Group items tagged

Good advice for blog posts: "Last night, I was editing an article for a client of mine. I had somewhat of an epiphany as I was reading her writing. I realized that writing is similar to putting together a puzzle. That's really all it is at it's simplest form. A puzzle. A Beautifully Constructed Puzzle = Fantastic Writing"

"The curriculum is broken into six sections: historical perspective social media writing process engagement social media writing structure media analysis law/ethics Even though technology is constantly advancing, I believe these sections can be adapted for any type of technology or new social media network that will be developed."

"Excerpted from the book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. The rest of the book is about another tale - one that's not fictional and not yet written: the tale of our own future with AI. How would you like it to play out? Could something remotely like the Omega story actually occur and, if so, would you want it to? Leaving aside speculations about superhuman AI, how would you like our tale to begin? How do you want AI to impact jobs, laws and weapons in the coming decade? Looking further ahead, how would you write the ending? This tale is one of truly cosmic proportions, for it involves nothing short of the ultimate future of life in our universe. And it's a tale for us to write."

"In the lead-up to tonight's film, Generation Like, we've been asking our Facebook and Twitter communities to tell us why you use social and how it's affecting your lives. Hundreds of you have told us about the choices you're making - and why you're making them. We've asked a few writers who've thought a lot about social media to read your comments and reflect on them in the context of tonight's film. We also want to hear from you! Share your reactions below in the comments. Does Social Media Empower or Exploit? Douglas Rushkoff, Generation Like correspondent Douglas Rushkoff: Does Social Media Empower or Exploit? Generation Like correspondent Douglas Rushkoff is the author, most recently, of Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, as well a dozen other books on media, technology and culture. He was correspondent on three previous FRONTLINE films, The Merchants of Cool (2001), The Persuaders (2004), and Digital Nation (2010). Follow him on Twitter @Rushkoff. In the lead-up to Generation Like, FRONTLINE has been asking questions about social media on social media. As I wade through the many responses, I am reminded of my own questions about these platforms when I began making this documentary. Like me, many of you are thrilled by the opportunity for connection and self-expression that social media offer.   Calum James Facebook is the best communication tool ever created. February 12 at 7:02pm   But many of you also share a sense of skepticism about what it is that social media - and the companies behind them - ask from us in return.   We all know this has something to do with our data. We create consumer profiles for the unseen companies on the other side of the screen, and enter into a relationship with them that isn't entirely clear. "Who is doing what for whom, and to what end?" The need to understand this better - and what it means for the young people using this stuff - is what set us on our journey to explor

"We've offered blogging advice before and felt the topic was worth a revisit. That's why we asked you, our community of talented writers, to share your best blogging tips with us. Thanks for all the excellent recommendations you shared with us over Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram! Here are some of our favorites:"

"A research team at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication put 48 college students on a "complete and extended media fast for 48 hours." More cruelly, it required them to write "multiple-page essays" about their experiences. Among the reactions, shared in a press release about the study, called "Turn Off Everything: The Challenges and Consequences of Going on a Complete and Extended Media Fast":"

"A study that claimed Fox News viewers were significantly less intelligent than average Americans is a hoax, Michael Giltz writes. The "study" was ordered up by a group of conservatives who hope to move the Republican party in a more moderate direction, lead hoaxer "P. Nichols" told Giltz."

"Douglas Rushkoff, who spends his days thinking, writing and teaching about media culture, says it's time for people to stop chasing every ping and start using technology in a way that makes us feel more free. Rushkoff's latest work is called Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. He joined NPR's Audie Cornish to talk about the book."

" Postman's early books were mostly about education; he was critical of the shallow and unchanging nature of public education, back then. He went on to write a handful of other books and articles, after "Amusing," a series of warnings on how technology was steamrolling concepts we once revered as pillars of democracy: Critical thought. Civil discourse. Public institutions. Democratic equality in education. Thoughtful, incremental change. Respect for history. Postman died in 2003, just as NCLB and the technocratic accountability movement were rolling across the country, denigrating teachers' hard-won judgment and experience in favor of standardized data. Consider:"

"Gold and Phillip offered their insights on examples of rumors and misinformation in the 2016 campaign, discussed the competing issues and agendas they must navigate in their reporting, and chatted with students and educators about the active role young people can play as consumers and creators of news and information about political issues. The hangout was part of a special series on "Building News Literacy, Critical Media Skills, and Political Awareness Today" produced in connection to Letters to the Next President 2.0.  NLP NEWS Check out the News Literacy Project's latest developments. "

"Melissa Atkins Wardy calls it her "a-ha" moment. There she was looking for her first sippy cup for her then 6-month-old daughter. Her choices: Mickey Mouse, Diego and "Toy Story" characters for boys, and princesses -- and more princesses -- for girls. Already fired up, she walked through the toy aisles and saw what she describes as a further gender divide. Girls were offered baby dolls, princesses and sexy fashion figures; the boys section had superheroes, building blocks, science kits and dinosaurs. "That was it. There was no middle ground. I didn't see any dolls or cooking sets for boys, nor building blocks or fire trucks for girls," writes Atkins Wardy in her new book "Redefining Girly: How Parents Can Fight the Stereotyping and Sexualizing of Girlhood, from Birth to Tween." After that experience, she said in an interview, "Everything clicked and made sense to me."

"Almost a year ago, Jeff Gordon teamed up with Pepsi Max to prank an unsuspecting car salesman. Gordon disguised himself and took the salesman along on a test drive, only to dangerously speed around town. The salesman's terrified reactions, and subsequent reaction to discovering it was a NASCAR driver all along, earned the Pepsi spot more than 40 million views on YouTube. But not everyone was so impressed by the viral video, mainly Jalopnik reporter Travis Okulski. Okulski was among the first to point out inconsistencies in the original ad, writing it off as a staged performance by several actors. Okulski's accusations apparently angered Gordon, who decided to seek revenge with a similar driving prank."

"n Thursday, Twitter released a look back at 2013 and the news that hashtagged its way around the world. Gabriel Stricker, Twitter's vice president of marketing and communications, writes that this year, people used Twitter "to add an extra and distinctive element to global news stories." Here's a quick look at several moments from the last year."

"One day in February 2012, after Whitney Houston was found dead in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton, a man named Kevin Blatt checked into a room there. Blatt is a source for the celebrity news site TMZ. And at the Hilton, he forked out cash for photos of Houston's room service cart and of that bathtub. I got a whole pocket full of hundreds, he remembers. That's what makes the world go round - cash. That story is one of many unearthed by Nicholas Schmidle in his year-long investigation of TMZ. Schmidle writes about it in this week's New Yorker"

""Hyperfocus" teaches readers to control their limited capacity to focus on and process things in the moment, which he calls our "attentional space." It turns out our brain's scratchpad is pretty small and can only hold a handful of tasks at a time. When one of those tasks is complex - like putting together a business proposal or taking care of a toddler - that number dwindles down to one or two. The problem is that our brains are predisposed toward distraction, wandering for an average of 47 percent of the day, writes Mr. Bailey. And those of us who sit in front of a computer, an endless source of novelty, typically work for only 40 seconds before being distracted or interrupted. As a result, our attentional space is constantly filled, which slows down our work."

"Researchers have been writing about the so-called highlight reel effect of social media since at least 2014. The idea is that people tend to post mostly flattering or humblebrag-worthy stuff about themselves, and spending too much time absorbing these gilded depictions of other people's lives could distort how you view your own. The evidence backing this theory is mixed. Some of the early studies linked the highlight reel effect to symptoms of depression, while others found that its impact varied from one person to the next. Some of the latest research suggests that exposure to idealized images - especially those posted by influencers on Instagram - may be fueling the kinds of negative social comparisons that make people feel bad about themselves."

"Know that every border you cross, every purchase you make, every call you dial, every cell phone tower you pass, friend you keep, article you write, site you visit, subject line you type, and packet you route, is in the hands of a system whose reach is unlimited but whose safeguards are not." This's what Edward Snowden wrote to filmmaker Laura Poitras when he first made contact with her in 2013 regarding the NSA's tracking and interception systems. Yet, ever since Facebook came under closer public scrutiny following the 2016 election, Snowden's warning to Poitras reads increasingly like it could have been written about the social platform as well. We now know the seemingly unlimited reach of Facebook's data mining operation. We know that it has in the past, and may still, track what you write - and delete - from its site, monitor the websites you visit, where you go (even when you're offline), record the applications you and your friends install, and more. Somewhere, Facebook may even know how much money you have."

"The New York Times Consumer Insight Group conducted a study using in-person interviews, a weeklong panel, and a survey of over 2,500 online sharers for a report called "The Psychology of Sharing." The results revealed that people shared for five main reasons:"

"Writing about her experience on Slate.fr, Ms. Lejeune said that from 2011 to 2013, members of the group left insulting comments on her feminist blog and falsely suggested she had slept with her boss."

"Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel drew on real-life politics but has never been more prescient, writes Jennifer Keishin Armstrong."