wider net on the language attempting to be captured and documented, and creates much more tangible evidence of the language’s existence. A tag cloud would prove to be just as effective, if not more effective, way of navigating an entire library of words held within a language 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.

Again, Solution B is the better option here. Once more, the job is outsourced to the community, which allows for a more diversified and expansive range of perspectives and influences to be portrayed through the website and whatever content is added to it. Plus the idea itself is pretty cool, it not only establishes a legacy for these abandoned buildings, but also creates a community around them, and starts an interactive history rather than just an observable one.

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.

I think either option would be fine here… Solution A does a better job of creating a New Media-aged approach to teaching information, however in this case Solution B would probably be much more beneficial for anybody actually trying to learn from the display. 

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.

Solution A here. This fix has multiple benefits on top of the original purpose of inquiry, and accomplishes the task of outsourcing. This idea connects multiple bodies of students on campus and brings them together effectively while also giving them a place for their work to flourish and be observable by many.

EXERCISE 2: INVENT YOUR OWN MANY-TO-MANY SOLUTIONS

Pick one of the following problems and brainstorm a solution that embodies a many-to-many approach. Describe your solution in two or more paragraphs.

NEWSPAPERS ARE LOSING SUBSCRIBERS AND ADS

How can you help the Bangor Daily News attract more eyeballs?

Example: Pattie Barry and Adrianne Hess, MeCampus.

If Bangor Daily News wants to stay relevant in a world where news is so much easier to obtain than physically buying a newspaper, they need to modernize themselves. A cool way to do so in a way that addresses the potentials of New Media would be to create an online newspaper that is adaptable and constantly changing. Instead of going out and recording a couple of stories that are set to be “the news” of the week or however long, feed news as it arrives. In order to keep on top of everything that is happening, open the format up to the consumers. Allow them to submit their own stories, with their own photos and videos, and their own opinions on them if they so choose to include them. Then, make that work easily accessible for others to view it.

This essentially turns the consumer into the creator. In order to further capitalize on this, create the newspaper so that it is what each individual consumer wants it to be. If a user likes the news stories produced by a few certain creators, their stories should appear more often on their personalized newspaper, sort of like following somebody on Twitter. This way a user can see the content they want to see, and create the content they want to create. This would make news less of a static, controlled, and poorly-versified outlet of singular content, and more of a platform for discussion and progress. Each story can facilitate discussion about the matter, and perhaps produce answers to questions posed by events in the world that are in dire need of resolution.