Category: Nicole Wyche

I confess…. I have yet to see “The Social Network”… I promise I will soon!

But I wonder, and am sure the move provides some insight, Why did Zuckerberg see a need for an SNS like Facebook? Why have 500 million active users also felt the need to join? What role does peer pressure play in SNS involvement?

Are people less educated abut online safety and privacy, or have we relinquished those rights in favor of more intimate online relationships?

How are the online identities formed related to the psychology of the individual? What makes people more comfortable with online intimacy? With less and lessanonymity… will people have a problem owning up to what they do online or have they somehow estranged that from their daily lives?

1. Why has a counter/subculture developed around video games? Why have these “gamers” become known for playing into the wee hours of the morning in their special gaming chairs (equipped with rocking capabilities and built-in speakers) and a headset to trash-talk little kids? Is this stereotype only related to intense “first-person-shooter” games?

2. Why have we accepted the transition from family board game night to family “Wii game” night? What are the elements shared between the Wii and board games that make them “fun for the whole family”?

3. Why are people willing to spend $40-$60 dollars per game? This has been the case since the advent of games and people have continued to accept the cost. Why isn’t there a “pirate bay” for video games? Are the encryption codes better, or is this just a more loyal and upstanding demographic?

We’ve wised up! We can get the content anywhere, with social media we are able to connect and communicate with anyone so even getting news via “word-of-mout” is much more feasible. The media outlets must focus on aspects of news that we cannot control outselves. People are much mroe wiling to invenst in rare news, in-depth interviews, breaking news  etc. than the run-of-the-mill facts that are easily available.

If we are finding that the public as a whole is lowering professional training expectations in favor of “the regular Joes” or that the training “the regular Joes” have is sufficient to communicate the news… professional journalism programs need a revamp.

In the past when people we less able to find information on their own, the media (newpapers in particular) could trick us into believing that the idea was the commodity. How can media outlets change “the commodity” to something we will actually pay for?

What is the appropriate role of “citizen journalists”? With no professional training, little access to venues and people and, often, no salary… are they really competition to the pros? Should they be? Why would some people think that they are?

How has social media and new technology propelled the citizen journalism movement forward? How could future advances in technology help or hinder this movement? How could professional media outlets leverage this technology to create a better financial business model?

Our age of political protesters do so silently and nonviolently and daily…from their computers.

This is what our radicals have become!

As Lessig suggested, youth today work within a different framework than the print media of our parents’ youth, and laws should be adjusted to flex and mold with the technology. Out of a fear that no creative work could be protected came a legal system that casts out a net wide enough to actually impede innovative creation. It’s time for the law to grow up…

1. Are there any aspects of current copyright law that should stay in place to protect work in the digital age?

2. How can we differentiate between amateur and professional in regard to making laws applicable to one group or the other?

3. How will we make these changes? Does it need to start with a grassroots movement? The youth themselves? Could it start with the government?

Lanier’s book is a different way to tackle the subjects we’ve been discussing few weeks now.

I wonder, why should we assume ourselves to be computers simply because we work with them, specifically in regard to MIDI?

What did developers have in mind for the future of the internet in the 1980s? How close are we to that prediction?

Are there ways that they could have developed a “better” internet experience?

Great! We are all connected and love each other and can express and develop that online!

I’m not so sure that this is the best possible thing. I’m also skeptical of how far this can go and what it says about human development.

Are there specific activities that will ALWAYS need person-to-person contact? School? Sports? Or will we just live online in avatar form?

What are the negative consequences to organizing online?

Is this something for the masses or just “witches”, “Bloggers” and “Atheists”?

I do also have some positive notions of the possibilities. How has this technology and world-wide community allowed more developed nations to give access to advanced information abroad? The implications of using this technology in this manner seem quite impactful.

My mental tug-of-war over The Agenda-Setting Theory was materialized in class this week. Glad to know it’s still very unclear which came first… the viewer or the agenda.

What was especially interesting is the prospect that this question may be irrelevant in the future. An avid “tweeter” myself, I can definitely see how news is becoming more interactive and less “agenda set”. Though there is still a “big brother” aspect to trending topics on Twitter in that they are not usually user-generated through popular hash tagged phrases, the new medium definitely presents new opportunities to fight agenda-setting.

As we discussed, different media outlets have particular reasoning for selecting certain stories, framing them a certain way and priming their audiences. Though our conversation revolved around the negative aspects of this cycle, I found myself plucking at the positive. As I stated, the media is a business, and as such, each outlet works hard to get to know their target audience and to please them. Psychological studies point to the fact that people generally like to confirm what they already know or think as opposed to being proven wrong. That being said, the subtle or grand differences between media outlets factor into their “brand” and the particular aspects that please their audience. I generally gravitate toward CNN over FOX news because of the political bias on both sides. Though an agenda is in place, part of that agenda is pleasing the viewer. With a burgeoning media market, it’s important that outlets distinguish themselves to help us make decisions about where we go for news.

Just briefly, I always find comedy in discussions about “propaganda” as it has become such a central part of the way we communicate daily and yet still, has such a “terrifying” connotation. Abiding by the loosest definition, virtually every conversation I engage in includes some type of propaganda.

The idea of what should be considered “mass communication” seems vague. While scale, direction, impersonality/anonymity, simultaneity, transience, and audience aim to restrict the definition, with new technologies emerging it seems to be task much like “nailing Jell-o to the wall”. With software that encourages 2-way communication, helps to better familiarize companies with their target audience and preserve messages for a long period of time to reference, how will we really define “mass communication”?

Agenda-setting… is this not a circular concept? If the media primarily functions as a business, they would need to show news that the majority of their viewers want to see. But, do the stories and material they show affect what the viewers than want to see? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

In reference to the catharsis hypothesis: ” … it was later discovered that those who weren’t allowed to watch their favorite programs were angry and acted out because of this…” I found this to be incredibly interesting and similar to what some may refer to as the “brat hypothesis” ha. I am interested in investigating this study further.

Since I was a bit late with the framing, I’ll go ahead and respond to class discussion and my classmates’ framing questions     (I promise, I won’t make this a habit)

We spoke today about evaluating theory and I couldn’t help but relate the context to that of evaluating a presidential term. We can only not just begin to legitimately discuss the Clinton administration and it’s 2010! What business do we have discussing such new phenomena as “Farmville”?

However, the theories did seem to point out some observable occurrences related to technology and media. These occurrences not so estranged to those related to radio and television. I found the connection between the “Political Economy of the Media” and the “U&G Theory” to be such a never-ending circle. Which came first: consumer influence or media influence?

Either way, it may have been okay for the chicken to cross the road for a multitude of reasons, but I surely wouldn’t suggest that it cross the “information superhighway” ha.

In all seriousness, media influence was all the rage in class discussion. This complex tug-of-war represents the largest dichotomy in modern media. The role of news outlets is much less based on the professional opinion of newsworthiness and much more about making money. Unfortunately, Snooki’s court date is a more lucrative story than flooding in the Eastern Hemisphere. These are decisions that are being made my major news outlets, not just gossip rags. With the advent of a widely accessible internet, the smaller percentage of people with a more discriminating set of interests can easily glide past the Snooki’s, Lohans, and Hiltons straight to their news of choice. All this while the majority of America watches Snooki with delight.

Is it the media’s fault for presenting the story, or the public’s fault for demanding it? Is it the job of news outlets to give us what we want, or make executive decisions based on (arguable) values and morals? It’s all a business, so the answer lies in the green. And I personally think the power slides between the hands of the public and media, reaching an optimal balance depending on the environment. But I still hold true… it’s too early to fully examine the Farmville Administration with the goal of gaining any real answers.