Multimedia Tools

Multimedia plays a huge role in enhancing our messaging by allowing us to create our own online style and personality that best represents us when it comes to the world of online media.  You can make personalized slideshows, video clips, and movies, and you can share images, text, and music that fits into your own individual style.

Tmblr is one of the best examples of multimedia tools to share images, text, and videos that represent an individual’s specific taste and style in the form of a blog.  The tagline for Tumblr is “Post anything (from anywhere!), customize everything, and find and share what you love.” 

Here’s a link for Harry Potter on Tumblr, which covers anything and everything that a Harry Potter fan would want to see!  https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/harry-potter.

SoundCloud is another great example of incorporating multimedia tools.  SoundCloud allows users to upload, record, promote, and share their own music and sounds.  It allows users to gain an audience and attract listeners with similar taste and interest in music, for both known and up-and-coming artists.

Here’s a link to SoundCloud for their currently Trending Music page https://soundcloud.com/explore. 

Best Practices

The blog I chose to analyze is What Courtney Wore by Courtney Kerr.  The blog is primarily a fashion blog, or “style diary” as she likes to call it, where Courtney discusses different outfits she wears along with places she travels and new things she finds along the way.  I first came across the blog after watching her very own reality TV show that airs on Bravo.  I find that her blog is very informative when it comes to fashion and accessories, and she’s always posting things she loves and knows that her readers will love as well.  I also really like that fact that when she posts a new blog with a new outfit she includes a link to a stores website, which are usually pretty affordable, so you can have the chance to get the same great look as well!

To me, in order to have a greatly functioning blog, it is best to know and understand the interests of your readers.  If you want to have a successful blog I feel that if you listen to what your readers are looking for, you can learn to cater to their interests by also adding your own personal style.  Putting your own ideas into the common interests of your readers or followers will really help you become successful, all while keeping your readers happy, and to me that’s exactly what Courtney does!

 

Here's the link to What Courtney Wore!  http://thecourtneykerr.com/

Press Release

PRESS RELEASE:  January 22, 2012:  Joe Paterno, head football coach of the Nittany Lion of Penn State, has passed at age 85 from a long battle with lung cancer.  Surrounded by family, Paterno lost his battle to lung cancer that had been diagnosed back in 2011.  As the head football coach from 1966-2011 for Penn State, giving him the record for the most seasons for any football coach at a single university.  Paterno is survived by his wife, Suzanne; their five children, Diana, Joseph, Mary Kay, David, and Scott; and seventeen grandchildren.

 

Facebook:  So shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of Joe Paterno.  What a great coach Penn State was honored to have for so many years!  He had such a great vision for NCAA football, and he will always be remembered and great missed! RIP JoePa!

Social Media Tools

There are numerous social media tools available today for all audiences across the board.  There are so many tools out there with such a variety of capabilities that can make different impacts on its users, it can be hard to pick just a few favorites.  Below are my three choices of social media tools that effectively impacts users and enhances information sharing in different ways.

When it comes to online photo sharing sites, Instagram is probably the newest and most popular one out there, and it also happens to be one of my favorites.  Instagram, just like many other photo sharing sites, allows you to upload, edit, and share photos where you can post them either publically or privately for all of your followers to view, like, or comment on.  You start by choosing a photo you want to upload.  Then you can crop, edit, and pick the perfect filter for your photo.  Next, you can write something about the photo using hashtags, followed by tagging anyone else in the photo and the location the photo was taken.  After that, you even have the option to share this photo with other social media sites, including Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter.  Once you have uploaded the picture, every single one of your followers will have access to it.  This makes not only viewing, but sharing information about what you are doing, what you are interested in, or anything else that is important to you a lot faster and easier.  Photos can be shared with not only your followers, but anyone else in the world who has similar interests as you by simply by using the same hashtags as what are used in your photo.  Below is the link to Oprah Winfrey’s Instagram where you get an inside look into not only what she has been up to but also the things she likes, the people she is close to, and all of the places she has been with one simply click of the mouse!

http://instagram.com/oprah  (Link to Oprah Winfrey’s Instagram)

Another great social media tool I recently become interested in is webcasts.  One great webcast source I have found to be really informative and enjoyable to watch is the Ted Talks.  Ted Talks is a community that covers all topics and worldwide issues from across the globe, where they exchange ideas and knowledge to viewers of all beliefs, cultures, and communities.  Ted Talks is available to stream live conferences, but also always viewers to go back and view new and old Talks on their own time after they originally air on the webcast.  Ted Talks allows audiences easy and convenient access to their videos that cover a variety of current events, important topics, and global issues.  Below is a link to one of my favorite, and definitely entertaining, videos from Ted Talks which shows how effective and important social media sources are to our daily lives and how it can have so much control on everything we do.

http://www.ted.com/talks/gel_gotta_share  (Ted Talks video – Gotta Share! The Musical)

 Pocket, another social media tool that I recently discovered, is a tool that allows social bookmarking.  By using Pocket you can save the link directly to the app or even email the link directly to your Pocket account, and it is then saved in the app for later viewing any time at your convenience.  I really have come to enjoy using this app, because it allows me to bookmark many different sites, like Twitter or Facebook, without having to take up any extra space on my phone.  With Pocket you can save articles, images and videos directly to your account.  You also have the ability to share and send Pocket bookmarks to others, as well as receive bookmarks that have been shared to you.  Below is the link to the Pocket website, where you can easily learn how to bookmark links and share them to others users in a few simple steps!

https://getpocket.com/  (Link to Pocket)

Unrestricted Web Publishing

I chose an online news article from The New York Times titled In Coverage of N.F.L. Scandals, Female Voices Puncture the Din.  The article is about the recent controversy over domestic violence charges against two N.F.L. players, the effect their stories have on the N.F.L. fan base, and how it has become a groundbreaking moment for female sports broadcasters to provide a women’s perspective that has developed into “a turning point that could bring them more fully into the conversation” (Mahler, 2014).

The article sites several other news sources, including other sports related sites, news articles, and video clips.  The most common sources the article used was from ESPN SportsCenter and espnW, CNN, The Washington Post, SB Nation, the Boston Herald, and Fox Sports.  I find that all of the source are all very credible based off of multiple reasons.  First, they all offer articles or news information posted from credible journalists who have been following and reporting on the story from the beginning, and they all have a connection to the story by either first-hand experience, or by understanding because of the female perspective they have to offer.

The author of the article, Jon Mahler, has been a writer for the New York Times Magazine for over a decade, and is also a best-selling author.  He has written numerous sports related columns, articles, books, and cover stories (Lynch, 2014).  Also, the article shows its credibility by including information that has been collected within the last few weeks since these domestic violence issues became public.  All of the information from each news source is collected from a professional website from professional organization, many of which are specifically sports organizations.

This article shows the capability of how powerful unrestricted web publishing can be when used through mass media.  It allows writers to gather information from multiple stories, which in this case allows the author to gather stories from multiple sports related sites, journalists, and broadcasters.  Unrestricted web publishing also can benefit audiences because it gives them the opportunity to read an article that has information from many other sources, which can give them the most reliable and helpful news combined into one story.

 
Lynch, M. (2014, March 28). Jonathan Mahler to join Times media desk | Capital New York. Jonathan Mahler to join Times media desk | Capital New York. Retrieved September 21, 2014, from http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/03/8542817/jonathan-mahler-join-emtimesem-media-desk

Mahler, J. (2014, September 21). In Coverage of N.F.L. Scandals, Female Voices Puncture the Din. The New York Times. Retrieved September 21, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/sports/football/after-nfl-scandals-female-journalists-find-stronger-voice.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSumSmallMediaHigh&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Social Media and Truth

When it comes to social media, I know what I know basically from trial and error.  I was never taught to use any social media sources growing up, I think it was just something that developed naturally by exploring and learning on my own time and in my own way.  I use what I have learned from exploring social media to find new breaking stories or news updates.  I use social media a majority of the time for finding and reading stories that are interesting to me.  A lot of the time I read most stories from sources such as the Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, or the Times.  Stories from those sources get shared thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter, they end up covering my newsfeed, and that's typically how I am able to find new information that I am interested in rather easily.  By using social media sites I was able to quickly find out news such as the death on Joan Rivers, the news that Prince William and Kate are expecting, and even that my local college team won their first football game of the season today! 

 

For the most part I feel as though stories that I read are credible when they are posted and shared on multiple sites at the same time.  Stories that are posted on those credible sites are what I trust when it comes to reading any topic of breaking news.  I have to admit, there have been a few incidents where I have clicked on a story that I thought to be true, but turns out to be an elaborate hoax that has been posted and shared since it was created in like 2008.  Stories like that are definitely the most annoying!

 

I feel that stories on each individual media site could be a lot more reliable by getting all facts straight before reporting.  A lot of the time it seems sites are more eager to be the first to make a breaking news report, rather than post accurate and reliable information.

Influence of the Media

When it comes to social media I think it’s safe to say that I’m borderline addicted; but honestly, who isn’t?  I wake up in the morning and as soon as my alarm goes off I’m on my phone checking emails, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and any other form of pop culture news I can get my hands on, and this is all done before even getting out of bed!  I use social media in all aspects of my day-to-day life, whether it’s communicating with family, checking up on an old friend, or maybe even reading about the latest celebrity gossip or breaking news. 

Social media has helped shaped the way our society lives today, and it has definitely made both positive and negative impacts along the way.  Social media is a great way to stay in touch with family and friends, and it also serves as a quick and easy way to retrieve the latest news updates.  Social media can also have some pretty negative side effects as well.  We can gain so much knowledge and information from media sources that’s readily available at our finger tips, we forget how easy it is to get absorbed into something interesting on our phone for hours at a time.  Most people, including myself, can get easily wrapped up into all of the social media apps on our phones that we lose track of what’s happening in the real world.  Social media straddles a very thin line of good and bad, both of which can be exciting and scary at the same time.