Posts Tagged: government

For this week’s readings, the focus was the on the empowering of citizen’s as journalists and its effects. More specifically, the readings looked at what affects the empowerment of citizen journalism has, can, and may have on politics.

My first question of the week asked if the empowering of citizen journalist meant a draining of power from government institutions. Based on the readings for this week and our class discussions, I would say that if anything there has been a breaking of control that governments and their officials have on what information they want to get out into the public sphere. Some examples from class include the Republican National Convention’s attempt to make a site similar to mybarackobama.com and the story from Here Comes Everybody regarding the senator who expressed racist views at the birthday party of another political official.

In addition to these examples are the various news stories and youtube videos about politicians ranging from the extra audio from President Bush and Senator Kerry when they forgot their mikes were still attached to the Tea Party’s candidate Christine O’Donnell appearances on various MTV interviews. All of these examples illustrate the loosening of content control and the resulting possibilities to increase watchdog efforts on not only politicians, but on anyone involved with some form of publicity. The Brett Favre scandal comes to mind.

Unfortunately, and this is probably because this is a relatively new movement, what I have yet to see regarding the growth of citizen journalism and watchdoging is a power to help keep them in check. I have not heard of any group forming to act as a counter balance. Initially, it could be argued, the government was a counterbalance to citizen journalists since not all citizen journalists have the best intentions. However, with the drop in control the government has over certain areas I could see there being an imbalance at least temporarily. I suppose there is always crowdsourcing to make sure the facts are kept straight. There are numerous examples of it working across the internet so it is a matter of watching how crowdsourcing works in this context.

My final question for this week was related to the Shadow Government experiment in Iceland and how it might be replicated in a large country. Taking into account all of the articles this week, it looks like the Icelandic government is willingly giving power to the people; allowing them more direct input into new policies. I do not know enough about this and it is still too new to see how this will turn out. Also, presuming that it does work would it be possible to use a similar system in a country like the United States? A factor that I see being looked over by some people when they talk about using methods in other countries is how that country meshes. For example, the Scandinavian countries are relatively homoginistic culturally than say the United States. This can have a huge affect on how policies are received by a nation’s population. Either way, I am excited to see how this experiment plays out over the next few years. There is definitely potential in how they are using the increased connectedness of people.

Week 6: Sociocultural Contexts of Interactive Media

Remix
– Lawrence Lessig

1. Lessig outlines two cultures – the read-only culture (RO) model of the past and the read/write culture (RW) of the present digital age.  He uses the concept of blogs to explain how consumers redefined their relationship to the content industry through comments and tagging and that we now posses the digital tools to expand upon production.  These comment features have made their way to media news sites and jumped to a new level in dialogue.  If the internet is a source of free flowing information, should media outlets be responsible for comments left by readers on their site?  Or should reader content be monitored, thus going against the free flow?

2.  Today, digital culture permeates our lives to such an extent that it is hard to come up with anything we would deem as “new”.  The current generation will quote content from various sources to create something “new”.  The combination of content may be different, but can this remix of pre-existing content really fall under the category of new?

3. Lessig describes our sharing economy as not being regulated by a metric of price but by a set of social relations.  While Wikipedia has proven that this type of economy can be successful (people are in it because they want to be), should this mindset be applied to all internet content as a whole?  In what realms does a sharing economy not work well for all parties involved?

4.  The book offers 5 steps toward more efficient copyright law (deregulating, clear title, simplify, decriminalizing the copy, and decriminalizing file sharing).  Although these may all be thoughtful suggestions, I believe most people see copyright violation as trivial and there will always be a way to find pirated material unless more strict punishments are put in place.  Should the government simply revamp copyright laws or is stricter enforcement the real problem?

Applied Mass Communication Theory: Chapter 9
– Rosenberry and Vicker

1. The First Amendment sounds absolute in its wording (Congress shall make no law).  Did the founding fathers really want us to take this amendment as literal as it sounds?  If they were observing us today would they be satisfied with the various tiers and levels of protection we have placed on different types of expression?

2.  Privacy is a hot topic in today’s digital world, especially when it comes to social networking and e-commerce.  However, should the government put laws in place that make up for people’s personal choice of providing identifying information on a medium that was built on the idea of free flowing information?  We provide this information at our own risk and to satisfy needs to associate with the internet.  Is it our own fault that the world can read so much about us?

3.  As media and technologies have advanced over the centuries, society has changed with it.  Has law kept up with all the changes and adapted adequately?

Proposed Title: A Comparison of Interactivity in Nonprofit and Government Web Sites

Motivations

For my capstone project, I want to incorporate my design skills into helping a nonprofit/government entity to create a web site. I was thinking specifically of contacting the Orange County Animal Shelter to determine their interest in having me redo their site. Currently their web site is really elementary and simple. I think it could benefit greatly from some interactive features.
The Animal Shelter is an interesting organization because it is funded by the government but has more of a nonprofit feel to it because of its mission to help place animals in homes. It employees county employees but also requires help from community volunteers, much like a nonprofit organization. Because of this blurring of the organizational lines, I feel that I should research which kind of interactive site I should use to model my capstone after. Would it be more effective to use the government model or the nonprofit model? This is assuming that interactivity is different on government sites than on nonprofit sites.
In order to create an effective web site, I first need to research to see how other nonprofits and government agencies are using interactivity on their sites. It is important to analyze and critique other sites so that I can use the best features available.

Theory and Literature Review

One popular theory that seems to reoccur in my review of the current literature on the subject is the idea that nonprofits should use their websites as a marketing or public relations tool. This brings up the question of awareness and education; how aware is the audience of the organization and how educated are they about its cause?
My project might be a little different, since I am dealing with an organization that most people are aware of already. I would think that the Orange County Animal Shelter’s main purpose online would be to get more animals into loving homes, rather than simply to educate the public about their mission.
In reviewing literature about government agencies and interactivity, the theory of e-government appears repeatedly. The general consensus is that users are frustrated with their e-government experiences and that government entities are not utilizing the web in the best way. Recent articles discuss the opportunity to improve transparency via the web.
The theory of the digital divide is also one that could be analyzed in a study such as this. The digital divide says that people of different income levels, age, and race have an effect on how people are able to use technology. Usually, middle class, white Internet users have more familiarity and accessibility to technology than lower-class minority users. This brings up the question of how easy or involved the interactivity on a site should be?

Method

Originally, I thought that in order to complete this research project, I would need to do a content analysis of several government and nonprofit agencies. However, after receiving feedback from Dr. Lackaff, I think I will need to read the previous research on the topics and come up with my own theoretical framework for the type of site I want to build. Dr. Lackaff said that I can “rely on previous empirical research to develop your argument about these quasi-governmental sites.”
From examining previous research, I think that government agencies will need to use simple features because one of the main complaints is that their sites are difficult to use. Therefore making sure that the interactive features on government sites are easy-to-use and understand should be the priority. Nonprofits need to use interactivity in order to communicate its mission to their audience. The features included should present one clear, concise message to the user.
It is also important to measure how users perceive sites. Therefore I would like to hold a focus group to gauge which types of interactivity people find most useful on sites. This will allow me to develop new theories and ideas about how to incorporate interactivity into government/nonprofit sites.

Outcomes
As previously stated, since the animal shelter is a kind of quasi-nonprofit organization, the research that is conducted here will allow organizations of similar structure to create effective, useful, and efficient web sites. Research already exists about e-government and interactivity in nonprofits, however by comparing and merging the effective features from each one, my project will allow for organizations to create interactivity that is efficient, useful, creative and strategic on their web sites.