The Art of New Media

According to my previous post, what you may find interesting is..

New media is actually a great piece of art. Every act imposed by people was well planned, and is aiming to achieve some goals. Just like any other art piece, it provides a mean for online users to share their messages and ideas with one and other. Aspects about the users, like their interests and hobbies, can also be reflected through their creations.

In order to produce an impressive creation, users must get through some stages:

1)      Identify the message or idea that you would like to share

2)      Identify your audience in order to choose what kind of languages should be used

3)      Design the form of expression that you are going to use

However, just merely go through these stages are not enough to make a great creation. What should be further considered are elements that can make your creation stands out from others. Before going down further, let’s have a quick look of the video below

After watching this, is there any new idea entered your mind? For an impressive art piece, theme is quite important. It is because an unclear theme may affect audiences’ understanding on the message or idea that one would like share, while a clear theme may enhance their understanding of it. Besides, how to catch audiences’ attention, and arouse discussions among them are two other essential factors that determine whether your creation is success or not. One easy way to get people’s attention is to do something special, thus, require originality, like what a recent MV – Gangnam Style has demonstrated. Therefore, creativity is another critical factor that may affect the popularity of your act piece.

Courtesy of Google Images

To sum up, art is everything. And the art of New Media can be appreciated in terms of its form of expression and the idea that one would like to share. A way for one to know whether their creation is good or not can base on others' comments. But remember, impressive creations never look 'regular' ;)

Virtual world

For so many times i guess, you may hear people said 'internet is a virtual world'.
But what are the underlying mechanisms that are important for the operation of this world?

For me, I think there are two important concepts that is vital for the maintenance of the online virtual world.

#1: A hierarchical organization

Courtesy of Yahoo Images

With a hierarchy, users at different level have different rights and duties. For those who are at the peak, they usually serve as a leader, giving out directions to guide and lead the group to achieve certain goals. For those who are located at the middle part of the hierarchy, they usually play an important role in monitoring activities practiced by those in the bottom, and coordinating their needs with the group leader. And for those who are in the bottom level, they are essential for the survival of a group. Because without their support, the hierarchy will be collapsed.

#2: Norms
Although norm has no legally validity, it promotes a great deal of social control. Different norms exist in different platform online. For example, some fans forums have a norm to dedicate their first post to their idol on every new topic. An example is shown as below:

With these norms, all users are guided to do what they may or may not. It also helps to reduce frictions that may induce by different posting style among different users.

Combination of new technologies - TED

hey hi! it's me again:)

have you guys ever heard of (or seen the word) TED?

well, don't mixed it up with the movie..

Courtesy of Google Images

cos what i'm talking about is a nonprofit platform devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.

The word 'TED' is actually stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.

The TED Conference was originally found in 1984 as an one-off event, provided people opportunities to share their ideas across the world. And with its popularity, it has become an annual conference by the year of 1990. However, what i would like to share is not the history of TED conference, but how TED has made use of the new form of media to achieve their goal - spreading great ideas across the world.

The most obvious and simple strategy that they have adopted is sharing video clips online. 

What we can see from here is that they not just made use of a new form of technology - videos, but also an online system, which enable the widespread of information and ideas. Tho this combination of the use of technology has nothing special, it was highly effective. Great ideas that worth spreading are now highly accessible to people all around the world, inspiring and educating them on different aspects of life. 

Therefore, from this example, what we may conclude is that if we can make a proper use of different kinds of technology, it will become a powerful tool (or mean) that enable us to achieve our goal effortlessly.

Tumblr – a mirror that reflects who we are

According to a piece of news, tumblr is now moving up to the list of the most popular social networks in around the world. But what makes it special compare to others? I guess it is the platform that they have provided for their users to explore and present themselves. Just take a look from the link below, and you will find how special and convenience it is:)

With the use of tumblr, we are all be able to share or explore things that we are passionated about. Like for me, I am interested in stuffs related to interior design, product design, and also typography.

As a reader, by typing down those keywords that I would like to explore, a specific lists of blogs will then pop up in which allow me to further browsing what i would like to.

And as a blogger, I can also share myself by posting or reblogging what I am interested in. Sometimes, people who share the same interest as I do may leave comments or ask questions about me. This also enable us to form a small community to share what we commonly like.

That's why, tumblr, for me is just like a mirror. We can always see who we are from its reflections. This allows us to develop a better understanding of ourselves, and find a simple and easy way to appreciate life.

My Digital Life

Photo by dollie_mixtures

Hey hi! This is Vivian. Thanks for visiting :)

Though it may be the very first time that we have ‘connected’ to each other, I bet we both share a highly synchronized digital usage pattern in our daily life.

Let’s see how likely our digital usage pattern can be…

1) What is the first thing that you most likely do when you woke up?

My answer: Instead of brushing my teeth or washing my face, the first thing that I do everyday when I woke up is to check my Iphone and see whether there is any unread message or not lol

2) Which website do you visit the most?

My answer: Facebook I guess. I can keep browsing on Facebook all day even there has NO MORE “NEW” NEWS FEED…well, that’s not a good student should be I supposed:/

3) What physical thing that you can’t live without the most other than money? And why?

My answer: Smart Phone definitely. It servers as a base for social networking, like people nowadays rely heavily on smart phone for their communications. Applications like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc have provided us more convenience ways to get an access to these social platforms, and to keep ourselves up dated.

As we can see from above, new media has become an essential part of our life. It can help to facilitate communication, as well as widening our social network. But of course, nothing is perfect. We will gain from it only if we use it in a proper way. But how can we define the word ‘proper’? And how can we maximize the gain from using new media? I guess I better leave these two questions now, and answer them at the end of the course ‘Writing for New Media’. Let’s wait and see;)