Final presentation blog: Killing Communication

 Since the creation of the World Wide Web, I believe the concept of mass communication has fell victim to being entirely online. Although the World Wide Web was an extreme advantage for society it has also created a lot of unwanted issues for the world. The overall idea of being able to communicate with anyone, anywhere you want, at any given time was such a dream to all, but quickly turned against us and created on growing isolation. Society was gifted the use of the internet and quickly took advantage of the communicational aspects and in a sense ruined both communication as a whole and the way society is wired.  

    Technology has become so evolved to the point where we can communicate in seconds to people cross country from us, something that would take us weeks and months to do, or not at all. This is an amazing thing to think about, but would our communication reflect the same in person as it is online? With this new communication technology, it is clear to see that in person interactions have began struggling. There is a loss in good human communication in which there aren’t proper hand gestures, body language, listening skills, grammar, eye contact, and so much more. People are now more comfortable with texting, calling, emailing, etc. than going and talking to someone in person.

    Isolation between all persons, even people super close to each other like friends and family is very clear nowadays. The idea of just sending a quick text or even calling instead of going to see someone prevents the amount of time we see these people overall. In the moment the online communication seems like a great idea but in the end, it is taking away face to face interactions with people that you care about or care about talking to. Once growing comfortability in not interacting with people, what will ever make someone want to interact in person again? 

    There are everyday occurrences in which we all see the isolation that is brought to society. Have you ever been out eating lunch with someone, and they are just on their phone the whole time? This is such a clear instance in which someone chooses to interact online rather than the opportunity of human interaction in front of them. Whether they are on their phone talking to other people or being on social media it is still considering isolation considering there is a chance to talk to someone face to face in front of you. 

 

    When watching the videos in class I realized how big of an issue technology really is in everyday life, always seeing people hide behind a screen. Besides the fact of technology altering communication, social media also takes a massive toll on how society interacts as well. Social media has created many issues pertaining to body image, beauty standards, comparing issues, individuality and of course communication. As social media continues to grow all these issues grow as well. Social media has taken over the lives of technology users, and sometimes becomes more used than communication apps. Clearly there is an issue with communication as a whole, but now we see that there is an even deeper decrease of communication due to social media. People aren’t seeing each other in person, the they don’t even talk to each other online because they are too busy being drawn into the temptations of what social media has to offer. Although we all know about the negative impacts that social media has to bring it is still such an extremely desired thing among all of society. 

EOTO reaction: Propaganda

 Propaganda is “the dissemination of information” such as “facts, arguments, rumors, half-truths, or lies” in order to “influence public opinion. Deliberateness and relatively heavy emphasis on manipulation distinguish propaganda from casual conversation or the free and easy exchange of ideas”. You may think that propaganda came around during the time of World War II but in reality, it has been around since the very beginning. Propaganda is still extremely present to this day in many different areas.

    Propaganda can be found today in magazines, social media, radios, television, the newspaper, and even advertisements. Although it is easy to say that the sole purpose of propaganda is to persuade the intended audience, it is commonly overlooked that there are very clear informative aspects to propaganda. Considering that propaganda is both persuasive and informative it is understandable by at the time of war it because the most increasingly popular. As I mentioned before, most people know this term solely because of World War II when there extensive Nazi propaganda that encouraged Germans to get involved in the war, and more exclusively democracy. Besides seeing Nazi propaganda, here in the United States, we also saw the strategic persuasion plan that encouraged citizens to help during the hard time, whether that be enlisting in the army, getting women more involved in the factories/ working, or just being more patriotic and a stable support system. 

 

    Propaganda may seem like a very simple concept, just persuade your audience to do something, but there are actually 7 different types of propaganda. The 7 different types include name calling, glittering personalities, transfer, testimonial, plain, card stacking, and bandwagon. The first type, name calling, is very self-explanatory in that the persuasion being used it to draw the viewers to your side rather than your competitor through calling out the competitions name, giving them a bad name, or hinting at their name. The second type, glittering personalities/ generalities uses fancy and or “good feeling” words in order to persuade you to do what they want or buy their product. Next is transfer propaganda which uses their persuasion to “transfer” either a good or a bad feeling to the viewer. A great example of transfer propaganda would be to call a fragrance “very American”, which essentially transfers the feeling of being a good American into the viewer’s mind. Testimonial propaganda refers to the use of a credible or very well-known source to persuade. A great example of testimonial would be the use of a celebrity in an advertisement on television. Next is plain propaganda which has become very popular over the years through social media. Plain propaganda uses the viewing of “real” people testing “real” products and seeing the great benefit that comes from it. The sixth type of propaganda is card-stacking, meaning the persuasion technique involves only telling the good information about the product or idea and not explaining the bad parts. Lastly, we have the bandwagon, which is probably the most common. Band wagoning in propaganda is using the idea that if everything likes something or is doing something you should want to too. 

EOTO project: Citizen Journalism

    Citizen Journalism can be defined as “the collecting and reporting of information via social media, public platforms, and traditional news outlets, either by non-traditional sources or the public.”. This basically means that the citizens of society are playing a role, like a reporter, to get information out to the rest of the public on something that is happening firsthand to them. This kind of information tends to come directly from the source (the citizen), also known as a primary source. More recently the term has become looser and citizen journalism can expand all the way to just interacting on social media or websites. There is no clear definition to what citizen journalism consists of, but as a society we can create boundaries to reach for a definition.

  A great example of citizen journalism would be a citizen at a protest, taking a video or picture on their phone, then proceeding to post those videos or photos on some social media platforms, sent in group chats, or even put onto a website or blog. The citizen in this scenario is acting as a reporting and getting information on an event firsthand. The citizen is giving other citizens documentation of an event from a primary source. With documentation like videos or photos of what is happening presently, we are able to evoke emotions and then encourage change, if change is the desired outcome of the event taking place or change is needed to reach a solution. A reporter takes on the role of “keeping the public updated about current events and noteworthy information.”. As citizen journalism continues to evolve, citizens are taking on this role to keep their fellow citizens up to date on what is happening and reach towards those changes they so deeply desire.  

    As society continues to set boundaries in order to officially define what citizen journalism consists of, we focus on 3 general areas. The areas include, generally being associated with the internet, it is seen as a movement that challenges mainstream corporate media, and the uncertainty of whether citizens should carry the role of a report, a content creator, neither, or both. The first desired boundary states that majority of citizen journalism is associated with the internet whether that be posting directly onto social media and websites, or eyewitness footage being presented onto the broadcast news. Secondly, we question the challenges being brought to mainstream media through the expansion of citizen journalism. Citizen journalism is taking ideas from the traditions of mainstream media and adding uniqueness that essentially catches the attention of the public. The uniqueness in this case consists of eyewitness accounts and opinions brought to citizens by citizens. Thirdly, as a society we must decide the overall role of the citizen when they take a part in citizen journalism. Should citizens play the role of a reporter if the opportunity is presented to them? Should citizens stick to being content creators if they have an interest in news and change? Should citizens not get involved at all? Should citizens be the most involved they can be? These are the main questions we must ask ourselves if we desire the definition of what citizen journalism consists of. Currently, citizens are taking the role of both reporters and content creators. As this trend continues the popularity of citizen journalism will continue to increase. The public likes to feel involved in what is presently happening. The involvement that the public receives allows them to receive and heighten emotion in order to become confident in their opinions of exactly what is going on. 

 

    Although citizen journalism has a definition that can be found online, there truly are no restrictions on what this style of journalism really is. The looseness of this term brings the overall positive of popularity and future expansion. Society may push for boundaries to create a definition, but individual citizens will essentially choose what is important to their beliefs and how they think news should be sent out and received. 

Age of AI

 Artificial Intelligence is way more complex than I have ever thought about. As AI technologies continue to improve and become more complex it is easy to say that it will continue to get harder to secure our privacy. It truly is a very frightening thing to think about in the terms of feeling secured. Although we may feel as if our information is private from others/ the government, AI technology is sure to get the information from us in some way. The issue between AI technologies and privacy isn’t only an issue within the United States but also in China. As Kai-Fu Lee exclaimed in the video, and also his book, rather than seeing AI technology as an issue we should combine the two AI superpowers and use it to our advantage. Lee believes that we should take this negative of technology and turn it into a positive and help benefit humanity.

Artificial Intelligence is taking notes on pretty much everything we do on our phones, computers, iPads, etc while we continue to remain unaware. Not only are we being tracked on what we are looking up or viewing on these devices but also the things we are saying or talking about while being around said devices. Products such as Alexa's, echo dots, and hey googles are prime examples of devices listening to a consumer. By just saying the devices name they immediately announce they are listening to you and go on to help you with what you are asking. How are we to know they ever stop listening? Providers make this an asset of Artificial Intelligence in order to learn more about the user to then encourage them to do certain things or think a certain way. A great example of persuasion in artificial intelligence is during election times when viewers online feed is infested with information on both political sides. More specifically, AI technologies take notes on which political side a viewer leans more towards and then will project those promotions onto the viewers social media feed. If someone happened to be extremely invested in looking at republican sided news, most likely their feed would involve republican based posts, or posts made by strongly right sided people. 

 

Clearly Artificial Intelligence is very complex in the concept of obtaining information on their users and using it to their benefit (advertisements, interests, information, etc.), but it is also advanced in other ways such as face and finger recognition along with cars that drive themselves. It is not hard to notice that as time continues, advancements are bound to be made to AI technology. All the way on the other side of the world we are seeing these technologies as well. As China continues to compete with the United States they have pushed more towards a “surveillance state” through Artificial intelligence. China’s overall desire for this technology is to understand the citizen’s opinions on government, whether they like it or disagree with it. Kai-Fu Lee exclaims that Artificial Intelligence takes away from jobs of people that are in poverty currently. 

Privacy

    The word privacy can have multiple meanings and/or definitions. In physical terms, privacy is “the right to be let alone, or freedom from interference of intrusion.” On the other hand, there is information privacy which is known as “the right to have some control over how your personal information is collected and used”. Nowadays there is a lot of talk about what is considered privacy and how we should regulate privacy. It is a common thought that true privacy is not something that exists. 

    After watching the Ted Talk by Juan Enriquez, I learned some pretty interesting things, especially with the idea of physical and electronic tattoos. Enriquez begins his speech by talking about the symbolism and meanings each tattoo holds to their individual. He exclaimed that the tattoos help tell the story of the individual through sharing visuals. Electronic tattoos can be very similar to physical tattoos in the sense that they both allow a story to be told through visualization. The main separation between the tattoo types is the purpose behind them. Physical tattoos have meaning behind them, meanwhile electronic tattoos have a main purpose of benefitting the user, for example monitoring heart activities, unlocking your phone, or possibly getting remote access to doors. Electronic tattoos can help users to possibly connect with friends and/or family through the internet. 

 

    Although they can have major benefits, electronic tattoos are yet another example of technology invading a user’s privacy. It has become common knowledge that technology is constantly taking notes on the user at hand, and as new technologies continue to improve more “privacy” is being violated. In Enriquez speech he speaks about the correlation between the poet, Jorge Luis Borges, and privacy related to technology. The main point of the story of Jorge Luis Borges is that threatening someone with immortality is essentially worse than threatening someone with death. I took this correlation as, if someone were to continue living through the age of technology increasingly invading privacy, they would suffer more than someone that does not live through that time. 

 

    Privacy is something majority of people would love to obtain, especially online. The most typical solution to privacy issues would be to refrain from any technology usage at all. Considering this would be an extremely hard thing for some people to do, another solution could be the implementation of online privacy settings. Certain technology providers should have clear privacy rules for all technology created through their company. These are only two ideas that could steer us in the right direction for complete privacy but in all honestly would be extremely hard to implement, taking in account the extensive amount of technology that is prevalent in everyday life. 

Antiwar

Antiwar is pretty much never talked about in the media, the news, or even online. It is crazy to wrap your head around the idea that a certain topic is not discussed about more considering the wide realm of communication we currently live in. It is not a hidden fact that people talk about violence and anti-violence. Why are people so likely to openly discuss violence but not war?

 

After looking through the first antiwar article I was pretty confused. I had never seen an article like this before and so much talk about why people are against war. The second antiwar article had a plethora of sections to chose from when browsing the cite. Each section presented different types of information but that all lead back to the common concept of antiwar. 

I think it is safe to say that commonly considered “violent acts” do not have as an extensive affect that war does. I think with the extreme negative effects that war brings to America, people refrain from talking about it. With war comes effects on both the people of America and the government involved. Effects include, death and/or injury, illness, PTSD, disabilities, and many more physical and mental outcomes. On the other hand, the government may lose cities to war, go into great debt, loss of social order, and more. 

 

Antiwar is a known concept but definitely has many differing opinions. Whether the opinions are good or bad, it is still prevalent that antiwar is not talked about as much as you would think it is. Due to the outcomes brought by war, I believe the sore topic is too hard to discuss casually on the internet despite how big the web is. 

EOTO Project - Emoticons/ Emoji's

    Emoticons, or you may know them as Emojis, have taken over within the online realm of communication. Emojis are relevant in text messages, tweets on twitter, posts on Instagram, snaps on snapchat, and so much more. Although you may believe emojis have been around for just a short time they actually have been around since the mid 1800s. Considering emojis have just recently began to become popular we have noticed major impacts within communication and society because of them. These impacts are both positive and negative, but in the end it is up to the viewer to decide their overall opinion on the use of emojis. 

    The first emoticons date all the way back to April of 1857. At this time, the National Telegraphic Review and Operators Guide had stated that number 73 in the Morse Alphabet would be expressed as “love and kisses”. We then see in 1881, in the US Satirical Magazine, Puck, that Typographic emoticons were published. In the article they expressed that emoticons were a new way of using punctuation in sentences and consider it a “Period that Chuckles”. The next really big time we see emoticons published in the paper is in 1969 in the New York times after discovering the famous “smiley face” that Harvey Ball had created in 1963. Ball was told to raise the spirits of employees in an insurance company and do so through the creation of the smiley face. 

 

    Now that emojis are a lot more relevant and popular, we are beginning to see the impacts that they cause. On the negative side, with an increase of emoji usage, there is a decreased concern for grammar, spelling, and even sentence structure. People, more particularly traditionalists, have said that language is now becoming shortened, more abrupt, and there is a loss of communication cues. Emoji’s have created this concept of getting to the point, meaning people aren’t focusing on the grammar or spelling of their text message or tweet but rather getting their overall point across to their audience. Although there are negatives to the use of emojis, there are a good number of positives. Emoji’s follow one major grammar rule, which is acting as a punctuation mark and coming after a complete though has occurred. Emoji’s also help to avoid confusion when communicating over the phone. Sometimes things like sarcasm are hard to infer from a text message, and with the use of emoji’s we avoid the confusion. Lastly, and most common, emoji’s are one of the best ways to express emotions when not being able to communicate in person. Sometimes it can be difficult for people to express their emotions through words and with emojis people are able to send an icon that shows facial expressions of exactly how they are feeling. 

 

    Emoji’s are not a new concept to us but rather a newly popular thing that most of us use daily. As humans continue to reach for the perfect way of communication, emojis are just one step closer on finding it. With every invention there are positives and negatives, and based on the viewers opinion, it will show how they ultimately choose to look at emojis. Despite opinions on emojis though, we will continue to be given more advanced emojis as technology continues to adapt and improve with society.