New Media & Society

New media, as a whole, has brought about a renewed or fresh interest to past media infrastructure and uniting people and their voices under this umbrella. There are many positive and negative aspects that media such as internet, video gaming, DVD programming, wikis, blogs, and other media applications, have on people and society as time goes on. In some instances, the positives outweigh the negatives and vice versa, it depends on the situation and how the technology is utilized/ whom it is utilized by.

Some effects of new media on society include privacy and sharing conditions, the wider plane of information, the availability of easier options, the variations of utilization by different groups of people (race, age, professional jobs, hobbies), and the potential adverse effects of each listed previously such as bullying, stalking, over sharing, context focused on, lowered confidence in youth, and sometimes sustainable divides in groups.

The greatest accomplishments under the new media era include DVR options, internet, blogs, wikis, and gaming because they all have a person who could find their niche and contribute what they know and what they think in any of these respects. It promotes individualism and a wider plane of information being shared amongst persons or groups. In a blog, a person can share their view on a company's policies, an employee can discuss grievances, another person can share their lives through imagery and photography, and another person can speak facts or refute what a newspaper article may say if they feel it is out of context or biased in anyway. As in past readings by Gill, this was the case when a newspaper citated and fact checked information from a well known blogger before publishing itsstory or creating an addendum to an article. At the same time, a blog can bash others by anonymous people and the revelation of information, irrespective to privacy that could be very damaging to a person publically. Not to mention, this can change the view or reputation of them in society forever. This has happened in past presidential elections and political races, where a person who has a past dug up is brought about online and criticized by unknown people. But besides privacy issues and anonymous bullying, blogs as I said before are useful in how they can contribute to the wider plane of information available, and some are reliable sources of information based on their expertise in a certain area. Not to mention, the use of blogs with companies gives a more personable experience that may make others want to follow suit, like magazines and clothing companies using it to gain new customers and followers but at the same time while inspiring a ton of people, they want to hear from others whom they also find inspiration from. This is a two way communication that is effective in the business models of today. Not only giving consumers what they want but also trying to give them what you think they may need.

The advancement of phones and the applications that are applied to them are tremendous in the fact that a person can access the internet for news, watching television shows at any time, search for town and city information within the phone's internet capabilities, and use applications to store personal information. These applications help make life easier to not only contribute thoughts through a social media form on issues that happen today, but have a place to store and share information about one's self. With these social media applications on one's phone, a person can blog or talk to another person or see what they are doing easily. This might be great in terms of effective communication which is necessary between different groups of people in society but it can also facilitate arguments that can get out of control. There are different sites that cater to different interests that may encourage people to find a niche in this vast internet society, but it can further subdivide groups of people and cater to a certain way of thinking without any room for newer ideas. This can lead to trolling, bullying, or stalking when it gets out of hand. In terms of the younger generation, they have a sense of entitlement that they can share any information and sometimes overstate parts of their lives. Not to mention, on sites like Facebook, people like the younger generation can look at what others are doing and feel insociable or feel a sense of lower confidence due to feeling inadequate or failing to compare to the social and glamorous lives hat others live.

But what we find is the easier accessibility of information that anyone of all ages can find and use. It brings people from all walks of life together to communicate, do things easier, and encourage information sharing that can contribute to the common goal. This is essentially new media and how it relates to society, with positive and negative aspects that occur in any form.

Privacy & Confidentiality

With new media outlets such as the internet, social networking, blogs, wikis, video games, electronic technologies like tablets, applications on phones, and new forms of televisions shows like reality television, the ideologies about faster and easier information to obtain is essentially apart of the goal but almost always there are shortcomings of privacy and the idea of overshare. There is a plethora of information out there about celebrities and regular people like ourselves, some of the time this information is generated by companies and their computing systems and put onto sites like the white pages or people search. Then there are other times that we ourselves, and those within our social network, share a lot of information about each other through blogging about instances in our lives, sharing christmas party photos of each other over Facebook, making it known where one works, your favorite places you like to frequent, and over on twitter, where one shares every thought and place they are. With twitter especially, people essentially give up a geotag or online footprint of GPS and location service data that shows where in the world there phone is located thus showing exactly where they are. This can later problems like stalking or information about you being built up by application computers to target you for advertising. There are two examples of this. First, the applications one puts on their phone purchased through the market that asks that their information may be collected for research purposes or may be stored and the other is, when one utilizes the internet, the net saves websites you frequent or use adshare programs that targets e-commerce websites and ads that cater to you. "The information provides opportunities not only for legitimate business purposes, but also for the nefarious aims of identity thieves and other predators, according to faculty at Wharton and elsewhere" ("Leaving ‘Friendprints’: How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security", 2009) With this can come identity theft or personal safety issues such as stalking when one knows all about your information by what is presented by you and others on the internet.

This helps call into question, when can a person ever have privacy over the internet or when using technology, the answer is complicated. On Facebook and Opt-out campaigns, you can control how much information is divulged, who can see your profile, or relay in opting out in ad information, that you have pop-up blockers installed that prevents you from seeing an ad or spam ad. On the other hand, with such few limitations, we cannot forget the thousands of other systems, websites, and people in place that will readily share and hack using programs to divulge and collect information about you without you even knowing. Like with Facebook, a photo can be tagged of you, without you knowing unless you sign up for notifications, a person can just do it because they believe it is of you. That is one hard thing to control and that is other people. Which brings me to my next point about wikis, if you are a celebrity, there is no sort of privacy on the web. Every personal life detail fact checked, what you have done in early, middle, and late career is made available. Not to mention, Origin about where one is born, who their families are, and relationships. These celebrities are not only the traditional singers, musicians, and people of substantive talent but it also relates to those on reality tv, their lives made available over tv, internet, wiki, blogs, and online media message boards for speculation.

Though privacy may seem like a thin line to walk on, when it comes to engaging in new media and the risks it runs, there are again privacy settings implemented by what you want to share or not on Facebook and Twitter. With Facebook being, the limitations or confidentiality you assign to your profile on who views what and with twitter, removing location tags on your tweets/posts. One can help themselves by not constantly placing themselves into exact details about themselves but try not to overshare everything about your life, and divulge what you are comfortable with people knowing and try to have an air of anonymity still. If applications ask of too much information, just do not give it and find another one that suits your needs. Also with video games, they have taken great measures of confidentiality and protecting gamers identities and safety. They have moderators 24/7 that can view conversations and ban people, or build in text filters that does not allow one to speak on where they live, work or go to school, sometimes not even their name. The game Toontown Online was very diligent in achieving these goals of anonymity and keeping the focus on the game and less on the people behind the characters. There are built in filters on words allowed or if a common phrase like "where do you live" or trying to say an actual actress is actually filtered and comes out as jumbles of animal sounds" (Well you do play an animal game character). Then you are immediately reported or kicked off the site right away for account review by moderators.

Although new media is great, one has to be diligent about their safety and oversharing information because information is easier to obtain about another person or sharing it even.


Works Cited

• Leaving ‘Friendprints’: How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security. (2009, June 10). Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/leaving-friendprints-how-online-social-networks-are-redefining-privacy-and-personal-security/