Principles of New Media by Pooja Patel

  A blog is an online journal that enables anyone to share their thoughts, experiences and knowledge by uploading a series of posts which are displayed in a reverse chronological order. A wiki, on the other hand, is a website that allows its users to easily edit the content or structure of that page by simply pressing “edit” and “save.” Essentially both wikis and blogs enable its users to share information and be able to communicate with anyone around the world that has access to the internet. Both can also contain hyperlinks and images that would help to further support any content that is already available. Differences between blog and wiki arise mainly in the way that users are able to collaborate. Blogs have limited collaboration since users are only able to continue communicating with one another using the comment section under a post. They do not have the ability to directly alter the information on the original post itself. Wikis, however, permit collaboration by allowi...

  The topic of my research paper is Social Networking: Launching us Forward or Setting us Back?  I want to discuss the ways in which social networking has enhanced the way we communicate and connect with one another, but how it has also created newer and pertinent issues in our daily lives. I would like to discuss through examples how social networking is being used as a tool to grow and establish relationships by individuals or even large corporations. In addition, I intend to further investigate how social networking has positively and negatively impacted our cognitive functions and behaviors especially among adolescents. I would also possibly like to mention how information is being perceived on social media and whether that has affected the way we process that information. These are the overarching topics of my research paper. I intend to approach these topics from various perspectives and delve into greater detail.