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You’re walking resolutely through the city on a busy pathway filled with others just like you. You all have somewhere do be; you all have a goal. You’ve got your headphones in listening to music. Momentarily the music cuts out, replaced by a ‘ding!’; a text message. You focus on your phone screen as you continue walking with the flow of other pedestrians. “HOLY! Sooooo much drama went down last nite *distressed emoticon face*. BTW me and Jason r ova. TTYL xx”. While reading this message, you have become almost completely immersed in technology and have failed to realise the person in front of you has slowed their pace to a complete halt. They pull out their mobile phone, intent on taking the perfect picture of a building; you bump straight into them. You don't feel apologetic for the disruption to the other person, no body stops in the middle of a busy pathway; it isn’t the social normality.

Communication has evolved with new media technology to fit into our ‘time equals money’ society where efficiency in achieving our goals are paramount. We naturally find the simplest and fastest way to achieve our goals. For example, you want to send a message to your friend to make plans for the evening. You wouldn’t stop everything you’re doing, sit down, hand write a letter, make an envelope, walk to the nearest post-office, get a stamp, mail it, then wait around at home all day, unsure if your friend has even received the mail, let alone replied. You would send a text-message or make a phone call on your five minute lunch-break and have it arranged by the time you go back to work. So just like the people in the city scenario above, everyone has a goal they want to achieve and our techno-social society makes the ‘pathway’ simpler and more efficient to navigate. The technologies that allow us to do so provide us with tools such as ‘auto-correct’, ‘spell-check’ and the ability to communicate with more people, in more locations with more efficiency than ever. However such tools are allowing us to invest less time in constructing our messages and therefore, we are in a sense sacrificing grammatical knowledge and its importance, for efficiency. For example, your friend has misspelled ‘nite’ and ‘ova’, and stated ‘Me and Jason’, rather than ‘Jason and I’, yet you are technologically proficient, and still understand the message, so what does it matter right?

In symmetry with technologies evolution, is a language evolution which again, makes the communication pathway more efficient. Society has created a ‘short-hand’ writing style that quickens the process still; emphasising our techno-social reliance. This language evolution comes in the form of abbreviations, paralinguistic tools, fragmented words/sentences, symbols and emoticons as read in the city scenario. These linguistic tools affect the way our messages are perceived as they portray intonation, and emotion in the place of body language which would be present in face-to-face communication, though efficiently.

However, while the majority of people walk on the left side of the path and move to the side when they need to pause, some aren’t as proficient and barriers do exist. Some people misinterpret things like sarcasm, intonation and the emotion behind the message; though it says one thing, they read it to say another. People say ‘haha’ but aren’t actually laughing, misspell words for particular effect and use exclamation points when they aren't yelling. If you are not proficient with this evolved language, chances are you are in for a very inefficient conversation with your mum to explain LOL does not mean lot’s of love, and she needs to resend the message to the family about grandma’s passing.

You have a calm exterior. You text your friend back, “OMG SO ANNOYED. Stoopid tourist n their blimey photo’s. Like learn to navigate the pathway haha. BTW, soz bout you and J, TTYL bout it *kiss emoticon face* xoxo.”

Written By: Shayla Girdler (http://shaylagirdkcb206.tumblr.com/)

Reference List

Remember this meme? This is what happening to us in this era. I supposed the meaningful rhetorical question that I will be asking is this, have you pirated a movie before? We all know the answer. So in fact, can you imagine yourself back in the mid-19th century, that you actually don’t have that benefit and have to drag yourself to the cinema? In this week topic of discussion, the field of “new media” versus “old media” will be explored to find out whether had the new media entertainment completely dominate the old media. Throughout the reading, I will also provide sufficient evidence to support my thought.  Furthermore, model of new media and entertainment industry will also be exemplify to further provide “food for thought”

Almost 20 years ago, if you bring the idea of “media” to the people, they will ultimately relate it to print, radio or even television. But in this uprising era, we conceptualise media as a whole different element. As defined by (Koch, 2013), it is how we consume information through a broader, looser context and a newer elements that never existed in the past.  For example, such as the recent tragedy that involve the disappearance of Malaysia Airline Flight MH370, I learned it from Facebook post rather than acknowledge it through a newspaper or even a radio. By contradiction, the argument of reliability still emerge as a certain group of audience do find that able to hold a newspaper in their hand feel more authentic and the reliability of the content are much more trustworthy as the reporters are more experienced that citizen journalist (Ibold, Hans Peter and John Adams, 2012). In my own opinion, I do question the reliability of the info that posted on the social media. I often do check online comparing sources and credible reporting agency to authenticate the credibility. Still with these citizen journalist surfacing, Chase (2014) concur that trend of citizen journalism are naturally devolve into a fierce, empower virtual bullies. The characteristic of user of YouTube are often being appeal to choosing videos that had the most view count and insert a strong sense curiosity into unknown viewer. By contradiction, Twitter user behaviour are much tend to “retweet” information that are ground breaking and had a strong foundation of value within it (Pew Research Centre's Journalism Project Staff, 2010).

Although “old media” is still being favour by a certain age group in our society but will it completely dominate our way of consume information in the future? Yes, I think as the generation evolving, new media will be consume will be involve in a different way. Last, using Netflix as an example, I would actually agree that Netflix do make a very considerate yet empowering move from “old media” to “new media”. People are more opted to choose from digitalise content rather than having days to receive a physical copy of the content when you can actually press a button then the content will be present itself. I salute to that!

  Reference List

Chase, Brad. March, 2014. “Federal Shield Bill: A New Hope for Old Media.” The Huffington Post. Accessed on 6 April 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-chase/federal-shield-bill-a-new_b_5086155.html

Ibold, Hans Peter and John Adams.  August, 2012.  “Social vs. Traditional Media.” The News-Journal. Accessed on 6 April 2014. http://www.news-journalonline.com/article/20120318/ARTICLES/303189974

  Koch, Copper Smith. October, 2013. “ What Is Media? It’s Everything, That’s What.” The Huffington Post. Accessed on 6 April 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cooper-smith-koch/what-is-media-its-everyth_b_3750807.html

Growing up in Generation Y it’s easy to loose track of how much information we’re disclosing to the online world. We are raised in an era where our peers share everything from what they’re feeling to what they’re eating. In week 2 of KCB206 Internet Self and Beyond, a new topic was introduced explaining that as society has become immersed in new media, individuals are able to constantly change, explore, and reflect which Erika explains as self-formation. However with the domestication of new media, this self-formation begins to develop into a performance (Erika, 2014). Individuals are now exposing themselves to a wider public audience, which in turn needs to be managed. 

With social tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and creative sites such as Tumblr and Pinterest, individuals are now putting themselves on display to a greater online community. Allowing family, friends or even strangers to have an inside look into their daily lives and inner thoughts.  So the question is raised, can we escape this online exposure without experiencing possible FOMO repercussions (Fear of missing out)?

In the class tutorial we were assigned to participate in an exercise where we would Google a peer  and see how much information could be found. It urged me to look through and reassess my personal privacy settings. Since the intense integration of new media in our daily lives we may not have the ability to completely avoid it. New media invites participation through sharing, producing and communicating with an online community. However with the growth of technology and the blurring of public and privacy boundaries, individuals must rather adapt and be wary of what is on display for an audience.  Erika brought up an excellent point in saying technology is not to blame, there have always been privacy issues around, and it now simply needs to be monitored (Erika, 2014). I do wonder however whether as time goes on will we become more lenient with our privacy?  Is society developing new forms of trust? Where once it seemed creepy to be Googled by another before meeting, in the 2013 movie HER, based on the idea of technology in the future, the main character Theodore brings up information of his date he is already aware of, explaining he googled her. His date then exclaimed she thought it was “romantic”. Would you find it so? Or feel it be a breach of personal privacy? 

Whether or not to opt out from new media has become increasingly difficult, as society has become heavily involved in the new sharing culture. Technologies have given us a great chance to share, communicate and connect with others within seconds, which can be reached all over the world. Papacharissi and Gibson explain society has always required some voluntary abandonment of privacy. In order to become social, we must give up some of our private time and space so as to share it with others (Papacharisse, 2011).

References

Papacharissi, Zizi and Paige L. Gibson. 2011. “15 minutes of Privacy: Privacy, Sociality, and Publicity on Social Network Sites.” In Privacy Online: Perspectives on Privacy and Self-Disclosure in the Social Web, edited bySabine Trepte and Leonard Reinecke, 75-89. Heidelberg and New York: Springer. 

Sauter, Theresa. Dr. 2014. “KCB206 Internet, Self and Beyond: Week 2 lecture notes.” Accessed March 6, 2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FlistContent.jsp%3Fcourse_id%3D_108110_1%26content_id%3D_5232444_1

Mikaela Charlton

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In modern society, new media allows one to edit and reform their selves at the click of a button. New media is the evolution of communication into the technological era. It has become such a large part in today’s society, thus now it is consider ‘invisible’, as we know longer know life without the online network. Considering the World Wide Web is 20 years old, the latest group young professionals, the crossover of Generation Y and Z, have grown up with New Media and the ability to access all information needed whenever and wherever they are. This is seen with both positive and negative views.

New Media has allowed us to have a self online, whether it is our real self or what we aspire to. Mark Deuze’s Media, Culture and Society states “Media become the playground for a search for meaning and belonging” I believe this suggests we can create an identity which we one day hope to become. Instead of oneself sharing who we are and where we stand, we can present the self we hope to be in the future, allowing our goals, dreams and aspirations to be shared with others. This can be seen as a motivational tool for some as the world knows who they aspire to become allowing one self to pursue their dreams with the help and support of their online peers.

However, a self online can be viewed as a negative for some. People can create a fake identity to hide behind as they influence the life of others. Cyber bullying is a common occurrence of one showing a fake self online to hide their true identity as they attempt to destroy the life of online peers. Fortunately for the victim all data written online, whether it is still accessible to all users or deleted by the primary users has been saved by larger corporations and/or businesses. This idea of cyber bullying and big data will be expanded on in the weeks to come.  

I would like to finish with the concept there is no such thing as privacy now, and once one fact about you is available for others, you will always be online, and won’t be able to change the way it is. There are methods to keep minimal of your true self online, however in nowadays where new media is part of who we are, it is impossible to keep yourself completely free of new media world. It was once believed everyone will have fame for 15 minutes of their life, however this concept has changed to the idea everyone will only have true privacy for 15 minutes of their lives (Zizi Papacharissi and P.L. Gibson, 2012).