Sherley's New Media Blog

Everyday we see examples of backgrounds for phones, tablets and laptop screens. Instead of simply finding backgrounds on the internet, friends and I have taken our favorite quotes or sayings we've come up with and created our own designs. We use the website Canva  and their collaboration tool, to edit and create designs together. We then share them with our other friends and on our social media sites. The collaboration tool allows us to not only collaborate, but to also communicate with each other what we want to create and allows for this site to be classified under "new media." Above is one of the creations we made together as a group. 

With the invention of the internet, much more has been made possible. Everywhere  from sending emails to watching videos.  People have been creating for as long as humanity has existed. With every new invention, people are given the opportunity to get more creative and continue to invent new things.  With inventions like YouTube, people are able to share their creations with the world, inspiring other people to make videos of their own. No longer are people as limited to the content that is available to them. They can now download videos of shows or movies and songs; they re now able to mash together those videos and pictures to create something new. With inventions like YouTube, Canva, Giphy and others, people that once were simply audience members can now be avid creators. No longer are ideas simply fantasy and abstract, but they can now come to life.  We see examples of these new creations when we open YouTube and see fan made music videos, mas...

Virtual worlds can be used many ways. From mental health rehabilitation  to making friends with strangers in Germany. Not only do virtual worlds give you the opportunity to be someone else on the internet, but it can also be a tool to help you practice and hone skills that you would be too scared to pursue in real life.  In many instances, virtual  worlds are used for mental health. In one case they were used to help treat Army vets with PTSD or who were unable to reintegrate normally  within civilians. By creating worlds that resemble  the ones they grew use to, or have experienced trauma in, psychologists will be able to help the vets overcome the fears and terrors they once lived. It could even work for patients that suffer from severe forms of agoraphobia, allowing them to experience  the world and possibly interact with other people, which they might not have been able to do otherwise. Aside from need based therapy, virtual reality worlds opens up...

Facebook is one of the most commonly used social networking sites used by professionals and regular people alike. Mom's use it to post pictures about their children, college students use it to communicate with each other via messenger. Signing up isn't too hard, they ask the basic things like name, age, email and password. The user interface is also fairly simple to navigate, on the left are the icons that lead to different parts of the site (i.e. profile, messenger, groups), your news feed is in the center of the page, and on the right are your online contacts, and trending topics.  Twitter asks for the same things at registration, with the additional username (handle) that you will be known as. Your handle is not permanent, it can be changed at any time, if that is what you decide to do. Like facebook, the user interface is pretty similar. The difference being that instead of only adding your friends, on twitter you "follow" different accounts that are run by cel...

A twitter discussion, is a discussion you have via tweets and replies. It's a very public and permanent discussion. Not only can the people you want to read it see what you write, but people from all over can read what you write and weigh in with their thoughts. If you're having a Twitter discussion as part of a class assignment, while the hashtags you use will make it easier for your classmates to find it, it is no guarantee  that other strangers wont see it as well.  A Blackboard discussion can only be seen by the people in your class, however it is written there permanently, or until your professor deletes it. It can be accessed by a classmate at any time and a picture of it can be taken and spread. However there is no guarantee that your classmates will read it, and if they do, and they reply, there's no guarantee that you'll go back to the post and reply to their message as you get no notification when either happens.  An in-class discussion is by far the least p...

    Social networking allows for people from all over to connect, without having to interact with them everyday in person. It allows for not only friends to constantly interact, but the networking opportunities are also increasing with the use of social networking. Of course with the more people using it and becoming accustomed to the shortcuts found, the greater the risk for privacy violations. Even when motions are put into action to allow a person to control how much they want to share with the public, posts or pictures could still end up being shared with strangers. The case of Randi Zuckerberg is a good example of potential privacy risks. While her efforts to keep her family picture contained within her circle of friends and acquaintances, they were still shared on other people's sites, outside her control and as much as she wanted to keep it off the rest of the internet, it was already out there.         However, while a lot of people using so...