Brannon's New Media Blog

With the introduction of new media, I believe that we as consumers faced more options than ever when it came down to customizing our own experience. We really have full creative freedom in many cases when it comes down to how we want to present ourselves over the internet. This is very prevalent in social media. In a very popular platform, Snapchat, we are able to send videos and pictures to friends in a temporary manner. This means that stuff that is sent through the platform is sent with a timer, allowing the sender to choose however long they want their pictures and videos to be visible for. In the case of the receiver breaking the rules and screen shooting a picture or video, the sender gets a notification. One way we can customize our profiles using this platform is by creating a Bitmoji. This is a virtual avatar that we have extreme lengths of freedom with to customize to our choosing. It allows us to portray ourselves as a character and is used as an identification with our acco

In the article 1+1+1=1 on the New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones discusses how Jeremy Brown, a DJ named DJ Reset, took apart 2 songs and made up a mash up. The mash up involved Frontin', a song by Jay Z and Pharrell Williams, and Debra, another song that is described as a "tongue-in-cheek" take on seventies soul music, very different than than the hard and shimmering computer music of the first song. Reset realized that the two songs have vocalists doing things very similar, and decided to mix them together, putting the singers exactly in tune. This is known as a mash-up and is self definitively comprised of mashing-up different songs and putting them together. The practice is common in the Electronic Dance Music culture. When going to shows, it is common to see many songs mixed with completely different songs creating an entirely new piece of musical art. The introduction of New Media fostered this creativity by allowing easier mixing of two (or more) pieces of music. What us

A virtual world may have just been a distant fantasy just a couple of decades ago but now is a reality, even back in 2008 with the VLES, a virtual representation of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, full of the ability to visit clubs and landmarks such as Katz Deli. The only thing missing is the hustle and bustle of traffic and the "smell of stale beer" as put so delicately in the article Dave Itzkoff on the New York Times in 2008. I especially love the part of the article where the author met someone on the streets of VLES and immediately hit it off and was able to tell her about his own intimate stories with getting sick before a concert, an admittedly personal story for someone who he has just met online. He continues on to say that when they met in person in a cafe in the area, that the interaction online was just as substantial and important as the interaction they had in person over a plate of fries. Aside from the socialization aspect of virtual worlds, it can also be

I feel that Twitter is very similar to our BlackBoard Discussions being that we have to post our own responses and then respond and feed back off of other peoples responses. At the very bare bone level, they serve the same purpose. However, there are many differences as well. One of them being structure, it is much easier to respond to people on BlackBoard because you can see the parent thread much easier than on twitter. The other issue is also organization. Each thread on Blackboard was organized into its own link and it was much easier to click on individual links/threads. Twitter however is more fluid in moving through different posts, because instead of just seeing a subject line, you really see the entire post. As opposed to an in-person discussion however, I find twitter to be very different. For one thing, much more thought can be put into a twitter responses and post due to the nature of being able to write something out, draft it out, edit it, and ultimately the ability to de

With social media sites, I feel as if they all fill out a specific niche that the internet ecosystem has evolved to need. Starting with the most popular, Facebook. Facebook has become so much more than it was when I first began using it around 10 years ago. What used to be a way for people to connect with friends, which is one of the primary reason for social media in the first place, became so much more, a way for celebrities to connect with their fans, a place for people to create groups for mutual interests, and even a way to buy and sell certain products, such as the buying and selling pages that have become increasingly more popular, to the point where Facebook has created a marketplace directly on their website. However, other websites now serve different purposes as well. Twitter has become a place for people to share their thoughts in a more free and frequent manner due to the way that the home page and feeds are designed. Creating an opportunity for anyone from Trump to Kanye

Social media has been a hot topic for controversy in recent times. Especially after the Cambridge Analytica scandal regarding Facebooks privacy. However, in may ways, these technologies are here to serve a legitimate and good-hearted purpose, to connect. What used to be a phonebook full of different phone numbers and business cards became a friends list on Facebook. However, the usefulness of social media does not end there. In David Carr’s article on the New York Times from 2007, he states that the Obama administration used social media to help his chances with the upcoming election by collecting data and using social media as a way to spread awareness and his platform. Many other companies also use social media to gain consumer insight through advertisements and surveys. As for benefits for society, social media fulfills its purpose as a medium for people to connect. Social media can also be specifically catered towards what the algorithms assume you’d like to see. It does