The Next New Thing

This may sound crazy but I have an idea about a new media idea that could be the next new thing. At work we use a program called Electronic Medical Record (EMR). This is the new way to record patient information. When a patient sees a doctor they go over their entire medical history and the doctor records it in EMR. It's all stored in the facilities database and there are many, many patients registered in it. It's a great and convinient program for the doctors and staff but it is not so great for the patient. The reason is because the patient has no access to it and it can only be used in our facility. All the doctors caring for each patient should have access to it. So my idea is to create a program where the patient and doctor can both view and edit the information in it. So it would be a wiki medical record. The patient can take it to any doctor and they can include any relevant symptom as they feel it or whatever other information is vital. Many times the doctor's visit is limited and the patient may forget to mention important information or the doctor may forget to write something. Before patients see a doctor they can review the electronic chart just as they did the paper chart. This may lead to a decrease in healthcare costs, an increase in better patient care and better relationships between doctors and patients. Maybe some people agree with me maybe some don't. I would like something like this at least for my son because by the time I take my son to the doctor I forgot exactly when he did things like sitting up or when he held his bottle. Little things like that matter in terms of health but it's difficult to remember all that information when our visit is only 20 minutes long. Hopefully in a few years someone will create it and it could be the next new thing.

Our Class Wiki- So Far

I started contributing to the class wiki today. The topic that I am working on had to do with my research paper which was great. I edited the wiki section titled "New Media and American Politics- Pre 2008. The creator of the page is Jorge Ruiz. He wrote about the new media technologies that were used during the 2000 and 2004 elections and in between elections in 2006. I added information I got from my research paper. I added the fact that Howard Dean was the first politician to raise one million dollars using new media technologies and the tools that were used in 2004 by the Democratic and Republican parties to get information to its volunteers. I plan on adding information from 2007 also. 2008 was a big election year in which new media technologies were used. I will speak about them since the campaigns actually began using them in 2007. My goal is to contribute as much as I can and as much information that shows how American politics began to rely so much on new media.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is the practice of one file user allowing other people to download their files. P2P file sharing is the same as file sharing except that it takes place in a network such as over the internet. The files that are shared are things like software programs, audio music and music videos. An example of P2P file sharing is given in the article titled "Minnesota Mom Hit With $1.5 Fine For Downloading 24 Songs" by Daniel Kreps. It speaks about a mom how used the P2P site Kazaa to illegally download 24 songs. The music industry has lost money becuase people are choosing to share these music files instead of paying the artists and music companies for the work they put in to create the music. Another example of P2P file sharing is what broadcasting companies like ABC have done. They have begun to stream their shows over the internet for free. Chris Nutall writes in the article "Valley View: File sharing joins the mainsteam" that companies like these discourage illegal file sharing and they don't lose that much money by streaming their shows.

Privacy & Confidentiality

Most new media users want the information they post or receive to be kept private and confidential. Private and Confidential information and New Media are related because new media technologies require that the user add at least some private and confidential information such as your name, birthday and email. With that bit of information bad things could happen to the user such as the identity of the user could get stolen and that can pottentially bring negative finanicial issues to the user. New media allows information, including private information to be shared easily. The information can get to someone that the generator of the original information did not want. I have heard many instances where the facebook and email accounts of some people have been hacked. In their account they may post confidential information such as their place of work and their location. The users don't want anyone outside of that specific new media technology to have access to their information. The theft of information is occuring as often as people use new media technologies. I would tell those that want to keep their information as private and as confidential as possible to use as few new media technologies as they can.

Advice to Baruch College

If I were hired by Baruch College to give them advice about new media the first recommendation is would give them is to install more of the stand up computers that are out in the hallways in the classrooms for the students. Sometimes students just need a computer for a few minutes and they don't want to go to the labs or the labs are already too crowded so they prefer to use the stand up computers in front of some of the freight elevators. The problem with those is that there are not enough of them and they also have long lines. They should be installed in the classrooms so that before classes start the students can briefly use them. In todays world students need the tools to get information in as many places as possible. If more of those computers were around the students would be more attracted to Baruch College. Setting up these computers would allow the students access to new media technologies more often and they would still feel like thay are connected to the world.

Term Research Paper

My research paper was about new media and the way that it has affected politics and politicians. I chose this topic because I am a political science minor and I usually enjoy following politics. I mainly follow what is going on at the federal level and at the international level. I did all my research online. As required I used two scholarly articles which were very interesting. The first one titled "New Media Campaings and the Managed Citizen" spoke about new media tools that were used by campaings up to 2004. The second one titled "Politcs, Journalism and Web 2.0 in the 2008 U.S Presidential Elections" spoke about the last election and the author analyzed the new media tools that we use everyday, which were used in the 2008 election. The tools that the last campaings used were YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Text messages. I also used other online articles. The second scholarly article was the best and the one that I learned the most from. I learned that becuase of these new media technologies the campaings saved a tremendous amount of money while still getting more citizens involved that it had ever done before. The major finding was the fact that policians began to use new media in the 1970's, although what they used then would now be considered old media. I was also amazed to find the amount of people that followed the Obama Campaign. His campain had over 5 million followers. Obama announced his reelection and I it seems that he will continue to use the same new media technologies. I also think that politicians will continue to use these technologies so that they can keep the same amount of supports or gain more. Politics occur every day, politicians are doing many things all year round and since people need to be informed about this the best way to get the information is through new media.