nmc-article-web.pdf

design-basics-web.pdf

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/07-4NRwinter/p88-rosenthal.html

This was a refreshing and poignant article that looks towards the future of news journalism in an optimistic light as opposed to one fraught with failure. I agree with the author when he talks about the primary difficulty that the news and media outlets face is that of money. The problem is that news corporations are a business and are subject to the same business models that put profit above all else. The quality of reporting has become, now more then ever, less of a priority then the news publisher’s ability to make money. I like how the author brings journalism back to its original, nobler role in the context of society when he mentions how journalists have the power to shape history, bring down tyrants, etc. I also think it is important to consider, as the author mentions, how journalism is the only business protected by our constitution and what that means for its place in our modern world. The world of journalism and news media is changing quickly and it seems important in this day to look back and adapt some of the values and passion of journalism from the past to revive the future.

As students of new media we are expected to know how to use a wide variety of technologies. At OSU we are exposed to blogging, video production, 3D animation, and a little web design. In addition to the requirements, there are many other opportunities to learn new technologies. I had the opportunity to be part of a four-person team tasked with the setup and maintenance of the New Media Communications Advanced Gaming Lab, or game lab for short. The reasoning behind the game lab was that film students watch movies to learn so shouldn’t new media students be exposed to games to learn? It’s kind of a touchy subject and I think just having this lab has given the department very mixed feedback. Many students are thrilled by this idea, most have no idea about it, and others think it’s a total joke and a waste of money. The technology in the game lab includes the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Dell XPS desktop computers, high performance Mac desktops, and high definition televisions including our 60″ Samsung full 1080p screen.

I wanted to write about some of this new technology because some of it is completely revolutionary and stretches beyond the typical gamers living room. I think it’s extremely relevant to be exposed to this technology because it is what the future has in store for us. Let me try to explain how some of this technology goes beyond gaming. The PlayStation 3 actually qualifies as a super computer. You may have heard about dual core processing, which is a technology that uses two cores in a processing ship to twice as many packets of data to be processed at a time. You can even get quad-core now. Well the PS3 has eight cores. You can actually plug in human interface devices like a mouse and keyboard and install an operating system like Linux to use the machine as a computer. Folding@Home is software that requires a super computer to calculate complex algorithms related to protein folding for the purpose of researching Alzheimer’s disease. By releasing this software for free over the PlayStation Network, PS3 owners can help process this research at break neck speeds. In its first month of release, Folding@Home calculated a years worth of research. A years worth of research in one month is huge, and it;s only getting bigger. We run our PS3 at the game lab around the clock to support this cause.

The Wii is revolutionary in it’s motion control capabilities in a light-weight, inexpensive piece of hardware. It has revolutionized social gaming. No longer do people sit drooling on their couches as they gun down Nazi regimes, but instead they invite a group over and engage in interactive physical activity in the living room. It’s important that we study the relationship between man and machine.

Even the TVs are important because they represent a huge technological leap. Pretty much everybody has a TV, but they are now becoming more and more obsolete. In less than a year, the digital television transition act will be put into action and people receiving analog, over-the-air signals will be out of luck. In addition, more and more broadcast television is moving towards high definition signals. I think this is important to study because the markets have taken advantage of the fact that most people are completely uneducated on the subject and have jacked up their prices accordingly. My grandfather bought a high definition TV about a year ago because his eye sight has become so poor, he cannot read text on a standard definition screen. I think he overpaid by about $400 and once he set up his TV, no one told him he had to get high definition service to actually receive HD broadcasts. You see, standard definition broadcasts actually look worse on an HD screen. In addition, there is a ton of confusion over the formats which are given cryptic names 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. The number stands for the number of horizontal lines of resolution and the little letter (p or i) represent the display of these lines where i = interlaced and p = progressive scan. If your lost you should check out this link:

http://alvyray.com/DigitalTV/Naming_Proposal.htm

High definition DVDs have a huge amount of confusion as well. Until very recently, a battle was raging between Sony and Toshiba (and their supporting companies) over the future of high definition DVDs. The two formats were Sony’s BluRay and Toshiba’s HDDVD. Blockbuster dropped HD DVD this summer which was a big hit for them, but it wasn’t until a few weeks ago when Walmart dropped HD DVD that Toshiba threw in the towel. Well what happens to all those people who spent $1000 on an HD DVD player that is now obsolete? Basically they’re screwed. The lack of comsumer information and what I would call unethical format wars has been extremely costly to the average Joe.

In short, I think it’s all worth researching.

http://www.crn.com/digital-home/206504481

http://www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/dtv/

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/core2duo/index.htm?cid=cim:ggl|c2d_us_dualcore|k6CEF|s

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2007-01-15-oregon-research_x.htm

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=119666

I found this article to be quite eye-opening. In the past few years I have noticed more and more on-air reporters and news outlets cultivating new, sometimes outlandish and offensive, “TV personalities” to try and appeal to specific types of viewers as opposed to offering news targeted to all people. This article mentions how the modern media is throwing away their journalistic objectivity in the race to grab niches of loyal viewers. I agree with that assessment and wonder about the future of news media. The author mentions how news outlets may begin to close their foreign branches and instead choose to focus on “hyper-local” news coverage. This certainly seems worrisome as it would shrink our already limited knowledge of global current events, instead pandering to the more mundane concerns of our separate local areas that would only result in dividing people in to even smaller, less diverse groups.

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=137132

The future of newspapers and even books in an increasingly digital world is becoming more and more uncertain. The invention and popularity of digital wireless reading devices, such as the Kindle, may soon take over in the war of paper vs. digital. Can reading the text of the daily newspaper or a book ever really replace the feeling of holding the physical item in your hand? The answer apparently, is maybe. The Kindle offers to its user the New York Times condensed down to nothing but its text, downloadable in mere seconds for .50 cents less then the price you would pay for the print version. It also removes all of the advertisements which are a clear benefit in my opinion. Nowadays, with the subject of “going green” on the tip of everyone’s tongue it may seem socially irresponsible to continue to buy a daily newspaper when you could save that paper and the energy it took to print by simply reading online. While I can imagine reading the newspaper or an occasional book online, I do not believe that the future will or should sway completely to the electronic side of the spectrum.

We’ve had a lot of class discussions about New Media and what it really is. Personally, I constantly have to explain to my friends of family what my degree, or should I say option, is all about. I decided to scour the internet to see if I could find a good definition. Before I talk about what I found, let me define New Media Communications as I see it. Maybe we can use something from here for our class blog.

New Media Communications [noo mee-dee-uh kuh-myoo-ni-key-shuns] – noun

A field of study that teaches communication skills to be used with current media technology in an effort to transcend the basic communication skills of speaking and writing by applying communication theory to every medium that is capable of communication.

Wow, I only said communication (part of the phrase I’m defining) four times! It’s extremely hard to define in one sentence and I challenge anyone to try it. I basically see it as an extension of my prior education in graphic design, because that’s what it is to me. I am striving for the ability to communicate clearly and effectively with people, on a micro and macro level, through every available medium. That means speaking, writing, video, audio, print material, web material, 3D animation, 2D animation – traditional and web based interactivity, corporate identity graphic design, interior design, structural design, psychological manipulation, advertising. Everything has a voice. A rock on the ground says, “I’m heavy and dull.” If a rock naturally expresses that, then it can be used in a bigger strategy. It’s not the greatest example, but if you happened to be writing a story called Heavy and Dull it would communicate more effectively if it not only said that in type, but had a picture of a rock. The more ways in which we can say the same thing the more clear our message becomes.

Let’s see how the rest of the world defines New Media Communications. OSU’s website says:

“The New Media Communications (NMC) option focuses on mediated storytelling and the new media technology that makes it possible. This focus within the broader discipline of mediated communications capitalizes on the historic strengths of Oregon State University. New Media Communications takes an innovative approach to the study of mediated communications and its impact on culture, technology and society. Courses in New Media Communications are designed to prepare students for a variety of careers in media and allied fields in which knowledge of and skills in mediated communications are an integral part of professional activity. NMC offers students the opportunity to pursue a range of theoretical and practical courses. Broad scholarship is stressed in all the programs to ensure that students attain the background necessary for serving in leadership roles in mediated communications.”

 That’s not far from how I see it. I wish the NMC option offered more visual communication. I feel like a lot of the theory classes are a little to abstract and impractical. I also think there are too many thoery courses which may be more suited for Sociology. I think NMC would benefit a lot by offering some of the classes currently offered by Computer Science, Art, Graphic Design, and Psychology. In fact, I think these are crucial aspects that have been omitted. I believe the Liberal Arts degree offers a sort of custom degree which I may consider for myself.

I actually had trouble finding definitions of the phrase or other schools offering similar programs. The National University has a school of Media & Communications that, “combines several successful certificate and degree programs and will introduce new programs in the burgeoning fields of digital film-making, digital television production and engineering, video gaming, ‘new’ media journalism, and public relations.” That honestly sounds like a better structure than what we have here. The Academy of Art University in San Diego appear to have an excellent New Media program.

The ever-present Wikipedia defines New Media as, “the marriage of mediated communications technologies with digital computers.” Although quoting Wikipedia makes me die a little inside, I am a little impressed by their noticeably short definition. I believe Loges will fail any paper that cutes Wikipedia as a source and I don’t blame him. Unfortunatly there is a scarce source for new media definitions, and I’ll take what I can get.

I guess researching it a little didn’t clarify my view of it any more. Not to sound cheesey, but in the end, I think it’s what you make of it. The degree isn’t terribly difficult here at OSU. I am a double major in NMC and Accounting, and I must say Accounting is far, far more difficult and time consuming. But I have seen some of the top student work in NMC and it’s really good. Students have to puch themselves to do something quality in a program that pushed quantity and a variety of class types.

http://catalog.oregonstate.edu/OptionDetail.aspx?id=870

http://www.academyart.edu/ep/new-media-school/index.html

http://www.nu.edu/Academics/Schools/SOMC.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_media

I was just flipping through channels on the TV yesterday and I came upon an interesting story called Justice 101. It immediately struck my interest because I remembered Pam Cytrynbaumb talking about something similar. As I got hooked in and watched further, I started to think about how cool it was Pam was involved in this kind of thing. I don’t want to summarize too much because my links are listed below, but in short the story was about a man named Anthony Porter was wrongfully convicted for a crime he didn’t commit and was awaiting a death sentence. A journalism professor and his students took on the project of researching this further until they basically got obsessed. They knew he was innocent and could basically prove it, but since he had already had a trial many years back, it was extremely difficult to get anything done. They literally had to solve the crime, find the guilty party, and get him to willingly confess – which they did. I believe he was going to be executed something like days later when he was freed.

Well what a story… It got a lot of coverage. Porter was released in 1999 so clearly this isn’t any kind of breaking news. In fact I think I remember hearing about his release when it actually happened. Despite this story being a decade old, the concept is timeless. Being an innocent person in prison, for a crime as serious as murder is pretty much the scariest thing ever. You would be so robbed of your humanity and changed as a person that I don’t see how it could ever be made up to you. Far more serious is the idea of all the innocent people who don’t have an army of students at Northwestern working to free them.

It makes me think about how skewed peoples perception can be. Anthony Porter has put away, in part, because of a terrible eye witness account. My family had a close friend in Florida who did all sorts of psychological studies on witness credibility. He has been an expert witness in many court cases to show how unreliable eye witnesses usually are. It’s really frightening, actually. People just don’t pay that much attention to the details investigators are interested. Furthermore, they forget so quickly. The worst part is that people tend to want to help officials and they often get a power trip from being needed. They disclose information they may not even know, just because they are asked.

I’ve included several links to sites about Northwestern, The Innocence Projects, and Anthony Portar.

http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/journalism/undergrad/page.aspx?id=59507

http://www.ccadp.org/porternews.htm

http://www.innocencenetwork.org/

http://www.truthinjustice.org/ips.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Porter

http://www.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/wrong/Ill/porter.html

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/080205yung/

This idea of an online journalism-oriented exchange program discussed in this article sounds very promising. A website where journalism students and freelancers are allowed the opportunity to more easily and quickly sell their work to editors to be published would be beneficial both to the journalists themselves and general public. I can see how it would appeal to the younger generation of students and professionals that want to see “instant results” for their efforts. Reading over this article, I find myself wondering about the possibility of a lack of quality control and accuracy in regards to the articles if they are being instantly available to editors for purchase without perhaps necessary fact-checking on either side. The title for the article linking it to eBay is a bit misleading as the creator of the website, reportage.com, makes it clear that bidding is not, nor will it be, a part of the process. Overall, I am torn over the concept behind reportage.com. There is the clear benefit to people in the difficult field of journalism being able to more easily get their work seen by editors, as well as for the public getting their news in a more up-to-date way. I question however, whether this might further water down journalistic standards and integrity by having such an open-market for news reporting.

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