My Presentation

I did my presentation on social networking and whether it is better or worse than face-to-face communication. I discussed many of the features of different social networking sites and the "real life" features of those sites. The blurbs I recorded from each site provided some insight into the people that use the sites and how they use them. The conclusion was that face-to-face communication will always be necessary and will always be held above social networking sites. That is not to say, however, that social networking sites are to be forgotten at the wayside: Many still view social networking sites as a necessary backbone of their daily lives.

Old vs. New Media

The definitions of old media and new media are dynamic and can be quite vague. It is necessary to define them in terms of examples since new media today might be old media tomorrow.

Examples of old media include basically anything that does not involve "user-up" control, meaning users do NOT have direct control over content and layout. Old media include TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, websites with limited user content and scholarly journals, among others. New media include technology that is primarily user-controlled and offers many ways of customization or variation. New media are often web-based and include such sites as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, flickr, delicious and digg. Concepts and uses of new media include blogs, social networking sites , wikis, video posting and the like. While social networking and bookmarking are the main components of new media, cell phones, for example, can be considered new media due to their ability to transmit old media in new ways. Many cell phones now have access to live, streaming TV and include applications that use Facebook, Twitter and flickr.