Final Blog

 Technology is more prevalent today than it has ever been. With this there are many good things and bad things that exist because technology exists. It is easy to exclusively look at technology as good or evil but it is much more gray than that.

    There are some facets of modern technology that have little to no downsides such as air-conditioners, lightbulbs, and microwaves. However, we have become so used to these simple conveninces that it is now practically impossible to live without them. In my lifetime, I have never had to live a day without these technologies at my disposal. This means if they were abrubtly taken away, I would really have no idea what to do. This complete reliance on technology is completely unhealthy. 

    Cell phones, despite making it easier than ever to talk to people, have destroyed conversation. It is completely common to be at a dinner with friends where no one says a word. Not because the food is delicious, but because everyone seems to be much more interested in what's on their phone instead of what their friends have to say. If we continue down this route, people will completely forget what it was
like to actually talk to people!

    My personal relationship with technology is fairly healthy I'd say. I'm not on any sort of social media and I don't have games on my phone. I still use my phone to text, call, play music, take pictures, and Google things. I use my computer to work on school assignments. I use my TV to watch movies and play video games. If it was up to me, I'd get rid of my phone. My parents have already shot down this idea multiple times because if I don't have a phone they think they wouldn't be able to contact me. I believe if I did not have a phone the only thing I would really miss is the ability to play music whenever I want. I wouldn't want to get rid of my TV because I like movies too much, and I need my laptop to graduate from college. I also obviously use all of the every-day appliances that everyone else uses. 

    I say that my relationship with technology is healthy because at least once a month I take some time to detox. This term is usually used to refer to a break from social media but as someone who is already not on social media, I use the term as a break from all technology for a certain amount of time. It's like being selectively Amish. Sometimes the detox only lasts for a couple hours, but sometimes it lasts for up to a week (usually depending on how ahead on assignments I am). I usually just take this extra time to read, but it's always I nice little break and I feel better during it.

    I would say that my friends and even my family are more "plugged in" that I am. Most of my friends are on their phones for crazy amounts of time each day. Even my dad is on Facebook or Instagram for hours on end. My mom isn't really on her phone that much but she does watch a lot of HGTV. I definitely don't think being so online makes any of them worse people (I'm biased because I choose to hang out with them). 

    My digital footprint is probably smaller than the average American's. When you Google my name, I don't pop up. A bunch of people who share my name and have accomplished more than me pop up. If you look me up on Instagram or Tik Tok you can find my old accounts. There's nothing in any way incriminating (that I know of) on either of them so I figure there's no harm leaving them up even if I don't have the apps installed. I have a Facebook and Twitter acount but I don't think I've ever used either of those so there is nothing to report from there. Nothing about my digital footprint is negative, and I would have no qualms about an employer seeing everything that exists about me on the internet (unless they can see my search history, I have to look up how to spell the word "together" more than I'd like to admit).

    The point I want to make is that technology is not bad. Personally, I believe that our recent over-reliance on technology is very unhealthy, but that is an opinion. Overall, technology has changed the world in a mostly positive way. However, light cannot exist without darkness, and good cannot exist without evil.

    

Blog #11

     The concepts of online influencers, whistleblowers, mainstream media, and alternative media are all very hot topics in the field of communication. Some of these have existed for decades while others have only just come into existence. All of them are sure to be important for the future of communication as we know it.

    The term "online influencers" refers to people with large followings on social media that hold influence over their followers. The first online influencers were people known as "Mommy Bloggers." These women shared tips online about raising young kids. They gained large followings of other mothers looking for advice 

    Online influencers can use their platforms to spread information. Like all information, this could either have positive benefits or negative consequences. Some influencers use their platforms in positive ways to build others up, while other influencers spread hate speech and start petty online fights. Most of the influencers who do spark fights end up recieving backlash from other people online and are often scorned by the general public (think Logan Paul). However, some do very positive things like charity work for organizations such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

    Whistleblower is a term used to refer to government employees that expose government wrongdoings. Obviously, these people are pretty frowned upon by the government but their existance is vital. Some famous whistleblowers include Daniel Ellsberg, Mark Felt, A. Ernest Fitzgerald, and Coleen Rowley. Each of these individuals exposed some sort of crime the government was committing. Without whistleblowers, there would be no one to keep the government in check when they breach our freedom.

    Mainstream and alternative media are the two types of news common today. Mainstream media refers to the news sources that the general public uses such as newspapers, news networks, and radio news. Alternative media refers to news that is a little less known about such as podcasts, ebooks, websites, and magazines. Mainstream media usuaully has a higher budget than alternative media so they usually have better coverage of big events. However, it seems that most mainstream media has some sort of agenda to push. You're either getting republican news or democrat news. Alternative media is the only place where it is possible to just find news. Alternative media isn't tied to the governemnt at all so they can just report events as they happen. 

Blog #8

    These four videos are all about cybersecurity. cybersecurity is a huge issue right now and it has never been more important to protect the few rights online we have left. All of these speakers made excellent points about very important current topics.

    Catherine Crump's TED talk discussed the use of automatic license plate scanners and other technologies to track the location of innocent Americans. These technologies exist to find people who may have been commited of wrongdoing. However, in doing so they end up tracking more innocent people than actual criminals. Some people may dismiss this as a harmless side-effect of tracking criminals. Police have been keeping this information on innocents "in case it is useful later." This is where the problem lies, in the storing of information gethered on people who have done nothing wrong. This is an obvious invasion of American privacy.

    Juan Enriquez's TED talk was about the consequences of a term he called electronic tattoos. He said drew a comparison between online actions that everyone can see and tattoos. Tattoos send messages about a person before they can say a word. So too, do electronic tattoos. One way to guard against this is to never post something you wouldn't want employers in twenty years to see. It doesn't matter if you delete it or if it's on a private story because it will be seen. Juan claims that immortality may not be a good thing. Sure, everyone wants to be remembered, on paper, but sometimes there are things that should just be forgotten. In the age of the internet, this has proven to be impossible.

    Christopher Soghoian's TED talk provided valuable information on which services can and cannot be wiretapped. This was the first piece of information about internet privacy that I actually found comforting. Apparently, it is somewhat difficult to wiretap FaceTime and Apple's Messages. I primarily use these services so this was wonderful news to recieve. 

    Darieth Chisolm's TED talk was about the horrible effects of revenge porn. This woman's life was almost ruined by revenge porn and she is now using her platform to speak out against it as well as raise awareness about the shockingly relaxed laws regarding it. There are barely any laws in our country regarding this all to common act. Punishments that do exist are all miniscule compared to the weight of the crime. Something should be done immediately in the governemnt to combat this.

Blog #10

     The section at the very beginning of the documentary about AlphaGo was jarring. The human race put up its best competitor in the game of Go against an AI program. The AI came out on top. The ramifications of this are that AI could best any given member of the human race in Go. This leads to the logical question, what else can AI do better than us?

    Shockingly enough, there are pros to data mining. The idea is that large companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook collect data on people so they can advertise better to those people based on things they know they like. This means that when a person goes online they are more likely to be advertised something they would buy. Personally, I would rather be advertised something that I am likely to buy than something I definitely would not buy. 

    There are significantly more cons of data mining than there are pros. It is a terrifying fact that large corporations know absolutely everything about us. I am this close to getting rid of all technology. However, it is impossible not to be watched because we have gotten to the point where technology is an absolute necessity. I am unable to get rid of my laptop because I'm typing this blog on it and my grade depends on that. I want to get rid of my phone but I wouldn't be able to call my parents, or listen to music, or take pictures. Technology has gotten so incredibly practical that it is now impossible to live without. My data is being collected and there is not a single thing I can do about it. We live in a modern dystopia and it is horrifying. 

    Identity theft has never been easier. There is software that gathers everything from which words a person is likely to use to how they walk. If someone wanted to steal someone's identity and they had access to this it would be so incredibly easy. An AI can send texts that sound like something I came up with, They can make deep fakes that look like a video of me doing something. There are zero ways to protect against it. They could already exist and I would have no way of even knowing. If a corporation wanted to steal my identity, they could have already done it.

    

Blog #6

     It seems like the government always wants to be at war with someone. Of course, this is not limited to the US government and applies to most militant governments around the world. In schools we are taught from a very young age that war sparks industry and that some of the best inventions come out of a time of war. Why is it though, that our government specifically seems so hell-bent on going to war with everyone?

    There are probably a variety of reasons that all pile on top of each other. The most obvious one is the third exception in the Near rule. This exception states that prior restraint is unconstitutional except for when there are threats to national security in wartime. That means the government can silence people much easier when we are at war. This is a likely cause for the United States' propensity for constant conflict. 

    Websites such as Antiwar or The American Conservative specialize in broadcasting voices that speak out against the government. These websites say things that are contrary to anything you'll hear in the news. This seems to be something the government does not like. While the government Constitutionally cannot stop them from publishing this, they can do something debatably worse. They can ignore them, making their loudest shouts sound like mere whispers. 

    News channels love to feature very opinionated guests. Some people (not myself) find guests with very democratic opinions appearing on Fox News to be very entertaining because they just bicker for the entire allotted time. It's strange though, that there never seem to be anti-war voices appearing on any of these news channels. It'd probably be just as "entertaining" to hear someone very pro-war and someone very anti-war debate over who is correct. The reason they don't ever appear is because the government is actively trying to silence anti-war voices. There is no problem with newscasters presenting their opinions on matters, but the second someone chooses to speak out against the government's behavior, they are shunned. 

   

Blog #9

 Gatekeeping is a somewhat recent internet phenomenon. Gatekeeping is the act of limiting access to certain knowledge. An example of gatekeeping would be when Kylie Jenner refused to tell her followers what her favorite drink was because she was worried it would sell out. Any instance of keeping information secret can now be referred to as gatekeeping.

    

    Gatekeeping's most severe effect is on those suffering from mental health conditions. People diagnosed with certain conditions have gone to tell undiagnosed people that their struggles don't exist because they aren't diagnosed with anything. This completely invalidates their problems just because they may not be as bad as someone else's.   This is absolutely not ok.  

 Gatekeeping is used as a term to shame. If someone claims you are gatekeeping something, they are trying to goad you into sharing information with them. Lasy year this term spiraled out of control. There were entire corners of the internet who's sole focus was to expose gatekeepers and "gatebreak" information. Gatebreaking is when someone who has access to knowledge that someone else is gatekeeping decides to publish that knowledge so that everyone has access to it. In most cases, gatebreaking is not a bad thing. It allows people who may not be a part of certain niche subcultures to understand why people enjoy something. 

    An example of gatekeeping and gatebreaking would be this. Say you wanted to watch the latest Marvel movie. If you ask me if you should watch it and I respond "You wouldn't get it, you need to read all of these comics to really understand it." That is gatekeeping. Gatebreaking would be if I explained what happened in all those comics to you so that you could better understand that movie.

    Overall, the implications of "exposing gatekeepers" are negative. People have the right to privatize information. If someone tries to gatebreak your social security number that is obviously a huge threat. Some information is just better kept private.

    Recently, gatekeeping mostly applies to drivel on social media. However, it used to be a term applied mostly to news outlets. If a news outlet was gatekeeping a story they would likely just discuss other stories while burying ones that may go against their agenda.

    Last year, a large amount of people started gatekeeping journalism. This is just genuine censorship. People were claiming that to be a journalist, one had to go through college and be hired at a news company. All other journalism was considered by them to be illegitamite. Essentially, these people were trying to destroy citizen journalism. Citizen journalism is a huge branch of information that absolutely can not afford to be discounted.

    The moral of the story is to stop everything surrounding gatekeeping. Stop trying to "expose gatekeepers." Stop gatekeeping information that should be public. Stop gatebreaking information that should be private. Stop discouraging any form of journalism. This entire issue could be solved if people just told the truth about information that everyone should have access to. Obviously there are a couple things such as social security numbers, banking info, ad mothers' maiden names that should stay private. But for the most part, people should just tell people things they want to know.

    The use of the word gatekeeping on social media is a bit of a contortion of the actual word and the actual problems in journalism that it entails. In journalism, the theory of gatekeeping refers to when news outlets hide stories under other, potentially less important, stories. An example of this is when certain news networks were not covering the Hunter Biden laptop incident because it happened six months before the election and it may have changed the course of it. This is an example of actie tampering with the polls by news networks. Gatekeeping theory proves to be a legitimate, huge problem in the world of journalism and media in general.

    

Blog Post #5

 The radio is a very interesting technology. It was invented by Guglielmo Marconi but many people helped him along the way. While he is credited with the invention, most of the later improvements upon it were not his own.

Originally it could only transmit Morse code. Speech transmission was not added until later on. Marconi did not have the technical prowess to add speech transmission. However, Reginald Fessenden did. He was the man who brought speech to the radio. He was also the first person to transmit his voice via radio. This earned him the title of the father of radio.

Radio became prevalent very quickly. Universities started offering radio-based classes. Some churches were even doing radio sermons. The rise of radio happened almost overnight. Radios were projected to appear in every home in America.

Before the radio, the government did not have any sort of platform to speak to everyone all at once. The radio provided them this platform. They could make important announcements such as election winners, law changes, and Supreme Court case outcomes.

The radio was also used very prominently in WWII to communicate between troops and let people know if their loved ones died in the war. It was also used in this war as a way for generals to communicate with one another over long distances. The trouble came when enemies tried to intercept radio transmissions. This happened on all sides of the war so everyone involved started speaking in advanced codes.

    The positive of this technology is that it was the fastest way of communication at the time. It also enabled communication from a distance that was never before possible. Listeners could be in different states or, later on, even different countries. 

    The negative of the radio is that, in the war, enemies would use the radio to listen in on private wartime conversations with tactical plans embedded. This did not happen from any one party, it was going on all across the board. 

In conclusion, the radio is a phenomenal invention that changed the course of communication as we know it. Without the radio, we likely never would have invented modern technologies such as the smartphone and my mother would not be able to listen to iHeart Radio on her way to work in the morning.