Final Exam

Review the eight New Media Strategies on the Moodle website for 9-15 Sept or here:
http://200.nmdprojects.net/nmd_strategies.html

New Media Technologies make new kinds of interaction, communication and power possible, and distribute this power to many more people. Each of the following eight new media strategies is a game-changing strategy common in New Media applications.

Your assignment is to do the following for each of the eight strategies:
1-Definition: Define each strategy in your own words
2-Class example: Cite (give URL, photo, and/or source) and describe an example of this strategy taken from course materials. Make sure you describe the project/usage, and how it is an example of the strategy.
3-Own example: Find your own example of this strategy (from another class, online, gallery, gaming, social media etc) and also describe the project/usage, and how it is an example of the strategy as above.
4. Copy each of the eigh strategies in your reply with their number, as below.

1. Upstage the Man
2. Crowdsource the job
3. Aggregate, automate, and visualize data
4. Mobilize people
5. DIY–Do It Yourself
6. Distribute and connect information
7. Share what was inaccessible
8. Tap into local networks

My Responses:

1. Upstage the Man.
To take attention away from a legitimate source in a humorous or ‘attention-grabbing’ way.

http://www.yeslab.org/yeslab.org/deport-the-statue
This video/ Article provided by the Yes Men Labs Upstages the man by hitting serious subjects of Women’s rights and immigration in a very humorous way, while taking attention away from what could be other “legitimate” news sources.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z8gCZ7zpsQ
In a very unserious manner, my own example of ‘Upstage the Man’ is a video of the VMA’s in which Kanye West literally Upstages Taylor Swift. This is an example of “Upstage the Man“ because Kanye took attention away from the legitimate winner of the award in an awkward, yet humorous way to prove his own point.

2. Crowdsource the job
To ask the community to help with a task that normally would need an expert to solve.

http://99designs.com/
99Designs is an amazing website in my opinion. I’ve used it before to get shirt designs for my band. This website crowdsources by someone submitting a design idea to this community of skilled artists, and they each come up with a design for a cash prize, or free, to meet the needs of the one who submitted the project idea.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/452758572/the-grind-rail-trail-cafe-something-cool-is-brewin
This link goes to my mother’s Kickstarter page for the coffee shop she is trying to open with her business partner and best friend. This is crowdsourcing the job because she is asking the general public for help with a task that normally could be done by one person with a loan. The public is able to contribute donations to this project and receive a gift from the Café once they reach their goal.

3. Aggregate, automate, and visualize data
To gather data, input it into computers via programming, and present it in a visually pleasing way.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization.html
This TED Talk describes the projects of David McCandless, who uses this New Media strategy in an amazing way. He Takes complicated data sets (Aggregate) and turns them, via programming (automate) into stunning diagrams that show unseen connections between his data (visualize).

www.facebook.com
Facebook is a brilliant example of this New Media strategy. It gathers user data over year of use, and presents it in a very pleasing way through its functions.

4.Mobilize people
To get people in motion on the streets or by using mobile devices like smartphones/tablets

http://tripline.net/trip/Map_of_the_Arab_Spring_Protests-2173004375451003A9ECA90105EA623D
This uses this strategy of Mobilizing the Public because this ‘Arab Spring’ event got people in that area of the world thinking about their own government via the internet/mobile devices. The mobile revolution got these people energized an moving towards something bigger than themselves.

https://twitter.com/
Twitter is a unique social media outlet because it touches upon so many New Media strategies, but I feel that it best uses Mobilize. Twitter allows people to give play-by-play updates on any event that could happen, mundane or world shattering. It’s because of Twitter that the Arab Spring really picked up because people could see what was really happening via tweet updates and got them energized and moving.

5. DIY
Very self explanatory, DIY means Do-It-Yourself!

http://www.instructables.com/
Istructables is a website that provides step-by-step DIY guides to the public for a variety of projects from cat playgrounds, to guitar tuners. This is an example of DIY because everything is done by the user, like uploading the guide, and making the project!

http://www.etsy.com/
Etsy is a webstore that is targeted towards ‘DIYers’ to create a marketplace for their self-made products. They make their own virtual shop and manage their sales and prices. This uses DIY strategies because the user does it all.

6. Distribute and connect information
To break up a problem into various parts so it can be worked out by different people and then connect their information to solve the problem.

http://www.bittorrent.com/
BitTorrent is a resource that allows the download of large files from users rapidly. It uses this strategy of New Media because the file downloads much quicker the more people seed it. It breaks up the work of your computer by distributing the work to those seeding the file, then brings all the data back together on your hard-drive in the form of the desired file.

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
This, or any, wiki is a good example of Distribute and Connect. The general topic of the wiki is broken up into more specific articles written by users and are then connected to create this database of Information regarding the Harry Potter Universe.

7. Share what is inaccessible
To share what was supposed to be classified information.

http://wikileaks.org/
This website is notorious for sharing classified information. This is the prime example of sharing what is inaccessible in my opinion. The sole purpose of this website is to share ‘leaked’ information, thus, sharing what was inaccessible.

ThePirateBay.Sx
(Didn’t post link because I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea if opened) But this infamous website shares millions of download files of any type. All free for the public to download, even files that aren’t supposed to be seen by the public, or the public isn’t supposed to have access to. In this way, ThePirateBay is a good example of Sharing what is Inaccessible.

8. Tap into Local Networks
To collaborate with a local area to solve a problem.

http://www.transitionnetwork.org/
Transition Network.org is a website that shows local towns transitioning into greener, more sustainable environments to live. This class example is tapping into local networks because these local areas are finding a problem with their living conditions, finding a greener solution to it, and acting upon it using their own local networks.

Minecraft collaborative art/projects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOUKfivvzcA
This is one of many examples of the Minecraft community tapping into it’s artistic network to make a better form of play/art in it’s own infrastructure. This example is a collaborative project to recreate the Hunger Games in this virtual space.

 

How does your class project make use of the NMD strategies?

Describe all relevant strategies and how each is used by your project, and explain how it empowers your project to accomplish its goals in a way that may not be possible for a non-New Media approach.

You may discuss this as a group, but your answers should be individual–your own ideas, your own words–based on whatever interactions help you think this through.

 

My Responses:

2. Crowdsource the job.
We rely heavily on this strategy because the entire premise of our project is to get user interaction in submitting their on found locations. If we didn’t use the crowdsourcing strategy we would not have had such a successful project because our locations would be lacking in number. Our group is only able to do so much.

3.Aggregate, Automate, and Visualize Data
We gather all information submitted from crowdsourcing and input it into out database and in turn output it via our website in a visually pleasing and simple to use way. This strategy is what our while project is based off of. Of we didn’t use this strategy we wouldn’t have a database.

4.Mobilize People.
This strategy goes in hand with crowdsourcing in my opinion. We mobilized people to get out there and gather images and videos of locations they felt needed to be in this database, and then using crowdsourcing techniques, import their data into our Facebook page so we could then post it.

5. DIY
Users are able to get out there and gather locations any way they deem fit, There’s no pressure or time limit, all they have to do is find a location, and do it themselves!

6. Distribute and Connect Information
Like my previous example of Wiki pages, our database takes a general mission and distributes work to the users to gather data and place it into our database as specific articles, then it helps build the database as a whole.

8. Tap into local networks
We haven’t done so yet, but we plan to utilize local restaurants and diners by giving them our coasters with our information on them to help promote what we’re doing. other than that, we have used our friends in film and New Media classes on campus to gather data and help us make the best location database we can.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By Zackary Davis