Interview With a Friend #2

Time to let someone else talk... again.

Hello all, we’re back again with our interview segment of the blog.

Today, I’m going to talk to the guy that helped me get this blog started. My former college prof. Jamie Cohen.

Jamie and I became friends after my two years at Molloy College, where Jamie was a professor in New Media. He’s a great guy, and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.

So, let’s get to it:

Hey Jamie, how you been?

Hi Mike!! I’ve been well. A whole lot of really hard work and creative projects helped me make some really great career steps. Thank you for these questions! You rock!

In the intro, I introduced you as my professor in New Media. I’m going to assume some of the readers here don’t know what that is exactly, would you like to tell them about it?

New media is the field of study of non-traditional media frameworks – aka TV, movies, radio – though arguably, new media is more mainstream today than ever before and is pretty inseparable from traditional media. In other words, new media is intertwined with EVERYTHING. What makes new media different, is that we study tech, civics, content, and innovation from a bottom up perspective rather than a top down structure like major media systems.

What made you interested in it?

I first got interested in new media in 2006 when I was working in traditional media, and all my content was being re-purposed or streamed online. Then, some friends made a really successful webseries and I immediately realized we need to start thinking critically about the web before it’s too late. Been doing that ever since.

Social Media seems to be running the world right now, certainly in politics. Do you see this as a good thing, or bad?

It’s hard to think of any form of communication in a binary sense since its neither good nor bad. I think what should be asked is about how social media is used in good faith or bad faith. Do users really want to use the technology (and it is a technology) to share and communicate with the intent of learning or do they want to use it to hurt people or weaponize it? There have always been good and bad actors in communication and media, but our intent is rapidly sped up with social media so there’s a greater likelihood of losing nuance, depth and context with social media. We just have to be thoughtful when we read things online and not take them at face value. Since you asked about politics, rhetoric has always filled the shape of the media apparatus it’s carried on. If the receiver of the rhetoric doesn’t know how to interpret it critically, then it doesn’t matter. The problem with social media and new media studies, is that some people still think it’s fun and games and cats and skateboard videos and it isn’t – it’s the model of communication that has become embedded into media like the way our nervous system works in our human body. It’s all of the strands behind all we know. Everything is mediated.

In America there’s always freedom of speech, but it seems like these platforms, specifically Twitter are becoming a breeding ground for trolls. Why do you think people are using these platforms like that?

In every single one of my classes, I go over civics and civic engagement. It’s important, because we take many of our rights for granted. We forget that our rights are a freedom from the government. Our inalienable rights do have some restrictions which include limitations on harm, speech on private property (ie all our social media tech) and unacceptable discourse. On Twitter, trolling has becomes a swarm-like activity, a one-upmanship with no end. The problem I see is that people still engage with trolls. Remember, most of trolling is just reaction and reaction to reactions, it has no depth and it’s in bad faith. To me, it’s sad that people wake up, open their twitter and just use it angrily. A troll’s goal is to silence someone’s speech. They use their rights to infringe on others by using a volumetric attack. I think people use these tools like this because they actually are angry, but they don’t know where to place their emotions aside from targeting someone they perceive as more dominant than them. We need good trust and safety to continue using social media safely.

I know that you aren’t currently teaching at Molloy anymore, and are now working at Queens College. Have you found both schools open to your ideas?

Yes! Both schools were very open to studying internet culture. I’m thrilled to be full time in the Media Studies department at Queens College. I teach social media and critical advertising studies and digital activism in the master’s program. I’m so unbelievably happy to be surrounded by really supportive faculty at QC and they’re happy I brought my niche to CUNY.

You’ve had a few books published, are there any you are working on right now? If so, could you tell us anything about it?

Lol, I’m actually working on 3 books right now. It’s a lot. One is a textbook on Remote Media Production and what we can learn from making media in remote settings like Zoom or hybrid classrooms. Another is about The Facebook Papers and how Facebook has changed American Society. That one is a really critical look at Facebook’s role in shaping mood, behavior, and politics. In that one, my co-author and I are basically breaking down much of The Facebook Papers so they can be understood better in a media literacy perspective. And finally, I’m working on a book about the history of virtual reality. It’s really timely given all this metaverse bullshit.

A bit off topic, but you were the one who introduced me to Substack. You have a blog on here as well?

I do! I don’t post on it as much as I want to, but I’ll come back to it now and then. It’s called New Media Homework because that’s how I used to send my new media homework! newmediahomework.substack.com. Another reason I’m not writing that much on it is because I’m actually a paid columnist for Medium and write there much more often: newanddigital.medium.com

Something I get asked a lot is, “What is the theme of my blog?” If I asked you the same about yours, what would you say?

I like to refer to my theme like a “beat” like a journalist would have. My beat is internet culture which covers everything from digital media literacy to content analyses to talking about new technology and new media. I love researching all this and writing about it! Love your blog too. I really like the approach you take to your observations. Writing takes practice and this is a good way to keep going and have fun with it.

In the Pandemic world, so much information has been spread about Covid, the vaccines, the government? Where do you stand with all of that?

Great question. I think we should think about the most vulnerable when it comes to this virus. I have the privilege of mobility and getting vaccines and travel, but SO many do not. I wear a mask for others and do my best not to exclude those who are limited by the dangers of this disease. A small percentage of people get long Covid and that scares me. Some of the long term issues are brain issues or long term breathing issues. Scary stuff. I can only speak for myself, but I wish we all cared collectively.

What do you most hope to achieve with teaching New Media?

Question authority! I think it’s important to interrogate systems that shape our reality. As I said, everything is mediated and new media is intertwined. Companies like Facebook and Twitter and TikTok shape our environments and we should make sure to be critical of them as much as possible.

Jamie, thank you so much for doing this. Hope to catch up soon.

If you want to learn more about Jamie you can check out his websites,

• https://www.jamesncohen.com

• https://newanddigital.medium.com/

You can also check out his blog on Substack… https://substack.com/profile/797970-jamie-cohen

Thanks again for reading, and hope you enjoyed.