Digital Media and Boundaries

RESEARCHABLE INTERESTS for Richard M. Cano

My research interests are both broad and specific. I would like to inquire into how media reacts in its own right. It would be interesting to see how we are changed by media. In turn, I’d like to see how media changes traditional methods of accomplishing tasks, that is, the ways that we have done things in the past. I’d also like to see how media affects communication ideology. Even another area of research is to inquire into how research methodology can be enhanced by media. These research interests have many benefits as to the inquiry of digital media.

I will make every effort to focus on how digital media is alive and grows organically like a rhizome. This concept is something that I have wanted to explore many times over, and I believe that this course gives me the perfect opportunity to do so. I have a lot of literature that has lead me to this topic, and many unanswered questions that cannot be resolved without delving into the act of actual utilization.

I will also focus my research interests on studying the fact that we have multiple identities because of social media, both online and offline. Our identities are split due to the fact that we create and maintain an online identity separate yet in conjunction to our offline identities. I plan on depicting this concept through the various digital mediums available to us (i.e. blogs, images, video, social media, etc.).

As an added interest, I’d like to show how digital media has changed traditional and even classical vocations. As a musician in a mariachi group, I’d like to depict how media has changed the way things have been accomplished for years. This is true in other areas as well, including education.

Another aspect of my research interests is the full-circle of communication (from communication with the self (i.e. the role of psychology in communication) to communication with the masses (i.e. social media)). I have a graphic that shows what I ascertain to be the warmth and coldness of media as it flows through this circle. Communication studies do not concern themselves with the psychological aspects of this circle and have only yet grasped the social media aspects.

I have often pondered as to how media would change methodology, how using social media to research areas of social media would affect academia. I have tried gaining data through a website that was in the form of a forum. I would like to explore how other types of digital media can be used to ascertain data that would be relevant in academia.

I argue that these research interests are both intriguing and justified. If digital media is alive, it lives, grows, and dies with us. As a result, we live with digital media, often times creating different identities because of it. Some traditional methods of accomplishing tasks are changed because of digital media. Both our internal and external communication is affected by the use of digital media. As a result, digital media itself might be the best way to analyze digital media in its natural habitat.

My research interests are both broad and specific. Digital media seems to lend itself to this type on inquiry. In hopes of answering some of these sectors, I will look towards digital media to fill in the gaps missing in my research endeavors.