Politics

As a communication student I take interest in watch and reading political news. A key skill for any politician is the ability to communicate with the media whether in print, online, onscreen, or on air. Though “Convergence Culture” did not discuss Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, this would be a good example of how to effectively use convergence media. Not only did Obama rely heavily on grassroots organizers, he also utilized the power of mainstream media. He used social networking to communicate with younger voters and did television interviews for older ones. As “Convergence Media” pointed out the downfall of Howard Dean was his misunderstanding of the power of mainstream media outlets. I agree with the book that mainstream media still has much power in our society. For instance television still sets the agenda for politics and it is also the media that many people trust. Another element of news networks is repeated material that also reinforces messages, so getting a clip in the news can provide many free hours of free advertising.

Harry Potter

Reading:

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past decade you have heard of Harry Potter. Before reading about the Potter wars inConvergence Media I was only somewhat aware of the conflict between Warner Bros. Studios and the fan writers. The fact that these fan writers were in middle school and yet were writing novels is an incredible achievement. One of my best friends from middle school was very much into fantasy and he has been writing a fantasy trilogy, though I think he would be in the minority. The point that I’d like to make though is there was no Harry Potter or any other type of writing fan club at our school and yet this could have been very beneficial to the students. What I especially like about the writers fan clubs is that not only were these teenagers absorbing fantasy through reading they were also creating new entertaining content, challenging the studios and conservative church groups, and teaching themselves valuable skills not taught in the classroom. I wish that more schools would pay attention to convergence culture and try to integrate it into their curriculum. One thing that I have valued about my education is how much project based learning I have done. I feel that the classroom in traditional schools, and in many of my classes at Sonoma State, is a stale environment without creative interaction and learning taking place in groups. Also, project based learning requires the students to form group roles, set deadlines, and keep each other accountable. These are the same sort of skills required in the work world, your boss isn’t always going to tell you when to finish a project or what to do outside the office to prepare for an important meeting.

iHike:

Our group made good progress in our meeting. We nailed down what elements we want to have in our app and we assigned detailed roles for each group member. Before our next meeting I am going to find out how we can get access to Apples Developer Kit as well as research how we can get help from the IT center and computer science department.

Star Wars

Reading:

In the United States you would be hard pressed to find someone who has not seen at least one Star Wars episode and most people have probably seen most or all of them. Since the original episode aired though Star Wars has evolved into a franchise that crosses several media platforms and for people of my generation they may experience the Star Wars product more through games then the movies themselves. I have never been much of a gamer myself but I had friends who owned playstations and had some Star Wars games. I’ve even played some Star Wars games for PC.

I thought that it was interesting to hear that Star Wars Galaxies relied so heavily on user generated content. This definitely seams like something that would excite fans because you now are allowing the fans to feel like they are contributing instead of just being a passive player. I can also understand how this approach would not make traditional game companies happy because they do not have a stronghold on the content. So I was not entirely surprised that the Star Wars franchise eventually decided to make the game more mainstream and put the content creation back into the hands of the studios.

Another aspect of the reading that I found interesting was the issue of fan generated films. I agree that the cost of producing a film has come down considerable and that the internet makes distribution a much easier process. I thought that the decision that parody is OK but creating new plots was not was an interesting perspective. I was also intrigued that most parody is done by guys and that girls generate music videos.

Group Meeting:

During our group meeting we discussed key features that our app would provide. In choosing which features we want to develop we keep in mind not only what is cool but also what is feasible in the amount of time that we have. We choose to eliminate some complex features, such as the GPS tracking, since we were not confident we could implement said feature. The features that will be included will be a calculator for water and trail mix, the ability to post trail photos to facebook, the ability to rate trails and report cautions, and finally to get directions to trailheads by inputing the hike location via Google maps.

Entry 4

Blog Entry 4 Convergence Culture: This chapter was a great example of convergence culture in the film industry. When I watched the Matrix I was one of the people who did not cross other medias and play the video game or read the comics. Nevertheless I still enjoyed watching the Matrix and while I will admit at times I was confused because things seamed left out or did not add up, these moments were rare enough that they did not ruin the experience for me. I agree with the EA’s Young that the more layers you put on something the narrower the audience will be, yet despite this the Matrix was still a box office hit. The reason the Matrix was so successful was because the Wachowski brothers were able to take elements from the best human stories; the Odyssey, Lord of the Ring, and Star Wars and mold them into a new fantasy tale with heroes, evil, and a clearly stated mission, in a world that mirrored our own and therefore urged the audience to ask questions about humanity. New Media Language: People who have grown up with personal computers probably would describe computers as a tool rather then a companion. Yet, computers clearly have characteristics that mirror human behavior, and even though your computer may not speak to you like the computer in Star Trek, whenever we look at the screen the computer is communicating a message through visual imagery. Since subconsciously we want our computers to respond to use like a person would we should not be surprised that we try to create this illusion in virtual reality, whether we are talking about a dialog box, web page loading, or the cinema quality of a virtual world or virtual reality quicktime simulation. New Media Reader: There as a lot packed into this essay, yet the ideas were interesting to look at. I liked how the author was able to take multiple disciplines and work them together into his argument. For instance he used feminism theory to talk about the trend in Hollywood films to edit in ways that makes the camera move in voyeuristic ways. He also talked about a zoo and how that was an artificial recreation of something that was real and how the new creation shifted meaning because it was different from the original. R&D: http://www.mortaragency.com/agency/index.shtml What hit me right away when I went to this site was that it had my attention. The images on the site clearly communicate a message and the retro feel of the site reminds me of the “golden age” of media, yet the site still feels modern. I also like the navigation and the information the site provides. http://www.risdall.com/indexR.asp?Rpage=people.html This site I felt was too much image based. Although the pages loaded fast on my computer I would be worried about them loading quickly on a slower connection. Also the pages did not seam consistent and I feel that people could get confused. http://www.leoburnett.com/ I loved the opening animation of the pencil, though again I am not sure how this would load on a slower connection. This site is very visually based and that is appropriate for a media company. The music is subtle yet effective. I also like that there is a loading bar to indicate that the page is doing something and keeps you occupied while the page is appearing. Finally I like the navigation at the bottom and the pop up contextual menus. http://medialets.com/ This site is simple and well organized. Up at the top there are links to the important stuff like “What We Do” and “Who We Are” You can also easily access the companies blog media relations and get in contact. The text on the site is big and easy to read and the homepage loaded without any lag. hootsuite.com This is a twitter application for the iPhone and apparently now for Android too. The name is catchy and easy to remember. The app is also used by big media companies and it helps them brand their companies through twitter, but it can also be used by consumers. What I like about the site is that everything on the homepage is right there without you needing to scroll down. I also like how in the middle of the page there is sort of like a carousal of pages that scrolls from right to left. This looks great visually and also is an innovative way of making a site more interactive and saving space. http://www.ninetimes.com/ This is a Santa Rosa Media company that specializes in creating high impact illustrations and animations for the web, trade-shows, print, and other media. What I like about the site is that they have a slogan on the homepage with a cool animation of a cow jumping off a diving board. Immediately they have my attention and I want to explore their site more in depth.