The idea that Facebook will need 50,000 servers is really interesting to me. They have to pay a lot of money to set up servers so I can do the mindless clicking that was discussed in the Huffington Post article.
I would like to delete my Facebook to give me back all the time I've wasted on it during college, but Facebook also does so much for it. It keeps me in touch with my friends from back home in a way that never would have been possible before Fbook came along. I also talk to friends across the country and the world that I made during my experiences studying abroad. I network with other journalists such as Hannah Allam, the youngest Baghdad bureau chief ever at 25, who I interviewed at the SPJ Conference in August, and Saeed Ahmed, a CNN journalist who comments on my Facebook status when he's working at 3 a.m.
Right now I'm meeting the people I will work with in Teach for America in New Orleans. After I graduate, Facebook will be essential for keeping in touch with my "college" friends.
I was a little confused by the abstractness of the Charlene Li article, social networks are like air. We interact with people in a social context everyday. I do not want my digital social network to become like air. I like to control my digital social network because unlike in public, where I know who's watching me because I can see them and I know who will be where, everyone is everywhere on the Internet. I keep my Facebook very tame. No profanity, no alcohol, no cleavage, etc. You can't really get a sense of who I am through my Facebook page because I do not want people to get to know me through the Internet.
Over the past few weeks, reports have abounded on the Internet about the purchase of Facebook by an outside company such as Yahoo, which will force users to pay for the service. I absolutely love that Facebook users response to the suggestion that they pay for Facebook is the group "We won't pay for Facebook. We are gone if this happens."
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Uses and Gratifications
I use the print media to relax and reduce tension because I love reading the Economist and National Geographic whenever I have a little bit of free time. In terms of other media, I've basically been banned from watching television with my roommates because I always point out the inplausibility of the program whether it is Grey's Anatomy or CSI.
We would like to think that we are not media dependent but in being technological depending we don't realize how much the two are interconnected. While this is only slightly related, I had a minor breakdown when my Google documents weren't loading since my life exists in Google, which I would consider to be part of the media world to some extent.
We have a variety of media outlets available; therefore we would assume that we are less dependent on a single media. However, I realized that I often only visit the same media sites even though I'd like to expose myself to many different opinions and interpretations of the news. I am dependent on certain media Web sites because there is never enough time to read everything I want to.
I also really don't like to read conservative opinions in the news even though I know I should. I always laugh when I get e-mails from David Horowitz, a conservative author and activist, who I interviewed when I was a sophomore. Two years later, I'm still included on mass e-mail lists from the David Horowitz Freedom Center bashing the left and liberal media.
As news editor though I do tend to skim through the Catholic News Service to keep track of Catholic things that we might want to cover for the school newspaper, but I don't enjoy it. I do it because I have to for my job. I don't independently seek out this alternative news source.
The common experiences section of the Sunstein article made me think of the one thing almost everyone in my generation and now many in yours do share: Facebook.
In terms of media consumption, my newsfeed is filled with my conservative and liberal friends posting articles from different media outlets that they're read. Whether I disagree with them/would have sought them out myself/have already it, I still see them and sometimes read them.
People keep telling me journalists will just work online and everything will be fine. Yet while news consumption is actually UP meaning more people are reading more news people are reading it all online. This report from Paid Content shows that readers in the UK who report reading newspaper has also slightly increased while circulation is still down.
While the media has many different definitions, the mainstream media particularly the print medium that I love makes me more depressed with every news story I read particularly this one about the closure of the Chicago Tribune Beijing bureau, which I visited when I was in China last year.
We would like to think that we are not media dependent but in being technological depending we don't realize how much the two are interconnected. While this is only slightly related, I had a minor breakdown when my Google documents weren't loading since my life exists in Google, which I would consider to be part of the media world to some extent.
We have a variety of media outlets available; therefore we would assume that we are less dependent on a single media. However, I realized that I often only visit the same media sites even though I'd like to expose myself to many different opinions and interpretations of the news. I am dependent on certain media Web sites because there is never enough time to read everything I want to.
I also really don't like to read conservative opinions in the news even though I know I should. I always laugh when I get e-mails from David Horowitz, a conservative author and activist, who I interviewed when I was a sophomore. Two years later, I'm still included on mass e-mail lists from the David Horowitz Freedom Center bashing the left and liberal media.
As news editor though I do tend to skim through the Catholic News Service to keep track of Catholic things that we might want to cover for the school newspaper, but I don't enjoy it. I do it because I have to for my job. I don't independently seek out this alternative news source.
The common experiences section of the Sunstein article made me think of the one thing almost everyone in my generation and now many in yours do share: Facebook.
In terms of media consumption, my newsfeed is filled with my conservative and liberal friends posting articles from different media outlets that they're read. Whether I disagree with them/would have sought them out myself/have already it, I still see them and sometimes read them.
People keep telling me journalists will just work online and everything will be fine. Yet while news consumption is actually UP meaning more people are reading more news people are reading it all online. This report from Paid Content shows that readers in the UK who report reading newspaper has also slightly increased while circulation is still down.
While the media has many different definitions, the mainstream media particularly the print medium that I love makes me more depressed with every news story I read particularly this one about the closure of the Chicago Tribune Beijing bureau, which I visited when I was in China last year.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Agenda Setting
I will be honest and say that I voted for Barack Obama. The mainstream media also seemed to be behind the Democratic candidate even though they struggled to remain objective in their reporting I'm sure it was had to do so as the nation was being swept up in Obamamania.
Was it on the American media's "agenda" to get Barack Obama elected President of the United States? Maybe.
He is Number 44 on the List of Stuff Journalists Like.
The Media Research Center, which bills itself as America's Media Watchdog, was highly critical of the mainstream media during the 2008 presidential election for its praiseful coverage of the presidential candidate.
But if Barack Obama leads this country into an untimely demise (i.e. the economy doesn't recover, there's another terrorist attack or China calls in all those loans) will the media again be criticized for playing the cheerleader role like it was after the Iraq War went poorly?
The Phoenix advisor Bob Herguth and I have this discussion time and time again because I want to tell the story exactly how it happens and he always wants me to play up the most sensational parts. In my opinion, that would be agenda-setting because I'm choosing what's most important for my readers instead of giving them all the information and letting them decide.
I know what it means to pull the most interesting information into my lead to make sure my readers stay engaged in the story, however, I'm torn between playing up the most interesting parts to the point where everything that might be important to readers but I deemed unimportant doesn't even make it into the final draft.
It's a fine line that journalists walk, but if we don't walk that line then both the profession and our viewers lose out.
P.S. (I chose that video because even though I'm already critical of some of Barack Obama's policies it still gives me chills. When LeeAnn covered the event in Grant Park she was dying to write a firsthand report because she was having trouble not cheerleading because the emotion of the election was so high and meant so much you would have to be a robot not to feel it.)
Was it on the American media's "agenda" to get Barack Obama elected President of the United States? Maybe.
He is Number 44 on the List of Stuff Journalists Like.
The Media Research Center, which bills itself as America's Media Watchdog, was highly critical of the mainstream media during the 2008 presidential election for its praiseful coverage of the presidential candidate.
But if Barack Obama leads this country into an untimely demise (i.e. the economy doesn't recover, there's another terrorist attack or China calls in all those loans) will the media again be criticized for playing the cheerleader role like it was after the Iraq War went poorly?
The Phoenix advisor Bob Herguth and I have this discussion time and time again because I want to tell the story exactly how it happens and he always wants me to play up the most sensational parts. In my opinion, that would be agenda-setting because I'm choosing what's most important for my readers instead of giving them all the information and letting them decide.
I know what it means to pull the most interesting information into my lead to make sure my readers stay engaged in the story, however, I'm torn between playing up the most interesting parts to the point where everything that might be important to readers but I deemed unimportant doesn't even make it into the final draft.
It's a fine line that journalists walk, but if we don't walk that line then both the profession and our viewers lose out.
P.S. (I chose that video because even though I'm already critical of some of Barack Obama's policies it still gives me chills. When LeeAnn covered the event in Grant Park she was dying to write a firsthand report because she was having trouble not cheerleading because the emotion of the election was so high and meant so much you would have to be a robot not to feel it.)
Sunday, March 8, 2009
MTV
As a journalist, I understand the need for public relations, but as a field I'm completely opposed to ever joining it because I feel like it's fundamentally dishonest. After reading about Bernays' writings, I think even less of the field because it was founded upon making sure the aristocracy could still rule the masses they just had to make sure the masses understood what was for the common good. "The public claiming the birthright of democratic citizenship and social justice increasingly called upon institutions and people in power to justify themselves and their privileges."
This passage makes it seem like Bernays was actually opposed to a more justice and democratic world, which as an advocate of social justice I strongly disagree.
There's a friendly competition between the public relations and journalism majors. (At least between the chairs of the departments when it comes to recruiting students.) I don't have much interaction with many public relations majors because I'm so involved in journalism field. I think it's important for everyone to know how to market themselves to future employers, but I feel public relations just teaches you to frame whatever product, idea or person in a positive way because you are paid to do so.
If I were forced to go into public relations to pay off my insane student loans, I would have to do PR for a non-profit that had a mission that I actually believed in so that I wouldn't hate myself for selling out.
The PR people I've talked to actually seem to believe what they're telling me even when I can tell they're full of it, but that's their job I suppose.
The midriff section of the video was actually really depressing. I'm not that much older than a teenager and I still remember having to have this type of outfit and do these type of things to be cool, but I went school with the same 200 kids for seven years so all that kind of faded once we were sophomores in high school.
However, I do think that the public perception of young women and women's perceptions of what they should look like dramatically effect the extraordinary rate of eating disorders in this country. According to the National Eating Disorder Association, as many as 10 million women suffer from eating disorders. I can personally attest to an outrageous rate of eating disorders among my college friends.
Yet we are still celebrating the fabricated ideal image that is Barbie 50 years later. This idea has been packaged to women our entire lives. According to this CNN report, Barbie was originally based on a German doll that was a gag gift for men. The Lilli doll was a cartoon character who used sex to get what she wanted so the ideal image of a woman is actually based on a prostitute.
If I ever have children they won't play with Barbies because of the vast disparity between what woman actually look like and what marketing tells us they should look like. If Barbie were a real women, she'd be 7 feet tall, have FF breasts, and she would probably die from malnutrition because her waist is too small to fit the appropriate intestines needed to survive.
This passage makes it seem like Bernays was actually opposed to a more justice and democratic world, which as an advocate of social justice I strongly disagree.
There's a friendly competition between the public relations and journalism majors. (At least between the chairs of the departments when it comes to recruiting students.) I don't have much interaction with many public relations majors because I'm so involved in journalism field. I think it's important for everyone to know how to market themselves to future employers, but I feel public relations just teaches you to frame whatever product, idea or person in a positive way because you are paid to do so.
If I were forced to go into public relations to pay off my insane student loans, I would have to do PR for a non-profit that had a mission that I actually believed in so that I wouldn't hate myself for selling out.
The PR people I've talked to actually seem to believe what they're telling me even when I can tell they're full of it, but that's their job I suppose.
The midriff section of the video was actually really depressing. I'm not that much older than a teenager and I still remember having to have this type of outfit and do these type of things to be cool, but I went school with the same 200 kids for seven years so all that kind of faded once we were sophomores in high school.
However, I do think that the public perception of young women and women's perceptions of what they should look like dramatically effect the extraordinary rate of eating disorders in this country. According to the National Eating Disorder Association, as many as 10 million women suffer from eating disorders. I can personally attest to an outrageous rate of eating disorders among my college friends.
Yet we are still celebrating the fabricated ideal image that is Barbie 50 years later. This idea has been packaged to women our entire lives. According to this CNN report, Barbie was originally based on a German doll that was a gag gift for men. The Lilli doll was a cartoon character who used sex to get what she wanted so the ideal image of a woman is actually based on a prostitute.
If I ever have children they won't play with Barbies because of the vast disparity between what woman actually look like and what marketing tells us they should look like. If Barbie were a real women, she'd be 7 feet tall, have FF breasts, and she would probably die from malnutrition because her waist is too small to fit the appropriate intestines needed to survive.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Feminist Theory
As a sophomore in college, I was planning to stay in Chicago for a summer journalism internship. I was short on funds so I decided to apply for the Chicago chapter of the Association for Women Journalists summer scholarship.
I asked one of my mentors/professors to write me a recommendation letter, which she was happy to do, but with a small warning. She wanted me to know that she hadn't ever put much stock in organizations that are for subgroups of the profession. "We're all journalists," she said. "Regardless of our gender or our race."
This was a woman who was in the newsroom being her tough, hard-nosed journalist self while the men around her doubted her right and/or ability to be there.
In all of the newsrooms I've been in since then, either visiting or working, I've never felt that anyone doubted my right to be there because I was a woman. I've never had a man talk down to me in an interview because I'm just a little girl reporter. I know our society is not "post-gender" but it just does not make any sense to me that my gender would ever hold me back. However, the numbers don't lie so in the Alternet article, I agree that women benefit from the feminist media because it promotes their interests. Hopefully, there will be a time when the numbers are more equally and people aren't just getting old, white, uppermiddleclass men's view of the news.
In other related news, there has been controversy at the Loyola Phoenix about a shout-out done by the Sports Section (run by two males), but read by the copy editors, managing editor and the editor-in-chief (six females) before it went to press.
The offensive statement written by Raf Onak read: "Rihanna should have known that Brown doesn't take any crap from anyone: Is ya man, on the flow? If he ain't let me know. Let me see if you can run it, run it, girl indeed I can run it, run it. Obviously he's a man who likes to be in charge."
The apology also written by Onak read: "In response to 12.11.09's Shout-Out to Chris Brown, I apologize to my fellow students, professors and administrators who were offended and disappointed by the crude comments. The decision to ridicule domestic violence was inappropriate and ill-considered. I did not intend to condone or reward the event that occurred. Neither I, nor the Loyola Phoenix as a newspaper, justifies domestic abuse in any way, shape or form. The Shout-Out to Brown was intended to be a joke and was not aimed to hurt anyone. We apologize to those who were dismayed in the process and appreciate the letters of concern."
Personally, I don't have the responsibility of reading the sports section before it goes to press. The editor-in-chief and managing editor were not aware of the Chris Brown/Rihanna domestic abuse situation, therefore, they read it and didn't think twice about it. I conveyed to them my deep disappointment in them and in Onak for writing such an absurdly offensive "joke" in the Phoenix that represents the student body and that the whole staff pours so much energy into just to see our reputation harmed by his carelessness.
The Women Studies and Gender Studies department are holding a forum to further discuss the issue of domestic abuse in the media. It is important that these women have brought this important topic to the forefront of the university's attention. However, I believe the Phoenix as part of the media has a greater responsibility to take a role in the dialogue that is continuing on campus. It is important to acknowledge the role we play in creating dialogue about women and gender issues such as this.
I asked one of my mentors/professors to write me a recommendation letter, which she was happy to do, but with a small warning. She wanted me to know that she hadn't ever put much stock in organizations that are for subgroups of the profession. "We're all journalists," she said. "Regardless of our gender or our race."
This was a woman who was in the newsroom being her tough, hard-nosed journalist self while the men around her doubted her right and/or ability to be there.
In all of the newsrooms I've been in since then, either visiting or working, I've never felt that anyone doubted my right to be there because I was a woman. I've never had a man talk down to me in an interview because I'm just a little girl reporter. I know our society is not "post-gender" but it just does not make any sense to me that my gender would ever hold me back. However, the numbers don't lie so in the Alternet article, I agree that women benefit from the feminist media because it promotes their interests. Hopefully, there will be a time when the numbers are more equally and people aren't just getting old, white, uppermiddleclass men's view of the news.
In other related news, there has been controversy at the Loyola Phoenix about a shout-out done by the Sports Section (run by two males), but read by the copy editors, managing editor and the editor-in-chief (six females) before it went to press.
The offensive statement written by Raf Onak read: "Rihanna should have known that Brown doesn't take any crap from anyone: Is ya man, on the flow? If he ain't let me know. Let me see if you can run it, run it, girl indeed I can run it, run it. Obviously he's a man who likes to be in charge."
The apology also written by Onak read: "In response to 12.11.09's Shout-Out to Chris Brown, I apologize to my fellow students, professors and administrators who were offended and disappointed by the crude comments. The decision to ridicule domestic violence was inappropriate and ill-considered. I did not intend to condone or reward the event that occurred. Neither I, nor the Loyola Phoenix as a newspaper, justifies domestic abuse in any way, shape or form. The Shout-Out to Brown was intended to be a joke and was not aimed to hurt anyone. We apologize to those who were dismayed in the process and appreciate the letters of concern."
Personally, I don't have the responsibility of reading the sports section before it goes to press. The editor-in-chief and managing editor were not aware of the Chris Brown/Rihanna domestic abuse situation, therefore, they read it and didn't think twice about it. I conveyed to them my deep disappointment in them and in Onak for writing such an absurdly offensive "joke" in the Phoenix that represents the student body and that the whole staff pours so much energy into just to see our reputation harmed by his carelessness.
The Women Studies and Gender Studies department are holding a forum to further discuss the issue of domestic abuse in the media. It is important that these women have brought this important topic to the forefront of the university's attention. However, I believe the Phoenix as part of the media has a greater responsibility to take a role in the dialogue that is continuing on campus. It is important to acknowledge the role we play in creating dialogue about women and gender issues such as this.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
text messaging
"We consider that a society has a network of communications systems, we can see that there are key junctures or nodal points where significant information is stored, and from where it is transmitted to other parts of the system ... individuals or groups who control access to those points wield great power."
Information is such an important commodity that the control of information comes into play in any power struggle situation.
"The organized church comes immediately to mind, as does insider trading."
These two organizations being compared is very interesting to him because the control of information, depending on what the information is and who is controlling it, can have vastly different impacts.
These theories about information and power get my passion for journalism fired up (even though it's been kind of depressing to love journalism so much these days). Journalism is about effectively and fairly delivering information. It bothers me so much when people criticize the media about not supplying accurate information when really that should be the mission of all journalists. Journalists are not part of the establishment or at least I think they shouldn't be. It isn't the journalists versus the public. It is us versus them, the people versus the establishment, but journalists are part of the people!
One example of this in the media is the John Mayer song, "Waiting on the World to Change," where he sings
"When you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cuz when they own the information ooohhh,
They can bend it all they want."
Well, while you're waiting, Mr. Mayer, and criticizing the media. They're out there trying to change the world by supplying the public with the information they deserve.
On a short note about the text messaging article, I think communicate skills will be maintained even though people text so much. I honestly believe that article blows it all a little out of proportion, but I do worry about the literacy issue and young adults thinking it's acceptable to write like they text-talk. However, I found this very interesting article from Technology Review, which argues that you used to be able to be semi-literate and still function socially, but now with technology you need to be fully literate to be able to communicate online so technology actually creates more motivation for literacy.
Finally, though with technology and social life there are so many different ways to connect with people. However, it's not always communication that you want ... like break-ups on text messages. I thought Drew Barrymore's quote from the end of this trailer for the movie, He's Just Not That Into You sums up how technology can be a really downer.
Information is such an important commodity that the control of information comes into play in any power struggle situation.
"The organized church comes immediately to mind, as does insider trading."
These two organizations being compared is very interesting to him because the control of information, depending on what the information is and who is controlling it, can have vastly different impacts.
These theories about information and power get my passion for journalism fired up (even though it's been kind of depressing to love journalism so much these days). Journalism is about effectively and fairly delivering information. It bothers me so much when people criticize the media about not supplying accurate information when really that should be the mission of all journalists. Journalists are not part of the establishment or at least I think they shouldn't be. It isn't the journalists versus the public. It is us versus them, the people versus the establishment, but journalists are part of the people!
One example of this in the media is the John Mayer song, "Waiting on the World to Change," where he sings
"When you trust your television
What you get is what you got
Cuz when they own the information ooohhh,
They can bend it all they want."
Well, while you're waiting, Mr. Mayer, and criticizing the media. They're out there trying to change the world by supplying the public with the information they deserve.
On a short note about the text messaging article, I think communicate skills will be maintained even though people text so much. I honestly believe that article blows it all a little out of proportion, but I do worry about the literacy issue and young adults thinking it's acceptable to write like they text-talk. However, I found this very interesting article from Technology Review, which argues that you used to be able to be semi-literate and still function socially, but now with technology you need to be fully literate to be able to communicate online so technology actually creates more motivation for literacy.
Finally, though with technology and social life there are so many different ways to connect with people. However, it's not always communication that you want ... like break-ups on text messages. I thought Drew Barrymore's quote from the end of this trailer for the movie, He's Just Not That Into You sums up how technology can be a really downer.
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