MY TERM RESEARCH PROJECT

On Thursday, April 23rd my partner and I presented our class with our project on text messaging and its impact on society. We divided the work in half. I spoke about the popularity of text messaging and why it has become such a popular technology among young people. Also, the benefits of the usage of text messages and the reasons behind its popularity. Why people prefer it instead of a phone call or email?
I also gave statistics on the usage and what countries send and receive the most messages. In my presentation I explained the impact that SMS (Short Messaging Service) has on medicine, academia and young people. I reported on how South Africa Health Campaigns use SMS to distribute health information regarding HIV/AIDS. SMS are sent to mostly everyone in the country with information on how to prevent it, how to treat it and its symptoms, facilities where they can get tested etc. And how SMS are used to make people quit smoking. SMS impact in academia, I explained the concerns that many have in regards with the "language" use in SMS, which resembles a code rather than a language. And how the this messages are braking the standard English language. Towards the end, I gave the positive and benefits of using SMS while my partner focus on the negativity of the SMS.

BARUCH NEW MEDIA - OUR CLASS WIKI - SO FAR

On the wiki, I created a page under New Media & Entertainment called Digital Distribution. I gave a brief definition on what digital delivery and Electronic software distribution are, which, is the principle of providing digital information and content over the Internet in the form of products or services. I started by putting up two companies that are famous for their distribution of audio content and books online. I included two pictures and I am still in the process of populating my page of the wiki with companies who are famous for their digital distribution, and also writing about their revenues and profit... Now I added more information on how their revenue is considered and the advantages of exchaging files online.

The next new thing

Suggest a new type of "new media" that doesn't currently exist. Describe it.

Um, well to think of something that doesn't exist yet, is somewhat hard. Maybe if we can have job descriptions and interviews online.

ADVICE TO BARUCH COLLEGE

You are hired by Baruch College to use new media to improve the College. What are some suggestions you would make?

A good way that I would use new media to Baruch College, would be using the same idea of the Virtual Worlds into students classrooms. There are many students who are parents or have jobs that require them to travel often and cannot make it class. So, if we create a virtual world with all the classmates into one environment we can have regular class through virtual software. Each student would create their own character and they would all log in at the same time they are schedule for classes. They can be in Japan and still be marked present in class. I think this is a great way of not only interacting with your class mates virtually but contributing your ideas in a mandatory way. Many times students don't pay attention during class and consider participation as attendance only. By, using this software of virtual class I would make mandatory the contribution of each student, it doesn't hurt to give an opinion.

OLD VS. NEW

How do we distinguish “new media” from “old” media? List and explain several ways to do this.

We distinguish new media from old media by exploring the options, access, control, modification, and distribution of the source. For example our old media for news is the newspaper. Before new media, the consumer had little access to the information, if it wasn't read or seen on tv there were no other ways to get to the recent news. Now we have more options when the newspaper is on the web, this allows the information to be accesible in a faster way, now in days you can even read it from your cell phone.
Old media platforms such as radio, television and movies are not the consumers only options any more. The same content is now available in many different forms and formats. (e.g., blogs, wikis, YouTube). We don't need to depend in one source only, the availability that we have is so much greater with the internet that our access to it is unlimited. Also, new media gives the advantage of a mass distribution to consumer, I think is is the biggest difference between them two.