The Next New Thing

It has come to my attention that a lot of our classmates have mentioned a more advanced level of VR being the future of "new media." As someone who has worked at CNN this past semester as a human resources intern, my interest has peaked in the transition between old media and new media, i.e. news sourcing from newspapers to digital news sources. It would be neat to combine VR with news broadcasting as anchors are reporting breaking news coverage or other news reports from other areas of the world. This way viewers can be a part of the action and environment that the news anchor is, and to gain a better point of view and understanding of the current events that are going on in the world. People desire the truth for what is real and just/unjust, so to blend breaking news events so that a person from anywhere in the world can "see" would be another step for mankind.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

Within the past three weeks, I have steadily researched and maneuvered around our class's Baruch New Media Wiki. It is impressive and eye-opening to see how regulated and reformed this page is, as an internal wiki between CIS 3810 past, current, and future students to come. I will most likely be contributing to the music category page, unless I think of a fresh category to create. Within the next week, I will be brainstorming music topics, researching information to contribute to the existing music page, and collecting images to input into the page as well. 

Layout Editor: I will brainstorm ways to organize the wiki site.

Contributor: As mentioned before, I will contribute a few paragraphs worth of information for the music category

Page Editor: I will brainstorm ways to organize a certain page or page(s).

Graphics Editor: I will see how to improve the aesthetics of the class wiki.

Content Auditor: As a self-proclaimed grammar nazi, I will browse through the wiki to see if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes. I will also look for broken links.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is the practice of distributing information in the form of a digital file to another entity. P2P -- Peer to Peer -- file sharing is "the distribution and sharing of digital media using P2P technology [which] allows users to access media files" according to Wikipedia. Users can allocate information to the desired recipients without a distribution server. Some examples of P2P file sharing include BitTorrent, which is one of the most known and successful file sharing sites on the internet. In fact, "more than one-third of all data sent across the internet" is attributed to information shared on BitTorrent according to Thompson. BitTorrent can download a large file in minutes, such as a movie, while it may take hours for a regular computer to intake the movie onto its drive. Other P2P file sharing sites include PirateBay, and online textbook sharing sites as well. 

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Works Cited:

"Peer-to-peer File Sharing." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer_file_sharing>.

Thompson, Clive. "The BitTorrent Effect." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 1 Jan. 2005. Web. 18 Apr. 2016. <http://www.wired.com/2005/01/bittorrent-2/>. 

Privacy & Confidentiality

The issues of privacy and confidentiality are mostly attributed with social media today. As a millennial, we strive to be as wary of our privacy settings as possible. For those who are job seeking, social media privacy is very important. How one person portrays himself/herself on social media says a lot about who he or she is as a person; this is how recruiters go about scoping for potential candidates to fill in open positions. 

Using Facebook as an example, there are many different privacy controls a user can select when uploading a photo. You can make the decision of allowing only yourself, your friends, your friends of friends, or the public (anyone) to gain access to your photo. If a person is not aware of the settings a photo has, unwanted consequences can ensue.

In my CIS 3810 term paper, I touched upon legal awareness alongside a recruiter's perspective while going through the recruitment pipeline. Unwanted negligence, discrimination, and harassment are a few items to look out for when you are a recruiter.

New media lets others peek into your life, but you have to be aware of who you give privileges to.  

Advice to Baruch College

Baruch College could utilize some new media tools such as open source textbooks, more engaging social media, and a virtual tour of the campus on Baruch's website. 

Open source textbooks are "compiled using copyright-free materials from a wide variety of sources and can be edited and updated immediately" (Agardy). Students would have to worry less about high costs associated with their higher level education, in addition to the tuition they (may) have to pay and for other miscellaneous expenses as well. Open source textbooks also allow for teachers across the nation to collaborate and share information that is constantly changing in every field as time passes.

Baruch does make use of social media accounts currently such as the school's official Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat (for USG). However, in order to increase engagement and participation, there can be more giveaways advertised through these platforms. For example, there can be a special giveaway students can enter into, as long as they comment on a picture to answer "What has been your favorite moment as a Baruch student so far?" The more comments there are on media, the more likely it is for others to come across these posts.

There is also a virtual tour of the Baruch campus on our official website. However, the media is outdated and only in video format. It would be ideal if Baruch could develop an avatar character for the guest to walk through a simulated version of Baruch online, much like Second Life. 
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Work(s) Cited:

Agardy, Andrea. "Open Source Textbook Program Expanding in Coming Months." Open Source Textbook Program Expanding in Coming Months. The Tullahoma Tennessee News, 7 Mar. 2014. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. <http://www.tullahomanews.com/open-source-textbook-program-expanding-in-coming-months/>.

Creativity and New Media

For this creative assignment, I decided to devise an avatar version of myself. My avatar was set up and customized through Avachara, an easy-to-use new media website that allows any non-registered user and registered user to create an anime avatar for himself/herself. As I rummaged through customization options that ranged from face shape to background color, I decided to make a Baruch poster child version of myself. As someone who is enrolled in the Zicklin School of Business, what does an online avatar version of myself look like?

There were about thirty different outfit choices if I were to make a long-shot estimate. Out of my choices for what top my avatar should wear, I went with the classic black suit jacket for females with a white collared button-down shirt peeking from inside. My pants selection was a pair of black suit bottoms that matched with my black suit jacket. The hairstyle that I chose was similar to my hairstyle in real life, long black hair with a semi-natural wave. To finish off the look, I plastered a smile on my avatar's face. She is now ready to network. 

Here is a full body view of my avatar:

and a head-shot for LinkedIn: 

  

Good luck with the job hunting process, avatar Lily.

Creativity

With new media, the possibilities are endless. There are barely any limitations and borders to creativity that a person can display through his/her new media platform of choice. Let us use YouTube as an example. In "Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?," Barnes illustrates how the popular song "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" was used freely along with snippets of Disney's animated characters from certain films. As someone who has seen the video, I find the user-generated video comical and well put-together. The synchronization of the lyrics along with the Disney characters' mouth-movements and body-movements was impressive for the time that it was published, eight years ago. 

Disney is known to take copyright infringement of their material and intellectual property very seriously. However, why is it that they allow parodies that include their material to remain on the YouTube platform? Barnes dives deeper into the reasoning of why, and comes to the conclusion that Disney welcomes creative parodies from fans, but quickly takes control if a YouTube user were to upload a whole video of Disney material without prior approval. 

All in all, the parody that was made brought more light-hearted attention to Disney, and ended up granting Disney great public relations articles. YouTube as a new media platform allows amateur users to share their creativity with the rest of the world, by utilizing common references and symbols from well-known characters/movies such as Disney.   

Reference:

Barnes, Brooks. "Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?"The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Sept. 2007. Web. 26 Mar. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24crank.html?_r=0>.