We The Media 4

Chapter 10 starts out by discussing the Brock Meeks case (Suarez Corp. v. Meeks). Meeks was the first online journalist to be sued for libel. It was a wake up call for other online journalists because it made them, and everyone else, realize that the Internet is not free from the laws of print journalism. Even something as innocent as writing in your personal blog can be libelous. You have to be careful. Also, if you are a high profile blogger and it’s worth it to get insured, you should. The last thing you want is to get sued and be out tons of money. Also, since the Internet is available to everyone, it is hard to say where that jurisdiction lies. Someone could post something in one state and have a person in a completely different state open it and be offended. Or it could be someone in an entirely different country.

Chapter 11 discusses copyrighting, the government’s imposition on the Internet and overall..Big Brother, as we son fondly call the government. When the Internet started out, the first users thought that it would be a space of freedom, to do whatever they wanted with. But it has become such a force and presence in our lives that it has to be regulated, in my opinion. Some feel that it shouldn’t be. Some countries have gone as far as to regulate every site that is available, mainly China. The Chinese government can be very particular about what its citizens are allowed to access. They even shut down internet access at one point a few years ago.

Chapter 12 discusses just how much the Internet has changed our lives. It influences almost every aspect because of it’s easy accessibility. We rely on it to get our news, do our shopping, do our banking and connect with friends and family. In terms of getting our news, the Internet has especially become the main source of information. We can see this just by looking at the world of print newspapers. Newspapers all over the country have been closing their doors and converting to online only versions. I myself have the New York Times online feed saved as a favorite on my browser. More than any other profession, journalists and future journalists need to learn as much as they can about the web and all the laws that go along with it. It is the future of news.

My Final Website

This is the screenshot of my final website.

Website

My Media Blog

My Lunch

My Newsletter

Final Project Plan

The theme of my post will be about my family’s holiday traditions. I will talk about old traditions that have faded since my childhood and new ones that are being created up until now. My first post will be on Easters of the past, the second on Thanksgiving of today and the third will be on old and new Christmas traditions. I will be using iMovie to make the videos and to edit them.

We The Media 3

Chapter 7 focused on citizen journalism in the form of blogs. To introduce the topic, Gillmor talked about a blogger in Iraq named Zeyad. Zeyad’s blog, Healing Iraq site, had become a main source for people who wanted to understand and keep up to date on what was going on in occupied Baghdad. Zeyad, however, was not the only one reporting on what was going on. Blogging has emerged as a major force of journalism because sometimes the big corporate newspapers just don’t get the memo and miss what is really going on. Citizen journalism allows regular people to have a voice and to tell stories from all different perspectives. Professional journalists are now being outnumbered by citizen journalists. Also, citizen journalists are starting to have more influence than their professional counterparts. Professional journalists, in my opinion, are seen as parts of a corporate machine and only write about what they are told to by their superiors.

Chapter 8 focused on the “laws” of blogging. These are not laws that are passed by a congress but rather trends that every blogger follows and does not stray far from. The first “law” is named for Gordon Moore. Moore was a cofounder of the computer chip maker Intel and his law is the Key to Understanding today’s reality and tomorrow’s possibilities. Something that seems impossible today will be a reality within a year and a half to 2 years. Technology is improving at a lightning speed rate. The second “law” is named for Bob Metcalfe, who invented the Ethernet networking standard. His law states that the value of a communication network is the square of the number of nodes, also known as end-point connections. Gillmor uses fax machines as an example of this. One fax machine is sort of useless, but when you add another in a different location, the system is started and ready to put to use. The third “law” is named for David Reed. Reed made the observation that whenever someone is online, they are not just doing one thing and communicating with one person through one media. Networks are the nodes of communication.

Chapter 9 focused on how while it is amazing that anyone can be published online, it is not always a good thing. Gillmor used the example of the year 2001 when it was discovered that movie studios in Hollywood had been setting up phony websites set up by fans to create more buzz about upcoming projects. However, it isn’t all bad stuff. Some people just don’t know the magnitude of what they are doing sometimes. Also, the chapter covered how something that is emailed around, in a chain letter sort of fashion, can be misinterpreted and sometimes someone along the way will manipulate the literature to make it look like it is something else. It is the “cut and paste” method. Also, he spoke on pictures being doctored and then passed around as legitimate, using the doctored photo of Senator John Kerry and Jane Fonda at a protest in the 1970’s. This photo did not really exist.

Overall, I agree with most of Gilmor’s thoughts. The technological world we life in today is a wonderful one, but only if you use it with honesty. Unfortunately there are others out there who do not.

We The Media 2

In chapter 4, Dan Gilmor spoke about newsmakers controlling the news. Since they are the ones making the headlines, they are the ones who control what gets published. They do this by starting their own blogs and creating their own news. They are no longer relying on journalists to write about them. They are writing about themselves. Of course it’s not just celebrities. Ordinary people who decided to start blogs have become celebrities in their own right. Just the other day I saw a piece on a woman who blogs about home goods and child care goods and has companies sending her products to test and write about.

Chapter 5 was an interesting chapter for me. Since I am in the generation I am in, the idea of fundraising for campaigns through social media is not strange to me. But just 10 years ago, that idea was the most foreign concept in U.S. politics. Everyone saw in this last election how politicians used social media to promote themselves and get the word out on their campaigns. I can remember in the spring of 2007 reading Facebook postings on then Senator Obama. My friends already knew who he was and were supporting him. Facebook groups popped up and money was donated and money was made. Politicians are using the internet to further themselves.

Chapter 6 discusses the future of technology. What I found most interesting was the section on asking former audiences for help. As it has been said numerous times before, everyone is a journalist now. Journalists turned bloggers would be wise to talk to everyday bloggers so as to not disconnect themselves from their readers. I would have to agree with this approach. By allowing the readers to have an input on what is published online, journalists are opening themselves to public criticism.

Did You Know 2.0

This isn’t the first time that I have seen this video. I remember seeing it shortly after it was released in 2007. I saw it in passing and thought it was interesting. I talked about it with a few of my friends but being freshmen, how the internet was evolving was not the first thing on our minds. But now it resonates on a whole new level. I had several reactions to this, some of them that maybe only I would have, maybe not. The first was the “did you know” question in relation to the fact that in 2006, 100% of graduates in India spoke English. That means that 100% of graduates in India are bilingual. I know that the United States can definitely not say the same. Why is it that the United States, one of the youngest countries in the world, is not learning the languages of other countries? Sure, we all take a few language classes in high school and in college but after a certain point we are not required to anymore. We, my generation, have the mindset that we don’t need to learn a different language because eventually the whole  world will speak English. I personally am learning a new language. And doing my best to learn about that culture.

My second reaction was to how fast the internet presence is growing exponentially. The internet is such a great force in the lives of my generation that most of us really do not remember how we got along without it. Some of our parents are starting to wonder the same thing. It really hit me this past weekend how much new technology is affecting our everyday lives. My mom, who is one of the most non-tech-savvy people, was texting with a friend of hers. If my mother can figure out a computer and text messaging, as trivial as that sounds, the world is certainly changing. My grandparents have cell phones and computers and they are in their 80’s. My seven year old cousin has a computer and is on it almost as much as I am. I know this because I can see their screen name lit up on my contacts list. Like the video said, 4 year olds are using computers. But it’s not all bad. Computers are getting incorporated into their educational curriculum and used as a learning tool. Cartoons these days are not just for fun and entertainment; they’re for education. I can remember a few years back babysitting and putting in a Baby Einstein DVD and actually learning a few things myself. I wish I had had that when I was in my playpen as a toddler.

The advancement of technology makes me nervous, but in a good way. We are able to communicate exponentially more effectively that we ever had before. Contact is faster and easier. Information is more accessible. This isn’t always good, which is why we also need to learn how to safeguard ourselves. For me, though, if I think about things in the context that it could be dangerous, I won’t enjoy anything. I take my precautions and I think before I act. As far as being a student and preparing for things that don’t even exist yet, it’s all about preempting things. We have to be on top of things as they happen, especially in the fields that the students in this department are going into. Who knows what we’ll be doing when my kids are my age. We may finally have robots by then with cars that fold up into briefcases. Who knows. We certainly don’t.