Project Thoughts

1) What are the key questions for your project so far? What evidence do you have relating to these questions?

Key questions that I have for my project: What angle would I want to take to further discuss the issues about social media? Yes social media is a very vast and can be vague topic to discuss in general; however, I wanted to target how social media is useful and how people are incorporating social media into their daily lives.


2) What do you like most about your project so far? If you were explaining your project to someone, and you were conveying what you like about it and why you're interested, what really good examples would you use? (Try for at least three...) Why do you like these examples?

What I like about my project so far is that although it is a general topic, I have the ability to take any angle I want when discussing social media. I have decided to prove that social media is not a fad and that it social media's rapid growth has allowed us to improve on how we interact and communicate with each other in the United States as well as around the world, internationally. What I specifically liked was that I found video clippings of President Obama saying he doesn't know who Snooki is when he was interviewed. However because of social media, he does now and when passing the new tanning tax he made a comment about "Jersey Shore." This shows that social media can keep almost anyone connected with what is going on in the world at anytime.

3) What citeable evidence is associated with these examples? The examples may be citeable in themselves, i.e. they may be a video or a text, but they may also be a trend or practice. So, how would the examples appear in your bibliography? Start by drafting "a statement of use" for each example, based on the definition above.

I took most of my statistics from multiple websites when compiling information into my trailer. I also used inspiration to see how people are connected with social media in general by re-reading mine and my classmates Diigo Links that were posted on the group we have generated.

my main question would be (at this point): Am I in the right direction with my Trailer video and my overall project goals of wanting to prove social media isn't a fad.

Lessig Chapter 6-8

In these sections of Lessig's Remix he discusses the importance about economy today and defines that it is split into two groups that exchanges general ideas or anything that they need to that can be shared. One group will directly give something like intangable or intangable to a second group, which then that second group will choose to directly or indirectly give something back to the first group. He proposes this idea as a sharing economy in his article since you are sharing information with people that you already know.

This coincides with his inital and overall message that everything does not really have a starting point since everyone naturally shares everything with each other. For example, when you're friend asks if you have taken a class before and you have the notes or a portfolio that you can lend them to help them get their own perspective, you have shared information. This is resuing and rebuilding information that you probably had gotten from elsewhere yourself.

He also talks a great number about Netflix and Amazon. On these websites, people are allowed to search for certain things to rent and/or buy (specifically movies when talking about them both). These websites have drastically changed, enhanced, and simplified the way we shop and rent movies today. Typically movies would have to be rented from a store like Blockbuster or bought from Wal-Mart; however since the immense increase in their services online, these companies struggle in technology.

Movie Trailer on Social Media

YAY! Watch my trailer about social media and how it has revolutionized the way we interact with each other.

Abstract Position

My topic is generally about how social media effects society today and proving any negative connotations about social media being a fad. Social media has rapidly increased over the course of the decade and even more so since the very first e-mail in the early '70s; however people are becoming so reliable on social media that they are starting to believe that it is only a fad. Yet it is the quickest and most reliable source of information that we have and is constantly improving on the way we interact with old friends and how we maintain and build relationships with new ones.

Lessig Response 3-5

While reading the next few chapters of Lessig’s “Remix” I was particularly interested in with the opening statement of chapter 3. Because how often do we retain information from just reading books, or listening to a song, or watching a movie…and then reiterate that quote or phrase or lyric to our friends because it means something to you. This is the RO culture that Lessig explains how we process and perform culture.

We’ve all used Napster, Limewire, Frostwire or some sort of file sharing host that allows you to download music for free. If you didn’t know, but it’s illegal to download free music because artists and producers pay a lot of money and time to record and release their albums to the public. That’s how they make a living as a career for them themselves and to build their record company’s brand as well as increasing popularity with fans. “The “natural” constraints of the analog world were abolished by the birth of digital technology” (Lessig). This then brought on the “piracy” law wars since there was no way to stop new technology from developing and/or redistributing copied music.

ITunes Music Store was proof that within three years of it being launched, 1 billion songs were downloaded in that time. “And while iTunes music was digital, iTunes tokens of digital culture contained a technology to limit their (re)distribution code (called FairPlay, a kind of Digital Rights Management, or DRM technology) was used to remake the code of digital tokens of RO culture” (Lessig).

Digital Technology is changing the way companies redistribute a lot of their material. For example, when the E-reader and Nooks came out, people did not have to physically go to the bookstore anymore to choose a book and read it in that same time they purchased it. Today we are seeing a faster approach to getting things when we want them in a higher demand.

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The information that I learned and expanded on in class this afternoon relates to what I posted this morning about Lessig's Remix. The three layers of writing (in examples) on the internet are: writing a blog post, someone coming in and commenting on that blog, and then linking my blog onto a site for everyone to read that has similar opinions. This relates to what we do everyday in multimedia writing because we post blogs about what is currently a topic and then comment on each others, which is linked onto a website. We are generally using Lessig's 3 layers of writing on the internet.

Trailer Ideas

I have been trying to pinpoint a specific topic to create my Trailer on. Since I am a public relations major, social media and its effects are an easy topic for me to choose. However, I have created a blog from last year about health and fitness. Naturally, I have become very knowledgable about this topic as well as having a personal interest in it.

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My thoughts about my trailer now have changed gears completely. I have decided to shy away from the healthcare idea for my trailer. I decided to do so because, although there are a ton of resources to maintain and track your diet online, it usually becomes the same few sites. Therefore, I have decided to create a trailer about the social media revolution itself. e.g. how it got started, how popular/important social media is now to companies, and how did social media evolve from previous media decades ago.

I would include still-shot pictures from past generations about media and incorporate live video about social media from today and how it works and wwhere is it advancing to.

Lessig Remixx

Very similar to Lethem’s article about copyright law, privileges and coincidences was Lessig’s “Remix.” We have all seen a million videos (I could be exaggerating) on the website YouTube. Some are parodies of a movie, some are direct re-enactments, and others however little there are… are original. It was heartbreaking to hear that the mother wanted to post a video of her infant son, but was violating copyright laws. This poses a question in my mind of, “What makes this video different from any other?” People sing and post cover songs all of the time; however that is not considered copyright infringement—at least not to the severity that the mother was threaten with. It just baffles me how someone can consider an innocent mother and child as violating copyright laws but when someone has a song mash-up, and post it, that’s not in violation. CRAZY.

In Lessig’s article, what really stood out to me was that we can only make the best progress when we are aware of all previous efforts. This generally means that our society is progressing and the only way to really achieve re-creation of a finished project is to be informed of what was done before you and giving credit where credit is due. “The extreme of regulation that copyright law has become makes it difficult, and sometimes impossible, for a wide range of creativity that any free society— if it thought about it for just a second— would allow to exist, legally.” Since the internet openly allows everyone to share their songs, art, literature and everything else publicly, it’s easier to trace back and define who was “first” to say it blatant; however there is no clean cut answer on where copyright laws are appropriate.