Category: Caitlin Smith

Yoshi, I will always love you.

This week’s video game discussion has been really interesting. I’ve been playing video games since I was a little kid but never could’ve dreamed much far video games would evolve. Remember the super scope? I loved that thing. I wonder if 7 year-olds now-a-days will look back on today’s video games with the same sentimentality.

The commercial for Call of Duty was great, although a little disturbing. I liked how they’re expanding their target audience but, as someone said on Twitter, it kind of represents what’s wrong with America by glorifying warfare. Everyone’s a soldier? I don’t know. I wish we didn’t need soldiers, although I appreciate all that they do. I just saw on NPR that the new Call of Duty blasted last year’s sales. So I guess the campaign worked. I definitely think that video games and its contents are shaping our culture, and we should be careful what we’re putting out there. I remember hearing (again, on NPR) about a dispute regarding a video game that allows players to rape women. Eh. Come one now. That’s just ridiculous. Do we really need that? WHO is playing that game and where did they get funding to create it? Then again, we create bloody gory violent games that glorify the deaths of our “enemies,” so why not? Right? (joke.)

The video we watched on Wednesday was a little sad. I do hope those kids get help and more things can be put into place to prevent that type of addiction. A part of me wonders if (since addiction is linked to genes) those kids would’ve eventually been addicted to something in their lives if it hadn’t been for video games. This is not to say it’s ok to let a video game run your life, but I have a difficult time wrapping my head around the idea that something can be so captivating that one would quit her job and play a game 16 hours a day. I can definitely see how the internet and phones can be addicting (I get antsy when I don’t check my email for more than 8 hours), so maybe that’s how it starts.

Either way, this week’s topic has been pretty interesting, especially since it coincides with the games we’re creating in Flash.

1) Which theory explaining the effects of violent video games on kids, the catharsis theory or the social learning theory, seems to be the most valid? Why?

2) What are the downsides of giving creative control over to publishers?

3) For every arcade game released in the US, nine are released in Japan. What are the reasons for this wide disparity?

4) Of the game classifications–core, casual, serious, and educational—which garners the most revenue? Why?

Remember those silly “Life Skills” classes in middle school that were supposed to teach us about life’s basics…ya know, like not having sex and going to the dentist.  Now a days, I think every middle school life skills class should discuss social media and what it means to kids and their futures.  Although I’m still pretty jealous of today’s elementary and middle schoolers (because they were born into an age of technology and have been utilizing it since they were two), I don’t envy the challenges they face in regards to online privacy.

Facebook was launched the last year I was in undergrad. Thank God. I remember the snarky, stupid, I’m-18-and-really-silly AIM away messages I would leave. I would be petrified if somebody I wanted to work for ever stumbled across those (well, they probably can somehow, but I’d rather live in ignorance). In a weird way, it’s like those poor adorable kids on Jon and Kate Plus 8 (I mean, Kate Plus 8). Especially for those two older kids. How terrible to have your tantrums and potty training moments captured on camera and for public consumption.

I bet in, say, the next 5 or 6 years, someone will create a new social media outlet for people under the age of 18. And only people in that age group—along with some moderators—will have access to it. Then Zuckerberg can finally kick off all those middle and high schoolers to increase his chances of not getting sued as much that year. And with this Kiddie Facebook, it would stay locked down; it would never be public to anyone (maybe stuff gets erased after a month or so). Of course, all the kids wouldn’t know this. They will be told it is just like regular facebook and everything they say, share, or post will be online forever; this way they can practice for the adult social media networks: facebook and Twitter. This is the only thing I can think of that would serve as an educational tool and prepare younger generations for the age of no-privacy-everything-is-open-and-written-with-a-Sharpie.

1) What are educators doing to prepare students for the growth of social media?

2) How are lists of “Friends” changing the way we define relationships, both professionally and personally?

3) What can social media like facebook do to better communicate how to utilize their privacy features? How does gender and age impact the way users engage with things like privacy settings?

It’s interesting that citizen journalism stretches beyond the online world. I never really thought about it like that, but it does.  For example, people can use their phones to capture video and photos and submit those to news sources as a method of citizen journalism.

In class we had an interesting discussion about metajournalism and its impact on the journalism industry. And you can’t understand journalism without taking components of metajournalism into account. I think metajournalism has helped shape the journalism industry as whole.

For example, I don’t know how many times I’ve read an article from the NY Times (mostly in opinion pieces) where the journalist quotes someone that commented on a previous hard news piece. In this example, the journalist is crafting their piece based on other components of metajournalism. In this way, metajournalism does play a critical role in the formation of other journalistic piece.

During class we talked about whether someone like Betty Draper from 1963—who simply calls her neighbor to share commentary on the news—would be considered a citizen journalist.  In this case I don’t think she’s being a citizen journalist, but she is contributing to metajournalism as a whole, since she’s providing commentary. Of course, the missing piece here is that she’s simply providing her own insight without actually sharing the news story directly.

Citizen journalism is fascinating because it gives average citizens the power to share information, which can be both a good and bad thing.

1) How exactly does citizen journalism not only to pertain to online media? What are some examples?

2) When does one cross the line from being a citizen journalist to a professional journalist? The reading says an example of citizen journalism is blogging, but nowadays you find nearly every professional journalist with their own blog. Where’s the boundary and what makes someone a citizen or professional?

3) Citizen journalism is given lots of credit for being transparent, but is it always? Isn’t transparency impossible since every writer has personal motives (to some degree)?

Yesterday’s class discussion was really interesting. When I started this program, I was thinking maybe journalism was a direction I wanted to go in. Even though I’m leaning more towards the advertising route, I still wish there was a brighter future for the journalism industry.

During class, as a group we discussed my first question about the writing style of the industry and how that’s being affected by citizen journalism. It’s definitely changed over the years and a lot of that has to do with the rise of the blogger. People are more interested in reading information that is simple, straightforward and, on occasion, with a little humor to make it interesting. Since this is the type of writing most people are reading online, newspapers have adjusted (to a certain degree of course). There still needs to be a level of professionalism for the organization to uphold credibility.

This isn’t related to any of my questions, but something Nicole brought up in class is really interesting and I think could use more discussion. We talked about the information gap and how people (and by people, we’re talking about people with means) have the ability to create content and allow their voices to be heard. But this widens the gap even more for people without the opportunity to sit in front a laptop or computer and communicate their thoughts, opinions, etc. Is there ever going to be a way to level the playing field? I don’t think we’ll fully realize the massive impacts of the information/technology gap on this generation for decades. Middle class kids are writing blogs and tweeting. Kids without computers aren’t. There’s an undeniable disadvantage in how some groups receive information (especially with news sources moving online). I mean, there are enough kids on the free and reduced priced lunch program in Charlotte and it’s 7 surrounding counties to fill every seat in the Bank of America stadium where the Panthers play. If they’re household income qualifies them for free lunch, what are the chances they have a computer at home? What happens when these 98,000 kids want to make their voices heard? How do they?

1) How much has citizen journalism changed the writing style of news organizations? I don’t remember ever seeing very much relaxed writing, humor, and, especially, sarcasm reading from a hard copy newspaper. But I’ve seen it in dozens of places online (even from reputable news sources like NPR). I like it. It makes reading the news more interesting. But does that change the way we interpret the information?

2) What are some of the more creative sustainable models that online sources have adopted? What, specifically, makes those models fail?

3) How will organizations make their news reporting so desirable that people will be willing to overlook the pay wall for the information? How do these pay walls vary by organization size and structure?

4) How will the pay-a-you-go plan ever work for smaller news organizations with tiny budgets? So if people don’t read the paper one month, are they going to lay off a couple editors? It seems like this is only an option for larger organizations with deep pockets.

After reading and talking about Chris Anderson’s book “Free” this week, it’s crazy to think about how much has changed just in our lifetimes. I remember being a kid and hearing that nothing is ever free. Someone had to sacrifice or sweat so we could enjoy the luxuries that we have today, especially those beyond the digital world.

Based on what we talked about it class, it’s interesting to think about that 5% that’s paying for all the free stuff we get online. My first framing question asked who, specifically, would actually pay for the premium versions of free information/services (e.g. Pandora, LinkedIn), and I already feel myself being sucked in! Maybe if I weren’t in school and actually making a salary, I’d go for some of those premium offerings (especially if I have another job where I have Pandora on all day). Although Anderson makes some good points about companies making these “free” offers to earn consumer loyalty, but I’m not sure that can be applied to every industry and profession. Someone has to have the seed money to get the company started first. Someone has to pay for all that free stuff before they can even consider creating a premium edition to earn a profit.

This book does make me wonder what our role as content producers will be in the future. It seems to me that knowledge is only valuable while it’s in your head (but then how do you make money?) because once it’s published online, it’s a free market. Will this impact the salaries of those who seek to become content producers, like writers, musicians, and digital artists? Maybe eventually we’ll all be producers, whether or not you have any really knowledge or skills to share (maybe this has already started).

I also think it’s sort of ironic that in my research of Chris Anderson online, there’s a lot of talk about him plagiarizing portions of the very book that talks about information wanting to be free. Looks like he may have jumped the gun on that one.



1) What are the demographics of this 5% of users who support the rest of us by buying premium services of free products? (And what makes them upgrade? I don’t think I’ll ever pay for the premium versions of LinkedIn or Pandora, for example.)

2) Why doesn’t the introduction of a free product make that given market collapse? How do other products compete? And what makes people pay when they can get something for free?

3) Anderson says, “Abundant information wants to be free. Scarce information wants to be expensive.” But in today’s digital world, how does anything stay scarce anymore?