Assignment for Class Twelve

After reading Levinson’s chapter 10 on Politics and New Media, choose a politician who you can reach out to via social media.
It can be anyone from President Obama down to your local hometown councilman.

You choose the platform and the message. Maybe you want to tweet your US senator your thoughts on gun control; send a Facebook message to your state representative about student loans; respond to a congresswoman’s Instagram photo?
The goal is to see how responsive elected officials are to their constituents.

Whether or not you get a response, take a screenshot of the interaction and include it in your personal blog posting this week.

On Tuesday, 4/21/2015 at 9:48 A.M. I responded to Mass Governor Charlie Baker’s Tweet with the following:

I have received no response. (Updated/Last Checked 4/27/2015)

Luckily, after some digging, I recovered a tweet I sent to Mayor of Malden Gary Christenson:

Assignment for Class Eleven

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/02/06/the-story-of-a-suicide
While reading this piece, keep in mind how new media played a crucial role in allowing events to happen (consider not just hardware/devices, and platforms, but also the mindset that prevailed when it came to *using* new media).
Do you have a solution to cyber-bullying? Is the New Yorker piece an example of it? Is cyber-bullying something that concerns you?

The New Yorker story about Ravi and Clementi is an unfortunate, modern tale regarding new-age bullying and new media’s influence. The article made light of some new, new media platforms that allow for a different brand of bullying in which many of the said bullying is completed anonymously, such as Formspring, in which users put themselves out there to get asked questions and commented on without a name behind the statement. The increased development of such online forums and sites is a prime example of a bad set up for online gossip, while bloggers in pajamas post mean things online without the guilt of being called out for it, and without the consequences.

The New Yorker piece: was it an instance of cyber-bullying? Maybe, but where is the line that crosses between gossip and hurtful attacking? Was it an instance of two ignorant roommates who couldn’t communicate with each other?
The Webcam instance might have been the key part in the case that broke that line. The fact that Ravi had the webcam suspiciously already set to face his roommate and open when someone called indicated that perhaps Ravi had premeditated spying on Clementi. That is so creepy!

Assignment for Class Ten

Reading: Is Google Making Us Stupid?
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/

New Rules for the Way We Watch
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/business/media/rules-for-the-new-ways-of-watching-david-carr.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all?src=tp

Assignment for Class Eight

I. Things to get excited about. And not.
Reading: New, New Media, Chapter 8 (Smaller Potatoes)

Chapter 8 discusses lesser used types of media including Myspace,Digg, Reddit, Second Life, and Podcasts, none of which I have ever used. At one point, I used to download Nickelodeon video podcasts that showed behind the scenes clips and music videos from my favorite kids’ shows at the time, but that wasn’t very often. I never had a myspace; I didn’t even have a Facebook until I was at least a Sophomore in high school. Mostly because I wasn’t allowed to have one by my parents, but also because I didn’t really have the need for any at the time anyhow. Eventually, Facebook became more and more popular and both my parents and I gave in and all made accounts. Yet, these “small potatoes,” as the chapter puts it, didn’t really stand a chance against social media superstar Facebook, and simply did not have the longevity and flexibility that Facebook created.

II. Guest Speaker: Maria Stephanos, anchor, FOX25
Topics to include: news gathering in the digital age, interactions with the audience, consumers as producers, new media’s impact on news media.

Last class, we had the amazing opportunity to have a guest speaker, the beautiful and intelligent journalist and news anchor at Fox 25 News, Maria Stephanos. To be honest, I was pretty intimidated to be meeting her. I did not know what to expect. I thought maybe she would not be particularly personable, since she is always on TV and is locally famous. However, as soon as she stepped in the room, she was so friendly and talked exuberantly about her passion that she gets to do for a living. More importantly, she encouraged us students to pursue all of our passions as well. She even made sure to have a conversation with each and every individual in the room to find out why they were taking the class and what they wanted to do with their careers. When it came to my turn to speak, we had a short discussion about how although I would like to travel a lot in the future, I would most like to take my journalism experience to something somewhat localized, similar to WCVB’s Chronicle, a show that sometimes travels far but often travels locally to discover hidden treasures in local businesses and secret vacation getaways.
It was awesome that Ms. Stephanos was so personable, joking with us and actually seemed very interested in what we had to say and what we were doing. It was a brilliant experience being able to meet and have conversations with someone who is very experienced in the field (in addition to Jim Armstrong, who is also very experienced in the field and whom we are lucky to have classes with and learn from every Friday!! 😉 )

III.Watch the video below and ask yourself… Are YOU a “born multitasker”? Do some honest reflection on how easily you can do multiple things at once – particularly when one (or some) of those things involve new media.

This video (which I’m guessing is from about 2004/2005 based on the fact that Facebook (2004) is featured, yet the computers and cellphones featured are boxy and outdated), notes that new media is making us multi-taskers. There are arguments of whether this multi-tasking internet use is harmful, and there are arguments of whether this multi-tasking internet use is useful.
“We’re always in a state of looking at multiple sources of information simultaneously,” Johns Hopkins University brain scientist, Steven Yantis, stated. This concept, I can definitely agree with. Noticing the screenshot I included above, even as I do my homework, I never have only one tab open when I am working on my laptop. Typically, I have a tab open for every part of all my homework, I have Facebook, and then I may have other tabs open in addition to that. Forever, my mind is in a million places at once, yet somehow, I manage to be able to focus on all these different things simultaneously. I have been like that as long as I can remember, but it has increased throughout the years, probably beginning with playing my gameboy color while watching TV at a young age, or something like, and now I am typically doing homework while listening to music and watching TV and getting distracted by Facebook.

Pew Research Center scientist Lee Rainie argues that, “the internet makes people more of what they already are. I can agree with that on a certain level. Looking through statuses and tweets and news stories that are shared by my friends online, and looking at my own, one can judge what a person’s beliefs, likes and thoughts are based on their posts, or at least what they are trying to portray themselves as.

Assignment for Class Seven

I. When does new become old?
Reading: New, New Media, Chapter 2 (Facebook), http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/technology/shunning-facebook-and-living-to-tell-about-it.html?_r=1&smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

In the New York Times article, Tyson Balcomb made an eerily accurate case about the ‘creepy factor’ that Facebook can contain. Balcomb pointed out, before ‘quitting Facebook,’ “At that point I thought, maybe this is a little unhealthy,” as he described how he was a little too easily able to discover a decent amount of information about a woman, a stranger, he came into contact with on an elevator simply by looking at her public Facebook profile.
I must admit, that I have been guilty of this awkward, yet very real, experience myself, and I have known many people (maybe everyone I know who is on Facebook), who have experienced this as well. You want to find out more about a person you have just met, or you find a guy (or girl) who is super attractive but you aren’t sure his (or her) name, so you go to Facebook to seek out that info. The information is relatively easy to access, and users put their information out there for it to be accessed. Weird? Maybe.
Which leads into the next subtopic in the article: is Facebook making us antisocial, despite its purpose of linking people together? Perhaps. One woman in the article, Ashleigh Elser, stated: “I wasn’t calling my friends anymore. I was just seeing their pictures and updates and felt like that was really connecting to them.”
Partially, I think that Facebook has been supplemental to keeping in touch with old friends, classmates, teachers, long-distance family members, etc. However, when Facebook becomes the only way to keep in touch with these people, it really doesn’t make a person very social at all. Even though there is communication in the sense of giving and receiving information, there is a lack of face time between people by relying on online social media for communication. Relationships simply don’t work this way. Does a “like” or comment on a Facebook post now equal a phone call?
Strangely enough, having a Facebook or some form of online profile has become a near-necessary norm in our generation. If someone decides to take themselves away from their blogs and profiles, their motives are often questioned or they are individually seen as strange. Like mentioned in the article, a question that comes to mind might be, “what are they hiding?” Maybe nothing at all, but unfortunately this is the judgment that has come into play. There have honestly been times when I wanted to disable my account; I see controversial statuses just asking for drama, I get another Candy Crush Saga request (despite not even playing the game), or I see friends posting photos of their amazing tropical vacation as I sit at my work desk and I get a little jealous, or maybe it is going back to the borderline-Facebook-stalking moments, and I wonder if it was worth it; maybe I find myself only keeping in touch with some of my old friends from high school through Facebook messaging and wonder about the last time we talked in person or over the phone, (a topic that Chapter 2 of the text takes a look at as well). Ironically, meeting someone in person after first meeting them online is still a concept that, if not frowned upon, is still not quite part of the norm as much as meeting someone in person first. Yet, despite the cons of having a Facebook, I continue to find myself logging on each and every time I go on a computer, or pressing the navy blue and white app icon on my devices to respond to my notifications and see what my friends are up to. How has this become a lifestyle? I envy Mark Zuckerberg more than those friends who are sitting on a beach during their spring break right now.

II. Realities we forget are real.
Reading: New, New Media, Chapter 7 (FourSquare and Hardware)

Chapter 7 discusses the use of Foursquare, a type of social media I have never used before. However, going back to Facebook, I have on occasion “checked-in” to places I have been, for example, if I really like a restaurant and wanted to tell my friends about it and its food. I think Foursquare and Facebook share this feature. I don’t typically like to have my ‘location’ on on my devices and social media platforms, however. I knowingly put a lot of information out on my Facebook and somewhat on my Twitter, but there is something about pinpointing your location at every given moment to people you don’t know well or barely speak to that makes me feel like my privacy is being violated.

Think about your Facebook friends; who are they? Come up with some rough percentages about the people who make up your Facebook “friend” list. What percentage are your family? your close friends? acquaintances? people you’ve never met in person? Come up with whatever categories you want – and blog about what you find.
Also, consider Levinson’s pg. 25 comment that ” . . .we most love what we first experience.” How, if at all, do you think that sentiment applies to your interactions with Facebook?

Of my 487 Facebook “friends,” I have family, co-workers (including my boss), classmates and acquaintances from high school and college, and of course, my actual real-life friends. I do not have anyone that I have not met in person, but I have a few people who I have barely talked to in person. Rough percentages might be 80% classmates and school acquaintances, 10% actual friends, less than 5% co-workers, and about 5% family members. That is a rough estimate and the labels for each are very broad, there’s the “sorta” friends and best friends and more categories among those, but then I’d have to pick apart nearly every person on my Facebook, because they’re all different.
Considering Levinson’s comment “We most love what we first experience,” is a sentiment, I think that considers nostalgia and originality. That could be applied to Facebook in the aspect that when people first started using Facebook, this might have been their first time on an online social media platform. It was for me, I never had a MySpace or anything, and I don’t think I’ll be seeking another social media platform at any point, being used to and enjoying the convenience and originality of Facebook.

Assignment for Class Six

1.) Review the Palfrey article and blog about a time when you, yourself, used his 3-step process to ‘experience’ something new. (It may take some time, but you can probably come up with one. Did you ever notice a headline or topic, but kind of ignore it? Then you see the story again, so you click on a link to learn more? Then maybe you go to the 3rd step?) If you only do steps 1 and 2, talk about why you didn’t get to step 3…

2.) Consider posting, on your blog, an avatar you use on a different site – and explain it. Is it just a picture of you? Why did you pick that one? Is it a cartoon? Your cat? A piece of art? How and why do you choose what you ‘look like’ online???

1.) “Palfrey’s Graze, Deep-Dive, and Feedback Loop”
Learning to speak Italian comes to mind when I think about Palfrey’s article. I started my “grazing” period of learning Italian as early as middle school, in which I first became exposed to elementary vocab words, and basic geography. As I fell in love with the language and the culture I began to “deep-dive” into Italian studies even more. I immersed myself more in Italian once I gained an interest in this new-to-me language in high school, where I studied rigorous courses around the subject for four years. I would not say I completely took a “deep-dive” into the language and culture though, until I actually travel to Italy, which I plan to do in the not so distant future. I know that my trip will include a “feedback loop,” in which I will record my trip via photos and journals.

2.)

These are the two current photos I have as sort of avatars on my Facebook, one as my profile picture and one as my cover photo. My profile picture is a simple self-taken photo in which I have a little bit of makeup on my eyes and lips, my hair is somewhat styled straight and smooth with a little curl on the ends, I am wearing a Dragon Egg necklace, and I look genuinely happy. I like this photo of myself as a profile picture because although I am wearing makeup, one of the natural elements of the photo that kind of stands out is my eyes; they are naturally Tweety-bird blue eyes with accents of green in the center, and I kind of like that about myself. In general, you can tell a lot about a person by looking them in the eyes: whether they are lying, whether they are happy or upset, whether they are kind or bitter, to name a few examples. For this reason, I like that my eyes kind of are a unique feature. This isn’t the best and brightest view of them, but they still are one of the main focuses of the photo. When I choose profile photos, I generally try to choose ones where my eyes are captured, or where I look my best, and I think this is one of the few photos that does this.
My cover photo, however, is slightly different. It changes more often than my profile photo. Although it is representative of my profile and myself, it is not the photo that says, “this is me” like the function of a profile photo. I think of it as more of an extension. In this case, I have a silly photo of my friends and I at a party making kind of Mean Girl/we’re judging you faces. (I assure you we are anything but Mean Girls, this was just a silly photo in a series of silly selfies taken). Also unlike my profile photo, I am a little less made-up and way more casual in this photo. I usually am not in my cover photos either; I typically choose photos of my friends, the college campus, my dog, nature photos, quotes, or something else that can kind of go in the background but still be considered a feature. I’m not completely sure why I find this photo funny to be honest, it doesn’t really represent who I am nor does it represent my friend’s characterizations, but it was taken at a time we were hanging out and having a great time and this was kind of amusing at the time.

Assignment for Class Four

A few questions to keep in mind as you prepare for our next class:

According to the text, Levinson asserts that while TV provides ‘immediacy’, YouTube is the ‘medium of record.’ I think this means that although television still provides media in a form of ‘right here right now,’ YouTube is simply a more convenient medium in hosting video. Nearly everything that is found on TV is at some point put on YouTube, whether whole or in parts. It doesn’t always go the other way though, unless a video goes viral. For example, when a group of Harvard boys decided to make a video lip-syncing and dancing to Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe, it later went viral on YouTube, and even later, became the topic of a local television news story.

Later, when talking about the potential for online mischief, Levinson says “YouTube contributes a lot more to the public good than to its undermining”. Do you agree? Why or why not?

I must disagree that “YouTube contributes a lot more to the public good than to its undermining” forms of media. Even though YouTube is a great medium for convenience when it comes to news, entertainment and other video productions, for every breaking news story on YouTube, it would seem there is about five “Shrek is Love” Equivalents. (Don’t even bother unless you’re very curious, it’s a very bizarre viral video). I think a lot of this is due to the fact that YouTube is open to use for the public, yet to get something to appear on TV takes a lot more effort and the content goes through many more filters.

Levinson also calls Twitter “something we ‘wear’ or send out to the world…to indicate our emotional disposition”. What does this mean — and do you agree with his assessment?

Comparing Twitter to “something we wear” is an interesting and very valid metaphor. Many users on Twitter report everything they do from shower to sleep, awards to failures and everything in between. Other users use the social media platform significantly less and/or differently. However users utilize the platform, Twitter is kind of a reflection of who they are and what is on their mind. I believe the same goes for Facebook, but even more so. I do agree with his assessment in this way. One can tell a lot about a person by taking a look at their Facebook profile or their Twitter feed, whether or not their “online personality” is the same as who they (seemingly) are in person.
Because of this idea, I thought it might be a fun idea to include my Twitter feed widget on this blog. Even though many of my tweets are silly and some are more serious, it kind of allows viewers to take a look into who I am.

Assignment for Class Three

“Citizen Journalist.”
What does it mean to be one? Are you one? Do you know someone who is? How would you define it?

I believe I, like many people in my generation, am, on a small scale, a citizen journalist. Everyone who has a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Blog, or other type of social media has at some point been a citizen journalist in his or her life. These forms of social media have made it possible not just to connect with family and friends, but possibly millions of other users online to share their stories, whether dramatic or simple and the information put on those sites is typically some sort of reporting, except for maybe selfies. A picture is taken, a small story is told: “Hey, look at my friends,” “Look at this weather,” “My adventure on the road trip,” etc.
Citizen Journalism is officially defined as “the collection, dissemination, and analysis of news and information by the general public, especially by means of the Internet.” Although their reports may not always be hard news, or for that matter accurate, people who use these social media sites are all connecting with other people through their stories and posts.

Is Julian Assange a citizen journalist?

Julian Assange is a kind of citizen journalist. If one were to Google his name, Assange’s title is, in fact, “publisher and journalist.” However, Assange is not what one would call a conventional journalist. Known mostly for (illegally?) “leaking” government information over the internet, Assange founded Wikileaks, a website that releases this private government information. In a way, he is a citizen journalist because he personally publishes articles with these topics for many people to read and consume.

Consider what it means to accept money, as a private citizen, to write something on your blog. Does it corrupt the content of what a private citizen writes? How is (or isn’t) that different from the typical advertisements you see in the newspaper?

To accept money as a a private citizen to write on a blog, personal or otherwise is a new and interesting concept in this generation. In a way, it is a reinforcement to keep up with the blog. However, I think writing on a blog should be something that a person does for the sake of interest. Not to say that a paid blogger isn’t interested in what they are writing, by all means, I would hope that there was some interest there. However, if a blogger is getting paid to do such work, per article, or per post, or for a certain length of time, especially, the content of what this citizen writes might not come from as deep and as passionate a place than if this person were to write spontaneously.

When it comes to sharing information, what advantages do blogs have over traditional ‘old’ media? Where do blogs fall short?

Blogs can reach a much larger audience because the internet is available to virtually everyone in the world, and this is one of the biggest advantages blogs have over traditional ‘old’ media, such as papers and books.
However, because almost anyone can create a blog, and there is hardly any live face time, it may not always be a reliable source, as it could contain false information or false sources.

Assignment One

Assignment Reading 1:

Why New Media Literacy is Vital for Quality Journalism

Josh Catone

http://mashable.com/2011/10/13/media-literacy-journalism/

Citing the examples in the mashable.com article (perhaps along with those you can think of on your own), make the case that early 2015 is the worst time in history to be a consumer of new media. What traps and challenges make today so hard to trust what you read online?

With the acceleration and virtually unlimited access to new forms of media, social or otherwise, 2015 could arguably be the worst time in history to be a consumer of this new media. From Tweets to online articles and everything in between, the line of what is factual and what is fiction continues to blur.

According to Catone’s article, even a simple typo can royally mess up a story’s facts. For example, in a previous story, it was reported that Mashable.com was reaching close to a billion tweets regarding the #IranElection movement, when in reality, it was actually close to a million. To make matters worse, Ann Curry of NBC News sent a tweet out about this fact, citing Mashable.com and their “one billion tweets.” Curry is a well noted journalist, and so her millions (about 1.5) of followers on the internet will also take that information in, in addition to anyone who read the original story from Mashable.com. Because it would appear from a reliable source, being a consumer of this media is a challenge because you don’t realize that the information was in error.

As Catone put it, “there are reasons to be both excited and fearful for the state of the fourth estate.” The accessibility and instantaneousness of having media at your fingertips can be convenient for receiving and getting information out quickly, however, in a matter of seconds, any changes to this information, or any errors in this information can reach millions of people, making it dangerous to rely on instant media for this information.

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