Writing Assignment 10: Journalism

The first article I have here is regarding a major case in the buffalo area involving an attorney who is the defendant in a hit and run case in the south towns and the article is from the Buffalo News. It seems to be pretty significant in the media right now for the local area and the verdict of the case is awaited however, there has been no decision made yet due to the fact that the defendant has already pleaded guilty and the judge has yet to sentence the defendant. To describe the article there isn’t much of an appeal, just the specifics regarding the defendant and his actions in text-based form and other than that there is a picture of the defendant in the courtroom. Overall, it’s pretty basic of what you would expect to find in a newspaper article.

The other source for the basis of this assignment is from CNNPolitics.com. the topic of this article is over the fact that right now Barack Obama is holding onto the national advantage. Basically its stating that currently Obama seems to have the nation pushing for him to win the November election for President. With this article though, I found to be a little more interesting. On the web page itself there are numerous photos, not just one photo pertaining to the topic as well as supplemental video footage. There was a choice of seven different video clips to help portray the topic of the article. There are a few more options as well, one of which was the ability to email the article to a friend and share the material immediately upon viewing the material. You can blog to comment on the material or to debate. There were also links to different sites allowing you to educate yourself further at an instant to help create your own perception of the presented material instead of the sole view of the author. From Gillmor regarding internet news,

“I realized I was getting a better overall report than anyone watching television, listening to the radio, or reading a news­paper in the United States. It was more complete, more varied. In effect, I’d rolled my own news. It was a convergence of old and new media, but the newest component was my own tinkering to create my own news “product”—a compilation of the best material I could find. It was a pale imitation of what we’ll be able to do as the tools become more sophisticated, but it worked. “(2004).

Although the content of each of these articles are at opposite ends of the spectrum as far as what their concern is, the common ground is the fact that they both relate to journalism and the display of information to the public. However, the main differences are seen in the presentation of material. Also, there may be a difference in who sees the articles and how many people have the access to the articles as well. With the printed news article from the Buffalo News, you a selected population or a sample, if you will that is secluded to the approximate parameters within the close area surrounding the city of Buffalo. With the online news source, there is a vast increase in the number of potential viewers.

Online news is a definite benefit to us, allowing for information to be accessed and reached sooner and faster. By obtaining knowledge of events taking place in opposite sides of our country and even in different countries, it allows us to help each other sooner and faster as well.

References:

Grtya, M. (2008, October, 31). Hit-run driver pleads guilty in Hilbert student’s death. The Buffalo News,

Retrieved http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/southernsuburbs/story/479602.html

Poll: Obama holding on to national advantage. (2008). [Shows information that barrack Obama has a higher electoral vote estimate than John McCain October 31, 2008]. McCain looks to turn Obama’s Ohio advantage. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/31/obama.mccain.polls.election/index.html

Gillmor, Dan. (July 2004) “We the Media.” Chapter 1. Retrieved on October 31, 2008 from http://oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/book/

Writing Assignment 9: Paladino

I found this blog posted at blogs.artvoice.com and the name of this blog is Carl P. Paladino: Let's change State Constitution. The bloggers name is Carl P. Paladino, you may have heard of him if your from the area, Mr. Paladino is the CEO of Ellicott Development Company. This blog dates back to August 21, 2008 and i wasn't able to find a Technorati Rank linked to this blog.

It appears that Paladino is attempting to promote or spark an emotional response into New York state into doing something that will change the way things are done. This is because the way things are done in New York state are said to be corrupt, benefiting the only certain demographics. Keeping the rich on top and the poor on the bottom, to try and offer an vivid analogy. However, Paladino is not really known to fend for the people from what I've understood from some of the posted comments in response to this blog. Anyways he wrote the entire blog in capital letters. That to me shows he's trying to grab the attention of any and everyone. Insisting that we need change in our state and that we need to act, not just sit there and make comments to ourselves.

I find it kind funny, if Paladino is trying to reach the people within the state of New York is this really getting their attention. According to Smith and Lee, 46% of Americans have used the internet to get political news and share their thoughts (June 15, 2008). Now that may seem like a high number of users, I think it is. But, within Paladino’s use of the internet to try and spread word there were only 10 comments to this blog. Out of the entire state of New York and accessible users to the internet, 10 people took the time to respond and even more so in a negative response. Does that seem kind of out of whack? Now what’s wrong? This man a Mr. Carl P. Paladino is trying to get his own home state to react in a way to change the way things are done in state government to help the people and yet no else is trying to do anything about, even in an attempt in the opposite direction that Paladino has posed.

So, according to Baker , “Millions of Americans now spend much of their life online, with 20% of the population using broadband at home”, then why is it so difficult to get more than 10 people to respond to something that really does have great effect to their lives within New York state (March 29, 2004). Maybe it’s the actual messenger of this message. It appears that basically Paladino is contradictory of his words with his actions and in light of things he’s viewed as not a credible source to be making such statements. Stated by one comment, “That’s funny, Carl doesn’t seem to mind the State government when they are giving him tax breaks on waterfront condos”, comment by Tony August 21,2008 in response to Paladino’s blog. Another comment stated by WNYMind August 21, 2008, “Poor Carl. He always has an ax to grind and a cross to burn. Carl needs to step aside. Anything he touches is poision. Carl is probaby working for the unions and legislators. His brand on any initiative means there will be no change and the status quo will prevail”.

Its seems as a valid attempt by Paladino to make change, however it doesn’t seem as though the hook has sunk, more so there were just a few nibbles until the worm was gone. I don’t know, I wish I knew more about what Paladino did in regards to the city but all I know is the here say. My last comment is just that either way to be a developer, and to be the CEO of a development company, I would assume that for the most part the position would require somewhat of a visionary and risk-taker if there was truly a goal to promote growth within our cities and state.

Works cited

Smith,Aaron. Rainie Lee (June 15, 2008) The Internet and the 2008 Election. Retrieved on 10/24/08 from https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_61661_1%26url%3d

Baker,Stephen. (March 29, 2004) Click the Vote. Retrieved on 10/24/08 from https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_61661_1%26url%3d

Writing assignment 8: Web Application Review

The site that I’ve visited was www.albumsnaps.com. This seemed quite interesting, it’s a photo-sharing community. You can easily become a member creating a user account then just login in with user ID and password. This is basically a file sharing community but, with photos. There are posts on the sites including pictures of celebrities in all different settings like Eva Mendes to Star wars wallpapers and backgrounds yet also including photo albums from non celebrities all around the world sowing pictures of places like Vatican city, Rome.

The site itself is set up to be very basic. You can see there are popularly viewed or searched photos. There are recently added pics presented, showing popular members and popular searches. Also, following the highlighted popular items there are numerous listings of categories that can be viewed. Along with all of the available options there is are search boxes. One enabling the search of photos and another to search for other members of the site. For the most part the site seems to be quite user friendly, basically very simple to use once a member you have the ability to upload and download pics. The searching capabilities entail a simple text-based search or just following the icons with the simple point and click feature.

the site’s main social aspect is that it allows for sharing of photos to others who are interested in seeing or viewing places that they have never seen or may never be able to see in their lives. This is a community that promotes growth. You see that people want others to see what they’re doing and that other people are interested in what is going on outside of their own lives.

I think the site is interesting. It offers again, a wide variety of pictures and this can be used for all different types of things. Using the pictures for an assignment of an area that you are talking about in a project. Maybe you want to find a nice picture to place on the background of your computer desktop. Also it’s the fact that the site allows you to see some really interesting things or places that you never knew about or that you wanted to see and just didn’t know how or where to find anything about it. The site also allows the option to offer comments on the pictures and allows for tagging the photos as well. This is basically just another form of an online community that allows people to share their photos openly for everyone to see.

Writing assignment 7: Community

A group that is completely mediated by the internet of which I am an active participant is Facebook. I recently created a Facebook account so I haven't spent too much time on it yet but, from the few weeks that I have had the account I can honestly say that I like it better than MySpace. It just seems like the site itself filters out all of the garbage that you end up getting on MySpace and I think that’s the major reason that I like the site. But, not to get off topic. To begin with referencing the reading, Fernback &Thompson state, “The concept of community commonly refers to a set of social relationships that operate within specified boundaries or locales, but community has an ideological component as well, in that it refers to a sense of common character, identity or interests. These notions of community illustrate that the term encompasses both material and symbolic dimensions”.

When I think of the communities that I’m involved in this is a textbook definition. The communities that I’m involved in is based on the premise of a common ground through likes and dislikes, including behavioral responses in different situations that are shared in the community. But, I guess when I think about how the communication technology affects the development of social ties within the group, it really opens up a few doors that may not have been there before. Considering the following, I mainly use the site to maintain contact with friends who have moved out of state and therefore this doesn’t affect the development of that relationship, it only maintains it. However, say one of my friends that moved out of state is friends with someone else who attempts to befriend me via Facebook, (communication technology) this is where the aspect of development comes in or even if its someone that I haven’t talked to in a long time that is friends with one of my friends and I receive a random message from them. This then is adding to the development of a relationship that was not preexisting.

And in the readings of Wellman and Gulia, Social networks analysts have had to educate traditional, place-oriented , community sociologists that community can stretch well beyond the neighborhood. Now, I do highly agree with this statement but, in contrast to any of my online communities, for my offline communities the medium for communication is probably only my phone and my offline communities still have more meaning and stronger ties than any of my online community relationships. So, I’ll make a call or send a text message to a friend stating what I’m doing and that I want to meet up. After that there is solely face-to-face communication which gives for instantaneous feedback during interaction. This goes for just about all of the communities that I’m involved outside of Facebook or MySpace. I have my core community of friends and the need is that instant feedback. Short of a telephone call or a text message I have never emailed any of my friends. It’s just not how I am and for the most part I see my core community frequently enough where email and alternative online communication seem to be almost a hassle.

Similarly, I don’t even have half of my family member's email addresses. I would have to say that we have a close enough relationship and again, we see each other frequently enough that to send an email and wait for a response is actually an inconvenience, which sounds really weird but, it’s true. I do believe that online communities are a benefit to society however I’ve always conflicting feelings about the depth of the social ties in these relationships. Call me old-school but, I just prefer to establish and maintain relationships on a more personal level. I feel that I creates a better knowing and understanding of the self and those alike.

Refences:

Fernback, J. , & Thompson, B. (May 1995). Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? Retrieved October 16, 2008 from https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_61661_1%26url%3d

Wellman, B. & Gulia, M. (August 1997). Net surfers don’t ride alone: Virtual Communities as Communities. Retrieved October 16, 2008 from https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_61661_1%26url%3d

Writing Assignment 6: Identity

Well, I’m not really involved in many virtual communities. I have a MySpace and Facebook page but, I don’t really use them much for reasons of networking and stuff like that. And maybe check them once a week. Yet, I do have an identity established with both. Neither of my pages contains much information about myself mainly because I created them simply to have something other than E-mail and the phone to talk to some of my friends on the west coast and also because I’ve become somewhat paranoid about having certain types of information about myself available to people who in the real world as opposed to the virtual world are more commonly known as strangers. It’s something that I question when you consider the amounts of self-disclosure involved in the sites that people subscribe to and in a face-to-face interaction those same people would be reluctant to give the same information.

But, sorry not to get off on a tangent, after reading “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community” by Judith S. Donath, I would have to say that due to my lack of use with the internet I associate it more with deception. What its comes down to is that I use the internet frequently but, only for the same things, research and typing papers. Occasionally checking my email and visiting sites like Youtube and Collegehumor. Other than that I haven’t established myself other than posting a few blogs for this class, you could say that I have no credibility online first, because no one knows who I am (not to say that I want people to know who I am) and secondly I don’t even know if what I do blog about really makes any sense to anyone else except for me. And that doesn’t say a whole lot about me, in the virtual world.

I understand that identity plays a key role in virtual worlds as stated by Donath in the readings, and that knowing who is trying to communicate and what they are trying to say and do is going to establish that credibility(truth) and identity of being an expert. As Donath states, “For assessing the reliability of information and the trustworthiness of a confidant, identity is essential. And care of one's own identity, one's reputation, is fundamental to the formation of community”. I would have to say that all of my account names or as Donath refers to as, “Basic ID’s” are in some way linked directly to my name but not really anything else. I guess I consider that to be free information therefore it has no relation to my reputation and or amount of credibility that I have not established yet. It’s the unreliability and deception in the community that it can cause frustration.

An example of this would be if someone chooses to assume say, one of my own identities in a virtual community that would be considered “Identity Theft”. For some to fraudulently represent themselves as me and access my bank account information online and make unauthorized purchases. This example may be more relative to the amount of information that is available about myself on the internet. How much information do I give about myself on the sites and in the virtual communities that I am associated with. It’s the fact that the information is accessible when you use the internet because everything is in a copied form of text.

I do like how Donath uses analogies to gauge levels of deception though. Like, putting that you have a lot of experience waitressing on your resume when you may embellish the amount that you actually do have. But, for instance if you were to say that you have years of experience in say, the medical field and have no idea how to perform a surgery, then you can see the high cost in punishment involved based on the level of deception that you deceive.

References:

Donath, J. S., (November 12, 1996) . Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. Retrieved October 3, 2008, from https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboar
d%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_61661_1%26url% 3d

Writing Assignment 5: Privacy

So what are the biggest challenges to personal privacy posed by the internet? The first thing that comes to mind would have to be that question of, Do you think that you really have any personal privacy on the internet? To answer this you would have to consider that you do to an extent and even the amount that you do have is quite limited. I think about the fact that I have no idea who monitors my activity on the internet, whether it’s the company the I have my internet service through or the government? Who knows because I sure don’t and I guess that’s the scary part about it. Yes, I worry about the amount of privacy that I have or at least the perception of the amount of privacy that I think I have. Who has the ability to see what I’m doing, especially if I don’t want them to see. It’s creepy.

With the amount of time spent on the internet now buy the general public, we each put of selves out there creating the opportunity to affected negatively through internet use as much of a positive and a convenience as it is to us. According to Danah Boyd of the University of California-Berkeley, School of Information, “Social network sites (SNSes) like MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo are ubiquitous and today’s youth are spending a great deal of time using these sites to access public life”. And to add to this, from an article by Bob Sullivan from MSNBC.com, he says, “Psychologists tell us boundaries are healthy, that it’s important to reveal yourself to friends, family and lovers in stages, at appropriate times. But few boundaries remain. The digital bread crumbs you leave everywhere make it easy for strangers to reconstruct who you are, where you are and what you like. In some cases, a simple Google search can reveal what you think. Like it or not, increasingly we live in a world where you simply cannot keep a secret”. I think this is a very true statement. Even now what we consider to be our privacy it feels as though we just be losing as much as we gain and not really even realizing it. But again how is privacy defined by the general population?

Well let’s start with, What’s my definition of privacy? Something along the lines of - The ability to know that I have the choice or the right to expose something about myself to a population or to keep it to myself from that population. Well, according to Wikipedia, privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. I guess that’s an alternative way as to how I stated it. I would assume that most people have different views on the definition of privacy, but when I think of the term and the usage I feel that it relates more to individual or the self or the rights that go along with the word privacy.

A specific scenario involving privacy and the internet with myself actually took place a while ago. I was attempting to purchase a textbook online from the site known as half.com and I found the book that I needed at a fraction of the cost of course compared to the book store, so I decided to carry through with the purchase. When I was prompted to enter my credit card information I followed the guidelines and entered the appropriate information and clicked the pay now selection and within a few seconds I was notified by the site administrator that the seller of the text was a fraudulent setup and even though they were able to terminate the account of the seller they were unable to cancel the transaction that occurred and now this random dude just ran off with my money and credit card information. Now I don’t know who else has experienced something like this before but, I’m sure that I wasn’t the first and at first, your kind of scared because you don’t know what to think. This was something that had never happened to me before, it’s a very uncomfortable feeling that this happened even when you think that your pretty aware of what’s going on with the security of your accounts over the internet. There’s just nothing that can prepare you for the initial blow. After I realized the severity of the event my immediate reaction was to call the credit card company and cancel the card, which I did and then you just end up feeling kind of bad knowing that there are people out there who are intentionally trying to hurt you.

But, to be completely honest, I don’t feel that I am educated enough on the topic of privacy and the internet to make most of the statements in this blog and that is something that causes some discomfort in my mind because this is such a pertinent issue in our society today that it is something that people should be researching these topics more thoroughly (including myself) and raising the level of awareness up a few pegs.

Works Cited

boyd, danah. 2007. “Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?” Knowledge Tree 13,May. http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2007/?page_id=28

Privacy. (n.d.) WIKIPEDIA The Free Encyclopedia online. Retrieved September 26, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy

Sullivan, B. (2006). Privacy Lost: Does anybody care?. It's vanishing, but there's no consensus on what it is or what should be done. Retrieved September 26, 2008, from https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_61661_1%26url%3d

COM 125 Writing assignment 4: Online Economies

I think this one is kind of interesting, considering that it would actually create room for discussion from last week’s assignment on copyrighting and conflict but, how about Limewire. This here is a gift economy, there is an established network between users and there is a lot of information or file sharing that takes place. Or what Kollack would consider generalized exchange. Now, only for the purpose of this assignment, I’m going to disregard the fact that Limewire itself promotes copyright infringement because that’s not the topic for discussion here.

Now, I have viewed the site before (Limewire) and have seen how it works and you have to admit it’s quite impressive. It’s impressive when you think about it the way Kollack states, “Yet the wonder of the Internet is not that there is so much noise, but that there is any significant cooperation at all. Given that online interaction is relatively anonymous, that there is no central authority, and that it is difficult or impossible to impose monetary or physical sanctions on someone, it is striking that the Internet is not literally a war of all against all. For a student of social order, what needs to be explained is not the amount of conflict but the great amount of sharing and cooperation that does occur in online communities”.

When using Limewire its always for personal/individual gain or growth. You never see who you are sharing a file with or obtaining it from, and you don’t feel an obligation to reciprocate the transaction to the immediate individual that you receive the file from however, you know that someone else will be interested in what you have and that other users can gain from you now also.

When you think about what Limewire provides, it be viewed as what Kollack considers, “Public goods”. And to be honest I couldn’t explain this any better than Kollack does, so Kollack says, “In particular, many of the benefits provided in cyberspace have the quality that they are public goods, which are goods that anyone might benefit from, regardless of whether they have helped contribute to their production. A public good is defined by two characteristics. First, it is to some degree indivisible in that one person's consumption of the good does not reduce the amount available to another. One person's viewing of a fireworks display, for example, does not reduce what can be seen by another person. Second, a public good is to some degree non-excludable in that it is difficult or impossible to exclude individuals from benefiting from the good – one receives the benefits of a national defense system regardless of whether one pays taxes. In most cases a public good will exhibit these two qualities to some degree only; pure public goods are the exception”. And to just kind of tie all of this together Kollack also states, “Everyone in a group may be made better off by the provision of a public good, but that in no way guarantees that it will be produced”.

Lewis Hyde expresses the spirit of a gift economy (and its contrast to a market economy) as follows: The opposite of "Indian giver" would be something like "white man keeper"… Whatever we have been given is supposed to be given away not kept. Or, if it is kept, something of similar value should move in its stead… The gift may be given back to its original donor, but this is not essential… The only essential is this: the gift must always move.^[19]

To provide another example of this, according to Gifford Pinchot, who also refers to Lewis Hyde, he states, “In a commodity (or exchange) economy, status is accorded to those who have the most. In a gift economy, status is accorded to those who give the most to others. Lest we think that the principles of a gift economy will only work for simple, primitive or small enterprises, Hyde points out that the community of scientists follows the rules of a gift economy. The scientists with highest status are not those who possesses the most knowledge; they are the ones who have contributed the most to their fields. A scientist of great knowledge, but only minor contributions is almost pitied - his or her career is seen as a waste of talent”.

Kollack offers great insight to this topic providing vivid analogies to explain the material. So I want to end this with what I think really puts it all into perspective by Kollack, “This is not to say that online cooperation is inevitable or expanding. Nor is it to say that online cooperation and collective action is always a benefit to the larger society. However, the changing economies of online interaction have shifted the costs of providing public goods – sometimes radically – and thus changed the kinds of groups, communities, and institutions that are viable in this new social landscape”.

Works cited

Gift Economy. (n.d.) In WIKIPEDIA The Free Encyclopedia online. Retrieved September 19, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

Pinchot, G. (1995). The Gift Economy. Business on a Small Planet (Summer 1995 page 49). Retrieved September 19, 2008, from http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC41/PinchotG.htm