Works Cited for Presentation (presentation slideshow included)

http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/27/hai-lam-league-of-legends-retirement/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_sports http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/esports/esports-event/rally-your-college-2015-nacc http://na.lolesports.com/ http://www.sbnation.com/2015/4/27/8502649/heroes-of-the-dorm-storm-blizzard-espn2-esports-arizona-state-cal-video-games Google Images https://twitter.com/Hai_L9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IrBG3wbufc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEiJCbfhGxM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-hHF2OOhwI http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/League%20of%20Legends http://www.twitch.tv/imaqtpie http://www.twitch.tv/tsm_bjergsen/profile http://lol.gamepedia.com/Bjergsen?cookieSetup=true https://twitter.com/rif_kingz

Hacking and "Moo-sak"

Hacking is a very real threat these days while also being an effective tool for democracy and against human rights violations.

Anonymous is a disparate community that has online and offline political affiliations and impact. For example, hackers in the group took up the mantle against Scientology by disrupting their Internet capabilities as well as some “ultra-coordinated motherfuckary.” Though, the "church"'s tax exempt status is, agreeably, very debatable, the church of Scientology isn't much different than any other organized religion.  L. Ron Hubbard took the best spiritual elements of  religions that he had studied and threw in an alien Sci-fi plot because he was a terrible Sci-fi writer whose plots had holes the size of craters. If you listen to Tom Cruise's video, he says nothing different than any person involved in any religious doctrine.

 And in fact, the narrative of only you can make change is repeated in thousands of self-help books as well. Why does their narrative sound any crazier to people than that of these Christian Mega Churches, for example? 

I had not realized how many tools that Anonymous had given to Tunisian cyber activists, OpTunisia, either but was unsurprised by their warning that, “This is *your* revolution. It will neither be Twittered nor televised or [sic] IRC'ed. You *must* hit the streets or you *will* loose [sic] the fight. Always stay safe, once you got [sic] arrested you cannot do anything for yourself or your people. Your government *is* watching you." 

The other end of the spectrum is children trying to prank people  through changing a background and getting charged with cybercrime when disciplinary action should be taken instead of criminal action. 

But, we also must be able to keep people safe by punishing cyber attacks as well. If planes are vulnerable to hackers, as posited by technology experts, then it is important to be able to charge people with a crime. But there needs to be leniency for people like eighth grader Domanik Green, who attends Paul R. Smith Middle School in Holiday, Florida. His 10 days suspension was warranted and maybe could have been longer because he could have cost a teacher their job. 

But the fact that he was also charged with an offense against a computer system and unauthorized access was probably going too far. Charging him with a crime doesn't help this middle school student learn anything other than the government is willing to put you on the chopping block and ruin any chance at a normal life with opportunities. If they do go through with the charges, I don't want the kid to get anything other than community service so he learns a lesson and not forced out of actually getting something positive from this experience. He was certainly in the wrong here but shouldn't be treated like it was intended to be malicious when he is a minor who is still learning and making mistakes. 

We also need to keep in mind that wearables will increasingly be able to access your health status which could be life saving or could be a tool to enable people who already have mental health issues regarding health (hypochondria, Munchhausen, Munchhausen by proxy etc) to be even more anxious.
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In other news, I am unsurprised that digital music has finally matched physical sales. It was a long time coming. If you want a physical copy of a digital product, you can still use your computer to burn a CD for driving. The digital copy is not limited by the use of one medium. 

Streaming services have started taking a hold of the market because we are now starting to move from the early adopter stages into the main stream stage of media usage. 

It was only a matter of time before people started buying digital media more than physical media. 

E-commerce and e-business: reading response for 6 April 2015

E-commerce encompasses a variety of different transactions online between businesses, consumers, and even governments.

E-commerce, for our purposes, is "the use of electronic communications and digital information processing technology in business transactions to create, transform, and redefine relationships for value creation between or among organizations, and between organizations and individuals," (wikibooks).

Categories of e-commerce: business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), and mobile commerce (m-commerce).

Types of e-commerce:
Auctions online (eBay), peer-to-peer (P2P)(Napster), and classified ads (Craigslist?)

C2C examples can be eBay, systems like Puca Trade (a Magic the Gathering online trade system with a fiat currency to use for trades between users), Craigslist, etc.

M-commerce is taking hold because of increased access to mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets. Banking has become as mobile as the devices accessing the applications.

Economic forces, marketing and customer interaction forces, and technology (multimedia convergence in particular).

Raketen is the third largest online retailer in the world behind Amazon and eBay. But, the company's business model is more of an online bazaar than it is an online auction house or mediated store front. The stores make their own pages and can update then however they wish. The only catch is they must be up to community standards that allow the company to pick and choose who uses their system.

This is a humanizing approach to online use because, for example, a chicken farmer was able to sell his organic eggs online and deliver them through over-night shipping to ensure freshness. Eggs from the store can not compare to fresh eggs that have not been sitting around for a week.

Gendered Internet use: reading response for March 30 and April 1

Hi As a woman on the Internet, I agree that I use the Internet and video games for different purposes than my male counterparts.

If I am playing a game, I am less likely to enjoy games with the strong male protagonist in favor of more female oriented media.

When online, I tend to gravitate towards a variety of different things whereas my boyfriend, for example, uses it for more niche oriented exploration. Not to say that what I focus on isn't niche as well, it is just that I look at a broader picture of the media I wish to deal with than my brother or my boyfriend. But, Uses and Gratification says that we each use media to satisfy our desires and therefore gratify ourselves in our using of the technology.

I love games like League of Legends, Skyrim, Laura Croft, and other games that allow me to play as a character that resonates better with who I am and what I want to get out of a game. I love to feel empowered by my game play. If my heart is racing, I did something right or very, very wrong and am cursing my stupidity.

I grew up playing video games and there is even a picture of my brother and myself playing the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in our diapers somewhere in a photo album.

In fact, my dream job would be to work for Riot Games, the owners of League of Legends, and do communications work for them. While league often portrays the female characters as hyper-sexualized, it also makes me feel empowered to be able to play so many female characters that also extend beyond a human persuasion. There are many different races and creatures in Demacia, the realm in which the game is set. And, there are many different skins for players to choose from, though most are still highly stylized to be on the "sexy"  end of the spectrum.

But the fact is that I am very aware of the sexual depiction of women in games, if they are portrayed at all. But, a rising number of games are allowing women more options by including female characters or the option to change the gender of your character.

I feel that most game companies are motivated by the bottom line and nothing more. We have seen time and time again that game developers are putting out unfinished products that are highly glitchy and sometimes outright broken. The newest Assassin's Creed game was like this straight from Ubisoft.

As more female gamers come into the forefront of gaming, we will see a continued increase in female protagonists and fewer portrayals as the damsel in distress.

As the I am Laura Croft video shows, everyone can become a strong protagonist, even if they are female.

Social Media and Revolt: what is its role?

Social Media is a very useful tool in order to promote causes, however, it's a week I do not allowed people to actually become activists.

Social media promotes weak ties that, while allowing the propagation of new ideas, do not move people to action in a manner that is reminiscent of past social change movements.

Close friends move you to action when it comes to "revolutions", and word of mouth is more powerful a tool when governments keep services, such as Twitter, blocked or limit access in a way that makes it dangerous to publicly go against the government.

Twitter and Facebook can and will be blocked by governments who feel that it threatens their power. And while it is not impossible to access these sites after they have been blocked, it is dangerous if you have been caught on them.

The Civil Rights movement in the United States was strengthened by the ties individuals had with one another. Having these friends with you while becoming political dissonance allows one to feel safer while fighting whatever oppressive force instilled the desire to fight back.

In my opinion, I feel that any successful movement must still have word of mouth in order to bring people to action but social media can be a tool that is used to rally these people,though it is not necessary.

Social media allows small movements that are easy to become a part of to propagate throughout sharing on these sites. But it is arguably a hollow action, as most social media movements simply involve speaking out against one thing or another while not necessarily doing anything productive about it.

Word of mouth has always been an essential tool to bring  people together. Our friends and kin are more likely to move us to action through our strong ties to them and our similar beliefs.

I think that social media can be used as a rallying point but, ultimately, a successful movement must also have a physical component to it and not simply a digital component because governments do not ready to what amounts to a lot of hot air being blown at them. They have to have someone jumping down their throats to make anything actually happen.

New Media Campaigning: reading response/notes 18 March

Reading response to the chapter on Innovation, Infrastructure, and Organization in New Media Campaigning in Taking Our Country  Back.

Obama's speech on February 10, 2007 echoed the message of Howard Dean's announcement speech from June 2003. (I vaguely remember this happening because I was 11 years old at the time.)

Dean's campaign is responsible for starting the first full-fledged online political campaign in the United States and set the standard for Obama's successful campaign to get into the White House.

Blue State Digital (BSD) was key to rebuilding the technical infrastructure of the Democratic party after Kerry lost. Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Clay Johnson, Joe Rospars, and Ben Self launched the company after having worked on the Dean campaign. BSD built themselves as a provider of tools and strategies for online campaigning.

Web 2.0 has allowed campaigns to lower costs while increasing campaign donations via ease in dissemination of political information at a lower cost than traditional media.

Three themes that are largely absent from accounts of new media and politics: innovation, infrastructure, and organization.

Legality of much of the Dean campaign was always in question as there was no Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruling on it at the time, prompting many meetings with the campaign's lawyers on the legality of certain campaign choices.

Through "structured interactivity", Dean's online applications allowed his supporters to contribute in some ways, such as campaign contributions, while not allowing others, such as certain choices of the campaign.

CRS 490 - 3/16/15

CRS 490 - 3/16/15

Public Sphere - Where discourse takes place

How does the internet affect our political views?

• The Internet allows users to share with like minded others in an echo chamber that continually reaffirms their views with the views of others that, through the non-inclusion of outside voices, re-enforces these original views. Ex: anti-vaccers
• Also allows dissent though through allowing all content a place for view.

Where can we have the most impact; politics or advocacy groups?

- Advocacy groups:  crowdfunding, outreach (good and bad forms of this exist), social program change

http://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2014/07/03/reading-rainbow-closes-kickstarter-crowdfunding-campaign-at-over-5-4-million/

- Politics; "if voting was important politicians wouldn't let us do it" political advances get nowhere

Has technology made us more educated/informed voters?

Depends on how you look at it. We can get lots of information of someone’s political views very quickly with one Google search. I feel that it made me a more informed voter when voting for president in 2012 because it allowed me to find the candidate that I was interested in instead of allowing mainstream content to shape my view of the election. In which case I would have voted for either the two main party candidates. For most people, however, I will admit that they won’t look at the information as deeply as I may have. This means that it has the POTENTIAL to make us more informed voters if we decide for ourselves to seek the information out. It does not mean that it couldn't as easily be used to dumbly look through the same echo chamber politics in the US is prone to using.