Response 1 – LorenH
Response 1b:
1-List your topic/issue and your proposed intervention:
idea 1: making some sort of application or “hack” that enables all sites that only offer “male” or “female” for gender selection to make a third category where the user can type in their gender.
Second idea: similar to the Yes Men, print a newspaper/magazine that imitates a larger newsprint company, or use QR codes, or post digitally online, a newspaper that has all the things we want to hear about the future coming true. I may refine this to just LGBTQ stuff, but I think there’s also so many other issues that it would be a disservice to not include those.
2-List your top strategies , how they work, and why you would use them:
idea 1: not gonna lie, I have no idea how I would do this. I would want to make something that was like an extension on a browser that would allow users to have a third option, and that data would be seen by the people who own the site. It’s a small way of protesting and would trip them up.
idea 2: my process would be similar to that of “Upstage the Man”, which is listed as a New Media strategy. This is a great method for this idea because it uses the trust people already have in a specific news source to get my own personal point across.
3- Describe how you will reach your target audience:
idea 1: Tumblr, LGBTQ spaces. Tons of people I know have this issue so I know it would be popular.
idea 2: distributing physically in places like the IMRC and other news stands across campus. Or, if I went a digital route, I’m unsure the best way to reach my audience.
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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:
Medium – vehicles of mass communication
Media- A medium of communications (such as radio, television, newspapers, etc.) that reaches a large number of people
“Mass media represents the most economical way of getting the story over the new and wider market in the least time.”
“What most people today think are media are actually vehicles within a medium.
- •Note first that humans’ usage of those two ancient transportation media predate technology. Technology has merely extended our speed and carrying capacities in these media.
- •Also note that humanity’s uses of these two media aren’t necessarily dependent upon technology. Most of us can walk and swim without using any technology.
- •And note that each of the vehicles for these media is limited by its medium. Trains don’t operate on water nor do steamships operate on land. Indeed, land and water have mutually exclusive characteristics as media and reaches. Mutually exclusive advantages and disadvantages. This will become an important point when we bridge — no pun intended — this analogy towards informational and communicational media.”
“Note that this new transportation medium [flight] is entirely dependent upon technology, unlike use of the two other transportation media. The sky isn’t a natural medium for humans; people can walk and swim without technology, but cannot fly.”
Three communications media exist:
- Interpersonal medium (“one to one”)
“•Each participant in it has equal and reciprocal control of the content conveyed.
- That content can be individualized to each participant’s unique needs and interests.
However, those hallmark advantages have corresponding disadvantages:
- The equal control, and also the individualization, of the content degrades into cacophony as the number of participants increases. The more people participating in a conversation, the less control each has over its content and how well that content matches the participant’s individual needs and interests.”
- Mass Medium – (“one to many”) “Most people mistake the Mass Medium as a byproduct of technology and don’t realize how old it really is. Like the Interpersonal, the Mass Medium predates technology. It originated with the utterances and speeches of tribal leaders, kings, and priests. Technology has merely extended its speed and its reach to global dimensions.”
“The hallmarks of the Mass Medium are:
- •That exactly the same content goes to all recipients.
- •That the one who sends it has absolute control over that content.
However, the corresponding disadvantages of the Mass Medium are:
- •Its content cannot be individualized to each recipient’s unique needs and interests and that the recipients have no control over that content.”
- The New Medium
“But then — just like how then-new technologies were used a century ago to make the sky a new and practical medium for transportation — new technologies have now been used to create the New Medium for communications. It is a new communication medium that, like Sky for prior transportation media, bridges the mutually incompatible characteristics of prior communications media.”
Characteristics of the New Medium:
- “•Uniquely individualized information can simultaneously be delivered or displayed to a potentially infinite number of people.
- •Each of the people involved — whether publisher, broadcasters, or consumer — shares equal and reciprocal control over that content.”
“In other words, the New Medium has the advantages of both the Interpersonal and the Mass media, but without their complementary disadvantages.”
“It is not a natural communications medium for humans; it does something that a human cannot naturally do without technology.”
“This misunderstanding [that the New Medium is just an extension of the previous two mediums] is particular[ly] prevalent among publishing and broadcast executives or others who’ve worked in the Mass Medium. They see the New Medium and its vehicles only as a paperless or antenna-less form of Mass Medium — a perspective that neglects the New Medium’s full potential.”
“…more than one billion consumers have migrated into the New Medium; it allows them more precise satisfaction of their needs and interests. They didn’t migrate into the New Medium to read, see, or hear a Mass Medium package of information online — information they were receiving from traditional Mass Medium vehicles in more readily usable forms.”
“Interactivity, as long ago defined by Dr. Jonathan Steuer in the Journal of Communications is “the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form and content of a mediated environment in real time.” That is a far cry from simply letting the user read Mass Medium newspaper, magazines, or broadcast content that has been shoveled online.”
“Publisher and broadcasters who don’t make full use of the New Medium will likely be left behind and wither during this new century.”
Okay, I narrowed the article down to some basic quotes above as reference points for me.
I think this was a very apt way of describing what New Media is – I haven’t heard it described in such a way before, and this explanation makes the most sense to me. I think, as with all types of communication, who has control over it has the ability to define reality for everyone else. An example would be how for thousands of years women generally weren’t involved in academics because they weren’t allowed to be, which was a choice made by a patriarchal society led by men. If society was matriarchal in the same way it is patriarchal then various “reasons” people may say why the world is “naturally patriarchal” (like men are more aggressive, men are stronger, etc) would be information used against men and limiting to their education (example: “men and boys are too aggressive to be in a studious classroom of learning, men are and boys are too full of themselves”, etc). Those who have control and power edit the message the masses get, and the same reasons why one group may say something is unfit or bad could easily be the exact reasons why those same qualities are actually “good” for the intended use or application.
This gets really dangerous, because if the wrong people can spread too much of the wrong message and do it in the way of the New Medium, information can be personalized to their biases or prejudices.
The New Medium is ground breaking and has so many positive influences on the people and I also think society as a whole needs to be more aware of the above power imbalances mentioned above and how this New Medium enhances that.
- New Media Strategies
NOTES FROM ARTICLE:
“Crosbie’s definition suggests that new media are defined less by the gadgets they employ than by the social architecture they construct.”
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 1: A DISAPPEARING LANGUAGE
Ian Larson wanted to help preserve the Passamaquoddy language from extinction.
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.
This solution, unlike the first one, allows members of the community who speak Passamaquoddy of all walks of life to contribute to not only the history of their tribe but also the language – official and colloquial – which is not something a more sterile form of documentation like a dictionary can accomplish. Also, the tagging system is easier to access than having to look through an online database.
PROBLEM 2: NEGLECTED RUINS
Evan Habeeb wanted to make people aware of the beauty of abandoned buildings.
SOLUTION B: Build a Website 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 Website built to feature photographs taken by those explorers.
This solution allows for the accumulation of photos over time which enhances the pool of information. The first solution would only document what the production team chose to put in to the DVD and it wouldn’t be accumulative and show the changes that happen over time. Also, Solution B allows people to make new spots that they choose are important to document, meaning more information to everyone, unlike the DVD where the specific locations are fixed.
PROBLEM 3: 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 archaeologist 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.
This solution enables the user to visually question a part of the production that they don’t understand, whereas with Solution B you can only access what is documented and if your question falls out of that range then you don’t really have any answers.
PROBLEM 4: 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 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.
Though I think Solution A is more useful, this one is the most “New Media” because it allows for changing and nonstatic information to be used, and it’s a cheaper alternative to actually repairing the fountain. It could be said that this is much more creative and allows for the scenery to change with the time and people.
EXERCISE 2: INVENT YOUR OWN MANY-TO-MANY SOLUTIONS
VISUAL ART IS TOO STATIC
How can you create a mural that responds to individual viewers?
The mural could be a projection onto a screen or surface that allows for the user to touch the mural. When they touch it, an array of things could happen – the object or being they touch turns to the color of their skin, or the “opposite” color of their skin, the user can press and hold on objects to duplicate them and move them, users can upload photos into certain parts of the mural. If the mural was relating to dogs, for example, local people could upload photos of their dogs via their smartphones or laptops and the photos would be assembled creatively onto the mural. This would produce a local account of what “dog” means to the local people.
III. THEATER 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)
In this article, the media (theater) oppresses people by making the spectators passive. Boal tries to give that power back by inviting and allowing the spectators to participate with the actors, using them as their canvas and revealing their thoughts, identities, and ideations. Using humor makes situations more comfortable for people to open up.
New Media can absolutely accomplish a similar goal. What Boal does/did is what we’re encouraged to do and learn in New Media – make interactions many-to-many. In the plays, there are some predetermined parts to start off with, but no performance will be the same because it involves the audience, the spectator. A play with a passive audience is like a dictionary, database, or any other static collection of information. One of Boal’s performances is like any of the solutions from the previous exercise that were chosen as the most “new media” type solutions.
One thought on “Response 1 – LorenH”
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” gender selection to make a third category” –yeah, I always feel so uncomfortable having to pick a gender (in grad school app, admissions thought I was male by accident and that was really interesting…); other options would be interesting
“a newspaper that has all the things we want to hear about the future coming true” Such a good idea, YES Men did this already!
https://vimeo.com/129322969
Very thoughtful description of What is New Media article, esp: “It is not a natural communications medium for humans; it does something that a human cannot naturally do without technology.” and “as with all types of communication, who has control over it has the ability to define reality for everyone else”
Your interpretation of Boal as inviting interactivity, and so a precursor to New Media is astute. Nice insight!