Sunday, February 27, 2011

Week 7: Participatory Literacies

Social media and devices such as BlackBerries, iPhones, etc is changing the way we communicate with everyone. New media has reshaped how we communicate with friends and how we interact with business clients. Here are some communication changes that I believe are a result of new media:

Information has always been expected be delivered in a timely manner but the perception of acceptable response time has changed. Five years ago the accepted wait time was a couple of days but with new media, the response time is expected within minutes. People are expected to complete more tasks in the same amount of time due to the ability to receive information sooner.

New media has created a participatory culture. People are able to interact with others more frequently and with more people than a few years ago. Jenkins is correct when he states that participatory culture can happen when there is a "relative low barrier for engagement". New media is allowing anyone to engage with anyone about anything. For example, Twitter allows people to engage with others with similiar interests.

Social media sites have increased the number of emails received. It was predicted that email would be used less as social media use increased. This is not the case as proven in the below survey that was conducted by Nelson Company in August 2010. The graph shows that as social media use increases so does the email consumption. This can be attributed to "notification" emails from Facebook and Twitter.

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  2. New Media Traits
    Jenkins (2006) brings about the eight traits in the new media landscape: Innovative; convergence of media forms; everyday (ubiquitous realities); appropriative (mashup culture); networked (different levels of communication); Global (instant flow of information in a global scale); Generational (acceleration in cultural exchange); and unequal (opting in & out of the spectrum).
    In this culture of interconnectedness and easy resources, the new generation of children see themselves as contributors, producers and publishers. The new media environment has created a new cultural environment of participation. The amount of YouTube videos created by children and teens are tremendous. The social media opens up a new avenue of productivity other than consumption. I see this very well at work at the schools I visit. The programs organised by the teens themselves bring out the technological creativity and participatory culture.
    I think Jenkins forgot to mention about the possibility of gathering information links on one place. With hypertext possibilities and social bookmarking the new media also provides opportunity for data mining and screening. The `search` possibility on the web, bringing us to massive amounts of information is something we cannot forget.

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