Week 2 – June 27 (Wednesday)
Agenda – Evolution of Digital Communication
- MultiMedia
- Lecture/Discussion (continued from Monday)
- Lab
MultiMedia
Lecture/Discussion
- Lecture, cont’d (PPT)
- Questions for discussion
- What are some positive and negative aspects of communication technology development? Immediate information, consumerism, world market, impatience?
- With the economic downturn post-Internet proliferation, newspapers are shutting-down en masse. Why didn’t they keep innovating?
- Fidler quotes Thoreau: “Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things.” How well does Thoreau’s warning align with your beliefs?
- Mediamorphosis made reference to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and how delayed reports of a tragedy like that would never be possible in today’s information-driven society. How has the fact that we are now pummeled constantly with “breaking news” and 24-hour in-depth coverage affected our response to tragedies?
Lab: Geek Speak
Explanatory videos from CommonCraft
WorldWideWeb In Plain English
Blogs In Plain English
RSS In Plain English
Lab: Comments
- Comments — asynchronous conversation that turns the audience into a content creator
- How to ID a comment’s unique URL
- Practice commenting using this week’s reading post summary
Lab: Discussion Leaders and Slideshare
- You will set up an account at Slideshare.net
Assignments
- Begins Wednesday in class :
- Media Consumption Diary – June 29, June 30, July 1 (Wed noon – Fri noon).
- Students to maintain daily diary of media consumption : internet, phone, TV, radio, newspapers, etc. See this spreadsheet to track your patterns (don’t update it too frequently during the day but don’t wait until the end of the day, either); related article, How people really watch television (The Economist, Dec 2010)
- By noon on Saturday, one reflection post and one detailed diary post (25 points)
- No class Monday (4th of July) – reading posts (if you choose to do a post next week) are due Tuesday
- Sign up for Discussion Leader session – indicate a first and second choice – I will do my best to honor requests
Posted on June 29, 2011, in Class Notes. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
COM300: Basic Concepts of New Media 
Question 4: Mediamorphosis made reference to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and how delayed reports of a tragedy like that would never be possible in today’s information-driven society. How has the fact that we are now pummeled constantly with “breaking news” and 24-hour in-depth coverage affected our response to tragedies?
-Draws us in emotionally (makes us want to contribute to relief efforts), images can speak louder than words and new media makes this possible
-See what’s happening and the effects and damages of these tragedies
-Lower the damages that have occurred.
-In regards to time: faster response, quicker relief efforts (bring people who have the ability to help be able to help to help faster)
-Space: people from all over the world are able to experience in some way what’s going on and are able to contribute in whichever way they can
-For the future, people are able to better understand how to deal with similar events
Tammy Park, Chia-Ho Kang, and Amy Orloff
Q4 – “Mediamorphosis made reference to the 1775 Lisbon earthquake and how
delayed reports of a tragedy like that would never be possible in
today’s information-driven society. How has the fact that we are now
pummeled constantly with “breaking news” and 24-hour in-depth coverage
affected our response to tragedies?”
——————————————————————————–
More immune to tragedies; always happening.
Charities – everywhere for everything => too many.
Media Blackouts – govt. control.
YouTube clips
Round-a-bout internet access
Ex: Celebrity dies; know instantly.
Length of coverage has shortened
People are quicker to move on.
Much of this Info Age dependent on internet
Sans internet, society struggles.
Katrina => had to rely on print media in region.
Form of media coverage
Images, Videos, reports, etc instantaneous
Society has come to expect this information overload
(from other groups)
Variety of perceptions available
Spark debate; could lead to more intelligent debate
Allows for possible missteps (false truths)
In some ways, segregates people based on which perception they believe
Ability to be made aware of tragedy
Increases willingness to assist
Event more relevant (thanks to real-time news)
——————————————————————————–
Sean McGuire
Gary Woolsuy
Cecilia Ting
1. Question 4: Mediamorphosis made reference to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and how delayed reports of a tragedy like that would never be possible in today’s information-driven society. How has the fact that we are now pummeled constantly with “breaking news” and 24-hour in-depth coverage affected our response to tragedies?
2. Because of timely reports to natural disasters and breaking news, we felt that our responses to tragedies as a society is adopting a sense of immunity to the content. There are many “breaking news” stories that are published everyday. In consequence, we tend to skip over the “little” stories unless they truly capture our attention. Also, we thought that since it is easier to generate organizations/ financial accounts/ ect. immediately following natural disasters, our reaction to give is always reconsidered before we decide giving to an organization. Furthermore, we believe that timely responses from news organizations or users themselves have a higher possibility of incorrect information that can mislead an audience whereas news that has taken the time to be fully investigated and collected would provide more accurate information.
3. Anneka, Adam, Holly
Group: Colleen, Khongor, Jake
Question: (4) Mediamorphosis made reference to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and how delayed reports of a tragedy like that would never be possible in today’s information-driven society. How has the fact that we are now pummeled constantly with “breaking news” and 24-hour in-depth coverage affected our response to tragedies?
Discussion: It is true that constantly seeing media coverage and immediate response to tragic events has a desensitization effect, as we become less likely to notice and be disturbed by such news. On the other hand, live coverage and on-location interviews allow us to relate more to the affected people. Also, when organizations set up charities shortly following the event, more people can get involved and be expected to donate or get involved in some other way.
4. Mediamorphosis made reference to the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and how delayed reports of a tragedy like that would never be possible in today’s information-driven society. How has the fact that we are now pummeled constantly with “breaking news” and 24-hour in-depth coverage affected our response to tragedies?
Group: Chieh-Hsin(Jessie), Lin Nathan Makan Emily Pettit
Discussion:
• tragedy is not as much of a shock anymore
• breaking news is on tv 24hours a day
• there are more sources-could evoke discussion with regards to which source people used
• Makes people outside of the tragedy not as unified because there are many different outlooks/perceptions from different sources
• US news is so much more opinionated (becomes all about them)
• A lot of people don’t even watch the news anymore because tragedy is on all the time-gets depressing
• We are exposed to much richer images
Question 3. Fidler quotes Thoreau: “Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things.” How well does Thoreau’s warning align with your beliefs?
Group: Ian, Tim, Deborah, Danny
Discussion:
– More contents over aesthetics
– More money put on research for new things
– No huge emphasis on serious things
– Huge need for communication
– Interpretation dependence, comes down to how you use it for serious things or not
– Views on fundmental needs rather than looks
– Usability over aesthetic attraction
– Social construction on technology
– Cultural change and appeal
I think my comment is stuck in limbo…? Every attempt I have made since Wednesday is met with a message saying it is a duplicate.
Question 1: Cnae Seong, Grace Park, Parisa Talajoor, Xiaoxi Jin
The positive side: Convince, no time and space limitation, it can save time, and it makes the world market much smaller, help the culture exchange.
The negative side: Make people become more inpatient, it is very easy to be tricked online, without body language the communication can cause a lot of misunderstanding, it is not good to help keep the copyright, and it is not in person.