Online Assignment 4&5_Mann

One word to describe this assignment is wow!  It is amazing the amount of information that Google and Facebook has on me.  For the Facebook part of the assignment I went on and downloaded the stuff they have on me and looked at it, and described me perfectly.  One thing that surprised me was that they had everything that I have ever said, and have done on Facebook.  This information is kind of scary as they are keeping records of all the activity you have done throughout your life on social media. They have every thing from pictures, and messages to what type of music I have listened to on Spotify.  It is just kind of creepy that they keep record off everything on every user. 

Google’s description of me from based on my searching and online activity fit me very well.  They had almost everything about me right; they had my age, my gender, my interests, and the language I speak was all right.  They also had my interests on there.  They had about 25-30 things I was interested in and every one of those things was something that I do like and enjoy doing or learning about more.  It is amazing that they can figure all this stuff out from just a few searches.  They then use this information to tailor ads, which will directly impact the user. 

Life in the digital society is something that is changing.  Back in the beginning of Google, I do not believe that Google would know who the person searching for things on the Internet is.  But now a days due to all the changing technology and advancements it is easier for them to do things like this.  It also makes it seem like there is no privacy in the digital age.  People want some privacy and this might offend them if there is none, as you can see that Google know everything about me. They then use this information and picture of a person to send specific ads at them.  As we learned in class this is called target advertising.  It can be effective for the marketers but is intrusive in peoples live.  As the reading on target it said that a dad got mad because target sent his daughter pregnancy advertisements.  He had not learned that his daughter was pregnant yet (Duhigg, 2012).  This shows that just based on what she bought target could target ads at certain people.  This is basically the same thing Google and Facebook are doing.  Because of this it will change me, and what I post and search on the Internet because I now know that Google and Facebook are looking over me and keeping track of this information. I can only imagine what other types of information that Google and other site will keep now and into the future.

References

Duhigg, C. (2012, February 16). How Companies Learn Your Secrets. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com

Essay #3: Peer review groups

Hi all,

I've read through the introduction of all your papers and made new peer review groups based on similar video games that you chose. Peer reviews are due on Google Drive before Wednesday's section. Enjoy!

The instruction stays the same. See previous post.

KitKat: Carrie, Patrick, Alec
Jellybean: Natalie, Lucas, Ryan
Ice Cream Sandwich: Sarah, Sydney, Marlowe
Gingerbread: Dan, Isaac, Tim
Honeycomb: Erin, Sam, Max
Cupcake: James, Linzie, Eric

-Jiun-Yi

Research Report_Kang_Dobbs

Jay Caspian King, writer of the article “Should Reddit Be Blamed for the Spreading of a Smear”, has written many other things beyond this article; his first major piece of work being his novel, The Dead Do Not Improve. He is currently an editor at a company called Grantland, which is a spin-off from ESPN. He has also written pieces for the New York Times Magazine, Wired, and TheAtlantic.com. He also did some work for a high school friend’s blog called Free Darko while he was waiting for his novel to sell. Though it may seem that Kang has always been successful, he did not start off on the most positive note.

         Kang was born in Seoul, South Korea but moved to the United States when he was just a baby. He mostly grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he experienced frequent bullying and racism in middle school and high school. His parents also taught him to suppress his emotions, which caused him trouble during his high school years. Kang had struggled with substance abuse along with some gambling problems throughout high school and his early college years. He was even kicked out of Bowdoin College twice for poor behavior and grades before he eventually received his undergraduate degree and started to get things back on track. Kang also states that dealing with his cancer never had a negative impact on his outlook on life.

He became an avid writer when he was quite young. Kang states in an article, “Between the ages of five and fourteen, I wrote every day in a journal. This was my mother’s idea and she hawked over it vigilantly” (2012). Being discriminated against in high school and his struggle with emotions gave him ideas to write in the future. In Y. Peter Kang’s interview with Jay Kang he states, “Kang says he wanted to write a book about Korean American male anger and the idea of growing up in violent households, while at the same time being perceived as emasculated as an Asian American outside the home, and the ‘weird violent mindset’ that can result” (2012). Another topic that he chose to write about was the Virginia Tech. shootings because Kang thinks that it defined his generation of Korean Americans (Kang, 2012). His first novel, The Dead Do Not Improve, was mainly about these topics, which he was passionate about. While waiting for his book to take off, Kang’s love of sports had influenced him to attempt to get in contact with some sports blogs to see if he could do some work for them. Some of Kang’s friends even tried to inspire him to become a sportswriter, but Kang’s dream had always been to become a novelist (Kang, 2012). After the first copy of his book had finally sold, he was then contacted by Grantland to be an editor for their company.

Kang’s writing style is very unique. It is clear that he has had no training in journalistic style, but intrigues readers in different ways. Y. Kang writes, “…but his writing had razor-sharp insights, personal anecdotes people could identify with, as well as humorous hipster references, which is ultimately what set him apart from the thousands of wannabe writers floating around in the blogosphere” (2012). Kang’s credibility is self-explanatory. He has written pieces for many different major publications and even had a small faithful group following him when he was a mere sports blogger, and he is currently an editor for a big company.  

Word count: 584

References:

Kang, Y. Peter. (August 6, 2012) Do or Die. KoreAm, August 2012 issue. Retrieved from: http://iamkoream.com/august-issue-jay-caspian-kang-explores-korean-american-male-anger-in-         new-novel/

Novelist Jay Caspian King on Journaling. (2012). Read it Forward. Retrieved from: http://www.readitforward.com/jay-caspian-kang-on-journaling/

Research Report_Chozick_Rosenberg

Amy Chozick

            Amy Chozick is a staff reporter for the New York Times. Chozick’s claim to fame came in 2007 when she started writing extensively about Hilary Clinton’s campaign, along with the rest of her family. In 2011, she joined the New York Times and began covering corporate media. She has covered everything from terminal snooping at Bloomberg, to phone hacking at News Corporation. Her piece on Jimmy Wales appeared on the front page of The New York Times Magazine.

            Amy began her career by coming to New York with nothing, and just hoping that her newspaper clippings from the Daily Texan would attract the attention of more prominent publications. She was picked up by The Wall Street Journal where she was the foreign correspondent in Tokyo—there she was able to develop a strong beat covering everything from local car shows, to popular restaurants. She has also worked behind the scenes of Hollywood, doing in depth research on both studio executives and movie sets. Amy has had a very well rounded career.

            Today, Amy Chozick is still sticking to what she knows. She does not appear to have any other work with affiliated organizations, instead she publishes strictly for the Times. Her most recent pieces include: “Clintons Rebuild Bond with Blacks”, “Danica Patrick on Racing Cars and Building Brands”, “Signs of Change in New Mission at Bloomberg” & “Murdoch Divorce said to be almost final”. All of these pieces reflect the work she has done in the past, and we can see that there is a strong influence on politics, corporations, and even car shows (her work in Tokyo). So why is Chozick covering a man like Jimmy Wales?

            Chozick did a lot of work throughout 2012 covering the battles between Silicon Valley and Hollywood concerning “SOPA”—an act to stop online piracy. This act would give the federal government more power to infringe on copyrights, which people on Wikipedia believed to be a huge threat. Jimmy Wales protested SOPA by making Wikipedia go dark—the grassroots that emerged after Wikipedia made this opposition against the legislation caused the act to be abandoned. Chozick had been doing lots of work on Hilary Clinton at the time when she met Wales at the families Global Initiative in New York. Chozick was originally supposed to do a piece surrounding the blackout of Wikipedia, and how it influenced the end of SOPA. She was intrigued though when she saw that Wales had moved to London and was engaged to Garvey—she instead shifted the stories focus to a profile on Wales specifically.

            Chozick’s expertise and qualifications seem to carry over into her article. She has received many comments on the piece, most of which appear to be positive. Some mention that the article focuses too much on Wales’s financial situation, but overall readers seem to validate the importance of an ad free space and the importance of Wales’s contributions to the internet.

Word Count: 488

References

- Nolan, R. (2013, July 1). Behind the cover story: Amy chozick on the "benevolent dictator" of wikipedia .The New York Times. Retrieved from http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/behind-the-cover-story-amy-chozick-on-the-benevolent-dictator-of-wikipedia/?_r=0

- Chozick, A. (n.d.). Amy chozick: Journalist. Retrieved from http://www.amychozick.com/

Discussion Questions_Kang_Jay

Should Reddit Be Blamed for the Spreading of a Smear?
Luke Rykoskey

Discussion Questions

1. Relating this article to the 2-step flow perspective, what are your guys thoughts concerning opinion leaders role in society? What needs to change?
2. As we learned in lecture, opinions are not individual, they are social, so who is to blame for what happened? The tweeters, society, or Reddit?
3. How do you all think Frankfurt School would respond to this today? Did this happen to maintain power? Is gaining Karma risk the possible consequences?
4. If resistance is a major theme for Cultural studies that states people resist message which conflict with their beliefs or values, why were people so willing to accept this? What needs to change?
5. What do you all use Reddit for? Entertainment, news, help? What major themes do you see reccuring most often? More simply what do you notice when you go on Reddit?
6. After the issue calmed down, Reddit presented the fact it is "content agnostic" which means as long as what's posted is legal, Reddit won't intervene.  Couldn't what was posted by considered slander and Reddit used that to hide behind since the issue gave them record-breaking numbers?  More broadly, is "supernovasky's" statement on Reddit's fast, unfiltered and transpired information beneficial or harmful to society?
7. The author claims Anonymous' twitter is one of the only trustworthy new sources out there.  Do you support this and consider what happened a mistake, or do you disagree and think it proves the invalidity of their information? and why?

Discussion Questions_Chozick_Heyler

Discussion Questions: Jimmy Wales Is Not an Internet Billionaire

Sydney Heyler

Section 310

1.   What do you think the article means when it calls Wales the “Benevolent Dictator for Life” or B.D.F.L.?  How much power/influence over Wikipedia do you think Wales has actually exercised? Is this an appropriate title for Wales?

2.  Do you agree with the article when it says that using advertisements would cause members of the Wikipedia “community” to revolt?  What do you think of Michael J. Wolf’s paradox: “That what makes Wikipedia so valuable for users is what gets in its way of becoming a valuable, for-profit enterprise”?  How do these concepts tie together?

3.  Do you agree with the article that Wale’s celebrity “relies largely on being the guy who made the sum of the world’s information free without making a penny himself”?  Does the public truly recognize and appreciate this aspect of Wales or do you think he is largely criticized for “leaving money on the table”?

4.  Wikipedia prides itself in giving anonymous volunteers with the same power as established experts.  What do you think of this approach?  Has it been successful for Wikipedia?

5. How has the “community’s” view/opinion of Wales changed over the years?  Do you think Wales has stayed true to Wikipedia’s original “higher purpose” or shifted to other motivations since starting his company?