YouTube and the Mainstream Media

In the chapter entitled YouTube and the Mainstream Media, Burgess and Green talk about YouTube being a “new site of media power” (15). They describe it as a place where any individual can post videos about whatever matter they so desire, no matter the value of the content. But this is why some people are worried about cyberbullying or misuses of the site because basically anything legal can be posted. There are also worries over copyright infringement and piracy. Along with the concerns, there are also many positive notions about YouTube being used as a source of broadcasting. According to the authors, YouTube is a site where “the user community engages actively in negotiating and contesting social norms of participation” (21). This means that there is a two way stream of communication where the YouTube community can comment on videos and discuss various topics in relation to the posts. It creates a sense of coming together for the users where they can actively participate in giving feedback about the videos.

This is different from other forms of broadcasting where people are only able to see or hear the information presented with no way to discuss with other people on the topic. Also, YouTube seems to be a lot more informational or even nonsensical information, where as other forms of broadcasting are often polished up before the information is presented. One other big difference in function between the two is that which is “most noticeably absent from most mainstream media accounts of amateur and everyday content creation: the idea that the motivation for this activity might have at least as much to do with social network formation or collective play as it does self-promotion. With YouTube, on the other hand, people are usually creating videos solely for self-promotion purposes.

Within the past decade, “YouTube has been mythologized as literally a way to ‘broadcast yourself’ into fame and fortune” (22). It seems that if an ordinary person puts out a video that becomes popular for a talent or even something meaningless, that person could be on their way to becoming a star in the media world. This stardom does not go beyond the world of media buzz, though, and ongoing participation in online posting has to be achieved in order to remain popular.

The distinction between different forms of broadcasting methods matters to Burgess and Green because of worries over copyright infringement. There have been battles with different sites such as Hulu and Viacom in relation to YouTube. But it has to be acknowledged that “YouTube needs to be understood as both a business… and as a cultural resource co-created by its users” (35). Because it is a site created by users, the business has no way to know what will and will not be posted. The site is one for creative productions and needs to be distinguished from the company’s efforts when arguing over the battle of copyright infringement.

Athens game appeal to emotion

An example of an appeal to emotion can be seen in Steph’s speech. In her argument she tried to make the audience feel bad for the poor people, so that the vote would be passed to pay all people that go to the assembly. She asked the rich people to think in the shoes of the poor and told them to question how they were feel if they were not so well off. She made the rich think about how they would most likely want to vote to pass if they were the ones in poverty. She reiterates the fact that the poor lost everything and that they are doing all they can just to support themselves so they cannot spare time at the assembly if they get nothing out of it. She again appeals to the pride of the whole assembly saying that it is our duty to restore the fundamental principles and it is a matter of our integrity. Finally she calls into mind our citizenship, saying only true citizens would want the best for the nation, and helping the poor by paying them at the assembly is what is best for the nation. By appealing to these different emotions in her speech to the audience, she effectively gets her point across in helping to pass the vote.

The Rise of the Digital Dossier Blog

With the rise of digital culture in our society today, websites have different ways to collect personal information on anyone who is surfing the Internet. With concepts such as cookies, information sharing, web bugs, and digital rights management, people are often unknowingly being tracked by their Internet use. The first method of gathering personal information occurred in the late 1700s with the census. The amount of personal data shared and the methods by which it was shared only continued to expand as time went on, though. Now, databases allow for an efficient way to store data. Companies can find out personal information from databases because people are grouped according to their lifestyle.

Companies have become very sneaky with the ways in which they find out information about people all over the world. The following are just some of the ways in which people are unknowingly tracked on a daily basis. Cookies are small text files of codes that allow websites to place a unique identification code on a person’s hard drive. Next time the person visits the same site, the cookie finds the information about the previous visits to the site. Information sharing is when websites access information from other websites to determine what advertisements would appeal to specific people. A web bug is a hidden code embedded in a web page that can collect information about a person as they browse a site. Web bugs can also be in a spam email, recording when the email is opened and who the email is forwarded to. Another way is when digital rights management collects information about people as they listen to music, watch videos or read e-books, gathering records of exploration. All of these methods allow personal information to be stored about people for later use by the websites.

These collection mechanisms do concern me in a way mostly because we never know what these companies and databases are looking at or what information they are collecting. The websites are able to track every site we visit, what items we are searching for, and also our interests. Another unknown is who this information is going to. It can be a little disconcerting that so many different companies have access to my personal information without me even knowing the information that they have on me. I do know that in this day and age we are always being watched, but when all the information is pointed out in this chapter, it makes me more aware of the fact that I can never be too careful in what I do on the Internet.

Lab 6

In this article, the author makes the readers feel pity for the unborn children. The author makes the readers feel like the fetus is a human like them, and then talks about the pain the fetus will feel during an abortion. This appeals to the emotions of the reader because will most likely make them feel guilt or question their decision to have an abortion. Also, if the female feels no pity for their unborn child, then the author tries to says the consequences an abortion could have on the mother by listing the risks involved. This could work as a scare tactic because a woman may feel selfish and not want to have any risks to herself if nothing else. Overall, the article takes a pro life stance and tries to convince the readers that abortions are wrong.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

            In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr claims that the Internet seems to be “chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation” by reprogramming our memory and changing how our mind thinks. Carr says that people who use the Internet more often find themselves struggling to stay focused when it comes to reading long works or articles. Even a study from the University College London backs up this evidence showing that people using popular online sites exhibited “a form of skimming activity” where they would read only a couple pages of an article before they moved on, rarely revisiting sites more than once.

            Carr worries how Google is working to control our minds. Google claims that its mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, meaning the more information we can access in the quickest amount of time, the better off we will be as human thinkers. Carr knows that it is in their economic interest to drive us to distraction, and he fears this will lead us to effects in our memory and the intake of information.

            Carr does not want our society to sacrifice our deep thinking because he worries it will affect our culture as a whole. He says people have become machinelike in the recent years and “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence”.

            I do share in Carr’s worries because I think that the Internet is becoming a way of life for people in today’s society. I do agree with the fact that I find it hard to focus on long articles partly because there are so many distractions all around, many of them online distractions. If the rise in media continues at the rate it is going, who knows how the Internet will be overtaking our lives in a couple years. It is scary to think that we could be losing our intelligence to the workings of a computer. Even though I do agree with Carr’s concerns, I do not seem to think about them as much. I am growing up in this technological society and I continue to use the Internet as a big part of my life, so I do not know what it was like before my time. If I do step back and look at all the evidence of a changing society, I am curious as to what will become of our Internet based world in the future.

Creative Stills

For this picture I used Montage Pro. First, I changed the color scale by turning the blue up on the red scale so it made the sky have a red tone with the overall picture having a blue color. I then put a black frame around the edge of the picture. I combined this picture with two other pictures to make a golf collage. I was able to rotate the pictures and add text as well.

 

For this picture of the little girl I used Photoviva to edit the picture. I used the ghost edges feature to give it a scratched look and then changed the hue of the picture, giving it a purple tint. I chose a brush from the toolbar and picked a coral color to shade in the background, giving it a neat design. I then used a different style brush with the canvas color to paint over the girl’s shirt and make appear to have a different texture.

 

For this picture I used Montage Pro. I changed the picture to grey with the greyscale feature then changed the hue to give it a yellow tone. Next, I formatted the picture to change the shape of it by using the circular tool. I then put a black frame around the outside of the picture, and i was able to adjust the width of the frame to my desired size. For this montage, I used a collection of zoo animals, again rotating them in the frame as well as adding text and a background color.

 

 

For this picture I used Photoviva. I first used the shadow feature to darken the picture a little, making the shadows more apparent. I then used a brush to paint over the green hair, changing the appearance of the texture of the hair. I chose a different, smaller brush to create a scratched look on the checkered background of the picture, too. Lastly, I used the ghost edges feature again to give the picture an edgy look.

 

Evaluation:

In my own personal opinion, I like the Photoviva app better than Montage Pro. Photoviva has more tools and features that can change the look of the picture. There are various brushes that can give the pictures various textures and colors which I think it a cool feature, and there are also tools for changing the brightness, shadows, saturation, blending, and more. Montage Pro on the other hand doesn’t offer a lot of options for editing the picture besides changing the colors in the picture. It does allow you to change the shape of the picture or add a frame, but I wish there were more editing options as in Photoviva. Montage Pro is a neat app if I wanted to make a collage of photos because it allows me to rotate and arrange various pictures as I like, but it is more practical for me to use Photoviva to edit single photos, giving them my own creative style.

Lab 5 part 2

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0506904.htm

This article is stating the pope’s stance on abortion and how he is against it. Pope Benedict is saying that children are precious to a family and it is a crime to rid a family of this. The pope is presented as a figure of authority in this argument, but he is a credible figure for the Catholic Church. His position on a topic is what all Catholics are supposed to abide by and believe. He is implying that abortion is a great evil, but he does in fact hold authority over the church, so Catholics should feel compelled to listen to what he is saying.

Lab 5

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/insights/08/06/10/filipino-women-need-safe-and-legal-abortion-rp

This article is arguing to get abortion legalized in the Philippines. The argument is that every year many women die or are hospitalized because they practice unsafe methods to have an abortion. The article is trying to say that if abortion were legal, then women would be able to have a safe abortion, and not nearly as many women would die or be injured. Attorney Padilla is making claims about reducing the number of unsafe abortions and using her job at the Center for Reproductive Rights to make her seem like an authority figure. In reality, there is never any evidence to prove that the center is a reliable source of statistics or that Padilla even knows what she is talking about. While it is likely that the statistics are accurate, the center has no real knowledge on the morality of the issue. Padilla is simply making claims on her own beliefs because she has no evidence to support the fact that legalizing abortion would decrease the number of women dying. She doesn’t even take into consideration the fact that fetuses need to be killed in order for the mother to have a better chance of survival.

iPad App Criteria

 Price:

Is the price reasonable for what the app features?

 Age:

Does the app appeal to a large group of people or a certain age group?

 Function:

Is the app easy to learn and use for the age group targeted?

 Education:

Can your child learn anything significant from using the app?

 Interactivity:

Is the app interactive and engaging for children?

 Accessibility:

Is it easy to navigate through the pages of the story? Are you able to jump to various parts of the story?

 Help:

Are there explanations or tips on how to use the features in the app?

 Worth:

Was the app useful? Was it worth buying/downloading?

iPad App Evaluation

The first App we have is the Toy Story Read-Along App. This app not only allows you to read through one of the best stories of our childhood, there are also a lot of interactive things you can do throughout the story. There is the chance to color scenes, play games, sing-along to classic songs from the movie, and even record your own voice to play as the story goes along. While this app is given an overall 4 star rating, the majority of the 1607 ratings are 5 stars. According to one review on the iTunes store, “A free app that is worth paying for! The book, by itself would have been great but the added games and activities make me feel like owe Disney some money. In a world where nothing is free, Disney found a way to surprise us.” For anyone who loves a good classic story, this App is completely worth the free download.

The second app we have is The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. It retells the story of the classic Aesop’s fable about two mice who take a visit to each other’s house. This story teaches children to appreciate what they have in their own lives. With this app, there is the option for you to read the book yourself or for it to be automatically read out loud to you. With the turn of a page there is numerous interactive features including helping the country mouse serve dinner or walking around the city with the city mouse. For only $1.99, the average rating of this app is five stars with one review stating, “This is such a great interactive experience, all the pages have so many activities – my son just can’t stop playing with the story”. This book uses interactivity to bring about creativity in a fun way for children.

The third app we have is the Alice in Wonderland app. It is described as being the cleverest iPad book yet. The book has very good graphics and some interactive features. There are many pages with “props” that move as you touch and tilt the screen According the a review on iTunes, the book is “Amazing! With this new update everything I could possibly want from a story book app has now been given to me. The option to switch between abridged and unabridged gives every member of the family their perfect level of interaction from youngest to eldest. I can’t wait for more titles like this.” You can download a lite version of the story for free, or get the full version for $8.99. Based on the reviews, the $9.00 is worth it.

The fourth app we have is How to Train Your Dragon. Our category of Fiction books apps for the iPad, is mainly just kids books. Fiction is fantasy and you wouldn’t read Pride And Prejudice to your child. So, we downloaded several books from the app store. One of the books we downloaded is the book based off the hit movie from Dreamworks, How To Train Your Dragon. The book was an all around hit, and all of the reviews I had read were 100% positive.”We love How to Train Your Dragon and this app appeals to our whole family.” So you don’t have to be under the age of 10 to enjoy a great story. People also raved about the “beautiful graphics.” So if the graphics can appeal even to an adult, kids will be absolutely riveted by them. The story received four out of five stars, and it shown to be well worth the $2.99.