Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Wiki vs Blog

With the emergence of Web 2.0, it's clear that blogs and wikis have made their way into a part of our pool of resource. But how can we define and separate the two? Lets start with blogs. Blogs is a personal online journal that shows the most recent entries at the top of the page. According to the article "Celebrity Blogs: The Impact of New Media", in the year 2005, more than 30 million people look at blogs on a regular basis. Wiki on the other hand, is a collaborative website that can be edit by anyone with access. There are a number of things they share in common. They are both very easy to access and can be accessed by anyone. They are both very easy to edit.

However, there are many things that set these two apart. One is their growth rate. Since wikis can be accessed by number of users, they grow very quickly and frequently. Also, the content on wikis are considered pretty fresh. Entries on blogs gets older with time.

Blogs can be used for collaboration by bring people with similar interests together. Many people follow the same blogs and by doing so, blogs bring these people together.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

New Media Vs. Old Media

What is the difference between new and old media? Well, there are several ways to look about this question. One way to distinguish old and new media is to completely toss out the terms "old" and "new" and replace them with "traditional" and "non-traditional". For example, TV and radio are traditional forms of media. Youtube and Hulu are non-traditional forms. Another way to distinguish old from new media is their ease of accessibility. The general idea is that it's easier to find what you're looking for with new media. Just remember, you have to look for old media, but with new media, it finds you. Another big difference with old and new media is efficiency. Not only is new media easier to access, it should be quicker as well.

New media and its impact on teens

For my research project I've decided to do it on the impact new media has on teens. When it come's to new media, no one is more familiar with this new and current lifestyle than teens themselves. It seems like the lives of teens are revolved around texting, social networking, and internet related entertainment. With new media being such a big part of their lives, I want to see how it actually impact them on some of their behaviors, their social life, and educational life. To approach this, I will do the obvious research online and use the schools database for worthy information. However, I think it might actually be interesting to interview some teens and see what they have to say on this topic.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

What is new media?

To me, new media is a new generation of technologies that emerged quickly between the late 90s- present. The technologies that are part of new media are cellphones, Tivo, PDAs, computers and many more. These technologies help make it easier for people all over the world to communicate and also give us new forms of entertainment. They are replacing old media with new media at a fast rate. For example, instead of emailing or phone calls (old fashion), people now send texts through their phones. People just type the messages they need to be sent out on their phones, send it, and in little or no time, you will get a response. It's as if the person you are communicating with is right next to you. Also with the invention of Youtube or Hulu, watching TV has never been easier. Instead of watching a television show at a specific time, viewers can now watch it online anytime they want. According to the article "Who Needs a TV? I've Got a Laptop", 8 percent of viewers they tracked on ABC — or about one out of every 12 people — watch network shows solely online.
Internet plays a huge role when it comes to new media. One of the main purpose of new media is to communicate. With sites like Facebook and Blogger, it allows an individual to communicate with the whole world. Without internet, it's impossible to communicate with the same amount of people internet allows you to communicate with.