Group items tagged

I have now become fascinated with how celebrities use social media. As with anything, they aren't like us and really have to take some sort of precautions when posting tweets and photos...Well, they should anyway...I'm looking at you Courteney Love! Seriously though, there is now an actual business called WhoSay that helps celebrities control their online images. The article says, "A company called WhoSay - a little-known start-up with a clientele that is anything but little known - offers similar services, but grants ownership of the images to the stars themselves." It's another interesting facet of how social media is changing even the way celebrities must handle their image. Operating in "stealth mode" since last year, WhoSay runs from the Los Angeles office building of the Creative Artists Agency, which represents a Rolodex of household names, including Mr. Hanks. His WhoSay site includes "copyright Tom Hanks" branding and a stack of fine print at the bottom asserting his legal ownership of all content, placed against warnings of "fines and imprisonment" for improper use.

This is fascinating. Brings to mind things like "trending" and data mining." Is that what this company is doing?

Politicians should be all over this company.

This book review seems a good companion to Justin's post below on artificial intelligence/human-computer interaction. The reviewer ties three different books together under the theme of how humanity seems to be integrating itself with its digital machines - including discussion of brain-computer interaction (whoa.) and Google's search algorithms or "contouring."

The section on the ideological dissemination of information as it relates to Google is eye-opening (and really worrisome). I think when we talk about Singularity, "fear" will continue to be at the center of our discussions. For some, the biological integration with machines is just too radical to fathom, though the daily use of the Internet is now commonplace. I think we can rightly call certain technologies "external minds" (@ Mary, above) - so it's really not so much the shifting sense of what are bodies are as it is the effect - or danger - of increasingly personalized information certain technologies host that should be cause for concern.

Later in the article she talks about the same concepts as Jesse Schell, in terms of racking up points for online activity, though she draws the conclusion that your information will be sold to advertisers. Really a fascinating article!

some psychological theories that describe and explain online identity formation...describes what parts of our personalities we tend to deliberately share, and how some of our actions aren't as controlled as we'd like them to be

This was very interesting and helpful. I'm looking at online identities for the term project. I never really gave much thought to the idea that your preference for expressing yourself online is tied to your personality.

I recently read about a new Google product called "Me on the Web:" http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/Google_launches_me_on_the_web_to_help_you_manage_online_identity.php. I think one of the most interesting functions, especially in the context of your comment, Suzanne, that actions may not be as easily controlled as we'd like, is you can remove unwanted content from Google search results that relate to you. I am not sure how I feel about that as I feel like you should "own" and be responsible for content you initially put up. Still, being able to remove some search results raises questions not just about individual identity management, but organizational management as well.

In one of the videos we watched last week, Wesch mentioned how students can look at the discussion page for any article on Wikipedia to get a sense of how information is being interactively constructed and contested. This article discusses the issue of self-governance in online communities with a focus on how Wikipedia is edited and the community politics behind it. I think this article makes a really useful contribution to a discussion about authority and knowledge production on the Internet. There is also a related article about the relationship between Wikipedia contributions and identity construction here.

I read (part of) an ethnography of Wikipedia last semester that was really interesting. http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/ Good Faith Collaboration by Joseph Reagle "Wikipedia's style of collaborative production has been lauded, lambasted, and satirized. Despite unease over its implications for the character (and quality) of knowledge, Wikipedia has brought us closer than ever to a realization of the century-old pursuit of a universal encyclopedia. Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia is a rich ethnographic portrayal of Wikipedia's historical roots, collaborative culture, and much debated legacy. "

Without accusing certain authors in the field of elitism, I think that Wikipedia works as it should, by serving the needs of people in the way they want it. If someone needs to look up the habits of Pokemon or William Shatner's favorite food, who are we to question their information needs?

I've been researching the "global digital divide" for my group project and one of the things that factors into a global digital divide is governments that control the flow of information and prevent access and use of technology. This is article provides a quick summary of government censorship tactics regarding social media and blogging under repressive regimes.

This is an interesting article which highlights how large companies failed in the social media world. Because Web 2.0 is a fairly new concept, there are new "rules" for businesses to follow, or they may face damaging results.

I think part of it is that the mistakes are made more glaring because they spread so quickly. That Motrin campaign might not have caused such as backlash if it appeared in women's magazines - even though it might have angered the moms, the response isn't as instantaneous and it doesn't build momentum in quite the same way. This was an excellent collection of articles, in my opinion, from the Economist last year. Most of the pieces came down on the side of social media as an opportunity, but it did talk a little about the loss of control, and worry about unforseen instances like the Domino employees. http://www.economist.com/node/15351002

I can't believe we're fourth on the list of facebook "hours." I would have definitely thought Americans were first!

Has anyone read this book? I started it a few days ago. Noticed that reviews, like the one I linked to, were skeptical. Basically, Carr, who is a journalist, not a scientist, cites studies on brain plasticity and research that the brain changes in response to actions to conclude that the way we read and synthesize information online has changed the way we think (for the worse). I like how the NYT review puts new technology in a historical perspective.

Well, if I had to take a guess, I think she did it since one of her main points is that media isn't an external force outside of our control -- we can shape it, caring about it enough to respond and filter it. With a graphic novel, the images draw you in because they're abstract; the reader plays an active role by seeing themselves in the images and connecting all the images/words together to make it make sense. It engages so many of our senses at once. I love what Scott McCloud has to say about this, and the following talk that he gave actually relates more to how comics have been impacted by technology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXYckRgsdjI

The idea that media has the potential to shape how we reason reminds me of Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan. As an undergrad, I was basically obsessed with Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" and the idea that some forms of media -Postman was especially thinking about TV- are inherently shallower than other forms and that the predominant medium tends to set the standard of what makes a good argument. Anyway, I wanted to find a YouTube video of Postman but instead found a really good video of Mike Wesch talking about Postman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09gR6VPVrpw&feature=related

I like this whole (relatively new) blog, written by a graduate student whose academic focus is on social media and traditional news media, and how the this sharing of information affects the media channels and the audience. He's got another post about the digital divide, but I couldn't pass up Mr. Splashy Pants.

I love that example. This is a worry/conversation we have all the time with your clients about loss of control with social media but what a great outcome in this instance.

I like that we pick up a lot of good terms and concepts from such blogs. One of his posts using the term "media convergence." That's a good one to add to the list.

I actually just finished a meeting with a first year teacher in Philadelphia who also found Facebook to be an important tool in her professional development. It worked as an outlet to share ideas and push one-anothers thinking

I agree that social media can be a very powerful force for teachers as a teaching tool that crossing all types of boundaries. It really all depends on how teachers use these resources. I'm particularly interested in policies that school districts come up with in terms of regulating how teachers use facebook versus their right to free speech.

Two examples of using social media in the classroom. It basically comes down to this quote at the end of the article - "The bottom line is this: Anyone can be involved in solving the problems of our era. With 21st century tools, a small group of students can stand up to the devastation of nature, and a small group of teachers can be strengthened by the shared opinions of a larger group and take a stand against the devastation of certain policies that may control our practice."

I came across this new Droid app that enables users to obscure the faces of individuals in photos or videos they've taken on their mobile devices. The app creators are involved more generally in developing technologies and technology policies for human rights defenders, especially ones that document abuses, protests and other demonstrations and share the videos/pictures through various media channels and see a need to hide identities from repressive governments. I think it ties our discussion last week of Evgeny Morozov's research into the Internet and government oppression into the issue of privacy.

Is technology promoting free speech or helping dissidents in controlled countries? "We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations," Mrs. Clinton said. "There is a historic opportunity to effect positive change, change America supports," she said. "So we're focused on helping them do that, on helping them talk to each other, to their communities, to their governments and to the world."