Creativity

           In the essay titled, "Creators, Audiences, and New Media: Creativity in an Interactive Environment," the author Isaac Bell writes about the role of content creators and audiences in today's technologies of New Media. The overarching theme that Isaac Bell talks about is how these roles are not static anymore and are constantly changing thanks to these New Media technologies. One of the first things that Isaac Bell talks about is the roles that are involved in theses technologies. Bell writes, " I believe the first thing that we must do as a discipline, is to acknowledge that these labels-of audience, creator, publics, readers, watchdogs, gatekeepers, and anything else that we may use in our discussions- are not descriptions of static roles, but of purposeful actions taken by one or more people at a given time."
            What Bell is trying to tell us is that these traditional roles of content creators and audience and readers are constantly changing. No longer are people getting their content from traditional institutions and media outlets, an individual if they choose to can become a content creator and use different tools to help grow a brand/business. For example today on Youtube, I can upload a video of me critiquing a movie and after that I can watch a review of another user. This is an example  of what Bell refers to the changing roles that an individual has, "The boundaries become permeable again, because they are now referring to action that by their nature evoke transition from state or another."
              Bell goes on to describe the different roles and actions that are involved in these new media technologies and how they interact, not only with the medium, but also with one another. One of them is how an audience can take on the role of a "fandom". For example Bell writes about how these people who share a deep passion for a certain subject matter or theme come together and create these virtual communities, that at times may have real life connections. Bell writes, "Fans often perform socially-visible actions that reflect the works they identify with and sometimes will use these actions to guide their approach to other social matters, such as fans of the television show Star Trek advocating for better science education or embracing diversity."
               We can see that New Media technologies allow creativity to thrive by allowing anybody to become a content creator no matter their age, gender, race, background, socioeconomic status. That is something incredibly poetic than would be a foreign and strange idea to our ancestors.

Sources
Bell, Isaac Creators, Audiences and New Media: Creativity in an interactive environment  PDF

Creativity and New Media

An example of how New Media technology helps foster creativity by allowing users to share and interact with each other regardless of their geographic location. For example on the website reddit there is a forum where avid movie watchers put up screenshots of of movies and it is up to other users to try to guess what movie the screenshot is from. The screenshot shouldn't be so obvious and most of the time it is on mundane or trivial scenes from the movie. What this particular forum is focused on, is creating an ongoing game show of sorts where people can show of their knowledge of movies. This fosters creativity by allowing people with a deep passion for cinema to come together. As some who frequents this subreddit frequently, I have posted several times and it is fun participating in a game about a hobby that I am very interested in. Below is a link to a screenshot of movie about a post that I have made and also a link to the subreddit.

http://i.imgur.com/DiID9ke.png- Screenshot of movie. (Bonus points if you can guess the movie)
https://www.reddit.com/r/GuessTheMovie/- Link to the subreddit
- Screenshot of my post on the subreddit

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

     Virtual reality has been a technology that has driven the imaginations of people since the popularization of video games. But it seems, like most technologies, there can be more beneficial effects to this technology. In a CNN iReport 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction. The author Nicole Saidi, writes about how the virtual world game Second life, gave people who suffer are on the autism spectrum and suffer from Asperger's syndrome the ability to communicate through the game and interact in ways that they are unable to in real life, "People who suffer from Asperger's are often highly-achieving but can have difficulty in social situations." By playing the game people who suffer from Asperger's can get a sort of treatment in which they can develop and exercise the social skills that they might have not developed otherwise. Because the game is played from the comfort of a persons home, the pressures that a person might associate with social situations. Second life is a promising start to a treatment that can hopefully help millions people who suffer from Aspergers and other forms of mental illness.

     In the Forbes article "After Second life, can virtual worlds get a reboot?", by Diane Mehta, the author writes about how new games like Minecraft, have encouraged creativity amongst children and adults alike. She writes that although Minecraft isn't the end all be all for virtual reality, she acknowledges that it is a step in the right direction for the technology medium. Mehta recognizes that virtual reality shouldn't make users feel like they are experiencing the world alone, but rather together in a connected and interactive environment. An important thing to point out is that this article is from 2013 and a lot has changed in the 3 years. This year companies like HTC, Sony, Oculus, and Samsung have released their own versions of virtual reality devices and the market is ever expanding and it is just starting.

Sources
Mehta, Diane After second life, can virtual worlds get a reboot? Forbes

Saidi, Nicole Naughty Auties CNN

Blog about Twitter

     A twitter discussion varies greatly from a blackboard discussion. On twitter people are relegated to expressing their ideas on topics to 3 or 4 sentences. This means that any deep meaningful conversation about a topic will be very hard to have because opinions and feelings will have to be as concise as possible. This is both a positive and a negative because people will have to focus on the topic at hand, but at the same time most conversations will be very shallow and not allow for in-depth conversations. Another factor that prevents users from having in depth discussions is that one's comments are just one in a sea of potentially millions. Unless of course the discussion is relegated to a certain hashtag, it will be almost unlikely that a discussion will take place in the first place.
     Discussions on blackboard will allow the user to go in-depth with conversations and allow the users to express themselves using more words and because there is no character limit, users have much more freedom to go into specific detail. This is still not much better, because an important role in having discussions as a society is how people project themselves and how eloquently they speak. This is still the number one way in which discussions should be had because people should be able to have complete control over their vocabulary and their emotions.

Social Networking Sites

        Today there are hundreds of social media or networking sites. Each of these sites and apps appeal to different segments of the population. Four of these sites that I frequently use are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit. Each of these sites have different ways in which they can be used.
        Facebook allows users to reconnect with people from their past or follow up with acquittances that they recently met. What makes Facebook useful and such a popular site is that a person is encouraged to use their real name and picture, this is important because people can be held accountable for what they express in their profile. Facebook also makes it easy for people to organize for events and for people who are part of a hobby to connect with each other and find others in their area who share the same hobbies.
        Twitter mostly appeals to people who are interested in sharing quick thoughts, memes, or gifs or one line jokes that have mass appeal. The character limit requires the user to express their opinion as concisely as possible. Twitter also allows the news to spread fast and in fact is where a sizable percentage of todays population get their information from. Perhaps one of the bigger appeals of Twitter is the ability to communicate with celebrities easily. A lot of the times you celebrity timelines show them interact with their fans.
         Instagram is a social media platform that allows users to post and share pictures with captions to a large audience. These pictures allow a person to share with the world experiences that they have had, places where they've been, or more often than not what they're eaten. Like Twitter, hashtags play an important role as they allow users to search Instagram for pictures that relate to a certain hashtag. This makes it easy for users to follow others who also share the same interests.
         Where Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram mainly focus on a user letting outsiders into their lives, Reddit is all about discussion between people. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram users are not required to make a profile with their actual names rather they use screen names On Reddit it is incredibly easy for users to find what are called subreddits, which are smaller forums that focus in a particular hobby or topic. Here users are encouraged to talk about said topic. These range from certain sports, teams, television, cities, movies, and other niche topics.
        These are just four of the hundreds of different social media sites and apps that are being used today. Each site appeals to a certain people and depending on what people are interested in, is what site they are most likely to use.

Social Networking

    For the last decade or so the topic of social media and networking has been at the forefront of discussions on the culture of todays society and what kind of impact it can have on the future of human interaction. Social media platforms have amassed and unprecedented amount of power in the world. For many people, Twitter is the form in which they receive news, no longer do they go out and buy newspapers, they simply turn on their phone and instantaneously they can access news outlets from around the world. President Obama was one of the first to be able to fully tap into the potential of social media and networks. During his campaign in 2008, the Obama campaign created a network using social media to interact with his followers and make his campaign an almost interactive movement According to a New York Times article "How Obama Tapped into social network's power", the author writes about how in exchange for an e-mail address or a phone number an Obama supporter could receive information about rallies or any other campaign event. This type of interactivity leads the author to write that, "The founders of America wanted a government that reflected its citizens, but would be at remove from the baser impulses of the mob. The mob, flush with victory, is at hand, but instead of pitchforks and lanterns, they have broadband and YouTube." By having this ongoing interaction with their supporters, elected officials can better gauge the needs of the people.
    Then there is the other side of the argument that social networking is changing the way humans live for the worse. In the article, Is Myspace good for the world? A freakonomics qourom, there are a collection of various experts from different fields, who give their opinion on the social networking and any long term effects that they can have on our culture. Former Apple marketing director Steve Chazin writes, "While all humans need to feel connected to each other or to some cause, there are also times when we simply want to disconnect, and disconnecting is becoming increasingly hard thanks to social networking technology. As one who was bitten early by the Blackberry bug, I can attest that the pull of these wireless electronic leashes is often too strong to resist. Today, we experience a feeling of isolation when our Internet connections go down, revealing just how dependent we’ve become on the connective power of the Web." As someone who grew up parallel with this change in society, I can remember a time when adults in a room would talk to each other, now it seems that the only time they take their gaze off a screen is to show each other a funny clip or picture.
   Like everything else in life social networking has positive and negative attributes. As users and consumers of these platforms it is up to use to find that balance and use them as a way to bring people closer together and use that unity for a greater good.

Sources
Chazin, Steve Is myspace good for the world? A freakonomics qourom 

N/A How Obama Tappeed into social network's power New York Times