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The topic for this post was a difficult one to write about. As a New Yorker I definitely take the city for granted. Things that amaze tourists I pass without a second glance and I think this is true for many native New Yorkers. This is why answering the question “How does New York excite you?” was so hard to answer initially. However thinking on it and looking up some inspiration, I would say reinvigorated my stagnant attitude to the city that I have called home for 26 years.

To start, I have a secret. Many people especially those who just meet me assume that I am a born and bred New Yorker. Bred definitely, however I was actually born in California. My mother is a typical “true” New Yorker. Born and raised in the Bronx. I however made a slightly earlier than expected entrance to the world and therefore am technically a Californian.

To the many New Yorkers this would automatically make me “not a real New Yorker” but believe me when I say I am just as much of a New Yorker as the next person who rushes past you on the sidewalk because you are walking to slowly. I have lived here for the majority of my life and honestly have the mentality that since I have made it here I can honestly make it anywhere.

Now to answer the question of how New York excites me, it does so in many ways. Never more so than when I have left for a duration of time and then return. The saying absence makes the heart grow fonder is not only true about people but for this great city as well. When I travel to other states or other countries and see the sprawling spaces, experience the laid back service and the small town mentality it makes me desperately yearn to be back home in the city that never sleeps.

Sure sprawling spaces my sound amazing when we are so overcrowded you cannot take a train without becoming intimately acquainted with at least three new people, but then you realize with all that space it takes at least twenty minutes to get anywhere and that’s driving. There is no walking to the corner deli at 4 AM because you have a desire for some junk food. There is no taking the train to a fun bar not having to worry about a designated driver because public transit will see you safely home.

People are always concerned that since we live our lives measured in New York minutes we are just moving faster to our graves. However when I go anywhere else I find service, whether it be at a restaurant or helped in a store to be extremely slow. The waitress takes there time there while here they focus (usually) on quick sufficient service to get you in and out and seat the next group. To New Yorkers anything else is basically torture and we can deal with “rude” service if it gets the job done quickly.

To anyone not from New York this seems insane and so these next passages will be a vignette on why those who do not live in New York should at least once in their lives because if they experienced it themselves they too would feel that excitement well up when entering the big apple.

I will not sugar coat it. Living in New York is hard. Think you can afford an apartment in Manhattan because you live in the city of whatever state you are from you are sorely mistaken. However you cannot let that deter you. The difficulty that is New York is what will give you the tough skin to let other hardships seem easy in comparison. “Man I don’t know how I’m going to afford this 5 bedroom house for $1,300 a month” suddenly seems silly when you have paid $1,400 a month for a studio apartment with a roommate. I may or may not be exaggerating.

Another beauty of New York is that no matter how alone in life you are, you are never truly alone. There are over eight million individuals in the city. You can walk down a city block and walk past more people than some towns have as a population. Having that proximity might not be the same as having close friends but people are basically herd animals and for the most part we feel comfortable in a group.

Furthermore as a New Yorker you become highly adaptive. You can feel comfortable in any situation. Whether it be on an aforementioned train with the same three people squished up against you to figuring out the best way to get to work while having to walk the least. We New Yorkers learn the best ways to do things and do not really buckle under pressure if our tried and true routines get broken. After all how many times have you had to find a new route home when the 7 train decided to stop running, or when the LIE was closed?

New York is also special because you can do nearly anything. You can catch the hottest show on Broadway like Hamilton (good luck), perhaps go to the zoo to see exotic animals, and hit a beach all in the same day. The night life offers bars, clubs, magic shows, and unlimited choices in food. The variety of available food is literally mind boggling. It would take 22.9 years to visit every restaurant in New York and that is eating out for breakfast lunch and dinner. Basically the options are endless.

Every single one of these reasons passes through my mind as I am traveling back into the only city that I have ever called home. When I see that skyline rather than feel anxiety as some do or overwhelmed by the sea of people they are about to wade into I feel a sense of comfort. The knowledge that though this may be a tough city, though it stops for no one or anything the people here take care of their own. It is this toughness that brings out the best in its citizens, the creativity from the artists and the bravery from those who protect us.  The excitement that I feel when entering the city is a welcomed rush of pure adrenaline that preps me for anything and everything the city might throw at me and it lets me know I am ready for the challenge that is New York City.

The title has been under debate for several years. Doing a simple Google search will pull up results from almost a decade ago. There are people who argue for both sides but since you are reading my blog I’m going to give my opinion and being a blogger is much different than being a journalist. To rephrase blogging is not the same as journalism.

I have taken a journalism class, several years ago actually and if I had tried to submit any work with my opening paragraph from this blog post I would have failed instantly. The reason being that journalistic works typically have something called a Lead in the first paragraph. I say typically because there are times, in less serious pieces where you can bury the lead, but it still exists. The leads purpose is to answer the 5 W’s. The who, what, where, when and why of news. This brings us to our first difference of journalism and blogging. For the sake of being easier to read I will put them in a list format and you can feel free to skim through and read what resonates with you. As always if you would like to share your opinion feel free to in the comments section.

1. Fairness

One of the primary distinctions between journalism and blogging is the sense of fairness. It is a journalist’s duty to ensure that they have covered all sides of a story, that both sides have an opportunity to speak, which is why in most news articles you read if the other side was not quoted you will read something along the lines of “The other party declined to comment”. In blogging however more often than not that is not the case. Did you notice how I ended my last paragraph? It was a call to action to comment if you disagreed with my viewpoints or assessments at any point (Falls 2010).

That may give the illusion of fairness but in reality it is not. How often do people actually look at the comments of something they read? If they do most of them unfortunately contain the dregs of society and are typically people arguing with no evidence to back up their statement. Rarely do you see someone who the article is written about actually commenting on it to give their side of the story, and even if they did who would pay attention? A journalist actually gives the opposite party of whatever he or she is writing about an opportunity to say something. Whether we agree with them or not at least both sides are given space in the piece of work to be read by all.

Objectivity falls under the umbrella of fairness as well. When you read a journalistic piece it should be unbiased. At no point should you get a sense of how the author of the piece feels about the topic in question. In blogging this is about as far from the case as possible. Most bloggers write because they have a passion for what they are writing about and blogs are usually an opinion piece. In this sense blogs are closer to editorials than they are to normal journalistic works.

 

 

2. Medium Used

Another key difference between journalism and blogging is the medium used. By definition blogging is an internet only form of writing, after all blogging stands for Web Log. Journalists use many types of mediums. They use television, newspapers, magazines, radio and yes the internet as well. As you can see the internet is just one tool of the journalist while it is the only tool of the blogger. Can you think of any negatives this might cause? It’s actually our next point.

3. Authenticity and Credibility

How trust worthy is the information you find on the internet? Unless you know the source of the piece you are reading you would not just follow advice you find online. It is something we all remember from school. Make sure you are using reputable sources, not Wikipedia or random sites like IHATECELEBRITIES.com. The information on these websites may not be accurate because there are no editors for information posted to the web. A blogger is held to their own moral code of what information to post and the accuracy of their sources.

A journalist on the other hand does have a series of checks and balances. That is not to say that no journalist has never gotten away with outright lying about a story, does the name Brian Williams (Boyer 2015) ring a bell? However it is much more difficult to publish false statements or fake news in reputable publications. There are editors that check over their work; also journalists do not have the benefit of the anonymity that bloggers can take advantage of. A journalist’s reputation is on the line every time they write. If they continue to do inappropriate things they will find themselves without work eventually, a blogger can change their screen name and start all over.

4. Style and Structure

Throughout this post I have purposely used a light tone and a list structure to purposely highlight the fact that this is not a serious piece of journalistic work. This is more similar if anything to the website Cracked.com and their comedic lists, which is where I copied the format from. I have done this to further prove my point. You would never find this in the pages of The Washington Post, but that’s ok. Blogging gives you a much more free and personal liberties with your writing. Throughout the post I have asked you the reader questions directly and joked around, albeit weakly.

Another part to this is that journalists typically need to meet a word minimum. In this particular post I do too since this is an assignment for class but generally speaking bloggers can write to their hearts content. If their post is three hundred words or three thousand it makes no difference as they aren’t writing for a parent company but merely to get their point across.

5. Sources

This brings me to my final point. A journalist relies on networking and this networking leads to reliable sources. People on the inside of things who can give the journalist information that they can in turn use to break a story open. A blogger on the other hand regurgitates information (again generally speaking) that they’ve seen elsewhere. They attract readers because they take whatever topic they have decided to write on and put a fresh spin on it. With this method of writing a bloggers topic does not necessarily have to be recent and their “source” is whatever they might have found online. Which as was mentioned in point three might not be the best source for material.

Conversely a journalist actively investigates a story on the ground floor. They leave their house and go out into the real world and get their hands dirty. There is danger involved sometimes in the case of investigative journalists. Sources are a key difference.

Closing Thoughts

It might seem as if I am being too hard on bloggers but I do respect the work they do. I am simply pointing out the differences between the two mediums. Yes they both involve writing but to say every blogger is a journalist can be insulting to the profession of journalism. This assignment has made me a blogger. Never would I dare to call myself a journalist. That is not to say the two must be mutually exclusive. Many journalists have blogs that they write and as mentioned in some of the points above the tone is much more relaxed and it’s more of an interactive medium. Some bloggers can become journalists in their lives if they enjoy writing enough. I simply want to draw the line that it goes too far to say that they are both exactly the same. What is your opinion?

 

 

 

References-

 

Falls, J. (2016, June 10). The Critical Difference Between Blogging And Journalism. Retrieved March 17, 2017, from https://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/news-and-noise/the-critical-difference-between-blogging-and-journalism/

Boyer, D. (2015, February 10). NBC’s Brian Williams suspended 6 months without pay for Iraq lie. Retrieved March 17, 2017, from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/10/brian-williams-nbc-news-anchor-suspended-6-months-/

The Major Differences Between Blogging and Journalism | Comparison | Similarities | Pros & Cons. (2016, December 26). Retrieved March 17, 2017, from http://www.problogbooster.com/2016/12/difference-between-blogger-and-journalist-blogging-vs-journalism-weblogs-debate-comparison-pros-cons.html

Young, R. (2015, May 18). Blogging vs. Journalism: Identifying the Fundamental Differences | KoMarketing. Retrieved March 17, 2017, from https://komarketing.com/blog/blogging-vs-journalism-identifying-the-fundamental-differences/

What will social media look like in the future? That’s a loaded question for sure. If this was asked several years ago the answer might include apps like Vine being a big player and part of social media’s future. Yet as things stand now Vine is a shell of its former self after Twitter, its parent company, decided it needed to slash funding in order to increase profitability (Constine 2017). If Vine was so popular then why couldn’t it bolster Twitter without having to be sacrificed?

That question brings us to the most interesting parts of social media. No one has a 100% guarantee on what platform will become wildly popular, which ones will endure and who will fade. Instagram began to host videos, which was damaging to Vine, and then Snapchat began hosting its “Stories” which was just another nail in the coffin. If you had asked the question years ago no one could have told you what has transpired yet the question we must answer is the same today.

We do have some educated guesses. We will probably look back at this post and laugh at how off the mark the estimates were or they all can turn out to be correct. Reminiscent of the articles that predicted the first Iphone would be a flop. So here is where the future of Social Media may lie.

 

Virtual Reality Can be a Big Player

Current social media behemoth Facebook has already double downed on virtual reality being the future of technology and possibly the future of social media. In August 2012 Oculus began a Kickstarter (Kickstarter 2012) for a virtual reality headset that worked by using your desktop PC to render your virtual environment. Facebook paid nearly 3 billion dollars to purchase the company that had yet to release its product in March 2014 (Pressburg 2017).

Some might ask why Facebook would jump into a market that had yet to even begin to blossom but there are theories as to what the future of virtual reality may hold. Consider this, one of social media, and Facebook specifically, big draws are that it keeps you in contact and connected to people around the world. You can now be kept up to date on the day to day happenings of your cousin who lives in Japan. Now take this concept and add virtual reality to it. Rather than take a flight costing you thousands to see your relative you can strap a headset on your face and feel as if you’re spending time with them in person in a matter of seconds.

Interaction between humans and digital environments is experiencing breakthroughs all the time. From companies like Virtuix who offer the Omni, a walking interface that translates your actual body movement into the digital plane, to Oculus themselves with their Touch controllers to get a greater degree of realism to hand movements in games, we are drawing closer to a truly immersive virtual experience.

If Facebook can be the facilitator of interaction, long distance relationships could benefit, deployed soldiers can “visit” their families, it can put a much heavier emphasis on the social aspect of social media. We may turn to digital to socialize in ways we couldn’t previously due to whatever restrictions our lives and locations have placed on us. This in turn would make Facebook the leader of all social media platforms more so than they already are.

One Platform Controls the Internet

It may seem as if I’m picking on Facebook but that is only because Facebook reaches the most people of any Social Media platform. With an active user base of 1.86 billion monthly users (Statista 2016) they reach the masses. It’s no secret that Facebook wants to be the end all be all of one stop internet usage. Need to search for an answer to a question? Facebook now has a search feature, that although doesn’t match Googles 3.5 billion  searches per day (InternetLiveStats 2017) it clocks in at a surprisingly high 2 billion searches per day (Constine 2016).

They have a messenger app, marketers can advertise, you can play games on Facebook, it is even a rudimentary web browser. When you click a link from within the app it lets you view the site you wanted. From there you can shop or do anything else you like, but at any time you can click that little x and be right back to your news feed. Think you can get away from Facebook by using Instagram? Can’t escape that way either as they’re owned by Facebook as well.

Social media is also the new way the majority of people get their news, whether real or fake. Social media has ingrained itself in nearly every facet of our lives and Facebook is looking for ways to become all the more indispensable. In the future instead of using Google Chrome as our web browser we might be using Facebooks yet to be created browser not to visit other sites, but to access features that other companies pay to have included.

 

Social Media in the Work Place

Finally we may see the end of companies blocking social media in the work place. Many companies currently don’t have a social media policy in place, as of 2013 73% did not (Dougherty 2014). It’s safe to assume that in the 4 years since that number has dropped but even though they don’t actively warn users against usage they may block access with a firewall or some other similar software.

Recently however companies have begun to become more accepting of the positives of social media. It will never be okay to send your boss that funny meme about the “Cash me outside” girl or whatever may be popular at the time, but look at sites such as LinkedIn. It is a great way of recruiting potential employees and seeing a work history prior to hiring. To name Facebook again they have tried to enter the business field with Facebook at Work (Kleeman 2016). It’s a water downed version of the Facebook we all know and love. It has a news feed, a way to message, group message and a professional profile. This is Facebook again trying to take users from other similar professional offerings and bringing about the theory above. Whatever platform used it has been shown to produce productivity and company involvement.

 

So there you have it. Those are three distinct ways that I think social media can go in the future. Agree, disagree? I’d love to see what you think in the comments below!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game

Pressberg, M. (2017, January 17). Um, Facebook Bought Oculus for $3 Billion (Not $2 Billion). Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://www.thewrap.com/um-facebook-bought-oculus-3-billion-not-2-billion/

Constine, J. (2017, January 17). Vine shuts off sharing, launches Vine Camera. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/17/download-vine-camera/

Facebook users worldwide 2016. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/

Constine, J. (2016, July 27). Facebook sees 2 billion searches per day, but it’s attacking Twitter not Google. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/27/facebook-will-make-you-talk/

Google Search Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/

Dougherty, J. (2014, October 22) 73% of companies don’t have employee social media policies.. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://leaderswest.com/2013/04/09/study-68-of-companies-dont-share-the-purpose-of-social-media-with-employees/

Kleeman, S. (2016, March 04). What Is Facebook at Work and Do You Need to Care? Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://gizmodo.com/what-is-facebook-at-work-and-do-you-need-to-care-1762754256