Final Video

Digital Diversity

When it comes to digital diversity there is an extensive list that comes to mind when defining it. But overall there are three factors that I believe are some of the most important. First of all, the way in which the youth of today are being exposed and influenced by the ever-expanding world of technology. Secondly, is how we use it has another means of social interaction, and lastly how it can be used to as a tool to better the existence of the human race. Technology is a driving force today in just about every competent person, and is consistently used to improve situations as a means to an end. In which we can clearly see the benefits and negatives. Not all good can manifest from the advancements of technology, but in the long can be used to significantly change the way we live.

Before I took this course I was not fully aware what digital diversity even entailed, but after a few weeks I obtained a clear notion. Not only did I learn that it is a vital factor that is over looked, but can be used for the greater good of human society. When applied correctly and when carefully monitored by people with the proper knowledge.  And with this newfound wisdom I can apply it to other aspects of my life. For example I will extremely more aware of what I put on the Internet, because everything and anything is tracked and recorded.

Although, I do believe that there are some flaws to this underlying greatness.  More times than not this seems to be that today technology is being exploited for the profit without retribution or regulation.  I think once there is a better understanding of technology in a holistic view, than many things will be changed to combat this misfortune.  All in all, digital diversity to me is an onslaught of information wrapped into a ball of social interaction.

Group

My group commenced a great deal of hard work, during the duration of the time allotted. Had many group meetings to discuss technicalities of the presentation, and rehearse. The style of the presentation was a late night talk show with the group members as guest, so that they could communicate the topic in a creative fashion. On the other hand our thesis was pretty straight forward, because our topic was slacktivism/activism. This type of topic almost creates the thesis on it’s own.

The only thing really that I would of done differently in hindsight is the amount of dialogue. I should have integrated a bit of information from this site (http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/09/05/from_slacktivism_to_activism), to add a little more insight on the affects it has in the political world. And since my character (Dr. Deese) is an author it would have been fitting for the material that he would discuss in a late night talk show setting.

The Implications of an Always Connected Society: Blog Post 10

The implications of having an always connected society are monumental in the sense that it affects a wide range of outcomes that are sometimes over looked. Like for instance the ability to be distracted on a consistent basis, and what type of technology is consuming time. Along with what kinds of implications come with that, like what Watkins says in The Young and the Digital, “Apple’s iPhone has been an even bigger hit and distributor of fast entertainment. In just nine months iPhone users downloaded more than one billion applications, many from categories like games, music, and entertainment.” What this means for society is that there over one billion distracting applications out there being used today. Although not all applications are being used to distract or at times when something else is going on, but more times than not it is. When it came to mine own logging of digital media used in once week span. I spent over 185 minutes texting and I know it was probably distracting me from something else that was going on (not class of course). But not all the time, in which this is only one piece of the pie so to speak.

Another riveting aspect of an always-on society is that young people today are swimming in a sea of digital technology. Like the book says, “Young people are media rich. They own music players, computers, mobile phones, TV’s, and game consoles.” And I am a culprit to this onslaught of mixed media. I own an iPhone, iPod touch, iPod Nano, MacBook Pro, PC, Xbox 360 and various other gadgets. And for the most technology has been at my finger tips since I was in sixth grade when my mother bought me my own personal computer, a Gateway, which I used to access AIM, but for the most part I used it to play video games, which creates solidarity. A doctor by the name of Jennifer Kotler delved into children and technology of today and wrote, Technology, Activity, Content & Context: Reflections on “Always Connected”, a report on several studies that were focusing on this issue. An excerpt states that, “Knowing that a child uses the Internet mostly to Skype with a relative in another state versus using the Web to engage in solitary game play, gives us a much better sense of what a child is doing and may be getting from the experience than just knowing that he or she is using the Internet.” http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/Cooney-Center-Blog-133.html. This makes a lot of sense in today’s society since we should focus more on face-to-face interaction with youth. So that with all of this media overload they do not intergrade it into their daily life in an unhealthy manner.

Social Media Acitvism/Slacktivism

“How is social media influencing activistic causes that are being done outside the digital realm?”

Using social media as a tool to further an activistic cause outside the digital realm as become a growing interest of revolutionist and activist, to further their causes by the means of spreading the word, organizing massive amounts of people, and creating the potential for change. When it comes to spreading the word with social media technologies such as Youtube it is becoming more and more popular. That’s what Mark Horvath did when he helped expose the complexity of homelessness by posting homeless people’s stories on Youtube (http://mashable.com/2010/10/09/social-media-activism/). By doing this it let people know on a personal level what they go through, which in turn might spark the activity of others to do something about it. As for organizing the masses social media has become the fore front of every operation. According to Ivan Boothe, the Creative Director of Rootwork.org, says, “It’s certainly exciting to see technology being used in ways that amplify and extend the impact of movement organizing.” (http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/04/twitter-for-activism-tool-vs-strategy-debate-and-a-new-twitter-activism-guide.html). What Ivan is saying here is that the world of social media activism is a great tool in accomplishing something that otherwise would be very difficult to commence without the aid of social media. Lastly the potential for change is more apparent now than ever. A recent study from the University of California has discovered, “younger Internet users become more socially engaged in the real world, not just online (http://gigaom.com/2011/02/25/not-just-slacktivism-youth-become-more-engaged-offline-too/). What this is saying is that social media is becoming a stepping stone for world–shattering phenomena’s in young people today. All in all there is no definite line between activism and slacktivism, but only shades of gray.

Assignment 6- Either/or (no more)

The question that I debated was: Is copyright laws limiting creativity? The side that I argued for is that it does.

I think that originality does not exist anymore, so to claim that someone is stealing your idea or tabulated figment of reality is absurd. Not only is it absurd but it creates a sense of objectivity, and when you look at something in that light it begins to lose its validity. And as a “people” that should be very alarming. I came across an interesting passage from the book that I thought was the antithesis to what I am trying to say. Ethical absolutism (monism) as stated by the book, “There are universally valid norms, beliefs, practices, etc- i.e., such norms beliefs, practices, etc., define what is right and good for all people at all times and in all places.”

On the other hand our society has evolved so much that without this objectified law we would lose order in the masses and could potentially start a huge recession of intelligence. Or people would just start stealing everything and there would be no divisions of corporate and the United States of America would be leaning towards communism. Although this seems a bit extreme I think it is important to have laws such as these but not to the point of which they are at. I think there should be an opportunity to spark ideas from someone’s work. And the current law just does not allow that to happen. A possible solution could be that once a copyright is established then only a certain allotted time should be allowed, say seven years. Then after that anyone is free to take a fraction of that to start a new idea (not the same exact thing), and seven years later they can take more etc…If they want to wait than it is up to them.

Assignment 5- Facebook in Egypt

When thinking about the framework of technology, especially in social networks, the structure is meant to reach a broad audience. It just so happens that these protestors happen to be of a fairly young age and are familiar with this format of technology. In saying that I do not really think it is the framework that constitutes this being anything else but a tool.  Since they have a message and want many people to receive this message in a timely manner. So thinking of this as an either/or statement does not really apply, since it is not either/or but a concept of knowing the limitations or lack thereof; one’s own cultural ideologies of technology in that particular society.  Although it is interesting to think that this entire debacle started on Facebook as stated by CNN (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/12/BUGN1HLHTR.DTL). As for this Egyptian revolutionist it was the notion of getting the truth across to whomever would listen, and it worked. But in that mean time they were looked at as the antithesis of a cosmopolitan, which realistically does not matter because now they are free. The effects are felt here in American with Egyptian peoples celebrating their independence from a distance, as I witnessed on Friday in Bellevue Square. Many Egyptian flags were being waved with pride and excitement, while passing cars would honk to honor them.

 

Assignment 4- Movie Post

The first video seemed very boring and was not shot in a compelling fashion, so it was hard to follow. But it brought up interesting notions that can be regarded as ethical dilemmas and copy infringement. The basis for this video was that a culture in New Zealand called Mauori felt that their culture was being taken advantage and/or tarnished by people who have no affiliation with this tribe. For example one woman with the name Moana had a band with the same name, but couldn’t use it because some company had copy written it. She could not understand why this company could limit her from using her own name. And I agree with her because I think too many things are being trademarked and copy written. So much so that we are losing sight that such action such as this are deteriorating   cultures into obscurity for profit. An important aspect that this video brought up was that things are trademarked to create a brand name, and with this brand name loyalty from the consumer emerges. The second example is that some game developers made a game with the main focus of it being from Mauori culture.  This company had the character do things in the game that their culture wouldn’t normally do, so in their eyes it was disrespecting their culture. Also the culture was being tarnished by this game, because they incorporated other cultures and combined it into one game. The game developers themselves said they should have heeded the words of their Mauori advisor. But didn’t and consequently offend an entire culture. Overall this video was interesting in some aspects, and made me think about things differently.

I thoroughly enjoyed the second video, because it brought to light many things that affect my generation. Such as the way we obtain music and remix it to create new music. To big corporations my generation protrudes illegal behavior, and the movie talks about this through a four level manifesto. First being that culture always builds on the past, and not allowing people to remix songs is putting a halt on progression.  This makes sense because it also showed the development of old songs that were sampled from earlier songs, making nothing original. If this is true than we should have the freedoms to mush up any song that we want, which brings up the question of it being ethical or if there should be some sort of framework installed. In Digital Media Ethics, it talks about how in the past we were able to create frameworks despite the challenge. So we should be able to do the same this day and age even though it seems unrealistic. The second is, the past will always try and control the future, which was shown by giving examples of all the lawsuits giving out by large corporations. Such as the law suit against Napster, and all that participated in the act of downloading music illegally. I feel that the people who got sued were not at fault, because I think that you can’t charge one individual; I think you must charge them all or nobody. Third part is, our future is becoming less free, and to me that feels accurate. Almost everything today is trademarked even ideas (intellectual property) and creativity is slowly starting to diminish.  Lastly, to build free societies you must limit the control of the past, which basically means that we need to relinquish the copy rights of the big corporations to some extent. So that we can keep moving forward as a society, and make sure that our children have freedom to create.

This is a link to a blog that has all kinds of information about remixed music, and other genres

http://www.remix-nation.com/

Assignment 3- Cyberstalking

When it comes to Facebook and Social Relationships you do not really think of cyberstalking, but it has become a growing problem. First of all what is cyberstalking? Cyberstalking is the use of technology to stalk a person(s). One can use the internet, e-mail, or any other telecommunication technologies to stalk and is thought of as a mental assault. This type of assault is illegal and when I looked at the National Conference of State Legislatures, it stated that there is three types of cyber crime; Cyberstalking, Cyberharassment, and Cyberbullying. The difference between these is that cyberstalking is  thought of as a threat to the persons well-being and if found guilty of committing this act, the states that recognize the cyberstalking laws, has the right to prosecute the individual as a misdemeanor or a felon. Cyberharassment does not involve a creditable threat, and cyberbullying is the use of technology of minors in a school setting to harass a fellow student.

I found a clip of Eliot Chang’s Stand up that relates to Cyberstalking on Facebook- Two minutes in the video is when it talks about cyberstalking.

· Prevention

• · If the stalker is using Facebook- You can change your privacy settings so that it restricts access to people who are not your friends.

• · You can even create a public/professional profile for future employers to look at and have a private profile for your friends. That is what this gentlemen as done http://www.cloudave.com/831/facebook-cyber-stalking/, he also mentions that you can create an alert through Google, so that when anyone searchers your name it will notify you.

Recent Stalking Cases

• · On December 2^nd,, 2010 in the state of Florida a case was established stating that an individual was posing to be an affiliate with a sorority and using Facebook and other technologies to stalk and harass freshmen girls.

• · The stalker would befriend these girls by offering them a potential spot in the sorority, and would have long conversations (hours and a time). But would later ask them to send inappropriate pictures.

• This is the link to the news coverage http://www.mediaite.com/tv/dan-abrams-discusses-disturbing-sorority-cyber-stalker-case-on-today/

• · For more News on Facebook and Social Relationships see Andre’s blog.

Me

This is currently my last year of Track and Field at Washington State University. My best jump so far is 7’0 feet

Here is a video of my jumping 6’7” at University of California Berkley  in 09′