Response 1- Matthew Carlson

1. What is New Media?

New Media is digital media that are interactive through technology that deliver’s us the opportunity to communicate. When referring to New Media, we think of it as being related to some form of computing, new media is able to be easily stored, transformed, and easily accessed. Communication is huge in todays society, everyone communicates in some form everyday whether it’s on the phone, computer, iPad, and communicating in person is a form of New Media. New Media is based on the principle of “many-to-many”; giving it a dialogue of expression that is fairly new to society. New Media in terms is able to give everyone a voice. New Media is a broad field as it is perceived as ever-changing with the growth of technology in our world today, we are able to communicate with millions of people all over the world with a single message. When this article started to talk about vehicles as a medium I was shocked because I always thought of the vast ways to communicate as mediums were applications of social media, the internet, radio, and televisions but not vehicles.

The two hallmark characteristics discussed in this article are, 1. No longer must anyone who wants to individually communicate a unique message to each recipient be restricted to communicating with only one person at a time 2. No longer must anyone who wants to communicate simultaneous messages to a mass of recipients be unable to individualize the content of the message for each recipient. The advantages to the new medium are very broad so examples of differences can range from anything, one  example that I thought of was instagram, on instagram people are able to post fake news and have people really believe something is true and I believe this turns our generation into gullible humans, and even generations before us. With instagram having a huge follower base they are able to spread news much quicker then news stations and other sources of news.

2. NEW MEDIA STRATEGIES

Exercise 1: Which is the New Media Solution?

Problem: A disappearing language. 

Solution B

This solution I think is the way to because it is much easier to set up video recordings of relatives from Passamaquoddy, this will help preserve the language to whomever wants to learn the language. This process is easier then people collectively coming up with a dictionary.

Problem: Neglected Ruins

Solution B

Solution B is definitely the way to go because having the ability for people to just take a picture of the code and look at the photos the photographers took is a simple way to keep the ruins in tact and is a fun interactive way for people to contribute to the website.

Problem: Misunderstanding computer animation

Solution A

Building a touch-screen that allows viewers to learn about animation in an active manner is a great way to show how layers in animation works

Problem: A broken fountain

Solution A

Having the students interact with the water fountain is a New Media solution that is confirmed to be a many-to-many approach. Solution B is another solid option but the strength of Solution A with the interactive traits is what makes it a better option then Solution B.

Exercise 2: Invent your own many-to-many solutions

EDUCATIONAL BOOKS ARE BORING

How can you help educational writers make use of appealing formats like comic books?

I think if there was an interactive book for students, this could help them be much more engaged in reading and understanding the information, depending on the subject however.

I think what would spark this idea is depending on the subject, there can be some sort of interactivity on each page for maybe people in groups could work on and people who are reading the book alone, this book however would have to be on a tablet and or a laptop so the students are able to interact with each chapter.

3. THEATER OF THE OPPRESSED

The story of Theater of the Oppressed was told by Boal who lived in a cruel society in South America, it was so cruel that his friends and colleagues were tortured, and even killed. The people who lived in this society had no freedom to do anything, that included speech and letting out there feelings. This awful way of living turned Boal into a form of theatre that was new and exciting. When going into the theatre Boal didn’t just want you to watch the show he wanted the audience to interact, giving this addition to the audience it allowed for them to have a voice and this is something that people never had including Boal. These issues that were discussed in the chapter were handled with abused power and other issues that would cause them to act out.

In all the possible solutions accepted humor had some sense of incorporation in to the Theatre, and the reason is because since everyone was accepted into interacting with the play there would be humorous solutions and  although they were just jokes, there was always a sense of humor to the people. What was good about this was the use of people sharing some ridiculous solutions.

I think New Media can totally accomplish goals just like Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed”, for example in new media it is easier to connect to people with interest that you find intriguing and skill sets also, like with education and artists collaborating with each other. Forums online help millions of people connect to solve issues and come up with solutions to certain problems. In my experience I send people my loops and presets for artists that want to check out what I have been working on.