Description

Welcome to another episode of Media Nouveau. This week, our group chose to explore the significance of Snapchat as predominant social media platform. It has been on the rise since 2011 and is now a staple in communication. Yet, we addressed an interesting outlook on its capability as a spreadable versus a sticky source of media. Hope you enjoy it.

Source

Aslam, Salman. "Snapchat by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts"

Description

In this episode of Media Nouveau, we discuss a Chinese social network, Renren, the so-called “Facebook of China”. By introducing Renren’s original orientation and strategies and comparing them with its later transformation, we delve into the reasons why Renren became famous in the beginning but quickly declined within a few years though it took a similar path with Facebook. What did Renren do wrong? Let’s find the answers in this podcast!

Sources

Madden, Normandy. "Chinese Social Network Renren Expands Beyond College Students." Ad Age. November 11, 2009. Accessed October 30, 2017.

Rapoza, Kenneth. "China's Social Network RenRen is no Facebook." Forbes. August 09, 2011. Accessed October 29, 2017.

"Renren: The Failed "Facebook of China." TechNode. November 12, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2017.

Jenkins, Henry, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green. Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture. S.l.: NYUP, 2013.

Fuchs, Christian. Social media: a critical introduction. 53-54. Sage, 2014.

"What is the limit of friend requests you can have? | Facebook Help Community." Facebook. Accessed November 05, 2017.

Photo Credit:

Renren by Luisa Beltran on pehub.com

Rise and fall image via Shutterstock

Music Credit:

Inner Warmth from www.moyimusic.com

君をのせて by 宫崎骏          from The collection of Miyazaki Hayao

 

 

Description

In this episode of Media Nouveau, we examine the evolution of interactive cinema, a platform that allows the audience to take an active role in creating the storyline. In the recent years, interactive cinema has experienced a surge in success thanks to the advancements of individualized technology such as smartphones and gaming consoles. Here we address the qualities of interactive cinema that make it worthwhile or valueless from both an audience and producer perspective, and we pull from specific examples such as Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale, Late Shift, and Steven Johnson’s "Television."

Sources

Johnson, Steven. “Television.” Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Popular Culture Is Making Us Smarter, Penguin Books, 2006.

Meslow, Scott. “Are Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Movies Finally About to Become a Thing?” GQ, 21 June 2017.

Newton, Casey. “Netflix's Interactive Shows Arrive to Put You in Charge of the Story.” The Verge, 20 June 2017.

Netflix. “Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale.” Netflix, 2017.

Summers, Nick. “Interactive Movie 'Late Shift' Comes to Consoles This April.” Engadget, 19 Mar. 2017.

Taylor, Gemma. “Why Watching TV Can Actually Be Good for Toddlers.” The Washington Post, 12 Mar. 2015.

Description

Our words are the bullets, and bilibili is our gun! In this episode of Media Nouveau, we introduce a unique video-sharing website called "bilibili" that features a special "bullet comment system" -- comments appearing or moving as a stream of bullets on the video playback screen. Peculiar at the first glance, the rise of bilibili invoked a revolution in the Chinese media public sphere. Why is the website revolutionary? And what is its implication of our contemporary new media environment? Find the answers in our podcast!

Sources

"Bilibili" Wikipedia

Yin, Yiyi and Anthony Fung. "Youth Online Cultural Participation and Bilibili: An Alternative Form of Democracy in China?" in Digital Media Integration for Participatory Democracy, eds. Rocci Luppicini and Rachel Baarda. IGI Global, 2017.

"Why does bullet comment thrive?"

Music Credit

Retrospective - Maya

Chemical Stars - Cytus

Visions - Cytus

βios - Sawano Hiroyuki

Blackcase - Cytus

Precipitation - Cytus

Lost Butterfly - Rurutia

Description

In this episode of Media Nouveau, we discuss Tasty videos, which are sped-up videos of two hands making a dish. We dive into questions such as what makes these videos so entertaining and popular? Why is a huge company like Buzzfeed promoting and creating these videos? Any what are the positive and negative effects that come from these videos? Tasty videos are part of the new growing food culture that has emerged in recent years. Moreover, Tasty videos are made for such a diverse audience that all types of people can appreciate and enjoy them.

Source

Glaser, April. “How BuzzFeed makes money from its Tasty food videos.” Recode, 14 Feb. 2017.

Description

This week in Media Nouveau, our group decided to outline and investigate the culture of technology and science exhibited by The Verge, a multimedia platform, that not only engages tech reviews but also incorporates significant social media to their cause.

Sources

"About the Verge"

"The Verge" wikipedia.

Patel, Nilay. "Refreshing The Verge: how does this thing make money, anyway?"

Description

In this week’s episode of Media Nouveau, we describe and analyze the digital news publication Vox. This news source has lead the way in the new media field of “explanatory journalism” where articles are written with more analysis and insight than previous methods of news delivery. We also analyze the changes Vox itself has made to cater to the audience’s changing consumption of media and how that defines its niche in the new media realm. We discuss its divergences from old media forms, and how this may be problematic. Linked below are some excellent sources, fun reads, and references to our bad jokes made throughout the episode.

Sources

Ben Cardew. “Vox.com’s Melissa Bell: ‘This is a chance to do journalism differently’”.

Ryu Spaeth. “The Gawker meltdown and the Vox-ification of the news media.”

E.A. Weiss. “Can Vox win the news by being a better Wikipedia?”

Leslie Kaufman. “Vox Takes Melding of Journalism and Technology to a New Level.”

David Carr. “Ezra Klein is Joining Vox Media as Web Journalism Asserts Itself.”

David V. Johnson. “Explanation for What?”

Some of Vox’s Data Visualizations

Vox: Understand the News. Youtube video announcing the launch of vox.com

What I meant by between two ferns

Image Source 1 Image Source 2