Group items tagged

A paradox of sociology at the turn of the 21st century was that the discipline had largely abandoned the empirical study of journalistic organizations and news institutions at the moment when the media had gained visibility in political, economic, and cultural spheres; when other academic fields had embraced the study of media and society; and when leading sociological theorists had broken from the disciplinary canon to argue that the media are key actors in modern life. The author examines the point of journalistic production in one major news organization in the late 1990's and shows how reporters and editors managed constraints of time, space, and market pressure under regimes of convergence news making. The study considers the implications of these conditions for the particular forms of intellectual and cultural labor that journalists produce, drawing connections between the political economy of the journalistic field, the organizational structure of multimedia firms, new communications technologies, and the qualities of content created by media workers.

This site emphasizes OpenID's role in ensuring the protection of one's identity. The site explains president Obama's endorsement of OpenID as a means of simplifying the use of government websites. The article states that the use of OpenID on government sites will allow users to access information without revealing a great deal of personal information. This article's discussion of the president's endorsement of OpenID does not lead readers to believe that OpenID will prevent user anonymity, but instead ensure users the privacy and security of their own online identities. Furthermore, Obama aims to make government sites more accessible. If Internet users feel that their identities are protected and secure, they will likely feel more at ease and be more likely to take advantage of the information and features offered on sites.

Reviews three 1997 books that attempt to unravel the origin, process, or consumption of 20th-century celebrity: Herbert G. Goldman's 'Banjo Eyes: Eddie Cantor and the Birth of Modern Stardom,' Leonard Leff's 'Hemingway and His Conspirators: Hollywood, Scribner's, and the Making of American Celebrity Culture,' and P. David Marshall's 'Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture.' Goldman's biography and Leff's analysis of Hemingway focus on the production of stardom, but Goldman ignores the dense cultural interplay of ideology and commerce that supports and disseminates fame. Marshall's elaborate theorizing cannot support his claim that audiences appropriate and reconceptualize Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise, and New Kids on the Block. Greater periodization is needed to further the exploration of celebrity begun by these works.

Summary: American youth are awash in media. They have television sets in their bedrooms, personal computers in their family rooms, and digital music players and cell phones in their backpacks. They spend more time with media than any single activity other than sleeping, with the average American eight- to eighteen-year-old reporting more than six hours of daily media use. The growing phenomenon of "media multitasking"-using several media concurrently-multiplies that figure to eight and a half hours of media exposure daily. Donald Roberts and Ulla Foehr examine how both media use and media exposure vary with demographic factors such as age, race and ethnicity, and household socioeconomic status, and with psychosocial variables such as academic performance and personal adjustment. They note that media exposure begins early, increases until children begin school, drops off briefly, then climbs again to peak at almost eight hours daily among eleven- and twelve-year-olds. Television and video exposure is particularly high among African American youth. Media exposure is negatively related to indicators of socioeconomic status, but that relationship may be diminishing. Media exposure is positively related to risk-taking behaviors and is negatively related to personal adjustment and school performance. Roberts and Foehr also review evidence pointing to the existence of a digital divide-variations in access to personal computers and allied technologies by socioeconomic status and by race and ethnicity. The authors also examine how the recent emergence of digital media such as personal computers, video game consoles, and portable music players, as well as the media multitasking phenomenon they facilitate, has increased young people's exposure to media messages while leaving media use time largely unchanged. Newer media, they point out, are not displacing older media but are being used in concert with them. The authors note which young people are more or less li

Authorship and Blogging (haven't read the whole thing yet)

In the Internet environment, media must not only compete with one another but with a host of newcomers, including online companies with no traditional media ties and a variety of other entrepreneurs. This article reports the results of a content analysis of 422 Web sites associated with local newspapers, radio stations, and television stations in 25 of the largest metro markets in the United States. Results show that each medium has a relatively distinctive content emphasis, while each attempts to utilize its Web site to maximize institutional goals. Market size is found to be a relatively unimportant factor in shaping the content of these Web sites, but media type helps explain how these Web sites are differentiated. [J]

Newspaper columnist Walter Winchell coined the term 'celebutante' in 1939, referring to socialite Brenda Frazier and other quasi-celebrities of the day. The creation of blogs has morphed the word, resulting in the proliferation of the use of the prefix 'celebu-.' New words created with 'celebu-' have been used on the Internet and in other media to describe a variety of persons with celebrity-like status, including Paris Hilton, thus illustrating the linguistic impact of blogs.

This article questions whether online anonymity is truly possible, and if so, whether or not Internet users should be made to take responsibility for their words and or actions. Ultimately, Zack Whittaker, the article's author, states that individuals should be held responsible for their online behaviors in the same sense that they are held responsible for their actions offline. Whittaker uses the example of Rosemary Port, a woman who used Blogger.com to post insulting photographs and words of verbal abuse directed towards a female model. Under court order, Goggle, the owner of Blogger.com, was forced to reveal the identity of Rosemary Port, who is now suing Goggle for "breach of anonymity." Port clearly felt that her right to remain anonymous had been violated, but does the right to anonymity free Internet users of moral and social responsibility?

This section of YouTube's website deals with all issues of copyright. It provides a help in all manners of copyright, including how to tell if something is copyright protected, how to get permission, and how to provide credit to the original owner of an idea or material. This website will be helpful in my research. Using YouTube's definitions, I can begin to understand how credit and ownership is decided for content and videos. This will also help me to understand the rules for "borrowing" copyrighted material and distinguish what is classified as copyright.

This section of YouTube's website deals with all issues of copyright. It provides a help in all manners of copyright, including how to tell if something is copyright protected, how to get permission, and how to provide credit to the original owner of an idea or material. This website will be helpful in my research. Using YouTube's definitions, I can begin to understand how credit and ownership is decided for content and videos. This will also help me to understand the rules for "borrowing" copyrighted material and distinguish what is classified as copyright.

This article deals with the topic of "fair use," which is the copyright doctrine that allows the use of copyrighted works in certain circumstances without having to gain the owner's permission. It also correlated "fair use" with the popular video sharing website YouTube. This source was found through the database Project Muse. It was printed in the University of Texas Press. Its information is credible and useful. As for my project, this article will be helpful in determining if "fair use" applies in connection with fan remix videos of Twilight. Once this is determined, I will be able to better define the creators of these remixes.

Discusses the role of the press agent in the early 20th century in maintaining public illusions about theater celebrities. The rise of cheap daily newspapers looking for sensational news and human interest stories increased the demand for publicity. This need for news gave rise to false stories designed to enhance the image of the star performer, who often was more than willing to present a certain personality to the public. Publicity for Sarah Bernhardt's 1906 tour was an example of the rising importance of the press agent in the early 20th century.

This article explains how a chain of pawn shops in Texas sued an anonymous John Doe who posted comments on an Internet message board criticizing the chain of shops. The chain thought that the John Doe may have been a former employee. Despite Doe's efforts to protect his identity, the court rejected Doe's motions. This article shows that although Internet users are often thought to have a right to anonymity, the privacy of Internet users is not enforced by law. Actions that are considered criminal offline are also considered unlawful on the Internet. Still, the rulings of cases involving online anonymity are ultimately decisions of the courts they are heard in.

This website is just an example of a writer who is currently releasing his novel on Twitter, by way of tweeting 140 characters at a time. He compares releasing his novel on Twitter as the equivalent to watching a short clip of a movie, before deciding to buy the entire thing. He feels by releasing 140 characters at a time, it will grab people's attention. This website demonstrates how not only is, Matt Stewart, releasing his novel via Twitter, but how other authors are deciding to do the same thing. Is releasing a novel via Twitter going to be the same as releasing the actual publish book in the bookstores? Does Stewart, along with the various other authors have rights to each of their "tweets"? How easy would it be to steal Stewart's novel, by simply copying and pasting all of his tweets into one large document. Is it novel protected from someone else stealing his ideas?

A website of cool stuff, diverse topics and opinions. Some of it's nutty, some fascinating. Much of it relates to individual freedom of expression on the net and beyond - a fundamental issue of authorship. It's also a great source for useful tools.

The PostSecret Community site offers information to members of the PostSecret "community." The site offers access to information on PostSecret events and news as well as the opportunity to chat with the creator of PostSecret, Frank Warren. The site also answers questions that are likely raised by users of the PostSecret website. I choose to bookmark this site because it demonstrates the sense of community that users achieve from visiting sites that feature work from anonymous authors. Although the members of the PostSecret community remain unknown to one another, they still feel as though they are unified by the project.

This is an article I found on Google Scholar. This article examines the use of social-networking sites and how we really use them to interact with friends. Social-Networking sites are designed to help us keep in contact with our "friends", however it seems that the more friends we have on these sites the less we actually interact with them. This study used Twitter as a means to study just how many "followers" one has and how many of them do they really keep in touch with on a daily basis. This is an important/article I can use for my project because I am studying the use of Twitter and Authorship. Many use Twitter to as a way to elicit thoughts to others, but who are they thoughts going to if they aren't our everyday friends? This study could reveal why so many of our thoughts are being used and taken from us, because we are allowing people to see them who we do not even know. I may be able to use examples from this article to support who uses Twitter and for what reasons.

This is an article I got off of Google Scholar. This article explains a study that was conducted that examined Social-Networking sites and the use of friends. Social-networking sites are designed to help us keep in contact and interact with people we know. However, this study reveals how the more "friends" one has, the less they interact with them. This article looks at just how many people we do use social-networking sites to acutally interact with on a daily basis. Twitter is used in this study to examine how many "followers" people have but how many of them are thier actual friends. This will be a useful site for my project because it examines who uses Twitter and why.

This is an article from Project Muse. It talks about the sincerity of authorship in blogs. It relates the idea of a diary to a blog, and views blogging in a very personal sense. Considering the personal value of a blog, you can understand how authorship on blogging sites (TFLN), would fall under this umbrella of something not being considered plagiarized. This will benefit me greatly in writing my paper because I am mainly speaking about authorship in relation to anonymity, and the sites I am reviewing deal with some aspect of blogging.

This article discusses how online feedback mechanisms are bringing new meaning to "word of mouth." Through online forums, businesses can reach large audiences at little cost. Furthermore, "individuals can make their personal thoughts, reactions, and opinions easily accessible to the global community of Internet users." The site relates to my project because it references several online communities and discusses how these groups of people use the Internet to communicate. The article mentions Epinions.com, Moviefone.com, and CitySearch.com. These are sites where users can evaluate movies, restaurants, bars, and other businesses. Individuals who visit these sites to read reviews are not concerned with who wrote the articles, but instead the advice that they offer. Therefore, these sites are examples of ways that Internet users are taking advantage of online anonymity to connect with others and to seek their opinions.

This blog is written by a published author. He has written and continues to write books about software or code. In this blog post he discusses authorship in terms of open source. He makes an argument about how writing in general should be treated more like open source software is created. I am using his assertions to help development my claims that sites like webook.com are open source communities that allow authors to share ideas.

This blog is written by a published author. He has written and continues to write books about software or code. In this blog post he discusses authorship in terms of open source. He makes an argument about how writing in general should be treated more like open source software is created. I am using his assertions to help development my claims that sites like webook.com are open source communities that allow authors to share ideas.

This article found on Project Muse is about the materiality of of technology and how in order to get a glimpse of the future of writing and libraries, we must understand the technologies by which we are accessing this information. Also this article mentions how these technologies shape our social and cultural environments.