"Whither the Individual?" part 1

Whither the Individual?
As we join groups and social networks from affinity sites to Facebook, are we extending and expanding identities, or increasingly conforming to the cookie-cutter profiles demanded of these interfaces? Is the loss of "personal space" and "reflection" so many users complain of merely the necessary surrender of "ego" as we learn to participate as members of a more evolved "collective organism" of "hyper-people?"

Because the Internet is still a relatively new and a constantly developing innovation, people will always continue to questions its impact on both the individuals and the society as a whole. Before the Internet and Web 2.0, groups and social organizations existed only in real, concrete, tangible life.  People could argue how even these networks of people in real life cause conformity and loss of personal identity, causing members to become a part of one collective organism. However, this is the way society works, have always worked, and inevitably will always work—which is not necessarily a bad thing but rather just an aspect of humanity and evolution.

            Because these social groups and networks now exist on the Internet, interconnection has been hyper-activated.  There is a greater and faster flow of information that is being spread to more and more people.  This adds so many more ideas, thoughts, creativity, and productions to not only cyber world, but the real world as well, that while in some aspects individuals seem to be conforming.  But in other ways, individuals are expanding and extending their identities.  Even with sites such as Facebook, although all users have to stick to the same exact layout, there are still so many ways to still be an individual.  There are multiple sections where users can write about themselves, their interests, favorite quotations, etc. Each user can upload personal photos to which they can add captions and users can “like” different pages as well.  Finally, with status updates, users can individualize themselves by writing whatever they want, their “reflection”—something they are currently doing, something they are thinking, a quote, a joke, they could post a link of a picture, a song, a video, a personal blog, or any other website

            Therefore, I believe that online social networking sites connect people and force them to conform in certain ways yet because the Internet is so dynamic, I don’t think users should feel the loss of ego or personal space.  Without the Internet, people were already participating as members of a collective organism.  And now with the Internet, these members have become hyper-activated.  It’s just the next step in the process of evolution of humanity; each member of the collective organism and the collective organism as a whole will learn to and be forced to adapt to this natural change. 

social media

1. Today many TV shows and advertisements try to look amateurish or "homegrown" to emulate what is often seen on the Web. Do you think professional production values will continue to drop, or do you think amateur user-generated content will get better over time? WHY?

Right now websites such as YouTube, that allow non-professionals and non-experts to produce media, are trendy and are growing more and more popular.  Because of this, so many amateurs produce and publicize their amateur advertisement.  Professional advertisement agencies have to learn to mirror society's behaviors and wants/needs in order to create an ad that will specifically appeal and connect with the audience/society.  Therefore, because professional advertisements are mainly only emulating these home-made productions in order to relate to society's trends, I believe that the amount of ads and shows with the "amateurish style" will diminish over time.  

As for home-made looking productions actually generated by amateurs,  I think that the content will get better over time as well.  In the article "Social Media and Web 2.0," it is mentioned that one of the five fundamental ways in which people's media habits are changing is "choice."  One aspect of "choice" is that because Social Media provides so many more options and choices, different media types and channels are competing with each other for the attention of the audience.  Having this in mind, I believe that the audience would choose to view higher quality productions more so then those of non-professionals which over time will cause the low quality content to be viewed less and thus, diminish.  

2. What social media sites do you find yourself using the most, and why? In your opinion why is Facebook so much more successful than MySpace, and do you think Facebook is "here to stay" for the long term.

Personally, Facebook is the social media site that I use the most.  It is currently the most popular one, allowing me to connect and communicate with the maximum amount of friends as possible.  It is also very dynamic, interactive, and user-friendly. 

I believe that Facebook is much more successful than MySpace because it embodies more of a professional aspect.  Even just the layout of Facebook is a lot more organized and clean cut.  Facebook provides to a larger audience than Myspace does.  Myspace generally appeals to younger age groups who are more concerned about decorating their profile rather than networking with friends, schools, and companies. Myspace also focusses more on just musicians and bands.  There are so many more aspects to Facebook and so many more security settings and tools allowing users to personally decide what other users can view.  In the article, it explains that Facebook rapidly overtook Myspace because of the way it expanded; at first it was only available to Harvard Students, then students of all Ive Leage Schools, then to any college student, to high school students, to companies, and then finally to anyone over the age of thirteen. 

I think Facebook is here to stay, although I do think it will continue to develop, change, and expand overtime.  Facebook will need to think of ways in order to maintain the interest of its dynamic audience and to compete with up and coming competitors.  I think Facebook is capable of doing this because it has been for about seven years already.  I think Facebook is going to become bigger with more users, and more branches that will interconnect more of the cyberspace, maybe become more of a search engine.

3. Why is transparency such an important concept in the Social Media world? Is it MORE or LESS important in the offline world? Why?

Transparency is a very important thing to be aware of when in the Social Media world more so than when in the offline world.  In a way, transparency is the ability and to what extent other people or companies can read you;  it's the amount of personal information gathered from a user and how easily it is to obtain.  Transparency also has to do with websites ability to affect users behavior.  In both worlds, people have to be very careful of information they reveal because it can be leaked to those seeking to take dishonest advantage of the information.  Transparency is a bigger deal in the social media world because like we all know, information is spread much more rapidly and to a larger amount of people via the Internet.

In Class Photoshop Assignment #2

McLuhan Photoshop FInal Post

According to McLuhan, "the medium is the message." This means that the medium impacts the behavior of a society or individual more so than the actual content of the message does.  McLuhan explains that the message is the "change of scale or pace or pattern" of an individual or society.  In this case, with Pandora Radio as the medium, the message is the way it interconnects users and artists very rapidly in what seems like an infinite music world.  Pandora speeds up networking of artists--their name, info, and songs reach more listeners at a faster pace.  Different unknown and unfamiliar artists are introduced to specific listeners who are guaranteed to like their music. This broadens their fan bases, greatly helping them to become well known.  Pandora users  obtain a greater knowledge, awareness, and appreciation for more music. Because all the information about the music is directly provided, it allows users to form sort of a customer relationship with the artist, ensuing the users to become loyal listeners. Pandora also allows listeners to share music stations with friends--even further helping people to become more interconnected with and in the music world.  While this is the message, the content that is being transmitted to listeners include songs, information about the songs, lyrics, information about the artists, and information about upcoming music events.  

I created my photoshop image to relate to Pandora's Box. It shows that when this website is used, a ton of music is suddenly and rapidly released. The globe with headphones shows how such a vast amount of people are interconnected with the music world with the help of Pandora.  The background made up of a variety of album covers represents the vast amount of music Pandora plays.  

photoshop assignment

media source: Pandora Internet Radio

content: both personalized and pre-made radio stations, music, songs, artists, information about songs and artists, lyrics, concert listings, and audio and visual advertisements for other companies.  This website is interactive--it encourages feedback from each individual user and is easy to navigate around on

focus: how is Pandora better than regular radio? How does it greatly benefit both the artists and listeners? Pandora speeds up networking of artists--their name, info, and songs reach more listeners at a faster pace.  Unknown and unfamiliar artists are introduced to listeners who are guaranteed to like the music. This broadens their fan bases and helps them to become well known. Pandora users obtain a greater knowledge awareness, and appreciation for more music. Because all the information about the music is directyl provided, it allows users to form a consumer relationship with the artist ensuing the users to become loyal listeners. Pandora also allows listeners to share music stations with friends--even further helping people to become more interconnected with and in the music world.  Users are allowed to listen up to 40 hours of music per month for free.  This is unlike illegal downloading, however, because ads promoted on the website help pay for bills.

layers for photoshop product:

Pandora Radio

Pandora is made possible by the Music Genome Project--the most inclusive and sophisticated taxonomy of musical information.  Pandora is a very interactive and integrative website with the main purpose of an internet radio service.  However, it is highly unlike the original radio that we are used to listening to in the car.  Pandora personalizes stations for each individual user based on what the user likes.  The single mission of this website is to play only music the user will love.  A user is able to create up to 100 unique stations--each can be refined through different applications until the user is content.

Pandora does not only play music but it provides a vast amount of information about the artists, songs, and genres. It provides lyrics to the songs, a list of similar artists to who the user is currently listening, information about upcoming music festivals, and more.  For the free version of Pandora, audio ads are played in order to help pay for bills.  Ads displayed on Pandora change and are chosen accordingly to target specific users.

According to McLuhan, "the medium is the message." This means that the message is the different ways an individual or a society is impacted by the type of medium used; the message is the "change of scale or pace or pattern."  McLuhan argues that the medium is more important than content because the medium is what affects human interaction and behavior in a society.  Therefore, Pandora Radio is the medium.  The content is the music (radio stations, songs, artists) and information about the music.  And most importantly, the message is an increase in music awareness to all users, promotion (and discovery) of specific artists and bands, a decrease in demand for buying or downloading music, and less use of regular AM/FM radio.
 

New Media

     Pandora radio is the personalized internet radio service that helps users find new music based on their old and current favorites.  Each user creates their own profile on which unique radio stations are created and saved. 


     Not only is Pandora a form of communication in that it plays songs and promotes artists to the users, but it also is a form of advertisement. Pandora displays ads from certain companies that are targeted at the user.  This shows how one medium could contain other media.

     YouTube is an online community where videos can be uploaded, watched and shared.  Because YouTube allows anyone to upload home made videos, it is a type of new media that allows even non-experts to communicate with the public.  This website is a medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human action and integration, which is an example of Marshall McLuhan's theory, "the medium is the message" because without the website, the content (videos, comments, users' own channels, etc.) would not exist. 

     The iPhone 4 as a medium itself contains so many more forms of media such as text messaging to friends, browsing the internet, and playing music.  With the iPhone 4, it is also possible to video chat.  This allows people to communicate long distance not only by talking but also by seeing one another, allowing for nonverbal communication.  Therefore, the ability to video chat on a portable device shows how mediums are extensions of humans and their physical senses (another theory by McLuhan).