Category: Ashley Pearson

I like video games. I’m not crazy about them. I played Spyro growing up, and only play Halo now if I am severely intoxicated. I still enjoy playing video games, but I’ve found I just don’t have the time to sit for three or four hours in front of a game console when I have numerous other tasks to accomplish.

Now, that doesn’t mean games are bad. Actually, I think that video games can be quite educational. Growing up, I played Math Blasters, Oregon Trail, Treasure Mathstorm, and more to learn valuable math, writing, critical thinking, and problem solving skills. By the time I was in 4th grade I was a self-declared genius because I had beat Treasure Mathstorm ten times (but usually always died on the Oregon Trail).

However, there needs to be a balance today. Gaming can definitely be an addiction. The kids in South Korea usually spend whole days gaming, every day. There’s even boot camps where children can go to break the gaming addiction. When kids spend that much time playing video games they potentially do worse in other areas like school or social interactions.

I grew up with video games and the great outdoors. There was a healthy balance between the two. I never played my PlayStation for more than 2 hours tops, and I never played it every day.

Sometimes, video games like World of Warcraft help people branch out from all corners of the world. Players will interact online but never physically meet each other unless they arrange something or meet at an international W.o.W conference.

This can be good for people who have difficulty meeting others. But gaming can still suck up a lot of time without users realizing where it’s gone. It can be hard to break a habit, but there are so many other things besides compulsive gaming.

I don’t see compulsive gaming being a problem in the USA like it is in South Korea. The two cultures are entirely different, and unlike in South Korea, the USA doesn’t have internet cafe’s on every street. BUT Americans do have at least one computer in the household. So, maybe compulsive gaming isn’t as publicized as it is in South Korea. Since the computers are more a domestic involvement, perhaps compulsive gaming is hidden within individual homes.

Either way, parents should be monitoring how often their children game, and adults who play video games should be informed about the risks of over stimulation.

1.) Remember the Columbia shooting? The shooters were said to be disturbed and unstable due to playing violent video games. I remember this being pushed as a media story, and can’t help but notice how the media failed to recognize other factors of the boys lives. Can video games truly be blamed for things like school shootings?

2.) Where does the gaming industry get all it’s money? It’s a more profitable market than the film industry right now, why?

3.) How is video gaming changing the world for younger children?

1.) How has socializing changed over the years, and with the introduction of SNSes?

2.) Why DOES everyone use Facebook? It doesn’t matter if it’s a 12 year old, or a company. Why does everyone feel the urge to Facebook?

3. Privacy: do people have a right to complain if their privacy is violated on SNSes, when they have control over such privacy features?

It’s an ongoing battle between citizen journalists and professional journalists.

The definition of a citizen journalist from Goode’s article is essentially the same as a professional journalist. Both know how to blog, gather news, both share video and photos, and modify and monitor other news sources. What’s the big difference? According to citizens, nothing. Ask a professional, and it’s the fact that they have training, a degree, and a respect for the profession.

There’s definitely a rift between citizens and professionals. However, with the popularity and convenience of citizen journalism, it’s becoming harder for professional journalists to shut them out of the ranks. Citizens journalists are key in gathering news information. Think of the potential.

If a downtown shooting occurs, a brave citizen with a video phone can capture the footage right then and there, and  if they have 3G network or instant Internet access, the video can be on the web and accessible to millions in seconds. A news team has to be notified of the event (most likely by the citizen) gather the equipment and travel to the shooting to gather information. By that time, the event is over, the action is gone. The  news team has to get the footage from the citizen.

It’s not fun for the professional. Especially when the professional has worked for years in the field, has a degree, and professional training, only to be usurped by an ordinary citizen with a camera phone.

Defeat.

While professional journalists aren’t loving citizen journalists, politician’s don’t seem to mind them. In fact, coupled with social media, citizens journalists are a helpful tool for politics. Think of how Obama used social media in the last campaign. He set the precedent for future campaigns, so now every politician is going to have to employ social media. If people are posting videos and photos, and information, as long as it’s positive for their image, politicians are going to accept it.

However, there’s still an editing process that has to take place. Online editors are going to have a much harder time filtering through information simply because there’s more input from citizen journalists. Should editors then be traditional journalists or citizens?

The truth of it is, journalists don’t need a degree. We might hate it, but we don’t need one. If someone can do what we do without a degree, we might resent them for it, but we can’t hold onto that forever. As long as an editor has the ability to clearly look at material and decide what is newsworthy or not, and edit material correctly and fairly, then they’re in a good place. Throw some field experience in and it’s even better.

There’s no way to avoid the merging of citizens and journalists. I think journalists will always be labeled as journalists, and that tradition will hold sway over audiences, but citizens are also gathering news. They’ve got a long way to go before they become as credible as traditional journalists.

1. Why is citizen journalism so hard for professional and traditional journalists to accept? From the definition in this article–which I can’t say I agree with entirely–citizens are painted to reflect what professional journalists are. The difference is that citizen journalists don’t have professional training or a degree in the profession.

2. How will politicians begin to use social media after seeing how Obama worked it in the last election? Will this cause younger generations of Americans to vote more frequently and consistently?

3. How will online editors continue to filter such a large influx of information from citizen journalists. Should the editors themselves be citizen journalists, or professional journalists with experience in the field?

Remember Chicken Little?

This fictional character always proclaimed, “the sky is falling, the sky is falling” when it really wasn’t.

The same can be said of print journalism. “Newspapers are dying, newspapers are dying.”

It’s a problem the media is facing yes, but do journalists have to be so darn pessimistic about it? Instead of analyzing what’s wrong and how old media is fighting to compete with new media, why not physically do something? I remember in one class discussion, someone brought up a really good example: seasoned journalists who had been laid off from big newspapers banned together and formed their own online newspaper. I forget what the name of it was, but this is the kind of action journalism requires nowadays.

State of the Media brings up really good points that help support my argument.

For instance, the notion that the news media are shrinking is mistaken. If anything, the news media is expanding with the help of citizen journalism. Also, the majority of news is still coming from traditional news journalists. People are always going to have a need to know basis. Whether it’s local, national, or worldwide, people want and need to be informed of news and information.

The ranks of self-interested information providers are now growing rapidly and news organizations must define their relationship to them.

The struggle lies in how to turn a profit. Newspapers, whether online or printed, can’t function without funding. Government funding has been an option, and the BBC employs this function well, but it’s a questionable operation in the USA. Firstly, because American’s trust their government entirely too much, and are thus susceptible to betrayal and corruption.

Thus far, survival has come in the form of advertising, but as anyone who’s worked as a journalist knows, advertising clients are less apt to purchase online ads then printed ads—even though they have the potential to reach a greater audience with online ads.

The future of journalism is uncertain. So far, publications have started following a general trend towards online publishing, and this is a trend that probably won’t change anytime soon. I don’t see the journalism profession turning backwards and revitalizing printed newspapers. There is still a balance that needs to be struck between new and old media. As journalism.org points out, The future of New and Old Media are more tied together than some may think. Until journalists find that balance, the profession teeters on a knife’s edge.

Nothing is really free, and it’s definitely not always a choice, as Anderson argues.

People love free things. College students swarm campus events if free pizza is offered. People buy in stock for buy one, get one free. Free makes the market go screwy. But do we have a choice to participate in free? Students can choose not to eat the pizza, or consumers can choose not to buy the deals at the supermarket. Instinctively, it’s harder to make the decision not to engage in free.

It’s because humans have the deep rooted survival instinct. If we don’t buy the sale products right when they go on the market, then someone else will, and we’ll be out of a product. It’s the same reason why people line up on Black Tuesday for shopping deals after thanksgiving. The products aren’t free, but you feel like you’re getting a special deal over everyone else, and thus, ensuring your survival with better products.

Back to choice: the market makes it so we don’t really have a choice. In a roundabout way, Anderson argues that if you aren’t smart enough to take advantage of free stuff, then you’re missing out. Free  stuff may disrupt the markets for a little bit, but the markets always stabilize themselves in the end, because people will continue buying the product after potentially using the free sample.

The internet has made free access so much easier. You can download coupons for free stuff almost anywhere. Coupons.com is a good example for discounted brand coupons. There are multiple “laws and locks” that will attempt to constrain the spread of free on the internet, but people are already accustomed to receiving “free”.

There’s no way that these laws and locks will be able to keep people from receiving free stuff. People are not going to give up something they’ve been used to receiving for so long. And, if people like the free sample for long enough, they buy the product in the end.

Pandora does this. You can sign up for free internet radio with an email and password, and you receive 40 hours of free music a month. If you want more than 40 hours of music, you can pay for Pandora One, and get unlimited music with less advertisements. It’s relatively cheap to, for a bout 30-something dollars a year. To the user, it  may be worth the purchase, especially if they love the product.

Personally, when I run out of my 40 Pandora hours a month, I use a different email/password combination to log into my other Pandora account, and I continue listening to free music. No way am I paying for music if I know there’s a free version somewhere else.

I really dislike money. I have often wondered what the world would do if money just didn’t exist. Humans survived once upon a time with just the bartering system, why can’t we do it again? Sure, we might be a little bit simpler, but would it be for the better? Sometimes I think so. A simple life is a humble life.

Anderson says “free is almost always a choice”. I don’t think I agree with him, not completely at least. We always have a choice yes, but those choices can be severely limited by our surroundings, culture, and upbringing. In the end, where we are born, where we live, have severe impacts on our abilities to make choices for ourselves. Then we have to rely on others to make the free choices for us.

I grew up learning that nothing is free. Is that true?

If so, how can we change that?

And, is there an abundance of free?

If music be the food of love, play on…right?

Looking at that lyric, the first thing I think about is ‘can I be sued for copyright for using that?’

Shudder. With the music industry cracking down on pirating and illegal downloading, many users are thinking twice before getting the latest episode of “True Blood” from the Internet.

But wait—isn’t the Internet supposed to be used for sharing information? How is it fair that file sharing be banned in the US but legal in other countries like Sweden?

It’s not fair, and the only people making big money off copyright are the musicians and the lawyers. Suing for copyright should be self-damning however—musicians are really slapping their biggest fans in the face by denying them full access to their music.

Plus, copyright helps to further the gap between rich and poor, like Lanier explains in his book You Are Not A Gadget. So what can we do to change this? Consider the producers in Good Copy, Bad Copy. There was a Brazilian who remixed a version of Gnarls Barkley’s song.

Maybe Americans need to follow his example. The more we use copyrighted material, the  more we expose ourselves to the law system for punishment. However, nothing will change unless it goes to court.

Copyrighted material has a long lifespan today, and it can be renewed so it stays in the same hands for years and years. We have the opportunity to file share, but with copyright controlled by a select number of power users this is impossible.

As Lanier points out, the media is connected to finance. Copyright law proves this point. The major players making money off copyright are the lawyers. Go figure.