Blog #2: SNS Communication Technology

One of the newest Communication Technologies, Social Networking Sites took the world by storm in 1977 with the invention of CompuServe Networks. CompuServe Networks was the 1st centralized web portal for file sharing, according to our class lecture. The first SNS that appeared that was considered identifiable was SixDegrees.com, founded by Andrew Weinreich. You could make a profile, communicate with others, and view the entire network. According to our class lecture This is considered to be the 3 requirements of a SNS.

MySpace was the first SNS with html coding that could allow for you to customize your own profile. This SNS made big waves in the social networking community, with the invention of Facebook in 2004 by controversial Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg appearing next. This SNS offered a live news feed, i.e., the timeline where updates and photos appear, and eventually in 2008, overtook MySpace. It is still the number one social networking site to date. This didn’t stop the invention of our newer social media sites though, like Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and even TikTok. SNS is now used to do many things like, keep in touch with family members, share photos, updates, memories, comment on other people’s updates, discuss beliefs and politics, and promote yourself or business. 

Politically, SNS has become a platform for government agencies to gain analysis on their content. Completely different from the lobbying and in person surveys that dominated the 1900s. On a different note, SNS has also become a threshold that “warrants our attention” (Barnett and DeLuca 98 ). “The Conditions that form us” is an article written by Joshua Trey Barnett and Kevin Michael DeLuca and explains how the media has become a vessel. They also speak about how media are the spaces within and through which we move and act and think and feel, explaining how social media affects our daily thoughts and actions in both a positive and negative way. SNS affects how we feel because it is the public version of peer pressure and the need to go “viral” to be understood. “Media gives shape to the world as we know it,” Barnett and DeLuca continue throughout this article explaining how SNS has become our way of thinking. In summary, Social media  has affected us in the way that we can share our thoughts easier, but SNS being a vessel can shape these thoughts and “shape our perceptions”. 

Barnett, J. T., & Deluca, K. M. (2019). The conditions that form us: Media, affect, social change. Culture, Theory and Critique, 60(2), 99-106. doi:10.1080/14735784.2019.1588534

Motion Pictures

Thomas Edison is considered one of the best inventors of our history, and in 1888, according to our class lecture,  he contributed an invention that started a path towards one of my favorite things: Motion Pictures. With the fear of others getting ahead in making this groundbreaking journey, like Etienne-Jules Marey in Paris who created a camera that could capture 12 pictures a second (PBS), he, with the help of William Dickson, invented the Kinetograph. The Kinetograph was a moving motion picture camera that led to the 1892 invention of the Kinetoscope, which could project moving pictures onto a screen. 

The groundbreaking inventions lead to the creation of Motion Pictures and thousands of silent movies began to play throughout the world, and according to our lectures, when sound was introduced in the 1920s Motion Pictures were able to really make ground. I’m interested in Motion Pictures because it introduced a new type of creativity to the world. As people we were able to view others' imagination of romance, love, comedy all on a screen. We were able to view history. Not just read it. People should care about this communication technology because it introduced a new way to tell a story, and a new way to witness life. It also became a vivid recording of the past.