Andrew Mullikin

COMM 440

1. Ndirangu Wachanga

4-29-2018

What Have I Learned

This is an interesting question in my opinion. This question is all opinion base and everyone in the class can have different answers and they could all tie into each other. I learned a few things within this class and one of the things would have to be how we look at new communication technologies. I also learned a lot about memes and how they have changed over the years. The lecture on memes made me learn about spreadable vs viral.

New communication technologies have been popping up all over the place lately and have had an impact on us all in different ways. One of the projects you talked about that someone did last year was the way uber has changed college kids and the bar scene. Uber has made it easier for people to go to the bars and always have a ride home. They never have to worry about walking or driving now because they can always open up a app and get a ride. This is amazing for people that like to go out and enjoy themselves because it always will guarantee a ride home for someone. The reason why this app is amazing is because it keeps people off the road that shouldn’t be driving on the road.

The meme presentation was very interesting and a very interesting way of looking at media and how it spreads and how it becomes viral. Spreadable means that you can change something and make it your own. I think spreadable means that you can relate to this meme in some way and like I said you can change it to make it your own. Viral to me means that it is being spread around all sorts of platforms and is gaining so much attention. Twitter and Reddit seem to be the place where all memes either start or die at. Memes are easily spreadable and can become viral within days. Our project we did was the dark kermit meme and this is by far one of the best because everyone can relate to it. We all have said one thing and our dark side has tried to tell us to do something different.

Most of the new technologies these days are all trying to be connected together in some way and I think that all communication platforms are trying to merge into something similar. It was interesting to look at how “stories” are becoming a new thing within all platforms. Snapchat started this and then Instagram and Facebook followed them shortly after. I think all platforms are trying to become one super platform, although that wouldn’t happen I feel like they are trying to compete with each other and bring in something from another platform. We all have used some of these platforms at one time in our lives and we will continue to use them because of the constant accessibility it provides us. Example would be how I have Xbox Live friends from all over the country that I have never met in person but I have them on facebook and talk to them daily. It just goes to show you what technology can do in the modern world.

I really enjoyed this class not just because we did a project on memes but we actually learned something about memes. I like how you try to teach a relatively interesting topic and made it your own. You didn’t follow some boring textbook and you took your own approach into this class and taught it how you wanted to teach it. I really enjoyed how we got to talk about new technology and how communication is changing day to day within our lives. You obviously are very passionate about your job and it shows when you teach. I think when you talk about topics in your class it isn’t like you’re pulling information out of your ass. Everything is so thought out and methodical.

The paper is going ok right now. finding sources is becoming a challenge and finding good sources that is. Most of the sources have good information but I have to make sure that the information is legit and not false information. My topic being how has youtube and twitch changed the way we view media. I am narrowing it down to how many people change from tv to another form of platform like youtube or twitch. This topic really interest me because I went from watching a lot of tv to watching internet personalities play video games. I find watching video games and watching people enjoy something that I enjoy is really what I love about these 2 platforms.

I will be looking at how Twitch has changed the way people consume media. The gaming industry has blown up recently and with twitch being a popular outlet it makes people want to stream even more. For example one of the most famous streamers right now makes around 300,000$ just playing games on a streaming service. Most of the streamers within the site are small but thousands of people a day stream their game play for anyone to watch. For me I watch a lot of gaming stuff so everything I watch is on YouTube and twitch because it’s more entertaining than watching TV for me. I want to know how many people have switched from TV to an online streaming platform like twitch. I am curious if people who watch twitch more want to watch TV or not really. I am curious to see the numbers of twitch viewers in the last few years. My group helped and gave me good feedback to help me narrow down what topic I want to specifically talk about.

I planned on talking to teachers about how technology has change the way they teach as well as how its changed teaching in general. I have already gotten some pictures of my classes and the technology being used I just have to finish capturing the images. I will interview my teachers to get a better idea of how they use new technology and how it changes their teaching styles and how it betters their classes. Most of the teachers that I have post stuff online and I would be curious to see what they say and think about online vs hard copy papers in this day and age. Also projectors are huge within the teachers that are at uww and it makes it easier to show all students something within the class rooms.

The 2 articles that really sparked my interest was the Google makes us stupid and Internet makes us smarter. I feel like its a really big toss up because the fact that everyone can search anything at any time during the day. Internet can make anyone more of an expert in a field just because they can google things and gain more knowledge. I don’t necessarily think google makes us stupid but I think it makes us not as knowledgeable on simple topics just because we can google it. You could say the same thing for really hard topics just because you can google everything and know everything on a topic just because you searched info. I think google and the internet can help us understand topics for research because I have written many papers on information that I knew nothing about. Being able to say google an address has saved me so many times in my life it is ridiculous. No matter what you say you will always have those people that just think kids don’t know anything because they can just google anything which is true but then there is some of us that really use google when we need it because we don’t know where we are or just don’t know what a topic is. I think internet and google is an amazing advancement for us as a society and yet people abuse them but in the long run I think it helps everyone out.

This week the articles really focus on the social media outlet of Facebook. The articles talk about Facebook is either making us lonely or not making us lonely. Some of the other articles talk about intimacy and identity through Facebook. The last one talks about modern media employers and how the application and hiring process is completely different now that back then. In my opinion I don’t think Facebook makes us lonely at all, we talked in class about how people will post or message someone and if they don’t get a response on a post or a message back then they think they aren’t important or left out of things. I think for me though I never feel lonely because people aren’t talking to me on social media or commenting on a post I make. I think people that rely on social media and responses from the media they are a more lonely or introverted person in person. For me if I message people and I don’t get a response I just talk to my friends in person and go on about my day. I never get lonely about people not talking to me on social media. I believe that people should be expressing themselves on social media but also trying to get out of their comfort zone in the real world. I use to be an introverted person growing up and very on my own and personal about everything. Once I hit college it was so easy to make friends and talk to people that I never really would talk to because they are more “popular” than me. I feel like social media is making it easier in a way to keep privacy of some topics and things in your personal life more secret but then again anything on the internet is view-able if you try hard enough. Identity is an interesting topic when it comes to Facebook and social media because the show Cat Fish really brings out the topic of people making themselves look better or play a certain type of person to get people to like them more. Cat Fishing is an easy way for people that don’t really feel like they’re good enough to find someone so they have to make themselves look better online. The last article in my opinion and my spin on it is a rather interesting thing. People don’t really take into account that anyone can see what you post and especially people that are hiring top level jobs. Why hire someone who post them partying all the time and post them doing drugs and drinking all the time. If you post certain things online people won’t hire you because you don’t seem like you would be committed to keeping a higher end job. all the articles were great and I tried to add my own thoughts on the articles and tried to put my knowledge that I have in the posts.

The Future of reputation is a great article that talks about someone that ended up on the wrong side of the social media. The article talks about a person that doesn’t pick up their dogs left overs and it went viral on social media. Social media is an amazing thing that has happened in the last 15 or 20 years. The down side to it is that no matter what happens and no matter what you post someone can find it and someone can share it all over. Social media isn’t always safe and even though you “deleted” it, it doesn’t matter cause someone somehow will find it and share it. One of the biggest things that happens to celebrities is the nude scandals and some of the biggest stars had them leaked and it just goes to show you that no matter what you keep private or send to maybe one person someone will find it and spread it everywhere. People don’t understand that everything can be found and one picture can be spread around the world. The social media world is a very vast and very diverse place. New social media pages pop up all over the place all the time. The internet as a teenager especially for me was a place to express my opinion and wouldn’t really care about what I said or looked up. My mom talked to me about how she would look at people’s Facebook’s before she would hire them for a job. She would say “why pick a person that looks like they party every weekend and do drugs?”. Teenagers just don’t understand that people can find anything and employers can find anything about anyone. So why post things that could hurt your future?? Well teenagers just don’t understand that the post can influence their lives and hinder their futures. The Norm about these situations is just that people pick up their dogs poop and people are starting to become more weary of these things and one people go away from these you can tell that people don’t appreciate it and don’t like that change.

Both readings had a very interesting take on technology and social media that I never really thought about. Technology and social media are an amazing way to spread yourself across the world. The first article talks about how 2 people met online and shared similar interest. They eventually started dating but they never even met in person until later on in their relationship. Most people that start a new relationship go to pubs or a club and meet people but since the invention or certain sites and pages you can meet people from anywhere. These 2 people fell in love without ever meeting each other in person, what was strange about their relationship is that they would send pictures and actual mail to one another. Of course nothing last forever and they had a falling out and ended up breaking up but then the main person met another person from Australia.

The next article is talking about theft of a cell phone that at the time was a rather expensive piece of technology. The sidekick at the time was a revolutionary phone and it made the phone industry change. The phone was a bigger screen and it had a keypad with it. You would just flip the screen and the keyboard would show and you would be able to type on it. The article talks about how theft of technology is a growing issues and can be very expensive for some people. They made a page for the phone and talked about it on the internet and eventually it gained so much popularity that it got to the police. The police got involved and tried to find the culprit that stole the phone. Especially now days when phones and technology is getting into the thousands of dollars technology is very intimate to a person and almost a necessity. A great thing about technology now is that almost everything has some sort of tracking device within the device itself.

Both articles were great and showed different sides to technology and social media. With one bringing 2 people together and the other one finding a lost device.