rroman

After reading about Augmented Reality, my questions are:

1.) How is AR mostly different from virtual worlds?

2.) Are people more likely to get into an AR game than in a virtual world game like Second Life?

3.) Does AR blur the lines of reality vs. alternative less than virtual worlds for users?

1. In the podcast, Boyd is comparing juvenile profiles on My Space, Facebook, etc. to actual social places (like parking lots). When it comes to physical social sites there is a higher level of privacy than with online social networking, and though the behavior is the same at both, do juveniles really see the distinction? Should there be different behavioral standards for both the participant and the viewer?

2. Boyd’s suggestion of leading youth “through murky waters” of social networking is a good idea. To go ahead and teach youth that whatever they do online isn’t really private, even to people they’re not ‘friends’ with, because of servers, marketers and other sources of statistical information, and that there online identities affect their lives as much as their behavior in their daily life. But how would be go about it? If the child using social networking doesn’t figure it out for themselves, will they really understand the importance of protecting themselves online? Is there a coherent way of going about this? Because Boyd did mention how parent’s were suggesting ‘lying’ about themselves as a means of protecting their online identities.

3. In the podcast it is mentioned that youth observe social “norms” online, that: “Public spaces have many purposes in social life – they allow people to make sense of the social norms that regulate society, they let people learn to express themselves and learn from the reactions of others […]”. There are a lot of different factors that affect actual observations that are ruled outline, such as tone of voice, mannerisms, etc. What kids view as behavioral norms online,  is it actually credible behavior?  Do adolescents change their Privacy Settings based on how much information is relived as in “Facebook Privacy Settings: Who Cares?”

Free at Last?

Do ideas such as ‘free’ mean different things online than in ‘real’ life? Meaning is it regulated differently since that idea is in a different medium and therefore under different law interpretations?

How are commodities traded differently online? Does this affect the idea of products being free?

How are these ideas going to change in the future?

*Does the idea of  Read-Only and Read/Write culture only pertain to developed countries that are able to consume and produce media as opposed to countries/regions that can’t consume, produce, or either at all? If so then is it a dependable idea?

*How are we, media practitioners, supposed to adapt current copyright laws so it’s more useful and less of a hindrance in a “digital age”? As far as sharing, creative freedom, and usability is concerned.

*Who is being affected here the most because of copyright laws? Is it pirates who sell copy-righted material for profit, or the active fans who make groups and fanvids on video sharing sites of copy-righted images for a common purpose?

The sentence structure was really strange at times, but once I got around that I found that these are some questions from the readings I hope to discuss:

*In the introduction, Berkner discusses the development of nonmarket production and its potential. “[…] we have in fact seen the rise of nonmarket production to much greater importance […] such a reach was simply unavailable to diversely motivated individuals before […]The fact that every such effort is available to anyone connected to the network has led to the emergence of coordinate effects.”

What I’m wondering is if traditional marketing companies and funded organizations will soon face the same transition as traditional communication outlets because of the power affect of online networking. Now that people can market and connect with themselves on their own, is there a way for the traditional ways of connecting to transition?

*The quote “The outcome of the conflict between the industrial information economy and its emerging network alternative will determine whether we evolve into a permission culture […] or into a society marked by social practice of nonmarket production and cooperative sharing of information […]”.  Made me wonder that if as a society we do develop cooperative sharing through networks if the education level in America will stabilize. If a person, as long as they’re literate and a little technology savvy, can access information posted by an opinion leader in a certain field, then we’ll all be informed right? I mean as long as the information is correct and we’re not spreading lies.

*Will the ability of connecting through social networks inspire people to become more proactive citizens? With some networks it’s really simple, on Facebook a person can just “Like” the Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer Research Fund link that was sent to them by a friend and now that cause has gained more recognition (in some cases money is automatically donated). But basically, it seems as if even the most lackadaisical citizen can be active in some way due to social networks.

Title: Cultivating Critical News Literacy in Adolescents

Studying the affects of social media on the analytical skills of adolescents is what I hope to explore more this semester. This is a subject that I feel is important since children are now growing up during the time of facebook posts and bloggers they might be unable to differ fact from opinion. Let alone having well developed analytical skills to critique already established news outlets.

It has been said of the generation born in the late ‘80s grew up with the Internet. While I remember my father bring home our first personal computer and typing papers in elementary school, I feel that what we experienced as a generation isn’t as revolutionary as what children today are facing when it comes to the Internet and what they will face in the future. While some of us grew up with the Internet during the “dot .com era”, younger generations now see the Internet as a fact of life rather than a luxury, which can affect not only how they perceive the world but also how it perceives them on social networking sites.

As a research topic, there are multiple theories that will assist in the exploration of this focus; such as interpretative theory, critical theory, and normative theory. Methods will include positivism, empirical research, the scientific method, the use of surveys, and communication science.  These theories and approaches will help me in my research because of what each one represents.

Interpretative theory: subjective interpretation of meaning from words or symbols themselves as well as their context, combined with the scholar’s own interpretations of similar and different texts and contexts. This will help will help explore a child’s developed sense of semiotics, thus valuing how much news value he or she receives from a social networking or news site.

Critical theory: analysis that seeks to reform media systems that contribute to the influence of a dominant social class by promoting that group’s ideas ahead of others, which makes media organization part of the society’s power establishment and defenders of the status quo. This theory will help teach children the value of thinking critically of news and the importance of journalism.

Normative theory: An attempt to describe not how things are, but how they should be according to some ideal standard of social values.  This is where the credibility of traditional news outlets and how children perceive them will be explored.

My methods of positivism will allow me experiment my theories out on children as to understand why they may or may not be fascinated by social media. Through this I will be observing the child’s interaction with an approved social media site.  Quantitative (empirical) research will help me establish questions by providing background knowledge.  Then surveys will be used to gather feed back of children’s reactions and literacy of social networks versus news outlets. All the methods could compile some type of communication science to see the overall interaction.

The ages of kids I plan to observe are students in the fourth grade. I have been asked previously to assist with a exercise on interviewing and writing articles and hope to later studying their analytical skills for this paper.

1.) Based on what we know of the early development of mass communication theory, what can we predict of the development of mass communication on the internet?

2.) Will the Uses and Gratifications theory be a prominent scope of communication activity in the future as people take for control of media outlets (i.e. social networking).

3.) Can hegemony actually increase because of social networking?

• 1.) How, if they are, current mass communication theories being adapted to the evolution communication platforms?
• 2.)Does the spiral of silence theory have the potential to become more dominate as less people have access to certain media outlets? If so then what is a solution? For example: people who don’t have internet access may not be as informed as those who do.
• 3.)As interactive media students, how does the diffusion theory affect us and our work?