Bill Gates, the famous founder of giant Microsoft, once wrote that “The most meaningful way to put distance between you and the crowd is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage, and use information,” Gates wrote, “will determine whether you win or lose.” It is important to keep this in mind as a professional media maker in the near future.

There is no doubt that a good media maker needs to know how to access to the ideas or content which you need when you need it in this information explosion Era. The Internet has brought about a revolution which empowers people like never before. Power shifted to those who could enter the right terms into a search engine and wade through the results to the best links.

The quality of the media products you produced is largely determined by the ability of dealing with those ideas or content which you are actually looking for. Therefore, a good media maker needs to know how to integrate gathered information and to create new digital media products by contributing to and sharing their own understanding based on the information they gathered.

Network literacy

What you really need is network literacy. Which means recognizing that there are no longer canonical sources and having the skills to find what it is you think you want, of being able to judge it, and then of being able to incorporate this, in turn, into your knowledge flows (Kress, G, 2003). By applying the fundamental skills of network literacy, extraordinary media makers would access to the information and perspective flowing through their social network. You can definitely make better decisions and promote something significant when you can tap the unique, real-time intelligence of the people you know.

Participatory Culture

“A participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artists’ expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations.” In fact, there is no shortage of creative ideas and shared media content as always. A research showed over 50% teens produced media content and about one third shared their work (Lenhardt &Madden, 2005). The issue is, however, how to integrate creative ideas together defying time and space, and then make individual’s small creative ideas value more. Fortunately, HitRECord, a successful collaborative production company, are devoting themselves to attracting excellent brains to contribute to and share their own works in the same place online. In turn, the fellows, like you, who shared their own works will consummate your staff in the aspects they are good at. HitRECord provide creators with effective platforms to create and share one’s creations with others, in this platform, members feel some degree off social connections with one another. (Henry Jenkins, 2006)

The data demonstrate that most of users (about 50%) are preferring sharing the content and messaging all over the world, although there is a slight difference in different countries based on the research from global web index in 2011.

The image from: http://visual.ly/global-map-social-networking-2011

Taking my own experience as an example (from ideas to production). I participated in the process of production of a wedding short film which is produced a few years ago. The most creative part of the wedding is that “the bridegroom doesn’t know he marry today.” The video recorded how the bride prepared for the wedding ceremony, but the bridegroom didn’t know this until the wedding day. The idea itself is innovative and the content is touching. What I believe is it would be better no matter the content or the design if we have had chance accessed to the platform like HitRECord. Some other fellows must know how to make the plot more fluent and recommend which background music is better.

The power of Social Media

Internet offers higher effective and most economical platforms to disseminate your media products comparing with traditional media such as TV, Radio, magazine. Because people usually get information from social network prior to from TV, newspapers.

The image from: https://www.techinasia.com/indonesia-internet-users-markplus-insight/

The wedding short film we produced is mainly broadcasted by YouKu, TuDou, WeiBo, and WeChat and QQ. There are about 40% of new customers knowing us from chat apps (QQ and WeChat) and 30% customers knowing us from Youku after watching the wedding short film. What if we have more available social platforms to broadcast our works, such as Facebook? We might attract more customers based on much more active users on Facebook (1.184M) than QQ (816M) and WeChat (272M).

The image from: http://was-sg.wascdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Slide011.png

Taking another example to show the strong impacts of social media:

Ice Bucket Challenge as an example, in mid-2014, the Ice Bucket Challenge went viral on social media, particularly in the United States, with people, celebrities, politicians and athletes posting videos of themselves online participating in the event.

Video 2

The Ice Bucket Challenge is an activity involving dumping a bucket of ice water on someone’s head to promote awareness of the disease ALS and encourage donations to research. This challenge is designed to bring massive awareness to the rare disease ALS.

The image from: http://www.mysocialghost.com/our-services/social-media-management/

Is it fun enough? Surely it is, but the question is: how do you attract the attention of the public and raise the awareness of ALS among the majority of people? Why is this campaign so successful?

Fortunately, we are in an era of social media, living in the shadow of the vast network system. Although it is not launched for fundraising for ALS on purpose in the beginning, with the assistance of social network and media, this campaign gained great success from both the economic and promotional dimensions.

The Ice Bucket Challenge has a significant impact, it is just like a storm swiping across our life, causing a great hit on the social network and media. According to The New York Times, people shared more than 1.2 million videos on Facebook between June 1 and August 13 and mentioned the phenomenon more than 2.2 million times on Twitter between July 29 and August 17 (Wikipedia).

Whether you’re for the Ice Bucket Challenge or against it, there’s no doubting that this viral, organic, wildly successful campaign has brought in the big bucks. As of August 26, The Ice Bucket Challenge has raised over $88.5 million dollars to fight the horrible disease, according to the ALS Association web site.

The image from: ALS Association web site

Prior to the challenge, public awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) was relatively limited; the ALS Association stated that only half of Americans had heard of the disease prior to the challenge going viral. From above, we can see how successful this campaign is with the interpersonal dissemination of the social network.

From a media maker’s point, there are several essential factors why Ice Bucket Challenge have been a contagious success, especially in terms of fundraising for non-profit organizations. In order to become a great media maker using network literacy when launching or organizing activities, we have to learn the following lessons:

Folks want to be involved

Getting people fired up about your ideas is the perfect method to make your works spread widely. Quite possibly the most important lesson we learn from the Ice Bucket Challenge is that people want to get involved in the act of fundraising. As we have seen from the ALS campaign’s success, getting people involved should be #1 on your list of to-dos for your activities.

The Ice Bucket Challenge shows us why we should not limit our fundraisers by limiting people’s involvement to the simple signing of a check. When we allow people to get involved through advertising (spreading the word in their own way, using tools or frameworks provided by your organization), promoting (challenging others to get involved with incentives, events or activities/actions provided or inspired by your group), and donating (letting people decide how much to give and in what ways) the fundraiser begins to take a life of its own.

Always keep the fun

This fundraising campaign breaks the canonical charity form. Who said fundraising must be serious and sensational? As we known, people are willing to involve in comfortable and interesting activities and instinctively turn against too weighty topics.

This one is so important. Wherever you are and whatever you are raising money for, do not forget to make the act of fundraising an enjoyable, fun, meaningful experience! The seriousness of ALS does not mean that the fundraiser has to be a downer. In fact, as we’ve seen from the Ice Bucket Challenge, having fun is contagious and if you want your fundraiser to go viral, you’ve got to add in the enjoyment factor.

Innovative idea and media impact

Audiences are always fascinated by creative and fresh ideas and will follow the trending and abandon outdated stuff without hesitation.

Fundraising for ALS through the Ice Bucket Challenge is definitely an innovative idea. There is no doubt that a weak idea won’t work no matter how much social media you are going to use or how many times you post it. Therefore one of the most significant factor which makes your ideas go rival is the creativity of your idea.

Besides, one factor which cannot be ignored is the power of social media, which plays a leading role in the dissemination of Ice Bucket Challenge. The Ice Bucket Challenge hit was thanks to campaigning on social media from people all over the world who wanted to participate and promote this awareness. One of the best things about social media is the way it can unite people behind causes and be a force for good. Its immediacy and accessibility has allowed it to contribute to charities.

In a word, if you do these things as a media maker, you’ll be on the path to become a network literate. As Gates predicted, you’ll be putting distance between yourself and the competition. As for me, there is still a long way to go.

Reference

Anderson Chris. (2013). “The Long Tail”.

Duncan. (2005). “Media Literacy: Essential Survival Skills for the New Millennium.” Orbit Magazine, 35 (2). Available in: http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/orbit/mediaed_sample.html

Henry Jenkins. (2006). “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century”. Retrieved from http://www.macfound.org/media/article_pdfs/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF

Kress, G. (2003). “Literacy in the New Media Age. “ New York: Routledge.

Jenkins, H. (2006). “Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide“. New York: New York University Press.

Lenhardt & Madden. (2005). “Youth are leading the transition to a fully wired and mobile nation”. Teens and Technology. PEW INTERNET & AMERICAN LIFE PROJECT.

http://www.pewinternet.org/files/oldmedia/Files/Reports/2005/PIP_Teens_Tech_July2005web.pdf.pdf

Thanks for: ALS Association web site

Thanks for: http://www.hitrecord.org/

Thanks for: http://www.hitrecord.org/users/teafaerie?display_format=expanded

Thanks for: http://www.slideshare.net/jeremiah_owyang/icebucket-challenge-cold-facts-and-stats-icebucketchallenge?ref=http://www.bethkanter.org/icebucket-2/

About my Blog

When I first time heard that we have to do a lot of blog post in this subject and I heated it, because to be honest, I haven’t heard of the word “blog” for years. “It is useless, who use blog these days?” I thought, “Facebook is 1000 times better than the blog.” But, after two courses I took in the university, I realized that I am the one who didn’t understand anything and blind thinking all day.

In the first class, we were asked to write few things (functions) that we hoped to appear in the blog, then for the first time I knew that you can actually put a game on the blog page, like a playable game instead of a link, which is the function I never think the blog could have, in fact, I couldn’t think of any other social networked software could do that. Furthermore, we are excited about the new function that posting a short video in our facebook or wechat page, blog could do that like ages ago. That’s really refreshing my mind.

The first blog I post is about how to write a good essay, it is depend on weekly reading articles. Ending is not that important and necessary to en essay, surprising and interesting point of views are, good writing should be convincing, certainly, but it should be convincing because you got the right answers, not because you did a good job arguing. That is what I learned from the article, something I didn’t know as well. A good essay never really ends, it lead you to a direction that surprised and interested you, that’s all the purpose of an essay.

In the next, I blog about my subject–Game Design, I talked about the game flow, introduced the game treatment. Speaking of my subject, Game Design is apart of Media and Communication form this year, which means I’m not a design student anymore, so, everything about Game Design is related to Media. In other words, Game Design is suppose to be part of Media. I wrote a blog about the family connections through playing games to explain the deeper connection between Media and Game. Video games seem not only about physical games, but it is more about how to communicate with others, make connections to the others. “In barely more than a generation, video games transformed from a diversion for the few into a mass medium, helping people live, learn, work, and of course, play” (Coyne, Busby, Bushman, Gentile, Ridge & Stockdale, 2012). Some researchers have proposed that video games possess good learning principles and may promote problem-solving skills. Referring to Adachi & Willoughby, an Empirical research regarding this relationship, presented a study to examine whether strategic video game play predicted self-reported problem solving skills among a sample of 1,492 adolescents (2013). “Close families build history.” It also gives them something to draw upon during tough times, according to Ruth & Sabis-Burns who studied about the cross- cultural connections (2007). Professor Emeritus of Child Development and Family Development at Purdue University – Dr. Judith Myers-Walls said in the US Fed News Service, “They can talk about stuff, make decisions together, where they’re not just trying to beat each other”. Playing video games with families is more about doing discussions and motivating others to do and play well and that is why according to researchers it is a good exercise for communication. “When we spend time with kids in their world doing what they like to do – it increases an emotional connection and actually results in kids being more cooperative at other times” (Hertlein, 2012). Therefore, playing video games with kids allows them to be an expert for a change, also improve the communications in between while letting them teach you. Technology is a dramatic means of communication but technology illiteracy could drive people apart. It is also a language; if it is not shared, it sets people apart. Playing video games with families is a convenience way to improve personal skills and brought along the family accomplishment. As it is a key development for children for any ages, and it is a good relationship-building exercise for communications, seize the moment and build families memories. So, trying to spend time playing games with families together from a very early age, it is a great way to enhance their reciprocal ability to nurture relationships.

Then I blog about the game flow, it is a very interesting part of making a game, like writing a novo, you need to be sensitive and write the atmosphere in every different stage of game. A game flow is more like playing through the whole game and experienced all the possibilities in the game by words. For me it is very interesting, like in a game concept, you draw what you think in the head, but in a game flow, you write it. I post a game flow for my own designed game, the story is very interesting to read, I’m trying to post my game on the blog, but it’s a game running by RGP Maker, it cannot run in a webpage, I will share the link to the download page, you can download and play it in windows system if you like.

At last I post about the famous debate about the game violence. A topic never goes, nowadays game industry role an important part in the world, the contradiction between game producer and public opinion never ends. With the developing of game industry, controlling the violence in the game become more difficult and kittle.  The society may be right in saying that the video games may bring out violent behaviour, however not all the games may does so or any of the games. It cannot proved without any concrete evidence that video games are detrimental to the society and the developers are to be blamed for it.

There are many in the society who have been voicing very ardently against the video games as they believe that they promote violence predominantly among many others while there are significant others in the predominantly in the developers community who are against the idea. So, does this very notion of aggression developed by the game players due to the video games can be considered rational? This essay aims to evaluate both the ideas to substantiate the claims of both the parties and provide a validated conclusion.

Relaxation and entertainment are the major considerations when playing video games. However, not all the games designed these days come with only the fore mentioned criteria. In order to appeal to wider range of audience the developers are designed the games in wider genres. This may include violence along with the other aspects of gaming such as sports and racing. Having said that, the aggression portrayed by the gamer cannot always be considered bad as it is displayed passively and may help the user of such game to vent out any frustration and malicious thoughts they may develop. In contrast, the methods and the animations present in the game might stimulate new ideas to hurt other persons which the user might not even know of previously.

In addition, with the advent of new technology, the developers have brought forth the multiplayer gaming which is very addictive and often leading to non-sociable and aggressive behaviour as suggested by many experts. The never ending gaming scenario in such games has proved to be a major encouragement to the gamers to innovate new skills to progress through the game and as such is enhancing the malevolent tendencies in the players. But it cannot be said with any certainty that these prolonged hours are damaging the people’s minds while at the same time it is also very arguable that such games are strictly for entertainment. However, these games are very helpful in a way – the aggression is only in the digital environment and not causing any physical harm.

The game developers also create games in which the protagonist fights for a cause such as defending people or country and there are many games that fit the same theme. Such games obscure the moral dimension of violence. These games can instil in players a sense of righteousness and duty the qualities which are quite helpful in the society. Also, quite recently the militaries of various countries are stimulating the real war scenarios in a gaming situation for the soldiers to get accustomed to what they might experience in the battle. This way of gaming, speaking within the thin line defined between gaming and simulation, has proven to be quite a feat in saving the lives of many as they can adjust to the dangers very better than previously.

As with any development there are quite a large games such as Grand Theft Auto (GTA) and alike in which the players kill unarmed and innocent people along with destroying police stations and hospitals to meet the game objectives. Such games are becoming increasing popular with the generation of youngsters and may lead them to develop such behaviour even in the real world. The developers only restrict the players from buying these games using content warnings, however, it is not stopping any prospective buyer and in fact may even encourage them. While these are games are very violent the seriousness of the game can be questioned and is rather ironic for any user to use similar actions in the society as they rarely take themselves to be serious. This virtual world of violence may also pacify the gamers need for aggression as the moral rules are excluded in this environment.

The games may heavily influence the players but such games are for mature players who should have already developed a way to choose what they like as they are not a blank paper to write as the game pleases. It is the responsibility of the player not to sway from the morals and not the developers themselves. If any of the players have displayed such behaviour, it is quite safe to say they would have exhibited similar responses even they weren’t playing these games, as they have their perceptions and own experiences which models the way they perceive them.

The society tends to lay blame on the people who are very hostile to various situations and also play radical violent games. The same society also laid blame on the TV, films, music and any entertainment media at its inception. However, they have now come to terms with them. Finding a fault is rather easy while it is increasing difficult to find its cause. Rather than to make something liable the society should act so that the players are not only relying on these games to make the clock tick. Video games should ultimately be supervised and controlled by parent and they should screen the games that they believe shall adversely affect the behaviour of their children. The developers cannot by any means control all the players’ behaviour but the parents of individual players can in some way mitigate the actions their children might develop.

From the discussion above it cannot be said with any firmness of the developers’ role in players violent attitude from video games and the society definitely cannot blame them for the actions of the radical actions of few of the gamers. The video games have also proven to be very useful to the society as conveyed briefly over the essay. Also, close attention should be paid to the underlying meaning of the devastating acts in the games and should not be interpreted as all-embracing as these acts have a context that defines the gamers’ actions. The society may be right in saying that the video games may bring out violent behaviour, however not all the games may does so or any of the games. It cannot proved without any concrete evidence that video games are detrimental to the society and the developers are to be blamed for it.

There is a thing that matters a lot in a game, as I wrote in my previous blogs, game treatment is vital, game concept is necessary, what else? A game flow. A game flow is more like playing through the whole game and experienced all the possibilities in the game by words. For me it is very interesting, like in a game concept, you draw what you think in the head, but in a game flow, you write it. Here is a game flow I wrote for my own designed game–Diving in Purgatory.

Start

Jack woke up in his bedroom, he felt the anger in his stomach, and the hangover consisted, another drunk day, of course. Jack leaned against the wall and spoke in a hush. “Screw it.” He was angry about everything, his life, his family, always wondering why his parents were not rich as others, he never believed anything, he hates god and he shows irrespective to his parents and be very main to his sister. “Huh…drinking too much last night, but…life is about having fun, what the point living if I don’t have my drugs alcohol and women” he said. Then he saw the bible on the ground (bought by his parents)

Check the bible

Choose_leave it be_step on

Then he stepped on the bible, “I’m a man of sins!” He said. He didn’t realized that he was becoming a shameless man and he was pound of what he was doing.

“A bible…!” he thought, “Really had enough of this crap!”

Check the bottle

“Huh, drinking too much last night, but life is about to gave fun, what’s the point living if drugs alcohol and women are not with me.”

The phone rang on the coffee table in the darkened living room. He climbed down the stairs from the bedroom to get it. The evening dusk of the devil was tilting through the plate-glass windows.

Music in

He sat on the edge of the chair and picked up.

“Who is this? No body is here!”

“Jack…Come to me…!”

The voice sounded distant, and static flared on the line. Like the caller was phoning through an electrical storm.                                                                                                                 He raised his head and gazed out the window, the sky has became gray and purple. The snow was tinged red with the color of the sky.                                                                             He walked to the windows. “What’s happened to the sky?” He wisped, “Snow? But it’s summer!”

Jack suddenly hang up the phone, he realized the weirdness of the world today. The quietness was surrounding him; he heard the clock was ticking, like the only thing he could hear. Was he crazy?

Jack running through the living room, a glace of the armor on the corner of the wall comforted him, and then he saw the piano, reminded him the night he beats his sister. “It’s not a good time to think of that crap.” He said, “I need to get out of this place!”

Check the save point

The phone rang again on the coffee table. Jack is scared, he rapid the door and went through to outside, he thought he would went outside, but he close the door he realized that he was not going anywhere. He leaned against the wall and shake his head.

“It’s cannot be true.”

“How am I still in my house?” He screamed.

Expect that everything in the house was a bit different. The crack on the floor, the broken wall, the imposition furniture… However there were few things didn’t changed like the armor on the wall, the piano and his alcohol. Jack remembered the phone rang earlier tonight, he had a feeling that he is on that electrical storm right now. He walked to the coffee table, almost like the longest path in his life.

He picked up. “This is Jack.”

“……” Silence on the other side, but Jack heard breath.

“I know you are there, what do you want?”

“I can help you young man…”Distant voice spoke.

“Who are you?” Jack asked.

“I’ve been watching you for quite while.”

“What do you mean?”

“We are quite similar, don’t you think? You are a man of sins, check, you hate God, check, we make a perfect match!”

“What are you talking about? Let me out of hear!”

“You want out? With me you can have the world, come with me…”

choose

“Yes, let me be your pet, master.”

“Good…Now your soul is mine!”

“No, I want my life back!”

“Oh, what a shame, I’m very disappointed, now rot in hell, then I will take your soul, trust me, you belong to me.”

Jack was disparate, he start to think his life, what he has done and the people he herds. He saw the piano on the corner, in this world the piano is broken.

Check the piano

“I used to think that my sister is really annoying when she plays it, just because I want some ‘quite’ day so that I beat my sister, gosh…am I crazy?”

Check the armor

“I love my armor, it still here.”

Choose

Put on, leave it be

Jack went back his room and saw the bible lying down the floor, when he tried to reach it, he saw an electrical storm was upon his head, suddenly he knew that this storm is create by that devil. He tried to run but the storm absorb him in.

(Scene)Purgatory

Choose

Wear armor live

If not

die when get into Purgatory Scene.

Jack was into another world again. “What is this place? How do I get out? Devil, I want my life back!”

“You want out? You lead me to yourself, now you are mine!” The voice spoke again.

Jack saw a broken wing on the corner.

Check the wing

“Come find me, I’m a victim like you.”

“Who are you? Wait…” The voice disappeared.

Check saving point

The weather in purgatory was killing Jack.

“Freezing, I’m dying…Mom, dad and my little sister, I wasn’t a good son, a good brother, I’m sorry, I really do. At least let me see them one last time.”

Jack saw a dead body on the corner of wall.

Check the body

“Hi, I’m Alice, that devil, he brings you here right?”

“Who…Who are you?” Jack spoke weekly.

“Don’t be afraid, I was a victim too. Human won’t survive long in Purgatory.” She paused. “After I died, he collected my body, but my soul is pure, he couldn’t take it away, I don’t have much time left, I will show you a path.” She paused again. “When demand rot in ice and burned in heat, you can find you way out.”

“But your destiny is changed forever.” She blinked away the stinging in her eyes and turned back to Jack. “Never mind…You need to get out as soon as you can.” “Thank you for your help.” Jack thank people for first time in his life.

“Now, go!”

Puzzle

Jack found two devil’s statue and push them into fire and ice hole.

Jack wake up in his bed, he heard the phone call.

“A dream?” He thought.

He got off bed on stepped on the floor, he saw a crack.

End.

Game treatment is to analysis a game in different terms, in this case is about developing an new idea(about how to make a game) based on exist games.

The game I developed is call Before Life, it is a 2D game on PC platform or touch-screen devise. The character in

the game will keep running from the left of the screen to the right. Players need

to keep the character alive by changing the environment around character.

Story:

This game is about a journey of how life comes to the world. The character in the game is actually a little tadpole (sperm) swimming inside human body to get into the ovum.

Challenges:

The challenge of the game is that players cannot control the character directly but only changing the environment to keep the character alive, which means player need to observe and learn about the environment during the game. Some stuff can be moved in the environment, meanwhile players need to kill other sperms that catching up to make sure you are in the first place of life adventure.

Obstacles:

Think about what can be the enemy of sperm—condom. Condoms will fall from the top and front, players have to make sure that sperm keep alive. Another obstacle is other sperm, players need to click or touch to kill them before they catch up our character.

Rewards:

There are some achievements in the game, players need to accomplish them to get cups (as a prize). Extra lifes will occur in the game, players need to move them into the character to get lifes.

Outcome:

Congratulations! After the exciting journey of sperm, your baby is finally come to this world. Are you ready to be a daddy (or mom)?

Ending is not the most important part on a good essay, surprising and interesting direction are more important. Surprises are things that you not only didn’t know, but that contradict things you thought you knew. And so they’re the most valuable sort of fact you can get. A good essay never REALLY ends, it lead you to a direction that surprised and interested you, that’s all the purpose of an essay.

Good writing should be convincing, certainly, but it should be convincing because you got the right answers, not because you did a good job arguing. The processing of writing an essay is more like describe the truth to the reader, not arguing it. As the reader get smarter, convincing and true become identical, so if the writer can convince smart readers he must near the truth.

An essay has to come up with answers, ought to tell the reader something he didn’t already know. However, answers never equal to endings, rather read an essay that went off in an unexpected but interesting direction than one that plodded dutifully along a prescribed course.

To surprise readers, the opinions in the essay better contradict things that reader thought he knew. It is a good way to use yourself as a proxy for the reader, things you thought about a lot, who’ve thought the topic a lot, anything you come across and surprise you, may surprise the reader as well.

The embed feature in blog has made it extremely easy to embed videos in your blog. All you need to do is paste the video URL or embed code into the content area, but make sure that the URL is in it’s own line and not clickable.

The first step of getting the embed code of a video is to click “Embed” under the Share button. Then copy the code and paste it into “Insert embed code” area(New-Post-Add Media), hit the “Insert and post” button.