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.

Politics and New media: reading response for 16 March `15

I am not surprised at all to find out that the Obama campaign, in either election cycle, has been using different technologies and techniques in order to keep a finger on the public pulse for politics.

Obama's team pioneered the use of Social Media as a way to reach out to the public while campaigning across the country: whether it was online townhall meetings or the use of Houdini in the first election for president that they participated in. Obama's administration, whether you agree with their policies or not, have been expanding the government's use of social media in a successful manner.

They have found out that keeping the technology "in house" has saved them headaches by being  easier to fix when an issue arises.

The finance team for Obama's campaign raised MORE money this past election cycle that the one prior to it probably BECAUSE they were so willing to integrate with newer technology as it comes out.

Also, I would argue that we were still starting  to cross the threshold from early adopting of smart phone technology in 2008 compared to 2012. And, it is probably because we were further along in the adoption process during the second election that they were able to raise more money than previously.

The one thing I dislike about the Atlantic article is that about half way through the FIRST of two pages, it focuses on Harper Reed and not the technology that he uses. He used the word #YOLO, along with others on the Obama campaign. He knows a club owner and is a Hipster-esque nerd.

And while I wouldn't mind learning about him on his own, I feel that this article should be split into two distinct articles: one about the campaign and one about the man himself. But they decided to combine them and make it unnecessarily long. Longer than even a print medium would use. And, since it is online, it needs to be short, sweet and to the point unless the title suggests that it is going to be a combination piece.

There isn't enough multimedia on the piece either, making it long and drawn out. And while I probably won't have much multimedia on this blog, I am not trying to draw in readers. I am simply replying for a class assignment while this author is attempting to draw people in and get them interested.

Frankly,the author choosing to do that lost my interest altogether though I kept reading.

I do enjoy the statistic on the second page of the article that states: "In 2008, Facebook was about one-tenth of the size that it is now. Twitter was a nothing burger for the campaign. It wasn't a core or even peripheral part of the strategy, "(Madrigal).

I think this is interesting because: 1) I joined Facebook when I was a Sophomore in high school. It was only a few months shy of 2008 that I registered for an account in the website; 2)I noticed a major change in the focus of Obama's campaign with which social media platforms were being used. They tended to focus more on Twitter and the use of YouTube for livestreams online.

While I was more socially and politically aware than my peers in high school, partially because  most of my friends were of age and able to vote in that election cycle, I wasn't fully aware of how they were mainly focused on one site or another at the time.

Though, I certainly realized the change between the first and second campaigns when I was of age to vote.

I also realize that many people I know have adopted Facebook after myself during the time Facebook expanded exponentially. For example, my entire immediate family is now on the site. My grandmother and her siblings are on the site as well now.

I have also been able to keep track of my cousins who I have never actually met before because they live out in California on Facebook.

And while Twitter is 140 characters of short, sweet and to the point, it can lose something in translation when you just need a few more characters to finish the sentence.

So, I definitely feel like the quote resonates with me as I have personally been involved with how the Internet has been evolving just like anyone else who has been signing online to newer and better services these few years.
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The Internet has the potential to be wonderful for democracy as it creates a public sphere where there wouldn't have been one before. Everyone who has access, in theory, has a voice.

It can also be a rallying point for people who would otherwise not have a voice, ex: Ferguson and the Occupy Movements around the United States.

The Internet both allows established forces in government to stay in power while also allowing people to dissent and possibly overthrow government forces, case in point The Arab Spring.

The Internet has a lot of potential for democracy as well as other political agendas,  such as ISIS.

If you want access to it, it exists. Much like how people say if it exists, there is probably porn of it. No matter how wrong and taboo it is, it will be accessible through the Internet as well.

Wikis: Reading response for 4 March 2015

My primary use of wikis has been to look up information to questions I have regarding a multitude of topics. I have used niche wikis such as Memory Alpha (Star Trek), Minecraft Wiki (Minecraft, obviously), Bulbapedia (Pokemon), and Wookipedia (Star Wars) to name a few; spoof wikis such as Uncyclopedia; and the most common wiki, Wikipedia. Wikipedia even has a list of all the wikis out there available for people. As such, I agree with Mr. Reagle when he says that wikis are a teaching tool that has the potential to be snap shot of the culture at the time of their inception and continued use.

I have never used  a wiki for logistical purpose to, for example, organize a camping trip like the example in the video. I have only used wikis for referencing things. However, the creation of a wiki is as simple as creating a site using Google Sites and picking a template. Then, you enter all the information you desire with the hep of Google's integrated systems. 

A lot of the criticism of Wikipedia is that basically everything can be put into the source instead of having to pick and choose. But in order to learn a lot, many people still hold this perception that you must read between the pages you need to become knowledgeable. But I believe that the use of hyperlinks allows us to still get into that deeper digging. You can dig and dig through pages forever by clicking hyperlinks from one page to the next. You go down the figurative rabbit hole of the web. 

We also become more a part off the information finding because we have the ability to now interact with the information. No longer is the information given totally over to one gate keeper. It can be created by the community at large and saved. Some sites, like Wikipedia, have editing standards that require documented information in order for a change to be allowed an saved thereafter. Others, like Wookiepedia, require no more than the click of the button and then peers review the information that has been given and adjust accordingly and the process starts all over again. 

Wikis are a tool that, like any tool, comes with the need to be responsible. It takes personal review to determine if a site is acceptable to your own standards. Like any technology or tool, there are risks and benefits. I tend to believe that the benefits often outweigh the risks in these cases as having access to literally all the wealth of knowledge of human kind through my phone(at least that does not have a pay wall)  is wonderful. So what if they collect some basic information about me? They are giving me a free service that I can easily have access to. Phone books have had access to phone numbers and addresses for many years. Why is Google's information any different?

Reading response for March 2

Technology and our brains is interesting in that our brains are easily able to adapt to whatever new stimuli it is given.
Having grown up with the new technology of the Internet, I don't know a time where the internet was not present. My father is in the technology industry and as such I have grown up with old and new technology but the internet was always present in my life.

I am not surprised that we are evolving to match our current technology. Humans have always used tools in order to continue to adapt to our situation. The Internet and mobile devices as well as other electronics are no different.

Having grown up around arcade machines and having had a programmer as a father, I have grown up and adapted to many new and increasingly faster technologies. The arcade machines seem archaic in comparison to the fact I can play touch responsive games on my mobile phone. Let alone the fact that I have many different mobile devices that have more computing power than the bulky desktop computers that I had as a child.

My father was using the Internet when it was still primarily messaging boards that engineers and other technologically proficient early adopters.

This having been said, my parents were careful ad to when they exposed us to what technology. My brother and I didn't have access to our own computer, which we shared and had dial up, until I was six. And it was downstairs where my mom could monitor us.

I didn't even get a cell phone until I was 13 and was on my school's track team so it was purely for logistical purposes.

Parents are the gatekeepers of technology for their children. And often expose their children to these technologies before these children might actually be ready to handle the technology.

My best friend has a 10 month old daughter and every time I am with her all she wants is to play with my phone. However, my friend has also made sure her daughter has access to physical copies of books like we did when we were her age.

As technology changes, we must adapt both our methods of parenting and our methods of adoption of this technology.

Biotechnology is a very real future. We must just be careful to not abuse what we have.