Convergence

1. Convergence culture is like marrying traditional and new media. It provides a collaboration that is important to communication. This broadens the audience and brings them all together. The world is constantly changing and convergence culture aids in its development. The past never leaves it just evolves into something greater but there needs to be a collaboration between the two.

2. Creative engagement is when users take the media into their own hands. There is involvement in the different medias and making them work together. Creative engagement allows them to move brands through different mediums using the traditional and new medias. The media can be shared and discussed though varieties of ways.

3. Participators are engaging in many different ways. By participating, sharing, conversing or anything else they are participating. Media is more convenient now than ever before. It is all in one easily accessible place. Content is easily shared all around the world now. It allows everyone to engage in different cultures from their living room. 

Three Ideas To Eliminate Or Reduce Illegal Media Sharing

I was not present for the class discussion but I did some research and I have thought about some ideas. Illegal sharing or music and other media is a growing problem as it becomes easier and easier for people to access. My three ideas include:

1. One is having more restrictions on the public sites people create. There are a ton of websites that make it easy for everyone to share and download illegal music, videos or television shows. Anyone can create websites and there is limited restrictions. It is basically allowing people to continue the problem because these sites are not being shut down. More just continue to be created. If there was more restrictions in what web pages were created there could potentially be less of a problem. 

2. Another thing that could be done is increase advertisements. When advertisements are constantly popping up people get annoyed. The downloading process could be made longer and more of annoying to do. Adding more pop ups and advertisements takes away part of the convience factor people look for in illegal downloading. It is extremely convientent for people to download or share media. There needs to be something like advertisements that make it less convientent. Even adding personal information to gain access. A lot of people don't like adding personal information to these type of sites. 

3. Raising awareness using a spokesperson could also help. With the amount of illegal sharing and downloading the industries are loosing money. This doesn't allow more media to be created because of lacking funds. If people are not buying then the industries struggle. A spokesperson from each media categorie could use a sympathy approach, how would you like it if they couldn't perform anymore or stopped making music since no one is buying anymore. This could possibly scare people into buying again. 

There is many things that could be done to reduce or eliminate this issue, but will it honestly ever change? People are so used to having things for free on the internet and might not be willing to ever change. 

Privacy-Enhanced Personalization By Alfred Kobsa

Alfred Kobsa touched on many issues concern privacy on the internet. Society wants more personalization but what amount of privacy are they willing to give up to receive it? The internet already knows more information about people then the average person expects. The privacy theory compares the potential risk of releasing personal information to the benefits of releasing it. Privacy fundamentalist, privacy unconcerned and privacy pragmatics are the three attitudes towards privacy but the predictive value of these can be low.

Studies have shown that 80% of internet users would like personalization and typically value the personalized experience. Internet users are more willing to disclose demographic, personal tastes, hobbies and lifestyle information. People tend to become uneasy when the internet request information concerning financials, credit cards, or contact information. I know that I hate putting in my email address to do something online and then constantly getting spam emails after. I think it is important that internet users are aware of where their information is going or being used. Many privacy surveys shows that internet users also find that important. Trusting websites today can be hard for people. Positive experience, design, reputation of the website, presence of a privacy statement, and a privacy seal are all reinforcements of trust to internet users. 

One question I have is concerning the future of personalization and privacy. At what cost will organizations go to make personalization more advanced and privacy even more obsolete? Now you only have to put information in once, I know online shopping most places save my credit card for the next time I return. My trust in that has declined. I have had my credit card number stolen and my checking account drained from shopping online. What is making people stay? Will this only get worse? Today privacy on the internet is almost not a thing. How much worse can it get?

New Media & Society

http://nms.sagepub.com/content/16/1/5.full.pdf+html

I picked the article "From Facebook to cell calls: Layers of electronic intimacy in college students' interpersonal relationships" because it is very relevant to our generation. With all the new media and technology available today it makes its harder for people to create intimate or interpersonal relationships without technology. This article studied communication technologies and how they are useful to each stage of relationship development. They found in their study that a form of new media was tied to each stage of the relationship development process. The most interesting part they research was the relationship between the new media and technologies to the stages in the process from initiation to intimacy. They started to notice a pattern in expectancies and progression that, mostly females, look for using new media. Majority of college students are involved in social media or other types of new media technologies, it relates to our current lives. I found it interesting that they studied how we use media to create and progress relationships between one another. 

Reed's Law

In class we discussed several laws associated with networks. I found Reed’s Law most interest. Reed’s Law shows the power of social networks and the different groups that come together because of network affiliations. Reed’s Law is based off of group forming networks. Social media is more popular now than ever before. It is an example of a group forming network. You can even branch off of that into smaller groups with people who have similar interest. When subgroups are created, according to Reed’s Law, that is what creates value of the network. A larger network can scale exponentially with the size of the network. David Reed observed that the value of a communication network grows with the number of groups it supports. 

I found interest in this law because it is not based off financial. It is based on the amount of people involved in the network. Reed didn’t see financial transactions as a effective way to measure a network. What was important to him, was the groups that are supporting the network. If people did not use the networks, they would never be successful. Whether it made someone money or not. It is all about the people using the network and them getting use or enjoyment out of it. 

In five years from now I can still see social media being a dominate way of getting information.. We think the younger generations are attached now, I only seeing it getting worse. They are doing more and more for the consumer with every new product that comes out. Social media has become one of the more popular ways to get information today. I can see new networks being released that makes it that much easier to get all your information and communicate in one location. Basically, I see social media coming to its peak for gathering information. 

"Why We Blog" Response

“Why We Blog” talked about exactly that. In this article, they discussed practices and motivations of bloggers. They interviewed 23 people about their blogging habits. Most people found blogs through friends, associates or other readings. Not all bloggers post everyday, it can be once a week or even just once a month. It can sometimes be difficult for bloggers to find something to say and at other times they could use a blog to vent their emotions. Blogging has a wide variety of expression and use. They narrowed it down to five motivations on why people choose to blog: documents one’s life, providing commentary and opinions, expressing emotions, blogs as a muse, and forming and maintaing community forums. Blogs are not always meant to get feedback. Blogging allows people to share their thoughts without major feedback from other forms of communication. Blog content can be very diverse and the reach of audience is very diverse as well. 

I thought the article was a good read. I have played around with starting my own blog in the past for some of these exact reasons. I was approached about a year ago to blog my experience at a NASCAR event from a females perspective. I loved being able to express my feelings and my experiences with other people who do not get the same experiences as I do. No blog will ever be the exact same and I think that is what makes it so special. They are all unique and creative in their own way either personal or for a community. I think more people should utilize blogs to express their feelings instead of social media like Facebook and Twitter. I also think it is a great way to document travels. I had to blog for my study abroad trip and it is great being able to go back and read the things I did. I would encourage more people to use them. 

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