Author Archives: wendy219

“Puppets dancing on stings”

Before these assigned readings on online ā€privacyā€, I was shopping online one day before looking for one of my text books online. Once I was done and began searching for my books I noticed ads for some of the sites I just visited. I found this completely disturbing. There is absolute no privacy anywhere, not online, during phone conversation and purchasing items at stores. Privacy is a word that the Government has given us to believe that we are autonomous beings, when in all actuality we are all just ā€œPuppets dancing on stringsā€. It is unfortunate however, anything and everything requires us to depend on online services, for example: paying our phones bills, accessing openlab, filling out financial aid, applying for college, and the list goes own. This only allows us to be much more vulnerable to hackers and search engines recording our information to manipulate us.

Power and research

This reading was by far, the most difficult reading, not because I didnā€™t understand what Martin was discussing, but because I could not focus on this as much as I have in our previous reading assignments.
On another note, Martin sound like a philosopher, he had different ideas on how research and knowledge should be incorporated in society or not, whether people should be involved in research or should it be only for the experts because they are completely trained in these fields and have the credentials needed to conduct proper research. However, with this elite group of people, that are allowed to conduct this research, the research is only available to a limited amount of people; peopled with power and money. He reminds me a bit of Badke in chapter one because information/knowledge were strictly obtained by the elite and whatever information they felt like sharing with the rest is what was known and all other knowledge was kept within the elite. Research is a ā€œhierarchyā€ because it promotes power; and through this power people are allowed to make decisions and control.

Wikipedia world

The wikipedia article was amusing. I felt a little overwhelmed by the amount of pages, however, after getting into the rhythm of the writer, he reminded me of Badke. I had no idea there was an entirely different cyber world in this online encyclopedia from creating to editing and deleting entries.

I had an idea what a social networks were, I affiliate myself with one, facebook. However, the videos helped me view them in a different light, an opportunity to meet people for romance and even business purposes. Overall both videos and the wikipedia article incorporate this idea of freedom to the average joe to have a voice, share knowledge, and meet people.

sound media in the digital world

Digital media has given the average person many opportunities to be heard, to entertain and inform. For example, artist Justine Bieber and Casey began their career in music on youtube and myspace, posting videos of themselves singing and being recognized for their ā€œtalentā€. Pavlik makes a mention of this; people are using digital media to cut a few corners like getting approved by the ā€œmedia Gatekeepersā€. Also, Eltonā€™s entire article is about record labels being completely cut out of people being accepted and well known and musicians . Needless to say they truly are not needed and we can market ourselves using free sites and building a fan base. The entertainment industry has changed drastically because of the freedom of the World Wide Web and social networks.

print media

According to both readings, incorporating technology and media has it pros and cons. Some pros are: information faster and accessible to there readers. However, cons may include, but are not limited to: money invested in media and technology and ā€œhow are organisations to survive financially?ā€ (From Harringtonand Meade pg 9). The reason this questions arises is because of blogs and wikis,which allow people, like you and I, to becomes reports and comment and editinformation which also leads to who is actually accredited to write this information and if it is anyone, then all information we read should all be taken in with a grain of salt. In addition, writing some of these blogs is free and takes away from the qualified journalist and their paid job to inform the people.

Beforereading these two articles I was unaware of how much money is lost in literarymedia and how many people lose the credentials needed for writing andpublishing because so many use the freedom of the internet to create and editinformation. One of the concerns that arose in the Pavlikā€™s reading is that ā€œā€¦doctoredphotos and [manipulation of] news videos that [are] usually authentic to eventhe most experienced eyes.ā€ Again, raises question to accurate information.

Badke assignment #1

When I purchased the text I thought I would not be intriguedby this, as I am not by my other courses. However, I felt like the author was actually talking to me as appose to just dictating the information. From the preface and the choice of words Badkechoose I knew he wanted to grab his readerā€™s attention especially sinceresearch is a topic he truly enjoys (mentioned in the preface).

Learning the origin of how knowledge waspreserved and passed down from one generation to the next and how the printingpress was viewed as a way to controlpeople and how and what was printed gavepeople, the ā€œeliteā€, power made me think of how much of our history we truly donā€™tknow about. For example: during those times is there information that we werenever given the opportunity to obtain because some ā€œgatekeeperā€ felt it wasnā€™t appropriatefor readers or felt that maybe we shouldnā€™t know these things. What is thetruth? I know I may be going off topic but thatā€™s how I felt when I beganreading the text and learning the power words and publishing possessed.

ā€œOpinion is not fact.ā€ chapter 8 page 142. I felt this connected the two chapters because in chapter one, information was beingcontrolled by the ā€œeliteā€ so their opinion on what was necessary information,was not, especially for those seeking information they were being deprived of; until the World Wide Web came about and anyonewas able to publish work, whether reliable information or not. And in chapter 8,Badke was teaching us how to find the right information needed for research byfinding reliable primary sources and using the information properly. In addition, opinions are hard not to come bybecause everything from newspaper articles to media and textbooks, all posses biasthoughts. I suppose bias thoughts are valuable especially for the researchingfinding justified information, however, as mentioned in the text, it must be aprimary source.