Project thoughts

1) What are the key questions for your project so far? What evidence do you have relating to these questions?
-Is social media just a fad? Will it be able to last? I believe that my project and evidence presented in it will prove that social media may be a fad, but that it is likely to last because it has thrived through many different changes such as a variety of social media platforms which I talk about in my project.
Do people actually rely on social media as much as some people claim? My project and the stats I'll use in it will prove that the majority of people do use and rely on access to social media.
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?
-I like that by going through the history of social media I'm able to show how it evolves which I feel proves that it will only continue to evolve. I think that my project provides evidence of this because I talk about how many social media platforms were based almost identically to previous platforms.
-I think that the statistics that I used in my trailer and plan on using throughout my project help to add credibility to the point I'm trying to make. The numbers that I use are evidence that my project isn't simply based on opinion.
-I think that by talking about how much social media has evolved over time helps to prove my point that it can survive change and still thrive, grow, and be just as much if not more important to most people over time.
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 will cite sources that I've used for my statistics that I've gathered as well as for the images I've used in my trailer. As my writing for the project continues, I will likely gather more information from other sources on the internet such as blogs that focus on social media's use.

My main question and concern about this project is whether or not my topic is something that I'll be able to work well with throughout the rest of the semester. I'm not sure if it's something that will be interesting or important enough to work with and add something to the overall group project.

Thoughts on abstract

The way that social media has infiltrated our lives and changed the majority of the aspects of the way we live. How social media has become more prevalent over time and how it has evolved. What social media was developed from, what the consequences of our immersion into social media are. How social media has become so involved that it now includes things like ways to shop without leaving your house and being able to play a game with someone you've never met thousands of miles away.

Thoughts on Lessig Chapters 6-8

The most interesting part of these chapters of Lessig for me was his focus on things such as Netflix and Amazon and how they've changed the way that many people interact within the economy and how the economy operates in general.

Things like Netflix and Amazon allow people looking for certain items such as a movie to rent or something they're able to purchase over Amazon are no longer made to interact face-to-face with the person representing the business loaning them the movie to rent or handing them the item they've purchased. Netflix and Amazon have so drastically changed the way people rent movies and shop that similar businesses such as Blockbuster and Wal-Mart have had to adapt their services in order to compete and not fall behind in the technology department.

It is extremely interesting to think about a business like Wal-Mart that has been around for many, many years and how much it has had to evolve in order to remain in competition with these new e-based businesses that have changed the way the vast majority of people shop and do other things that once were unable to do without visiting a business in person.

Social Media History Trailer

Thoughts on Lessig Chapters 3-5

The part about these chapters of Lessig that I found the most interesting was the paragraph or so about being free to read what we want, when we want, but not necessarily being able to do the same thing with regards to television and movies.

I think this statement is interesting because, somewhat recently, reading books has become even easier to do. With the release of e-readers, people who enjoy reading can now sit down in their favorite, comfy chair, skim through a seemingly endless list of book choices, purchase their chosen book without moving from their chair, and begin reading it almost instantly. In my opinion, reading is one of the most easily accessible hobbies that one can have. Though e-readers aren't necessarily cheap, once you have purchased one, you no longer have to travel to a bookstore where you will pay more for the book you're wanting to read.

These chapters also mention iTunes and how it was very important in helping to save the music industry by making digital copies of recordings available for a price and also making them in a format that would not allow for them to be reproduced and shared. I think that iTunes is for music, television, and movies what e-readers are for books and magazines. Instant access for a smaller fee without having to leave your home is the reality for people in the 21st century.

I think that my blog post is loosely related to Lessing's idea of community.

Community is the idea that there are countless numbers of groups in the world that can be based on any number of combinations of grouping tactics.

People who own and use e-readers are a community, people who create free content for e-readers are a community, readers in general are a community. These communities have been formed based on a common appreciation for something and in this case it happens that they were formed over an appreciation for a type of media and/or a format to access that media. The people who create free content for e-readers as well as the people who leave a comment on the page of a book about their opinion on it are all creating a certain type of media.

Thoughts on upcoming trailer

I've been thinking about the best way to go about my trailer and I'm still not entirely sure. I know that I want to focus on social media because a lot of my interests are in the usage of social media in public relations, but I feel like that would be too specific for a short trailer.

I'm thinking I'll probably use images and videos collected from all of the most popular social media websites and just collage them together to a song that I feel fits well with the images. I think that I want the images to portray all of the social media avenues that are available to people today and how they can be used (blogging, picture sharing, video sharing, social interaction).