Melanie Beltran

MCS 244

March 6, 2019

Connecting physical objects to the internet is beneficial because it helps spark up a conversation. It is a way and method to converse with one or many people regarding the blobject presented and the conversation will gradually build. Essentially, drawing conclusions based on discussions that the blogject sparked is something worth admiring and respecting. In the article, “A Manifesto for Networked Objects: Why Things Matter”, it states, “A Blobject can start a conversation with something as simple as an aggregation of levels of pollutants in groundwater.” Being able to make and draw conclusions help one develop more skills based on a blogject. If you can speak to someone in person, the internet fills the gap. From their, relationships can develop over something so small but may have so much depth and meaning to it. In the article, “As Objects Go Online. The Promise (and Pitfalls) of the Internet of Things,” it states, “Internet won out over competing for proprietary systems and centralized control by offering fewer obstacles to innovation and growth.” The communication on the internet is secured so any blogjects posted that is inappropriate will be taken down. In the article, “Thermostats, Locks, and Lights: Digital Tools of Domestic Abuse, ” it states, “…domestic abuse victims, their lawyers, shelter workers, and emergency responders described how the technology was becoming an alarming new tool. Abusers — using apps on their smartphones, which are connected to the internet-enabled devices — would remotely control everyday objects in the home, sometimes to watch and listen, other times to scare or show power.” To exploit someone with malicious intent to hurt them when they are innocent is unreasonable and disrespectful. To use one’s smartphone or technology against someone that owns it is not only invading privacy but causes one to feel unsafe especially when they are home. There will always be a downside to technology and its usage by people. Domestic abuse through the internet and in person is absolutely unacceptable. Those people need to be removed from internet access. Other than that, the way people can communicate and connect with one another is through the internet and if their intentions are pure, blogjects are still beneficial.   

We love using the web for finding and researching information, but do you know that we can use the web for buying and selling items online. That is why we use crowdsourcing which is the real deal these days but how does it all work online without the hassle.

Well, crowdsourcing is when companies get goods and services to make and save money by selling them but they must have people to get involved in order to keep their business booming without making a financial mess over the Intenet so they are good with their profit.  So let’s see what makes it so important to us during our spare time on the Internet.

As mentioned in the article entitled, The Blurring Line Between Amateur and Professional from the Atlantic, Megan Mcardle pointed out that “the 20th-century media industries divided us into two distinct classes. There were professionals who produced content and were paid for the trouble. And there were amateurs who consumed content and paid for the privilege”. 100% true because people used the method of crowdsourcing to create stories in order to publicize them for readers to show the difference between professionals and amateurs.

In my theory about crowdsourcing, users got involved with it due to their work over the internet and consumers have the chance to get ideas and to produce them but not only that but it helps them save money. As evidenced in the New York Times article, Crowdsourcing To Get Ideas, and Perhaps Save Money,  Constance Gutske stated that it has benefits for users to make the profit by saving money after consumers purchased their goods on the internet and it replaced focus groups but not only it’s faster but it’s cheaper.

Also what I found out about crowdsourcing  is that it also brings out competition from both amateurs and professionals because for example, in Wired.com’s article, The Rise of Crowdsourcing, it proved a point that both classes compete to see who sells their goods the most without going overconfident but they sell their goods at lower prices instead of items that are way too expensive for consumers to buy.

So why is Crowdsourcing very important to us? It is because users created websites to encourage customers to purchase items at a low cost to increase the number of items that were sold to save money for the economy so they could be professionals in order to make their businesses at large for the benefit of the Internet. So I rest my case by concluding that crowdsourcing is the best way to sell and buy items so we could save our profit for more important things later in everyday life without stressing out on expensive things and we could thankful that we didn’t go over the budget for the items we need or don’t need for the time being.

Works Cited

Mcardle, Megan. The Blurring Line Between Amateur and Professional. The Atlantic. 2010. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/06/the-blurring-line-between-amateur-and-professional/58639/

Howe, Jeff. The Rise of Crowdsourcing. Wired.com. 2006. https://www.wired.com/2006/06/crowds/

Gutske, Constance. Crowdsourcing to Get Ideas, and Perhaps Save Money. The New York Times. 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/business/smallbusiness/crowdsourcing-to-get-ideas-and-perhaps-save-money.html

In politics, we all followed the stories about the government, politicians, and elections every year but why does it get involved with social media and how it made an impact on users and sites during each election. One thing it’s for sure and that is politics and social networking do mix in our society.

First things first, the media industry had affected political campaigns that both cell phones and social media played a major role in political elections every year. For example, according to the Pew Research Center’s article entitled, Cell Phones, Social Media, and Campaign 2014, studies showed that 28% of voters used their cell phones to follow the election while 16% of them followed candidates on social media participated in the 2014 election.

Not only does social media played a big role in campaigns in the US, but it also played its role in campaigns in other countries in the world including the United Kingdom. In the official research service blog of the European Parliament, politicians used personal communication from social media to get people to vote for parties in the UK election. So the point is that social media became so popular with politics that candidates used it to maintain their campaign with promises of change in the real world during their run for office.

Sure social media became a part of the political system but what has started this craze. Why the first political figure who started the usage of the internet for political campaigns was former candidate Howard Dean who used social media technology to earn more votes during the election.  According to David Iozzi and Lance Bennet in the article, Crossing The Campaign Divide: Dean Changes The Election Game, they stated, “Social networking technologies (SNTs) differ from other internet-based media because
they allow users to contribute original content to websites and because they enable sustainable
self-organizing by bringing people together who are unlikely to have otherwise encountered one
another. They have the potential to transform conventional political practices, bringing about a
new type of campaign characterized by direct citizen involvement and bottom-up grassroots
organizing. As interactive social networking technologies continue to emerge, campaigns must
make strategic choices to either embrace or reject them.” This quote is very adequate that the Internet became a weapon for information so that people would understand and listen to the words from politicians.

But, Howard Dean was not the only candidate who use social media as a tool for his campaign, current president Donald Trump became a factor of social media because of his involvement with Twitter that in the New York Times article, Pithy, Mean, and Powerful: How Donald Trump Mastered Twitter For 2016, he used Twitter to maintain his reputation as the current President of the United States of America but creating backlash to his opponents during the election.

So at the end, I predict that social media became a powerful tool for political figures because of the words they used to make voices heard so they could make a statement about change and how it would affect lives in the real world today and in the future for years to come for the state of the government.

Works Cited

Smith, Aaron, Cell Phones, Social Media and Campaign 2014, Pew Research Center, 2014. http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/11/03/cell-phones-social-media-and-campaign-2014/

Tenhuenen, Susanna, Karvelyte, Vilma, The Role Played By Social Media in Political Participation and Electoral Campaigns, European Parliamentary Research Service Blog, 2015. https://epthinktank.eu/2014/02/12/the-role-played-by-social-media-in-political-participation-and-electoral-campaigns/

Iozzi, David, Bennett, Lance, Crossing The Campaign Divide: Dean Changes The Election Game, University of Washington, 2003. https://depts.washington.edu/ccce/assets/documents/iozzi_bennet_crossing.pdf

Barbaro, Michael, Pithy, Mean, and Powerful: How Donald Trump Mastered Twitter For 2016, The New York Times, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/us/politics/donald-trump-twitter-use-campaign-2016.html.

Our society today has ways to communicate with people via social media, email, texting, and messaging but blogging became an important part of communication these days that no one has ever heard of or try it before. Blogs were made for us to write about their days in real life but not only that but we wrote blogs to tell stories about events and giving readers information about them during their time.

Back in the day, journalism became all the rage when newspapers were used to give readers the scoop about what is happening in their community and in the city. Then, the radio and television industry became so popular with news on TV whether they’re local, national, or global so that we could just tune in every day and night.

In my thoughts, blogging was meant to replace journalism because according to Tony Rogers’ article entitled “Why Bloggers Can’t Replace The Work Of Professional Journalists?”,  he stated “The problem with having blogs replace newspapers is that most bloggers don’t produce news stories on their own. Instead, they tend to comment on news stories already out there, stories produced by professional journalists”. The quote proved to be an interesting point that we thought we wrote blogs just to give readers stories but blogging could have problems with journalism at the time.

My next case is when blogging has a positive impact on the Internet that it gives us more time and freedom to write whatever, wherever, and whenever we want as individuals and that brings us to the next level of human communication. But why has blogging changed so much in our time? Well, it’s because of the stories we wrote and read to make our spare time more freely so we could learn what blogging has done to our society.

Microblogging differs from blogging that instead of writing blogs on blog-only sites, we, humans wrote blogs on social media that we would read them and comment on each of them to give each other feedback on any social media site but that is why Twitter is just the start of a blogging evolution in our time. But as mentioned in a study conducted by Akshay Java of the University of Maryland Baltimore County entitled, Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities, our experience with microblogging was interesting that we have the opportunity to create stories to tell our sides so we are made to be self-efficient.

My final thought is that blogging is our specialty because we write blogs to express ourselves so we could be equal human beings thanks to this method.

Works Cited

Rogers, Tony. Why Bloggers Can’t Replace The Work of Professional Journalists?, ThoughtCo.com. 2017. https://www.thoughtco.com/bloggers-professional-journalists-2074116.

Java, Akshay. Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities. University of Maryland Baltimore County. https://ebiquity.umbc.edu/_file_directory_/papers/369.pdf

In the real world, the use of social media affected us as a society today that humans used it as a tool for checking on themselves during the week and their spare time.

But social media became a factor due to social issues that happened in real life including the election that ended up put Donald Trump in the White House after winning the election for the first time in his career three years ago.

According to the first article entitled Who, Will Take Responsibility For Facebook, Virginia Hefferman stated, “At last, in September, Facebook broke its silence. The company admitted it had received payments for ads by organizations likely operated out of Russia”. This quote is true because Russians did hack into  Facebook to encourage users to vote for Trump during the election in 2016.

While social media became a target for hackers to steal information from users, it also became a topic of mergers in real life. Henry Jenkins made an interesting case about the social media sites that are merged in his article, Taking The You Out of YouTube?, that companies like Google and Yahoo purchased social media sites Flickr and YouTube to create more efficiency but they will encounter the consequences after the mergers are completed.

I believe that social media could be a good way to communicate with people but sometimes it could be a bad thing that I found an interesting info about Facebook from Noah Cohen from Wired.com entitled, The Truth About Facebook’s Fake Quest To Connect The World that it is true that the company was given leaks by hackers to prove their point about the “quest” Facebook promised to people.

In my conclusion, social media has factors that affected and prevented humans from using it due to problems companies faced before but in the future, they will get through this for the security and safety for users.

Works Cited

Hefferman, Virginia, Who Will Take Responsibility for Facebook, Wired.com, 2017. https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-who-will-take-responsibility-for-facebook-now/?mbid=nl_100217_daily_fullwidth

Jenkens, Henry, Taking The You Out of YouTube, 2006. http://henryjenkins.org/2006/11/googtube_tv_20_or_bubble_20.html

Cohen, Noah, The Truth About Facebook’s Fake Quest to Connect the World, Wired.com, 2018.  https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-fake-quest-to-connect-the-world/?CNDID=9219546&CNDID=9219546&bxid=MjM5NjgxOTMxMDI2S0&hasha=9f3abca4ee1d0bd8d22c2bb6df525717&hashb=04be32edc0c92139a3e4bc3c88619f943b7dd6a1&mbid=nl_120418_daily_list3_p1&utm_brand=wired&utm_mailing=WIRED%20NL%20120418%20(1)&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nl

Desiree Figueroa MCS 244- March 5- Reality Tv Blog Post 

Digital media has no doubt made the public consume more content. Since we have the benefits of viewing programs on the go and also easier means of producing our own content the television has grown in an unpredictable way.  

Disruptive trends allow viewers more options and more control over what they are viewing. Gone are the days of basic cable when you had to flick through channels to find something that interests you or sit through commercials while viewing your favorite programming. The ease of access to a wide range of shows at any given moment is what differentiates the new generation of television from the old. The people in production are also more inclined to use information gathered through data to determine what kind of programs to make. Again, this puts more control into the hands of the viewers. If producers see more people posting about, interested in, and watching a certain type of show they will keep this show on for longer or make more shows like it. Another disruptive trend is the way you can navigate through digital television and it will make suggestions based on previously watched programming or interests (as with Facebook Watch, Netflix, or Hulu.) 

Reality television has changed the way we see human communication by making us more invested in the day to day lives of others. Now a days, people feel the need to have so much information on the lives of others, even entitled to this knowledge. I think that goes hand in hand with the rise of reality television. Television that has more user generated content has allowed people to get an inside look into people’s homes, their workplaces, schools, and pretty much any place else they are willing to show you. Reality television has also made us more likely to portray images of ourselves that are inauthentic. The name reality television belies what it truly is. Once someone knows a camera is on them, they generally just act in a way that they want to be seen. Reality television plays into our desire for authenticity but does not fulfill it. It has made people feel that personal information is a right not a privilege.
 

For this generation, one of the most entertainment forms of tv is reality tv and streamed tv shows. The drama that comes from real people and put onto our screens end up becoming our greatest form of entertainment due to the fact that it’s different from what we’ve had growing up as well as getting our favorite new show available at any device at any time. According to the article, “The Future of T.V.: Digital, Traditional And Something In Between” it mentions how actor Kevin Spacey is reaching out to many to show the importance of telling a story regardless of how its portrayed. He states “Let them binge…The device and the length are irrelevant…It’s all content. It’s just story. The audience has spoken. They want stories. They’re dying for them.” this shows how overtime the interest in audiences have changed to more simple and better ideas. As mentioned in the article, “Review: Smart We Live in Public Probes Web Genius’ Hubris” it brings the topic of something new and unseen to the table. Created by Josh Harris an artist in New York City, the idea of a 24 hour live stream that surveilles the life of a young couple was ahead of its time. Harris created this for the chance of taking down big name companies such as NBC. The problem with this form of entertainment is that it was not widely available for everyone to see due to internet issues but it was still a shift from the common American form of entertainment. In the article, “The Messy, Confusing Future of TV? It’s Here” it speaks about the future of television which we’ve actually gotten a sense of now. With the uprise of streaming services, many Americans have cancelled their cable in order to stick with streaming their shows. The problem with this is that not every episode will be streamed and you’d still have to pay for certain services. Aside from this, I know that the future of streaming services will continue to grow and dominate the entertainment business.

Melanie Beltran

MCS 244

February 26, 2019

Reality television is dramatic entertaining in the eyes of those who enjoy it. The way we communicate to one another is through colloquial language. It helps the audience, in some way, become present with the people on the show that’s being filmed. In the article, “The Future of T.V.: Digital, Traditional And Something In Between” states, “…Most people can access YouTube on their T.V.s, but the reality is that most people don’t. Most people still watch YouTube on mobile or on a computer.” The content that is shown on television differs from the content on platforms like Youtube. There are still ads on Youtube as it is on television or on platforms similar to Youtube but television does not have a “skip” option. In the article, “Review: Smart We Live in Public Probes Web Genius’ Hubris” it states, “He [Harris] barricades himself and his girlfriend in a 24/7 environment streamed live, via 32 security cams, to a ‘community’ of voyeur/commenters. The website anticipated the vlogging/lifecasting phenomenon that would soon become commonplace, but footage of the couple’s humdrum spats comes as something of a letdown in the documentary.” In the show, “Big Brother” it is filmed from a third person point of view (looks like a surveillance camera) through certain angles. Essentially, the audience sees the people get vulnerable on the show and watch their confession scenes reacting to what event took place. When Harris live streamed, he, in many respects alluded to Big Brother. The audience would feel more personally connected to Harris and his crew in the bunkers. In the article, “The Messy, Confusing Future of TV? It’s Here” states, “Last quarter, nearly a million Americans dropped their pay-TV subscriptions, according to an estimate from Craig Moffett, a media analyst with MoffettNathanson. (Netflix added roughly that many new subscribers in the United States at the same time.) Young people, a group particularly coveted by advertisers, are moving away from TV especially quickly. The amount of time people under 35 spend watching traditional TV has been cut in half since 2010, according to Matthew Ball, the head of a strategy at Amazon Studios.” Traditional Television has lost its flame because the shows are probably not as interesting and the content is more fascinating on the internet. Reality Television has different content from regular television. It helps gravitate people that are interested in getting personal with the people on the show that are being live streamed or film live. It makes it more dramatic and entertaining in which ratings go up and money is being made.  Reality Television has content people look forward to watching because of the feel of the audience being there with the cast mates. The drama and thrill cause people to gravitate more to it. Because regular television is boring, platforms like YouTube, gaming sites such as Twitch and Steam have broader content and appeals to people more instead. The birth of reality television came about because of the death of regular television.