When starting this course, I have a variety of objectives I wish to achieve or work

towards during this semester since I know little about new media. To me, new media is any form

of media–music, art, literature, film, podcasts, writing–that is “new” or not existing until the

present moment. Off the top of my head, I think of BeReal or TikTok as forms of new media, for

they are both new social media platforms that have a lot of popularity amongst society. I also

think of new media as newly published books or articles, for they are a new source of distributed

media.

Growing up, my family was not the most tech-savvy. I had two relatively young parents,

who spent all their time taking care of me and my siblings and putting a roof over our heads that

trying new things wasn’t always on their to-do lists. Social media and the internet was included

in this, for I grew up with little interaction on the internet aside from what my parents allowed

me to engage with like Facebook or YouTube. Big platforms like Instagram or Twitter were

released when I was in elementary school, so I was too young to engage with the sites and my

parents were too old to care. Even today, my parents only have two or three social media

accounts. My sister and cousin, however, had a huge social media presence and were always on

their phones growing up. Despite this, they were always getting in trouble for what they posted

online or for the amount of time they spent online instead of doing chores, which, admittedly, is

the reason I didn’t make social media accounts for anything other than Facebook until the end of

middle school. At that point, I only had social media accounts to fit in with my friends, and I

found myself never posting or engaging with my friends or peers on the sites–except Snapchat.

Halfway through high school, when I started to think of the life and career I would want, I was

really inspired to be a lawyer as an adult. And with so many celebrities getting cancelled or
having private information and content shared online without their consent or knowledge, I

wanted to prevent my usage as much as possible.

Looking back, I wish I didn’t have the issues that surrounded social media in my life to

impact me so much. I have little to no content shared on a majority of the platforms I use, I can’t

seem to figure out some of the basic features of the most popular apps, and I remain in awe as

users create amazing content that I can’t wrap my head around the creation. With this course,

however, I do hope to learn more about the frameworks, policies, and systems that are in place

for media and social sites so I can begin having more trust in online platforms, as well as some of

the history with these new forms of media that has led us to where we are in modern society. I

also hope to engage with some social sites that I have yet to hear about or utilize. I feel like the

same websites or platforms used for projects or communication in every aspect of our lives are

overused and boring, so I’m hoping for an exploration or hands-on engagement with a platform

I’ve never used or heard of before.