Types of Media

Types of Media

We can start our discussion of media by defining and describing different kinds of media that children are using today. Modern media comes in many different formats, including print media (books, magazines, newspapers), television, movies, video games, music, cell phones, various kinds of software, and the Internet. Each type of media involves both content, and also a device or object through which that content is delivered.

Print Media

The term 'print media' is used to describe the traditional or "old-fashioned" print-based media that today's parents grew up with, including newspapers, magazines, books, and comics or graphic novels. Historically, only wealthy publishers had access to sophisticated type-setting technologies necessary to create printed material, but this has changed in recent years with the widespread accessibility of desktop publishing software and print-on-demand publication services such as Lulu.com (LINK). More recently, electronic book readers such as the Amazon Kindle which store hundreds of books on a single device and which allow readers to directly download books and newspapers have become popular.

Television

Television has been entertaining American families for over fifty years. In the beginning, there were few programs to pick from, but today, there are literally hundreds of general and specialty channels to choose from and thousands upon thousands of programs. Where it was once the case that programs had to be watched at the time they were broadcast on a television, this is no longer the case. Today, viewers can summon a movie or television episode whenever they want, through many cable or satellite services' pay-per-view or free on-demand services. They may also download or stream episodes from the Internet and watch them on their computers. Viewers may use DVR (digital video recorder) devices, such as a Tivo to record programs at one time and watch them at another time. Viewers with certain cell phones may even watch programs through their cell phones.

Movies

Movies (films) are the oldest form of motion picture technology capable of capturing lifelike video-style images. Originally, movies could only be consumed at a neighborhood movie theater, but these days movies are widely available for people to consume in their homes, on their computers, and even in through their telephones. Commercial movies are broadcast on television, and via cable and satellite services which may feature High Definition (HD) video resolution and sound, essentially allowing the movie theater experience to be replicated in a home theater environment. Commercial movies are also distributed on DVD and Blu-Ray disks, which can be rented from stores and through-the-mail services such as Netflix, and through downloadable computer files, which can be legally downloaded from movie rental services such as Amazon and iTunes or streamed through Netflix or on-demand cable services. Home movies produced by amateurs with inexpensive video cameras are now also widely available through video sharing websites such as YouTube.com and Vimeo.com.

Video Games

Available since the early 1980s, video games have only grown in popularity among youth. Today's games make use of advanced graphics and processors to enable three dimensional game play featuring highly realistic landscapes and physics simulations, and the ability to compete against other players through a network connection. Modern video games are immersive, exciting and increasingly interactive. Players feel like they really are in the situation because of the life-like graphics and sounds. Through video games, youth can extend their pretend play, as they become soldiers, aliens, race car drivers, street fighters, and football players.

Popular gaming consoles today include Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation III. There are also hand held consoles which enable mobile game play such as Nintendo's DS. As well, some video games can also be played on personal computers. Most video games use a hand-held device with buttons, joysticks, and other devices for manipulating the characters on the screen. However, the newer games systems use motion-detecting sensors, such as accelerometers which encourage players to move their entire body to complete game activities. For example, in Wii Tennis, a player swings his entire arm to have the player on the screen hit the tennis ball.

Games such as the recently popular World of Warcraft are played in a networked universe shared simultaneously by thousands of gamers at once. Players may be across the street from one another or across the globe using the the Internet to participate in a shared three-dimensional world in which each player can control one or more avatars, and chat using text or voice.

Reflection:

There are many different kinds of social media, and they are used in many different ways. You have the usual sites that people go on to reconnect with people and find out what’s been going on with their old friends that they haven’t talked to in a long time. But, you also have different sites that people use to share their photographs with others, sites that users use to find recipes, and sites that are for different fandoms. What all these different sites have in common is that they connect people with similar interests and make them feel like part of a community, which is something that many people crave. They want to be accepted for who they are and these different sites help to make them feel that acceptance that they are looking for. But, these sites also help others to become more involved in their interests with others on the web who are interested in the same things as they are.

When thinking about the “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” article by Stephen Marche, people have to realize that Facebook might be making some people lonely, but for others, it’s making them feel more connected and a part of something even if the people they are interacting with aren’t currently in the same vicinity as them. Also, many people think that by only interacting online that people are missing out on different interactions that can only be achieved by communicating with someone in person. I would say that as long as a person doesn’t live online and only talk with people that way it can be a bad thing. But, if you do it to talk with those that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to talk with, then it’s not such a big deal. It’s enabling the user to be able to do something that wasn’t as easy in the past.

With my experience in these different sites, Facebook in particular, is that they can become addicting to people who’ve never used this kind of technology before. It can become addicting because many people see how easy it is to get in touch with people that they haven’t talked to since high school or college. I’m not saying that it’s bad to reconnect with people with your past, but there needs to be a line between getting on the site multiple times a day and just getting on once a day.

When dealing with sites that are different from Facebook and Twitter, you have to apply similar but different rules because not every site is the same. The way that people use Facebook might not be the same way that they use Reddit or Flickr because the way that people use them is very different. Each site has it’s own uses and while some might be similar they are all unique and are used for different things. For instance, Reddit is a site that is based mostly in fan fiction and fandom, meaning that it’s a place where many people go to geek out about different things that they find fun or interesting, usually about different video games, books, movies, etc. but it’s also not limited to these topics. Flickr, on the other hand, is used for people to display their photos and look at others photos that they like or would like to be like.

When it comes to using Reddit, it was a similar experience, but I had heard quite a bit about it before hand and that was one of the reasons that I decided to use it for this project. Many of the people that use this site tend to be more on the end of geeks who enjoy looking at gifs, images, and even fan fiction about games, movies, or books that they can geek out with others who share their interests. With this sites base users being gamer I figured that I would end up loving this site, but that didn’t end up being the case. This site had a very difficult layout to understand, but for those who understand the layout and how to navigate the site, it can be a lot of fun and has quite a lot to offer.

These two sites are the ones that I decided to use for my social media project and they were not exactly what I was expecting. With each site I had a certain expectation that about what I thought the site was about and how I would use it. When it came to using Flickr, I figured that it was a site dedicated to displaying pictures and looking at others pictures because you wanted to see the different things that can be done in photography as well as show off what you have done. This site overall was a bit difficult for me to navigate and get a handle on how everything worked. For people who really like photography, this is the site for you, but for me, not so much.

Between the two sties, Reddit gives users a bigger opportunity to write than Flickr does. On Reddit, any user can put their fan fiction they wrote on the site, as well as any other written document that they want to share with that community. Where as on Flickr, the only writing is in naming your pictures, searching different types of pictures, and commenting on people’s pictures.

What I’ve learned about these different sites, as well as the ones that I already use, is that social media can do many different things and those things are only good or bad, but that all depends on the user. Also, especially in reference to Marche’s article, I would say that sites like Facebook only make us as lonely as we let them. We are in control of how we let these types of sites affect us.