Based on clay shirky’s talk, he mentioned in the old days, if you wanted a conversation you grab 1 person, if the authority figure created a group they could give out the same message. An example, the phone is 1:1. Books, radio, TV are 1: many. The internet is the first media that does both well. The internet is many: many. People nowadays use new media to update latest new that happening around us, for an example, In May 2009 there was a big earthquake in China. Citizens reported it on Twitter and other social media within seconds, minutes before the government knew about the earthquake. In contrast, the last time there was a similar big earthquake in China, it took the Chinese government 3 months to admit it had happened. China doesn’t want this to be report on new media and China can’t control these situations, at some times the government’s only option is to totally close down all of Twitter-like social media tools. This proof of just how quickly social media can be used to spread news.

According to a talk by James Surowiecki, he starts the talk by reading out two articles regarding the tsunami incidents that had occurred and carries on by saying how these incidents were reported immediately as unorganized pieces of information. He continues by stating how information was gradually shared across and then the incomplete pieces started falling in place and giving a clearer new picture. James Surowiecki also gives the example of a tsunami, of which live videos were given by people directly living the event, making viewers feel as if they were actually there, an aspect of news that mainstream media very often fails to achieve. I especially agreed his “ant” analogy that demonstrated how people in groups can tend to just follow along and not have any real independent thought. I have seen this happen many times online when discussing a topic, one person comments and others will simply reply that they agree, without really adding anything to the conversation. There are a lot of advantages of new media, We use new media mainly to access information anywhere and anytime. Example is, it is mostly used by the students nowadays who want to do a research without spending a single second in boring libraries filled with heavy and dusty books. Our second best friend next to Google, Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, is one example of the new media inclination. Another thing that adds up to the new media craze is its interactive features that allows people to exchange their ideas, views an opinions about one certain topic posted in the internet or feedback in other term. Talking about the disadvantages of new media however, we have attitude first on our list. Now that more students rely on the internet when doing their research, because it’s faster getting the information that we want from the net rather than in books. Everything has good and bad effects. Once we understand the proper usage of that thing, we can get to utilize it to the fullest without the consequences of losing our values in life.

The new media being manipulable is positive because it becomes more dynamic and creates a new experience. It can be negative however because it is a copy which takes away its authenticity and becomes less innovative (Benjamin, 1985, p.678).