Multimedia Tools

Sending messages have become way easier now that there are numerous methods and applications.  The use of multimedia has helped to illustrate those messages to the receiver or audiences.  By joining blogs and signing up for certain applications, one can gain information from a source daily and even hourly.  With this free application, http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html, you are able to record up to five minutes of video.  The site allows you to easily capture what you can see, record up to five minutes of anything that you find important and share the screenshots and videos all over the web quickly.  This is not the only site that can be used for this purpose; there are also others that will allow anyone to subscribe for a fee with unlimited recording.  For example, camtasia, the information for this site can be found at http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html.  Both of these sites can be used on either a Mac or a PC. 

                iMovie is also a good source to record videos that you would like to post, the only difficulty with using this method is that you can only use it on a Mac computer.  On many older models this application is already added to the computer.  This tool allows you to record and edit the information that you are trying to share with ease.  The link to the information and download for this application is http://www.apple.com/mac/imovie/.  For those of us that do not have a Mac computer, there is a Windows Movie Maker, http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/movie-maker  which is free or Adobe Premiere Pro, http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere.html that allows you to use e resource for a fee.

                The most familiar source and easiest to edit in my opinion is PowerPoint.  This is something that has been a part of Microsoft Office for many years and has evolved to allow you to add music or audio to any sideshow.  There is not continuous motion, like there would be in a video clip or movie, but it has the same impact.  This source is free and is already included on most computers with Microsoft Office.

                I think that iMovie, Windows Media Player and PowerPoint are the most used sources to share information.  There are plenty of tutorials to explain how to use each of them and use the latest technology.  If I were trying to share information to a wide audience I would use one or more of these methods and share it on YouTube or post it to a blog or website.

References

Adobe Systems Incorporated. Adobe Premiere Pro CC (2014). Retrieved from Website: http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere.html

Apple Incorporated. iMovie (2014). Retrieved from Website: http://www.apple.com/mac/imovie/

Educational Technology Resources. Multimedia Tools (2014) Retrieved from Website: https://aartechresources.wikispaces.com/Multimedia+Tools

Microsoft. Movie Maker (2014). Retrieved from Website: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/movie-maker

TechSmith Corporation. Jing (1994-2014). Retrieved from Website: http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

TechSmith Corporation. Camtasia (1994-2014). Retrieved from Website: http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html

The Budget Fashionista

The blog that I chose to discuss is a fashion blog.  The link is: http://www.thebudgetfashionista.com/ . This blog gives women simple fashion help and with keeping yourself looking good without breaking the bank.  I think that this is a a good idea, because what women doesn't want to look good.  I like the complete website because there is a place where you can get advice, tips, deals, beauty, style and more.  The blogger does not just post blogs, she also engages with the the viewers.  I think that this is a good way to give information when creating a blog.  It is  nice to know that the blogger does not just stop with what she thinks is important for her readers to know.  There is also a spot on the page that lists the most popular blogs and the latest blogs that are posted.  I think that this keeps the readers up-to-date and also keeps them excited about what is to come.  Her credibility is shown because she acknowledges when she uses a source and also has resources and pictures to back up all information.

Joe Paterno

Press Release:

As the head coach of The Pennsylvania State University Nittany Lions since 1966, Joe Paterno has become a nationally known coach and winner.  Paterno’s career ended on bad terms with his involvement in the scandal with Jerry Sandusky and child sex abuse charges.  He has been apart of the football program for 505 of the 818 all-time wins, he later resigned because of his omission of Sandusky’s involvement with children.   On Sunday morning, January 22, 2012, the prestigious ‘JoePa’ passed away of Lung Cancer.
-Penn State Athletic Department

References

Carey, J., Mihoces, G. and Smith, E. (2011). Joe Paterno to retire at Penn State at season's end.  Retrieved from Website http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/bigten/story/2011-11-09/paterno-resigns-penn-state/51137420/1

McCarthy, M. (2012).  Media dead wrong to repeat false report of Paterno's death. Retrieved from Website http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/01/media-outlets-dead-wrong-to-jump-the-gun-on-paternos-death-joe-paterno-poynter-cbssportscom/1#.U9pal-NdUz4

Penn State Athletics. (2011). Joe Paterno.  Retrieved from Website http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/paterno_joe00.html

Facebook Post:

The Penn State community has lost a well-known member of the football team.  Recently resigned head coach, Joe Paterno, has passed away with lung cancer on Sunday, January 22^nd.  He was the Head Coach for 46 years until the recent child abuse scandal that involved his defensive coordinator.  Paterno lead an impeccable career, he will truly be missed.

Social Media Tools

With the numerous social media tools available to get a message to multiple individuals throughout the world, it makes it so much easier to spread information.   In my opinion, the most effective would be mobile, real social syndication or RSS, and Twitter.  All of these resources have information that is immediately transmitted.  This makes it possible to share facts and information instantaneously. 

The mobile resource is a very reliable and efficient source.  It gives you the possibility of sending, receiving and viewing messages, all from your mobile phone.  These messages can be text, pictures and video.  You can also send a links to websites and have applications that the cell phone and smartphone user can look at or download from their mobile device.  I feel that this would be a great way to reach a large audience because of the possibility to send information to a vast majority with a click of a button.  There are many people with cell phones, “45% of all adults in the U.S. own a smartphone” (Mobile, 2013).

Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hiv-testing-care-services/id560141508?mt=8 This link tells the cell phone user where they can go for healthcare services.

                With RSS or real social syndication, each person that is subscribed to a website will get automatic updates sent to their emails.  This would be a good thing for websites because if there is any time sensitive information that you would like your users to know, they will find out as soon as it is added to the site.  The best thing about this source is that people can receive the latest information from websites that they are interested and all of the notifications are sent to them for free.  I chose this option because of the fact that you can always keep users updated with information at all times if they are subscribed.

Link: http://www.aidsmap.com/news/News-feeds/page/1444172/ This link gives you options of sites that you can subscribe to, to get the news of updates instantly.

                There are many different social sites that are used to get news and information to a large number of people at a time.  I believe that Twitter would be the best site because of the fact that the site is based on the updates of statuses, which can be used to inform the public.  Of course you will not be able to reach everyone but, “20.6 million U.S. adults access Twitter at least once a month” (Twitter, 2013). 

Link: https://twitter.com/pepfar This link shows the updates and statuses about women’s health and those that are dealing with AIDS.

References:

AIDS.gov. (2013). New media tools.  Retrieved from Website http://aids.gov/using-new-media/tools/index.html#tool-bookmarkingNew

Unrestricted Web Publishing 

DeMers (2008) discusses the evolution of news from print media to social media.  There are many different links in the article that gave examples or even went in depth about something that was already talked about in the article.  One of the referenced links reviewed was from a New York Times article discussing the extinction of print media (Carr, 2008). 

This article was a valuable resource because included in the article were other credible sources that were from interviews.  Also, Jayson DeMers is a business journalist with his email and contact information posted at the bottom of the page and there were recent publishing dates that stated when the article was printed and when it was put on the website. 

The original article (DeMers, 2008) further discussed how there is citizen journalism being used often to make sure that the station has coverage even when there are no journalists present.  This method helped a lot during many tragedies, and the articles used the Boston Bombing as an example.  The link that was used for information on the event was posted on Wikipedia.  As stated before, this is not a very reliable website for information because anyone can log on the site and change facts that they feel are incorrect.  Needless to say there is not author or contact information for the person that is writing it in the Wikipedia postings. 

This was a very important and popular subject around the world and had many articles that covered the story.  “Though many search engines rank material according to their idea of what is relevant, that doesn't mean the material is relevant to want you want or  is reliable” as stated by Montecino (para. 2, 1998).  There may be some credible information in the article, but you must check every statistic and statement you read.

With there being so many ways to gain information, everyone must make sure that they check everything for credibility at all times.  I think that with the fact that anyone can post what they want and call it news, it can make things confusing.  You could get three different versions of the truth.  This will make it more difficult for journalists to do their jobs, but also make sure that they go the extra mile to find the right sources.

Reference

Carr, D. (2008).  Mourning old media’s decline.  Retrieved from Website

            http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/business/media/29carr.html?_r=0

DeMers, J. (2013).  How social media is supporting a fundamental shift in journalism.  Retrieved

            from Website http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jayson-demers/how-social-media-is-

            suppo_b_3239076.html

Montecino, V. (1998).  Criteria to evaluate the credibility of WWW resources. Retrieved from

            Website http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm

Social Media and Truth

As I stated in my previous post, I do not usually watch the news.  I feel like there are too many sad stories being broadcast and I would rather pick and choose the news that I engage in by reading it off the internet or on social networks.  The social network that I used most often is Facebook, so that is where I usually stay in tuned with the world, from what my friends are sharing on my timeline.

            While I was reading statuses today I came across an article about a Detroit man’s missing son being found in his homes basement.  The boy was found in Wednesday and his stepmother Monique Dillard-Bouthell has been arrested for a bench warrant on an unrelated incident.  The boy, Charlie Bouthell V, 12, was found behind a barricade.  His father, also named Charlie Bouthell, was told about the discovery of his son while in an interview live on air with Nancy Grace.  Grace questioned the father, “How could your son be alive in your basement?” and a shocked Bouthell IV responded, “I have no idea” (WXYZ, 2014).   The mystery of the young child’s finding has stirred up many questions and the father has not answered any more questions and has hired a lawyer.  Bouthell IV states that there is no way that his son could’ve been in his basement for the two weeks he was missing because he has been in his basement several times and Detroit Police and the FBI have checked also.  The Detroit Police have also confirmed this statement saying that they checked four times even one with a cadaver dog, with no sign of the child.  The police said that he was found barricaded behind boxes and a 55-gallon drum, which causes the suspicion of whether or not someone was hiding him.  Detroit Police Chief, James Craig reported, “There’s no way he could have erected this makeshift are of concealment.  It would be hard for me to sit here and tell you that someone didn’t know that Charlie was there” (WXYZ, 2014).

            This information was reported on HLN’s show Nancy Grace, and then repeated on 19 Action News, Cleveland’s website.  I believe that all of the information on the subject is truthful, mostly because it was on a news station’s site, but also because I have read the same information on multiple news sites.  I think that there are times when the news that is found on social sites is reliable.  When you are finding information given by national news sites, their information is usually credible because they are a major news source for society.  In Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age if Information Overload, they mention social media sites as being a way to get news in different forms, like in blogs.  When referring to Twitter or social networking sites Kovach and Rostenstiel note that, “they are ways of conveying information, but they do not dictate the nature of the content conveyed” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2010).

References

WXYZ.  (2014). HLN'S Nancy Grace, via CNN: Stepmother in custody after missing Detroit boy found in basement. Retrieved from Website http://www.19actionnews.com/story/25877524/dad-told-on-live-tv-missing-son-found-alive

Kovach, B. and Rosenstiel, T. (2010). Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload.  New York, NY: Bloomsbury.

Social Media Influence

I can admit that I use social media during any downtime that I have during the day.  The site that I use most often is Facebook.  There are always different stories on my newsfeed, whether personal or global, and it helps me to stay in touch with many friends and family.  I don’t really watch the news, but I have been in touch with some of the trending topics.  This can be a good and a bad thing. 

The bad in it is because when I see the news stories on my Facebook, if there are not from a news site, I always feel the need to check the information with another source.  As David Weinberger discusses “what I'm saying in that little bit of subtitle is the facts aren't the facts” (Gladstone and Weinberger, 2012).  Even though I do this, there are many people that do not.  That is why there is a lot of false information out there. 

Although news is now at our fingertips and there are always updates to the stories, it can often become overwhelming to those involved.  Maureen Doherty, one of the witnesses from the overheating of the nuclear plant explained that the “situation changes hourly” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2010).  She was scared because of all the different things that she was hearing on the news and this was before social media, so I can only imagine it being worse. 

I also think that because there are hundreds of stories on my newsfeed about someone dying or a shooting or a fire it has caused me to become desensitized and to lose the sympathy that I would ordinarily have because it has become a normal instance.  The good in me using a social media site to keep up with what is considered news, is the fact that I can always check sources, there are always stories being delivered to me and my desire to stay in sync with the world is satisfied.

References

Gladstone, B. and Weinberger, D. (2012).  The changing nature of knowledge in the internet age.

Retrieved from Website

http://www.onthemedia.org/story/187775-changing-nature-knowledge-internet-

age/transcript/

Kovach, B. and Rosenstiel, T. (2010). Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload.

                New York, NY: Bloomsbury.