Media Progression and Collaboration

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Media Progression and Collaboration 

By Lara Hawatmeh Due: October 18^th 2017

I was stuck in a rut last semester. I felt like I have tried everything but I still had no idea what I wanted to do. I listened to everyone telling me to “expand your horizons, try something new!” I tried “expanding my horizons” and I took a few classes here and there  from different majors. At one point I thought I knew what I wanted so I settled for a major that I felt may help me towards my career. It was until I asked myself "What the hell are you doing?" I realized I was working towards a major I really didn't enjoy as much as I thought I would. I had enough of not knowing what I wanted to do, so I decided to go see my advisor! Maybe she could convince me that what I'm doing is best suited for my interests. I told her exactly what I wanted. I explained to her that I wanted something that would steer me in the right direction, a direction where I'm actually working towards my career. After I told her I felt stuck, she knew just what I was looking for. She pulled out a paper with information on a major offered here at the University of Arizona. She was telling me it was a fairly new major at the university and it fits my criteria perfectly. She gave me information and told me to check out the website to further my knowledge on this major. (Check out this link)

“A degree in Information Science and eSociety will prepare students for contemporary life and work in the 21st century by studying topics such as social networks, privacy issues, digital storytelling, information manipulation, digital discourse, and the impact of social media on daily life.” I read on about this degree. I went ahead and looked at the different classes I can take because I was so intrigued and excited to see what this major entails. I would be taking classes like Social media and ourselves, Hacking and open source, and even this class esoc 211 Collaborating in online communities. I decided to take one class over the summer to see if I liked it and since then I was hooked. I found the perfect major that fits my criteria, I finally found my light at the end of the tunnel!

Photo by Flickr

Why eSociety?

Why eSociety, why is it so important? Well, being an eSociety major has opened my eyes to a whole new world. With the progression of technology and the fast changes in the media and other social platforms, the use of media has become a norm to us. It is a way to send your message across to a wider audience, so today it is important that we study and analyze media.

Social media?

Social media consists of various platforms and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. Today social media is used by everyone one, not just for personal use, but for work and educational purposes as well. It is a way for us to connect with one another and to collaborate in group activities online. We used social media to keep in touch, to stay informed and to connect and meet new people. Here is a cool website that talks about Why we use social Media and it's importance. 

Does the use of Media/Social Media make us unsocial?

I recently watched a Ted Talk by Alison Graham where she talks about how social media is affecting us negatively, and is making us antisocial. She claims that social media is disconnecting us for the real world. I disagree with that. I feel like social media and online collaborations in a sense make us more social, it makes us more diversified and it makes us more knowledgeable on what’s going on around the world. Lets take what happened in Vegas, during that moment I saw live videos on Facebook and tweets on twitter on what is happening there. Ten minutes within the actual incident I was informed on what’s going on. 

This is what I mean when I said It makes us more knowledgeable and aware.

Alison Graham also argues that it makes us antisocial, but how are we antisocial when we are constantly socializing with people online? It is a great way for us to connect with people who live across the world making us more diversified and social. There is constantly something going on weather it is a personal or global thing, so it gives us a topic to discuss face to face with our friends, families and our peers at school or work. It gives the people with social anxiety and people who cannot communicate like the average person, a way to express themselves because they can not say it face to face. It is a way for the average person to also express themselves online, it is a great platform to send a message to a larger audience it is a great platform to update your family on your life, it is a great way to create lifetime friendships with people across the world. We don’t realize how important it is to communicate online, and we often neglect the fact that it makes life easier. Yes there is a dark side to social media, like Alison Graham says, but without Social Media and online communication it makes it harder for online collaboration. 

Photo by Wikimedia Commons 

Collaboration
What is collaboration? Collaboration is: the action of working with someone to produce or create something. 
Collaboration is etched into our daily lives. We are constantly working together to create something or make something better. Think about it, your relationships, whether it's with your significant other or friends, that's collaboration. You are joined with that person or your group of friends by your common interests and from there you are creating lifelong relationships. Not only do we have personal collaborations but big companies, schools, work, etc. use collaboration. Everything that was created like social media platforms, commercials, TV shows, movies, ads, etc. were probably created with a team of people who collaborated to create the next best thing. 

Online collaboration is a huge thing today. Big companies, small offices, and even students use online collaboration. We can thank Google for making it easy for us to collaborate. Here is an awesome article that tells us the Five Ways to Use Google Collaboration Tools for Effective Teamwork.  

Personally I use online collaboration constantly. Whether it's for personal reasons or for educational and work purposes. I am constantly doing group projects for the majority of my classes and because it's hard sometimes to get everyone to meet up at the same time we can easily use online platforms to collaborate and create. I am currently an Intern for a small shop in Long Beach California called Planning Pretty and everyday I collaborate online with my boss. We have a weekly phone conference and during our phone call we are both collaborating online through a document or a spread sheet. All though we are not in the same room we can still work on the same document. She can see everything I do and vise versa and a lot of the times it's easy for her to walk me through what needs to be done, like the data spread sheets. It gets so complicated sometimes that I need a push in the right direction and since we can see what each other is doing it makes learning much easier. The benefits of collaboration when working on a project or in my case data collection, an individual often needs the input and it makes the workplace naturally cultivating and gives sense of community within an organization, and allows the employees to feel almost like they are a part of a family! 

Photo by Pixabay

My overall thoughts...

Overall, studying the media is important whether we like it or not everyday it is changing and getting better and easier for us to use. We are constantly online socializing and collaborating and staying connected with the world. This class has taught me a lot. It taught me the different developmental stages of groups and group work (Tuckman’s five stages), and it importance, but it also taught me how important collaborating online and in person can be. I am so glad I was introduced to the College of Information because I am positive that going into this major it will prepare me for the world and it will open endless opportunities for me, as well. I am positive it will benefit me and my future in the long run!