Creativity and New Media

Back when I was a small child, I was introduced into the internet from my dad. From there, it was all about exploring what was on the internet from the 2003 and onward. From Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) games to Single Player worlds, there was a variety of options that I could choose to entertain myself. One MMO that really stuck with me, even till this day, is the game Runescape.

Runescape is a Fantasy Massive Multiplayer Online game that was released in 2001 and although you had to be over 18 to play, I got to play anyways through super secretive methods. Published by Jagex, Runescape takes place in a world called Gielinor, a world that is divided into different kingdoms, cities, and regions. Characters you create are able to travel by foot, through magical spells, and even on boats. To me, Runescape was really the pinnacle of fostering creativity through New Media and even through a game that allowed people from throughout the world to connect with one another. 

Runescape allowed people like myself to customize what we looked like right from the start, from being a bald man with a variety of colors for their clothes to someone who we imagine to look like a wizard, with long hair and a beard. 

For me, what really fosters and draws out the creativity in the MMO is the fact that it is an MMO. There are no directions to tell you what you should and shouldn't be doing. No one is telling you where to go and where you should be headed. Instead, its up to the player to decide what they want to do. Activities can vary from going on quests to help people and explore the land of Gielinor to hunting monsters to casting various magic spells to living a second life in Runescape by joining in a community of people from all over the world. Runescape has allowed people to be creative because you are allowed to live a second life in a fantasy world where there are no rules and restrictions on what you do.

HW Creativity

When we think about New Media, we think about the future; how New Media will continue to be a growing factor in our lives, how New Media will continue to change and adapt over time, and how Old Media could be incorporated into New Media in the near future. We don't however, think about how New Media can foster creativity in people and can inspire people to branch our their creativity with New Media. Brookes Barnes writes that through Youtube and through the song "Crank That (Soulja Boy)", mash-ups and edits of characters from different companies are being created to make it seem like those characters are imitating the song.
Who could've thought of this? I know I wouldn't have. To me, it seems like a waste of time to individually cut out frames and pictures of characters to make an animated video that imitates a song. However, these videos have not been taken down and have instead, grown to millions of views and this idea has spread out to other videos as well. A Nickelodeon spokesperson even said that whoever made the Spongebob edit of "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" did a very good job at it, which may further encourage people to use New Media websites like Youtube to foster their creativity and imagination.

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24crank.html

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

By definition, a "Virtual World" is a computer-based simulated environment that can be populated by people throughout the world at any given time. People are allowed to personalize their avatar to represent themselves in these worlds that allow them to participate in activities in these worlds and to communicate with other people. Diane Mehta names a primary example of a "Virtual World", which is Minecraft. Minecraft is a "Virtual World" game that has been out for several years that allow users who purchase the game, to explore a world that is independent of reality and to live in that world as if it were their own. Primarily, it is a "space for kids to exercise their imagination and to connect with others to create build things together".
What makes Minecraft and it being a Virtual World special is that it allows children, primarily those of ages 5 - 15, to use this Virtual World as a medium for communication, social entertainment, social connections, and most importantly, learn in an isolated environment. It provides the sense of being away from reality and being away from what they have to worry about.

Because Virtual Worlds have been relatively new up until the last 10 years or so, it has now been ingrained into almost everyone's everyday lives. Previously, people have refused to adapt to new technology such as this. "The Advantages and Disadvantages of the Virtual Classroom and the Role of the Teacher" write that nearly 80% of teachers in the year 2000 have been reluctant to learn and adapt to this new concept of a "Virtual World" or even a "Virtual Classroom". Several of these reasons include the feeling that the Virtual Classroom method is inefficient, that new technology can be confusing to many people, and that students may not remain responsible enough to stay focused on the class.
The advantages of introducing a Virtual Classroom include easier organization of classroom documents, the creation of a "Virtual Notebook" that allows students and teacher to locate notes easier, and the ease of accessibility to lessons if they are not present.

The future looks very promising at the rate that we are progressing at as a society. Because the Internet has become a necessity in our lives rather than a luxury, many of us are shifting towards a technologically based environment rather than the "old fashioned" in-person and physical environments. Virtual Worlds have their pros; they allow an individual to be isolated and to be themselves through an avatar in which a community can be fostered and relationships can be created. The cons however, are that people would lose themselves in reality as they invest more in their virtual life than their physical life.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxiYXJ1Y2huZXdtZWRpYXxneDozYmQxM2I2M2Y0YmQ3MmE0
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxiYXJ1Y2huZXdtZWRpYXxneDo2ZTg5MGFiMmRkMzA4NjZm

Blog About Twitter

Twitter discussions differ from Blackboard discussions in many ways. I think that the primary reason for this is the anonymity that Twitter provides compared to a Blackboard discussion. In Blackboard, you know exact who the person posting this post or response is while on Twitter, not everyone knows who you are. You are free from the restriction of being professional in your responses and free from having to cater your answer in a way that would please others. Another contributing factor I believe is the lack of updates Blackboard provides. When someone posts something or replies to a thread you are following, there is no notification. For me personally, it can be a hassle to constantly hit the refresh button to have a discussion going. Twitter on the other hand, provides you updates and notifications that tell you when someone has replied, liked your response, or even shared your response with other people. Although Blackboard discussions are more professional, Twitter discussions are more interactive and may draw out more responses that don't feel like they were forced.
Even when compared to an in-class discussion, I believe Twitter has the upper hand. Twitter still provides that anonymity that people may need to express their opinions. An In-Class discussion may make people uncomfortable to share their opinions because of their social nature (introverted/shy) or they cannot think of any answer at the moment to contribute to the discussion.

Social Networking Sites

Social Media Sites can be relatively similar in how they function and how they want to appeal to you; through connecting you with other people who relatively have the same interest as you. Some major sites that people currently use are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit. Because Instagram is owned by Facebook, it is relatively similar. Signing up for Facebook allows you to use your Facebook account to connect to Instagram and to connect with people on Instagram that are your Facebook friends. Both websites show suggested post of what they think you like the most or based on what you have viewed recently and or most frequently. While Instagram may be more casual for videos, pictures, and personal life updates, Facebook can be a little more extreme, containing games for people to play, more political discussion, and more posts on people's thoughts about anything really.

Twitter from my perspective looks very organized. Everything is just from top to bottom with no extra links or fluff taking up the extra space the website page has. You can choose who to follow to be able to see what they post and what they like. You can also "retweet" what someone says, which is basically sharing what the person said to spread their message. Although it does not look as interactive as Facebook does, it does a good job of being very simplistic and very easy to use.

Reddit is the odd-one out from all of them. Reddit is a social media platform that does not allow you to connect directly with your friends one on one but rather, is a compilation of threads of different topics that people can choose to participate in discussion about. So rather than having friends to connect to and seeing only what they post and or what they share, you can filter our what you want to see by subscribing to different forums available to see their top post and the discussion taking place about it. Making an account is also very simple, as it just requires an E-Mail and Password.

Blog Social Networking

When we hear "Social Networking", the first thing that comes up in most of our minds is the social website and app Facebook. Facebook was created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and has only developed and continued to grow from then on. In 2013, Facebook introduced the "Graph Search", which allows the individual to filter out what they want to look up and what their friends also want to see. In addition to this, it is possible to do the reverse, where you can also find people who have the same general interest as you through this "Graph Search" engine. Although its intentions are to enable the user to filter out what they want to and don't want to see, it probably hasn't and won't be used for this specific instruction only. By allowing the individual to filter out they want to see, it allows potential employers to look up who they are hiring to see their entire lifestyle and their tenancies which may ultimately influence the hiring decision. This also means that not everyone's information is private and secure, as anyone can find you and about who you are.
On the other hand, something like the "Graph Search" can be used to tailor to an individual's professional needs by building their profile up and to outreach to potential employers for an opportunity to work for them. For example, a website like Linkedin allows the user to upload their resume for employers to look at. While this does not necessarily protect your privacy, at a cost, it allows employers to look at who you are from a professional stand point and encourage you to apply for certain job openings.
Through websites like Facebook and Linkedin, people no longer have to actively scout our people to fill missing positions in their companies. They can now however, just go to one of these websites and look for people or just ask their current employees if they know someone who can do the job. Like Frank Langfitt said, "With social networking, I don't need to go to Bob directly to find out who Bob's friends are. Or Bob's friends' friends. So, effectively, I have a thousand contacts that could potentially lead me to 100,000, now I have 8,500 contacts that could potentially lead me to 4.5 million."

In the future, we may see social media may be used as a way to collect information about people in exchange of keeping contact with other people or building up a network or just as a necessity of everyday life that we cannot function without. Because it has been so ingrained into our minds that facebook, twitter, snapchat, linkedin, etc are a must in today's society, it can be considered a necessity to grow as an adult and to progress one's career or even social opportunities. 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-xpm-2013-01-15-chi-facebook-01152013-story.html
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/fashion/02BEST.html