Worries About Digital Media

Social Political worries seem, to me, to be the scariest of the worries about Digital Media. There is an array of photos and information about people's personal information and lives. Personal info is a click away for any creep or stalker to get to. There is no more privacy and personal stuff, everything is becoming more public and easy to get to. Its a current that keeps growing and is becoming impossible to stop. I completely agree that "the social-political worries have a current face that looks like traditional forms of control, authority, secrecy, and privacy are dissolving right before our very eyes, melting in the electric current. But such worries also have a deep-historical dimension, related to the histories of science and democracy."
People are lazy and too nosy, which is a bad mix with the internet. It creates time for invasion of privacy and stalkery.
Wikileaks is just a example of social political worries. Its a website where secrets and information are waiting to be looked at, and analyzed.


Social-interpersonal worries seem to focus on the self. What do i look like to others? Where do I fit in my class of friends? Facebook is just one example of how people try to control how others view them. You want to seem a certain way so you don't have to worry about the self image. But these worries are also helpful in a way because they help people interact face to face as well.


Psychological-emotional worries are also one of the scariest worries about digital media. People can just become so obsessed and addicted to the internet and what people are doing and thinking online. For some people, its the only way to express themselves without actually getting nervous or shy. Internet addiction is easy to get because people can feel like they are with a thousand people at once, even though they are completely alone. Also, the internet is the only way for certain people to get their insecurities and frustrations out. its not healthy but its a habit and addiction for some.


Psychological-cognitive worries are strange to me. I never thought that people could become close-minded from the web, but i can kind of see how its possible. I guess it can take away your sense of feeling and self-thinking. It can also take away your creativity and idea of self. People also start forgetting our history and only focus on the present second, which isnt a big problem, but it can cause one to become close-minded.


Behavioral-practical worries are also scary. I completely agree with your statement..."I think we we need to be able to make behavioral adjustments if we are spending too much time in front of screens and not enough time up on our feet moving around, going outdoors, etc."
People are becoming more and more lazy and boring. What happened to outside, swimming, dancing, singing, etc? DM seems to take the fun out of books, music, games, and movies. Things are becoming more and more available online, so people keep finding more and more reasons to not get out of their rooms and houses.


I had a problem and a worry with DM myself, for awhile in middle school and early high school all i did was sit on myspace and facebook for hours and make myself depressed and alone. I isolated myself just because of a social network meant for connecting to others. I stopped doing my homework and I stopped being confident and I stopped being social. I realized how powerful and addiction the web really is. You need to stay in control. Can't let the web control you.

About My Video

Making a video with Camtasia was soo much fun! I have never actually made a video on the computer like that before. It was very useful to know how to cut and rearrange clips and sounds. Editing and making the video my own was just an overall interesting and fun experience.
In my video, I was trying to convey the beautiful and mystery that lies behind photography and Wikileaks. I was trying to compare Julian Assange and the footage of the war to the dangers and mysteries that are out there in our world and on our web. I added in the Local Natives' "Who knows, Who Cares" because i thought it fit with the feel of the piece.
I messed around with the pitch and color of my video as well just for fun, it was a lot of fun! I also put in clips of photos that are famous and have touched our nation just like Wikileaks have. I really enjoy the last few clips on my blog as well, which are connections ive made between photography, the power of it, and the power of wikileaks. then i end it with marylin monroe kissing the viewer goodbye.

What Digital Media Is!?!?!?!?!?!

The podcast you had us listen to was awesome. Sounds like you are really interested and intrigued by digital media, which is really thrilling and awesome. From your podcast, i got that Digital Media is a powerful electric current that connects things and holds things together. Its a glue that holds our society together and connects and intertwines people and their lives. And its constantly changing the way we view things. It is also constantly changing, itself. Everyday, Facebook and Google seem to have different designs and applications.
I like what Lev Manovich has to say about digital media. He said that digital media is "the translation of all existing media into numerical data accessible through computers. The result is new media--graphics, moving images, sounds, shapes, spaces, and texts that have become computable..." I would completely agree with that. But i also think its something completely bigger and smarter than we think it is.
The article on sample rates when right over my head. Something about combining to waves to create a completely new sound wave and frequency or something, right? haha
I LOVE MODERN TIMES, best film ever. Chaplin is totally commenting on the speed our society and machinery work. What happened to taking one's time? I admit that I am very impatient in real life and on the internet. Our society has lost the importance of patience and time. I love when Chaplin actually gets sucked into the machine and goes with it. I also love the very beginning when he compares the pigs to the men going to work.
I didn't really like the YOUTUBE video DO YOU KNOW, they make it sound like speed and change are kind of a bad thing, when that doesn't necessarily have to be true.
The ATOMIC TOM video was fucking amazing!!!! That was insane, like a free advertisement for APPLE and a free concert for the people of the subway
A remix manifesto is awesome! Brett Gaylor did an awesome job covering the copyright information and the mixing and matching of music and media. It covers Girl Talk, who mixes music and is at the top of the charts.

I think, overall, digital media is a growing, constant changing current that connects every living being. I think Chaplin showed it the best, its a machine that can suck you up if you can't control it. We, as artists and humans, must find a balance between digital media and real solid life.

Boundary Dissolutions in life.

The articles on digital media and the blending of thoughts and emotions and the blending of boundaries in life were very interesting and I actually found a big parallel that relates in my life. I've realized a big dissolution of boundaries in my own life recently. The connection between my art, here at UNCSA, and my academics. I've noticed since I've come to UNCSA that the disconnection between my academic classes like English and History have actually come to become more connected and intertwined. UNCSA itself actually dissolves the boundaries between academics and arts so that the students can find connections easily and, in the end, it makes learning more fun.
I've learned from the articles and videos that the digital world is becoming very intertwined and boundaries between music (remixing and "dubstep") and videos and digital media in general are becoming seem to becoming non-existent. Artists are now rearranging songs with new beats and giving the techno-rhythms that could never be thought possible 20 years ago.
I have also noticed from the articles that this digital media age that we are in is growing by the day. It seems like only yesterday when the personal computer was here, and now we have blu-ray and Wii's and all this technology that is blending our entertainment, in general.
The boundaries of video games and movies are also dissolving as well. Video games are slowly starting to become more and more like movies. Their are cut scenes that flow just like a film and they are even hiring famous actors to do the voices and even the movements for the characters.
Boundaries in the media world are slowly dissolving into nothingness. The digital media world is just too powerful and fast for things to not connect.

Making this was a lot of fun! I've never actually used audacity before and I liked it so much I got it for my laptop. Being able to mix Larry King talking about Julian Assange with sounds of a camera and a song is very powerful. The ability to mix and remix material is becoming so simple and available that it seems like a child could do it. I really enjoyed now easy it was to cut and paste, and even add effects to the sounds on Audacity. I also like the hijacker application that allowed me to easily record things straight off the internet. This was very fun, B. King. I really am learning a lot about the digital media world and the fun and availablity there is to mixing music and sounds.

Collage For Wikileaks and Photography!

Images really can have a flood of information resonating within them.  The jumble of pictures and the informality of it really helps show what happens when one looks a photograph.  Waves of thoughts and feelings and words are washed over the viewer and they are overtaken by what the picture is saying.  Photography is unlike any art form because it has the possibility to immediately affect the viewer within warning.  Writing a text composition about photography and making a collage of actually images have two completely different effects for the viewer.  Simply talking about how images have the power to resonate deep within people and actually seeing a photograph and having it resonate are two completely different feelings.  I didn't use a lot of text on my collage because I wanted the photographs to do most of the talking.  I felt like if my collage was overrun with text then I would be totally missing the point of my collage.

Blog about Intellect and Creativity.

Thich Nhat Hahn's poem, Being Peace, is a very creative and true poem.  Hahn says that in a piece of paper, there exists everything and nothing.  There exists a cloud, trees, sunlight, the sky, etc.  Hahn seems to be taking intellect to a whole new creative stage.  Hahn has come to the intellectual conclusion that everything runs in a cycle of circle, so everything is connected to everything else.  So that must mean in one sheet of people, there exists emptiness.  Which is the creative sense of the word, is everything one can think of.
"The Avatamsaka Sutra tells us that you cannot point to one thing that does not have a relationship with this sheet of paper. So we say, “A sheet of paper is made of non-paper elements.” A cloud is a non-paper element. The forest is a non-paper element. Sunshine is a non-paper element. The paper is made of all the non-paper elements to the extent that if we return the non-paper elements to their sources, the cloud to the sky, the sunshine to the sun, the logger to his father, the paper is empty. Empty of what? Empty of a separate self. It has been made by all the non-self elements, non-paper elements, and if all these non-paper elements are taken out, it is truly empty, empty of an independent self. Empty, in this sense, means that the paper is full of everything, the entire cosmos. The presence of this tiny sheet of paper proves the presence of the whole cosmos." (Being Peace)

What the site,  Meeting Macomber: Remixing Intellect and Creativity, had to say about Macomber's work really reminded me a lot of the arts, specifically acting.  It is said that Macomber "appeared to be moving about the world in those days as a kind of "column of air". Everything about him: his music, his beliefs, his aspirations, his everyday life, the way he dressed, it was completely aligned, completely undifferentiated, completely pulled into an absolute vertical in his speech and breath."
  Creativity is at its best when everything is aligned and synchronize, and that can only be done correctly with intellect.

"Engage in creative work intelligently, and engage in intellectual work creatively." (Media Studies: A field guide)

Very true and inspiring words to live by.  Creativity and Intellect are virtual useful without the other one on board.  Its necessary to being thinking intellectually while being creative in a certain topic, for example acting or photography.  One must think of how others will perceive a certain character or photograph, so that it can be intriguing and desirable to look at.
But it is also necessary to be thinking creatively while being engaged in a intellectual topic, for example writing and essay for an English class.  One must personalize and put together a unique, creative paper for it be to solid.  A paper with no creativity and just facts and intellect thrown on a page is just boring.