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May9
Nov14
Politics and Social Media
Social media and politics converge in sometimes funny, sometimes horrific ways. The Arab Spring proved how social media could instigate real revolution. However, in America, we tend to stick to the humorous side–a more subversive form of political activism. The most blaring example in the past election is the youtube user Obama Girl and her infamous “Crush on Obama” video (posted below, in case you missed it because you were living under a rock, or actually doing something crazy like having a life).
To date, over 23 million people have seen the video on Youtube–not counting the millions who saw it as it was broadcast over evening news channels during the election. Did it influence anyone to vote for Obama? I have no idea. There is no way I could possibly know that. But it made liking Obama seem like the “cooler” thing to do, so I think chances are it probably at least helped Obama’s case with some wishy-washy collegiates.
Nov7
I will be perfectly honest. I don’t understand Twitter. I don’t get the appeal behind following and tweeting to random people. I think it is hard to be authentic in 140 characters–meaning posts like “My hand is inside of a microwave” are more common than you would think:
Especially after our cyber surveillance class, I don’t think people understand how much information they are giving away about themselves in short 140 meaningless character blurbs. Seemingly harmless tweets like “out shoe shopping” are not only pointless (why do people feel the need to narrate their comings and goings anyway?) but it also alerts not-so-scrupulous people that your house in unattended and ripe for burglary.
Twitter. I just don’t get it. But its clear that Twitter isn’t going anywhere soon, so maybe it’s time I learned to adapt. I just don’t want to.
Oct31
Surveillance
It is hard to talk about surveillance without sounding like a crazy tin-hatter, but there are actual matters that we should be paranoid about. For example, the government program Echelon. It is going to sound like I am stealing from a spy movie, so bear with me.
Echelon is a government program controlled by the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. According to the BBC, “Every International telephone call, fax, email, or radio transmission can be listened to by powerful computers capable of voice recognition. They home in on a long list of key words, or patterns of messages.” Theoretically, the US government is not allowed to spy on personal communications of its citizens–the Patron Act modifies this slightly to allow communications to be monitored without a warrant if terrorism is expected. They can sidestep even this prerequisite by having the UK spy on US citizens instead. This means that every email, facebook post, tweet, phone call, and text has the potential to be scanned and read by government agencies.
Kiyoshi Abe discusses how surveillance is often not known to consumers. This happened to me when I found out that confidentiality is not in email accounts. My lawyer advised me to only send emails through a yahoo account, as gmail and hotmail filter their emails and circumvent lawyer/client confidentiality. This means that any emails sent through gmail and hotmail, for example discussing strategy in a lawsuit, can be read, accessed, and potentially used against you. In my case, it did not really matter as the lawsuit is a simple civil case, but imagine the implications in a criminal case. Communication between the defendant and their lawyer could be particularly incriminating in a criminal case, and the state has full access to any emails send through gmail and hotmail accounts–something the typical user would never even consider. Using the third-party system of gmail and hotmail officially negates any lawyer/client confidentiality, but I highly doubt the typical user realizes this.
Oct24
Cyberbullying
I find cyberbullies to be quiet pathetic. There are two forms of cyberbullying: targeting random strangers you come across, such as nasty comments on YouTube, or targeting people you know in real life. Either one is just sad. I cannot imagine being so full of hate or frustration that I would have to attack people I don’t even know. But even if you did have a legitimate reason to dislike someone over something, it seems like to me, people use the Internet as a shield and say things that they normally would never dream of saying face-to-face. It is a complete failure of communication.
Dealing with cyberbullying has not been handled well by anyone, and I’m not sure how I think the problem could be fixed. We have the First Amendment, giving us the freedom of speech and I am uncomfortable with the idea of limiting the First Amendment at all. I am also uncomfortable with the idea that the US has become a haven for hate speech online.
The real problem to me is that the Internet blends public and private spheres. The Internet itself is a public arena, and once something is online, its imprinted forever on cyber-eternity. But the actual people access the internet in their homes, supposedly their bastions of personal space and security. Suddenly, victims of cyberbullying are being attacked, threatened, and insulted in the sanctuary of their personal space. Everyone deserves the right to be happy. Victims do not deserve to be attacked in such ways, and little is being done to protect them.
The whole situation is a mess, quite frankly, and I don’t know how the situation can be resolved without a complete redesign of the human psyche. We can institute laws and watchdog practices, but cyberbullying is going to continue until people no longer feel the need to bully others.
Oct16
Social Media
Okay, so first I want to start out with something only tangentially related to social media. A new viral videa is being passed around over a baby that is confused over printed magazines, clearly frustrated that they are broken iPads. The little chubbers pokes and prods several magazines, unable to figure out why nothing is happening–with in iPad, the screen would change when touched. At one point she even pokes herself in the leg to make sure that her finger is working:
I think this example highlights the evolving environment businesses and communicators have to deal with. Technology has completely revolutionized our social landscape…which brings me to this week’s topic, social media.We read an article by Sonja Utz abouta Dutch website similar to Facebook, called Hyves. Since I have no actual experience with Hyves, I am going to talk about Facebook instead. It bothers me that Facebook has redefined the word “friends” — even more that the word “unfriend” has now found its way into the dictionary. I had a friend –an actual friend, not just a Facebook friend– that would passive-aggressively unfriend people she didn’t like BUT she would act oh so sweet to their faces, like still go to their apartments and eat their food and copy their homework, but officially they weren’t Facebook friends.
Also, I hate how “Facebook official” has become an indicator of the seriousness of a relationship. Personally, I don’t like to comment one way or the other on Facebook over who I am or am not dating. I don’t really want every person on my friend list to comment on my dating habits, buI have been accused of not wanting to be in a real relationship because I don’t want to be “Facebook official.” Facebook has completely redefined the framework in which relationships–whether or as friends or as something more–are created, evolve, and interact.
At this time, I must admit that I am a Facebook addict. As the majority of my friends live in other states and other countries, Facebook is the only way I can practically keep in touch with people so far away. I also really like that you can keep in touch with people that you normally would have fallen out of contact with. Over the summer, this guy pretty much saved my life and now we are Facebook friends from that chance encounter. Also, last week I got into contact with my best friend from when we were seven and my first crush from even before that. It was amazing to reminisce about all of these old happenings–which otherwise would have been impossible as we live in New York City, Atlanta, and Indialantic now.
So the final verdict? I hate how Facebook is redefining relationships, such as “friend” and “unfriend” and ❤ relationships… but I am hopelessly addicted to Facebook to keep in touch with my actual friends from now and yesteryear, so Facebook is a keeper.
I just hope that my child one day will be able to recognize real friends, not only people “officially friends” on Facebook. I mean if a baby can’t figure out how to turn a page, it’s not that crazy of a fear…
BTW: here is a funny YouTube video about Facebook: The Movie
Oct3
Week 7: Co-Creation and the Case of Oblivion
The IT Crowd is a quirky British comedy about a hapless computer-illiterate woman, Jen, who is placed in charge of the IT department at a posh London firm. She is convinced by her collegueges that the internet is actually a black shoe-sized box with a red blinker on top:
While her workmates were actually taking the piss, their exaggeration of the power of the internet is hardly dramatized. The internet has become an integral part of consumer/business dynamics. Its influence is seen in a small way in the gaming industry.
If you are an avid gamer, chances are you’ve heard of the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It is a single player role-playing game released in 2006. The plot is loosely centered on stopping a cult opening portals to a hell-like dimension called, not surprisingly, Oblivion. It was named Overall Game of the Year, PC Game of the Year, and RPG Game of the Year. Even in 2011, it continues to receive a consistently high rating.Why?
User co-created content.
The developers of Oblivion recognized the importance of a loyal and happy fanbase–avoiding the failure of Fury as we saw in Banks’ and Potts’ article. The creators released their open-source code, allowing gamers to produce “mods” or modifications, similar to apps, that change game-play. According to http://www.oblivionmodwiki.com, there are over 1,300 available mods, ranging from making vampires’ eyes “more suitable” to adding detailed texturing to tapestries in the game. These mods allow the game–even 5 years later (which is practically an ice age in graphics)–to compete graphically with games currently being released.
While the developer may have profit loss from releasing the source code, and thus loosing the control over additional releases; ultimately, its decision is what created its enduring success. A small sacrifice of potential marginal profits is nothing compared to the enduring viability of the game, and continued high sales.
[As a side note—curious about what actually happens to Jen when she brings “the Internet” to the shareholder meeting? See for yourself:]
Sep26
Week 6: Entertainment
The advent of Twitter, the entertainment industry was forever changed. Actors and producers can now tweet real-time responses as the show airs, offering insights and behind-the-scene commentary. But how successful is this tactic?
Extremely.
The hit show “The Big Bang Theory” is a case in point. The season premiere launched 4 days ago, and Kunal Nayyar, who plays the adorkable Raj Koothrappali on the show, tweeted along with the airing, or in his words:
“kunalnayyar I am watching at home with you guys, and I’m wearing no pants”
With Twitter, viewers get to see a whole new (and apparently pantless) side of the man behind the tongue-tied Raj.
The series’ producer, Bill Prady, is also an avid Twitter user, and it is from his feed we can assess the success of the Twitter component:
“skesserSusan Kesser by billprady: Wow- last night’s #BigBangTheory was the most watched Thursday night comedy since the series finale of “Will & Grace” in 2006. (!)”
Was Twitter the only reason behind the highest ratings of the show’s life? No, of course not. It was a season premiere after ending with an epic cliffhanger, and the show’s originality and script make viewers want to tune it. But I think “The Big Bang Theory” certainly proves that an interactive Twitter account certainly doesn’t hurt.
Sep19
Week 5: Citizen Journalism
Citizen journalism is crucial because it keeps traditional news organizations honest. What do I mean by this? Quite simply, every outlet of news coverage has an agenda–for example, GE has a 49 percent stake in NBC. NBC was the only channel that failed to report that GE, despite its $14.2 billion profit for 2010, paid $0.00 in taxes. In fact, they claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion, meaning we, tax-payers struggling though school loans, mortgages, and a recession, are paying our taxes to GE. This is a huge story, but because of conflicting interests, NBC did not report it. Of course, the story was picked up by other news outlets, but what if that is not always the case?
The best example that comes to mind occurred last year in Dublin, Ireland. The structure of the news is different in Ireland–the news is an off-shoot of the government, so what the government wants covered, gets covered with the slant most beneficial to the Taoiseach (a position like the prime minister). Ireland had the worst financial crisis it’s ever experienced last year, and the budget for education was cut 50 percent. The government decided to raise tuition for university for Irish students, who formerly attended class for free. Understandably, the students were not thrilled with the idea of having to pay an increase of about $6,000 a year and organized a protest 3 November 2010. Somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 students marched down the streets of Dublin, and in a country with a population just over four million, that is a huge number of participants. It was the largest student organized march in the history of Ireland.
The product was chaos. It began peacefully, but 50 students rushed into a financial office for a sit-in protest. Someone brought a dozen eggs and pelted the exterior of the office. Compared to the extent of the London riots, the damage caused by the protesters is negligible; but after this incident the Gardai (the police force) lost all patience with the protesters. Students that were engaged in a peaceful sit-in outside of buildings were clubbed. One girl was scalped when a police force kicked her in the head–and she was not even involved in the protest but returning home from work. For the next few days–and this is not an exaggeration–I had to walk over blood stains to get to class.
The media, owned and operated by the government, failed to report anything regarding the protest. Finally, SIX DAYS after the event, they were forced to acknowledge and report on the protest. What forced them to finally report on the incident? Citizen journalism. Pictures like this circulated on blogs as far as California:
Videos of excessive force went viral on youtube:
See a collection of videos here: http://free-education.info/videos-from-the-national-student-protest/. Moreover, facebook groups were made to demand hearings on the Garda bruality (http://www.facebook.com/GardaAttackStudents/).
It took a combination of blogs, web-reporting, viral videos, and facebook groups caused the government-backed news channel RTE to finally report on the protest and allegations of gardai brutality.
RTE continued to slant its coverage in a pro-government slant, questionably phrasing their reports. In a video that clearly depicted the body of an unconscious young woman being dumped on the street by a garda official, the reporter quipped “apparently unconscious” and stated that there we “hundreds” of protesters, when videos clearly show their were thousands. Moreover, 28 complaints against the gardai emerged and RTE covered the story asL ” Students protest against garda ‘brutality,'” making it appear the charges were completely unjustified (http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1110/education.html). Despite the tricks of the government in failing to report and then slanting the coverage, the lwlabord was out–the government under former Taoiseach Brian Cowen is regarded as the most unpopular goverment in the history of the republic, with an approval rating of only 8 percent.
The case of the November 3 protests are significant because it highlights the need for citizen journalism. It forces mainstream media to be honest, and it forces people to be held accountable for their actions. Big brother may be watching, but we are watching right back.
Sep12
karmaisabeach 