Short Responses

I posted short responses to Grace Sin and Colleen Sheldon's blogs.

Extended Response

I responded to Brian Arfanis's post.

Whither the Individual?

            Throughout the past decade or so, our social lives have been almost completely transported to the digital world. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have moved society’s friends and networking base to the Internet. Through social media sites, blogs, wikis, discussion boards, chat rooms, etc., we can connect with and express ourselves to people all around the world. The use of these digital advances allows ourselves to extend and expand our identities.

            According to The Center for Social Media in the School of Communication at American University, there are five ways in which social media has affected people’s lives: choice, conversation, curation, creation and collaboration. The two factors that I find to be the most important when analyzing the extension of the individual due to social media are choice and creation.

            Social media allows society to have a choice in the way they express themselves online. For example, we can choose which social networking sites to use and how we use them. There are 500 million worldwide active Facebook users, however the way and reason people use the site varies immensely. For example, college students may use Facebook to connect with friends from high school as well as meet and socialize with new friends they meet in classes and on the weekends. Older generations may use Facebook in order to also connect with long-lost friends, as well as find family members that they have lost touch with. Many companies and organizations use Facebook to connect with their target markets, giving them updates and information about the brand. People have the choice to decide how they will use a social media site, and they also have the choice to not use it whatsoever.

            Another thing that social media gives us a choice in is the content in which we decide to publish on our profiles. Yes, Facebook has a generic profile layout, containing sections such as movie, music, and television interests, birthday, sex, relationship status, etc. However, not all of these sections need to be filled out. It is up to the user the way in which he or she wishes to utilize the website. A user can choose to have thousands of pictures of them tagged, allowing any Facebook user to view what they have been up to in their lives; or, a user can choose to make their profile completely private, only allowing those in which they know to view their content.  Although the layout of a Facebook profile is mostly very basic, each user can individualize the content and form his or her own social media identity.

            The ability to “create” online has completely transformed the way that the media works. Anyone can create content and publish it online. For example, programs such as iMovie on Apple computers allow people to create and edit movies, using their own pictures and video. After creating a movie or video, one can publish it on sites such as YouTube, Facebook, or Vimeo, allowing people all over the word to watch it. People have created complete identities on video-sharing sites; musical artists have even been discovered online, and given record deal offers even before an entertainment manager has met or heard them in person. A recent example of this phenomenon is 10 year old Maria Aragon, who just last week uploaded a video of herself on YouTube covering Lady Gaga's song "Born This Way." Lady Gaga herself responded to Aragon’s video, saying, "This is why I make music. She is the future." After Lady Gaga’s message, Aragon got asked to perform on her local Canadian radio station, as well as the Ellen DeGeneres Show. After only being available online for eleven days, Aragon’s video currently has 15,842,827 views. Maria Aragon’s story exemplifies the idea that social media allows us to create and extend our identities online. Without the use of social media, who knows how long it would have taken for Aragon’s breathtaking voice to be discovered. She has extended herself and her passion for music to the world through the use of social media.

            Another form of social media that allows people to extend themselves is blogs. Blog sites such as Tumblr and Blogspot allow users to post any content they want, such as diary-like posts, album reviews, photography, or virtually anything they wish to publish for the world to see. By having a personal blog, people can create their own “personal space,” and extend themselves through media. Before the digital age, it was rather difficult to voice your opinion and get that opinion out there in a short amount of time. With the use of blogs, as well as updating Facebook and Twitter statuses, we can have any opinion or thought we have reach anyone in the world within seconds. This idea clearly exemplifies how social media can extend ourselves, as well as our thoughts and creative ideas and identities.

            There is a direct relationship between the popularity of social media and the extension of the individual. Social media’s fundamental purpose is to create an online identity, and utilize that identity and its tools to define ourselves, and to extend our beliefs and opinions to a world in which we would otherwise go unnoticed. Social media allows people who are too shy or do not have the ability or resources of being on the cover of a magazine or on television to create an identity that can reach virtually billions of people. It is becoming easier and easier to have an effect on society through the use of social media and other digital outlets. As we learn to participate as members of a more evolved "collective organism" of "hyper-people,” our identities are expanding and broader definitions of our self are made through choice and creation.

Social Media

1) I think that amateur user-generated content will continue to progress over time, due to the concept of the "democratization of media." The "democratization of media" means that all members of society have the ability to contribute to media. In traditional media, professionals choose and produce the content that they wish to release to the public. Today, anyone can create and produce their own content and share it with the world on the Internet. More and more people today are gaining access to tools to produce content with higher quality than in the past. 

2) The social networking sites that I find myself using the most are Twitter and Facebook. I use Twitter in order to remain connected with celebrities, public figures, companies, products, news sources, bands, etc. I routinely check Twitter to discover news and information about things that I am interested in. Although I follow a few of my personal friends on Twitter, I mainly use it to learn about what's going on around the world at any moment. I frequently use Facebook because it is becoming one of the primary ways to remain connected and in touch with people in my life. Almost all of my friends and family have a Facebook account that I can use to reach them. Sending a private message, or posting on someone's wall is quickly replacing giving somebody a call or text message in order to get in contact with them. Having a Facebook account has become a social norm, at least for college students, which is a main reason why I use it the most. I think that Facebook is much more successful than MySpace because users use their real name, making it easy to find and connect with someone on the site. It also has a much cleaner and organized layout, whereas MySpace is filled with flashy colors and graphics. Another aspect of Facebook that has made it much more successful is that it is easy to find people who have similar interests to you, attended the same school, or work for the same company. The "networking" aspect of Facebook is what makes it so successful. 

3) Transparency is such an important concept in the social media world because feel people that they should say things online in order to gain respect from others. It's easier to state motives for doing certain things online, rather than saying them offline. Online, people are also after social capital, which is connections between individuals in different social networks. It is easier to obtain social capital by being "transparent" online. I think that it's less important to be transparent in the offline world because all motives and desires do not need to be disclosed on the offline world. It's easier to learn about someone's beliefs and acts by viewing what they're doing online and why they are doing these actions.

Additional Photoshop Assignment

Imagine if the most famous quotes and sayings were "tweeted," rather than stated in a speech or document? My picture shows this idea. This also goes along with McLuhan's idea that "the medium is the message." The fact that these famous statements were not simply "tweeted" made them more influential and important in history. However, with the growing phenomenon of Web 2.0, tweets are becoming more and more significant.

McLuhan Photoshop Final Post

The medium that I chose for this assignment is the Apple App Store. This picture shows John Mayer "playing guitar" on an iPhone. Marshall McLuhan defines a medium as "any extension of ourselves;"the App Store allows people to download apps which "extend" themselves and their abilities. For example, the App shown in this pictures shows that people can play the guitar without even having a guitar; they can play it on their cell phones. More and more apps and technologies are being developed which will continue to extend our minds and capabilities.

Photoshop Assignment

The medium that I chose for this assignment is the Apple App Store. This picture shows John Mayer "playing guitar" on an iPhone. Marshall McLuhan defines a medium as "any extension of ourselves;"the App Store allows people to download apps which "extend" themselves and their abilities. For example, the App shown in this pictures shows that people can play the guitar without even having a guitar; they can play it on their cell phones. More and more apps and technologies are being developed which will continue to extend our minds and capabilities.