Creativity and New Media

An avatar of a soldier for performing military exercises in the virtual world.

I created this avatar of a soldier using one of the online avatar creator website. I was amazed by the many sites that are available to design an avatar online and most of them are based on the same things i.e. choosing a gender, and then customizing your avatar with physical features and clothing along with a background. I wanted to use a soldier avatar because virtual worlds provide an environment for the training of difficult professions or undertakings. A soldier works on the battlefield and it is there where they will experience the true feelings of being involved in wars. However, virtual worlds can prepare soldiers to react in any life or death situation by being involved in virtual activities that can make them achieve some level of confidence. It is unusable and unethical for a soldier to carry out demise while training but with virtual exercises such can be done without causing harm in the real world. I was lucky to find a soldier’s uniform and boot to dress my avatar. I also included weapons and a dismal background to aid in the training.

Creativity

Creativity is one of the attributes of new media technologies that influence new media. It is a form of artistic expression that is useful for innovation. By being creative, individuals write blogs, market themselves on social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and even design avatars for use in virtual worlds. Creativity originally comes from someone’s mind and is an imagination or inspiration that makes an impact in society. Many people are able to express themselves freely on new media sites and can utilize the various features of these sites to come up with something clever. Moreover, new media is transforming creativity because of the vast amount of information, material or data that are available on the internet. For example, mashups is becoming popular as digitalization makes editing relatively easy even though people need to be aware of copyrights. Also, customers’ ideas or comments on social networking sites can help businesses to be creative. The article “Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers” by Claire Miller states that “technology companies have been the most active in relying on others to innovate for them.” Creativity has now become a collaborative effort as a result of new media, and new ideas or concepts are stirring up every day with the possibility of going viral.

1.“Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers” by CLAIRE CAIN MILLER, the New York Times, October 26, 2009. Available at:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/technology/internet/26twitter.html

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds can be used for a greater level of social interactions and the participants in this imaginary world can have a sense of feeling as if they are in the real physical environment. It has been used mostly for gaming but has helped to form other online communities for businesses and even politicians. The article “At Hearing, Real and Virtual Worlds Collide” points out that politicians can have a better understanding of the people in society since these people are more likely to express themselves freely in an online environment. Virtual worlds allows for creativity of the user as they design their own character. These characters can elicit exciting feelings due to its lively and animated appeal. Moreover, virtual world is a place where someone can go to experience their safe haven and calmness. Some of the negatives associated with virtual worlds are the lack of low self-esteem and doubts that are created when you assume to be someone else. There are little interpersonal skills involved and you can feel pressured to meet those expectations in the reality. Virtual world is a fantasy that is growing since the internet platform supports such phenomenon and can eventually become ordinary as is in the real world; therefore we may even have senses come into play. The interview discussed in “After Second Life, Can Virtual World Get a Reboot?” asserts that virtual world is a big phenomenon and game changer since there is a lot of room for creativity and innovation. Optimism is high but reality into an imaginary environment will be considered wholly.

1. After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get A Reboot? April 30, 2013. Available from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/dianemehta/2013/04/30/after-second-life-can-virtual-worlds-get-a-reboot/

2. At Hearing, Real and Virtual Worlds Collide: Forget C-SPAN: Congress Goes Interactive. Washington Post, Wednesday, April 2, 2008; Page D03. Available from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/01/ST2008040103032.html

Blog about Twitter

Discussion about topics can be done through various mediums, including both online and in-person. Twitter and Blackboard discussion are two online forms of discussion as compared to an in-class conversation. Twitter discussion and an in-class discussion are real time rather than Blackboard. However, a Twitter discussion is ongoing because of the many users that are discussing the topic globally while a class room discussion ends when the subject has been raised and answered. Just like Twitter, blackboard discussion can continue for a longer period of time but may eventually stop after the topic is of no more interest. Twitter discussions are often by the use of hashtags of the feed and Blackboard discussions are often initiated by threads. Twitter discussion is briefer since it is limited to a 140 characters posts while in a Blackboard discussion board someone can write as much explanation as possible. An in-class and twitter discussion can quickly change to another topic but in blackboard that may not happen. Overall, it is the emphasis of description and timing of the conversation that make an in-class, Blackboard and Twitter discussion distinct.

Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn are all communication tools that connect various users together and form a community. They were all founded in the 21st century, namely MySpace (2003), LinkedIn (2003), Facebook (2004), and Twitter (2006). Facebook and Twitter are most often used today by people though LinkedIn is increasing in users while MySpace is on a decline. These networking sites are all free to join but their features and purpose varies slightly. Facebook is used to connect with friends and families, and you can send messages, show a status and post pictures to your profile for other users within your friends to view and leave comments on your wall. Unlike Facebook, MySpace allows the user to build a theme or personalize their profile with a music feature, and you can meet new people easily. In LinkedIn you can network with professionals and companies, and connect with them. LinkedIn users have a more professional profile since they want to make a positive brand for themselves. Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn enable the user to select who they want to connect to and what they what to share with others but on twitter you can follow anyone and your tweets are seen by many users. Twitter permits short messages or “tweets” that can trigger immediate responses and circle responses by the use of hashtags. Facebook and MySpace cause users to have a deeper connection with the people they’ve added through “likes” and comments while in Twitter you can “retweet” if you find an update interesting. LinkedIn is a good way to get professional background information about businesses and people, and Twitter can reveal what a person is doing currently due to the limited character. All these social networking are indications that the Internet revolution is ongoing and changing rapidly, just as these tools themselves would become popular and then eventually decline in usage.

Social Networking

Social networking sites are a forum for communication with different people in a virtual world. It is used by many people around the world for personal and business purposes. It can be used by individuals to connect with others who share similar interests or ambitions, or for them to build a personal image of themselves. Today, having an online presence is considered to be important and valuable since many companies are recognizing social media has a form of connection between consumers and potential employees. Frank Langfitt’s article emphasizes that social media“sites help job hunters market themselves online by setting up profiles.” Social networking is a way for businesses to engage customers by creating a user-friendly atmosphere and showing the diverse aspects of the company through personal attentive details. Moreover, the world is going social as platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, foster an environment for staying alive or current with up-to-date feeds, and comments. Consequently, social networking is considered to be needed by companies if they want to have a competitive advantage over their rivals. Social networking for companies is mostly about building a brand and getting valuable yet inexpensive information about consumers that can possibly lead to an increase in customers’ satisfaction and retention.

Besides being connected to various people through social networking there are challenges such as privacy, bullying, and other negative behaviors. It can be difficult to distinguish whether someone is genuine or not in an online presence. Other issues such as hurtful comments with intent to cause harm can have emotional impact of users of social media sites through constant harassment and bullying. Being a part of social media sites can also become an addiction and many are wasting time or practicing poor health actions just because they fear they are missing out on updates. Social media technologies are changing the way we communicate with each other and many of the users have grown up with the innovation. It is almost ordinary to be a part of social networking rather than traditional face-to-face meeting. We can now interact with people globally and it is much to say hello or leave any other remarks. The key is to protect yourself while you are on these social media sites and feel comfortable to let loose from them when feel pressured. The article “Leaving ‘Friendprints’: How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security,” asserts that social networking security rests with each user of the service, therefore, it’s okay to shake some hand or give them a hug rather than drive yourself crazy to be a part of everything in the online presence.

1. Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt, NPR, March 16, 2008. Available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf

2. Knowledge@Wharton, "Leaving 'Friendprints': How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security. Available at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2262

Blogs vs. Wikis

Blogs and Wikis are two forms of new media technologies that are impacting the communication of information through the creation of personal opinions and factual evidences. Both are driven by Web 2.0 technology and allow for communication and collaboration to a widespread audience. Blogs are created by individual users and it represents personal opinions and any other things of interest by the author. Wikis are formed by a group of people that contribute information to create a cohesive piece of work mainly for informative purposes. Both blogs and wikis enable communication and collaboration with people though it is done on different means. Blogs offers limited collaboration since only the author updates the content of a blog and communication is done through feedbacks of others. On the other hand, wikis deals with a high level of collaboration since contents are worked on by many individuals.

Blogs and wikis have generated information for the public and many people use them for quick and simple reference. Noam Cohen in his article about Wikipedia states that “it is the first reference point for many web inquiries.” For instance, if you search the phrase “how to…” you are most likely to get opinions from someone’s blog, and if you search for any word it most likely contain Wikipedia information as the top choice. The convergence of blogs and wikis can lead to more efficiency due to elimination of redundant information and more real time inputs from authors or contributors but they have different intentions, such as topics discussed and audience, and may not be practical. According to Kathy Gill’s research, “bloggers write about topics that matter to them” therefore their creativity is based on what they want to blog about. However, wikipedians would mostly focus on improving information based on prior group efforts.

It is important to note that anyone can be a part of blogs and wikis because they establish communities despite noticeable differences.


1. "Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People" by Noam Cohen, The New York Times, August 24, 2009. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/technology/internet/25wikipedia.html?_r=1

2. How Can We Measure the Influence of the Blogosphere? by Kathy E. Gill. Workshop on the Weblogging Ecosystem, May 2004. available from: http://faculty.washington.edu/kegill/pub/www2004_blogosphere_gill.pdf