EMAC6300

Today's tech companies hire social scientists to help them develop, or enhance, the user experience of their digital products. These kinds of gigs seem to fit with the EMAC program.

This NYTimes analysis discusses social media in criminal investigations and courtroom trials.

#6300link MT @jennathefriend: @WIRED: The human brain has started to react to emoticons like real faces http://t.co/NVdH4BFS6T #digitaltext - Kim Knight (@purplekimchi) February 14, 2014

#6300link MT @jennathefriend: @WIRED: The human brain has started to react to emoticons like real faces http://t.co/NVdH4BFS6T #digitaltext - Kim Knight (@purplekimchi) February 14, 2014

Good Q&A Site, Thank you EMAC 6342 and Prof. Shen!

I wish I could take the credit for finding this site, but Remi had a link from her blog to this site, and I found it really interesting!

The digital programs look groovy. Some were even developed by graduate students. I plan to use a couple of them in my work.

It's groovy that digital humanities scholarship is getting some serious money.

This is an awesome change. The Getty photos are groovy.

This article is about the increasing need for creativity thinking.

If you are interested in this topic, Professor Magda Grohman in Arts and Humanities teaches on this topic occasionally.

Class assignment in NYT....

Interesting point about television in the article.

This article relates directly to some of the readings we had this week about infrastructure, protocol, and net neutrality. North Korea has strict control over what its citizens can access, but it does allow the tiniest trickle of real internet into the country... will that inevitably lead to raising citizens' awareness? "Still, some experts believe that as more North Koreans become familiar with the benefits of going online - a trend that would seem inevitable if North Korea is to keep afloat in the information age - it will become increasingly difficult for the ruling regime to keep the IT dam from bursting."

"Such a system would fly in the face of net neutrality principles, which call upon Internet service providers to treat all types of websites the same -- whether they're big or small, complex or simple, corporate or independent." h/t aksparling

Ok, just another definition on another segment, Constructivism, we are to focus on this week for our class reading. Seeing the definitions really helps me understand so much more. Hope it helps others as well.

Welll, I was looking at the 2nd definition, but Yah, after I posted this and did some more of the reading, I realized it wasn't quite the right definition either. Sorry! :) I like your link much better! Although, it doesn't seem so clear cut to me. If I understand it correctly a person/s can construct something that is controlled and by society or culture but not necessarily by nature? Like making a robot puppy instead of having a real one? THe robot is more controlled. right? So is there a difference between Constructivism and Constructionism? Or are those just two words meaning the same thing? Sorry for the questions, just kind of typing and saying outloud to make sure I got it. :)

No need to apologize. In technological terms, it means that technologies develop in response to social conditions (vs. determinism which suggests that technologies determine social conditions). That is a reductive definition of both terms but gives you an idea of how the binary operates. But as we read in the Williams piece, it is actually a complex interplay of both. Constructionism vs. Constructivism depends on the field. I admit to being a bit sloppy and probably using them interchangeably, about which I will try to be more mindful. In theories of education, there is a difference where Constructivism refers to what I'm describing above whereas Constructionism is the theory of learning through applied methods (making, or constructing, things). And then to complicate everything even further, we have social constructionism. This is a pretty good explanation of technological determinism vs. social constructivism http://www.slideshare.net/JonathanSmith122/social-constructivism-technological-determinism-technological-momentum

Social media is the world many of us live in....and die. NJM

Sure, apps are like boxes of crayons -- one for just about everything -- but at least the creators of this one takes a slightly different spin on their main targets. NJM

Quote from story... "The content is what makes the medium social, not the other way around. An empty coffee shop is not good strategy." NJM

Just found this site Vizify.com it is a web builder site, but it also tracks your activity on the social media sites you want it to. Just thought it was fun to see and maybe helpful too. I thought about @purplekimchi and her tracking charts of our tweets when I saw this.

Wow even SnapChat has technical difficulties. :)