Final Course blog

Intro to new media has really opened my eyes to how media convergence and the digital revolution is changing our lives and the way we consume and use different kinds of media some of it good some of it bad. I'm optimistic about the rise of civilian journalist and am hopeful that they can put pressure on the mainstream media when it comes to bias and corporate influence. From reading Danah Boyds book Its Complicated I've come to understand and agreeing with her position on young people and the reason for using social media. I think we as a society need to understand that because of the pressures we are putting on young people these days we are forcing them to turn to social media in order to socialize. I am however somewhat concerned with how this revolution will effect our privacy. For instance, will the government call for more regulation of online content such as video streaming? and how will net neutrality be enforced and how will the courts act on the subject in the future? The digital revolution will roll on and hopefully these changes will be for the better.

article from Wired

Here is an interesting article from wired magazine that talks about the improvements made to the ACA website. It gives a great explanation of why the website will run much smoother than after the original launch.

Slactivism

we've all done it. we look at our Facebook timeline and see a story about a war in a far off nation or a natural disaster that destroys thousands of lives. We read the stories and think to ourselves "Wow!! something needs to be done!!" so we "share" the story on our Facebook time lines thinking we are playing an important role and "doing something". The fact of the matter is this is what is called slactivism. Believing that because we share something on social media that we are actually accomplishing something.

Trust me in many ways social media is beneficial, however when it comes to trying to bring awareness to an issue in many ways its useless. Of course its not really the fault of the medium but the user. Young people nowadays are so impulsive that they will try and get themselves involved with any kind of activist activity that pops up on their timeline without doing any research on the topic.

Young people can do good things on social media, they just need a less lazy way to go about it.