Journalism and Online Communities

During the course of this semester, we have gone over many different aspects of the internet, many of which relate to each other. One of the topics that I found very interesting is how online communities relate to journalism. People might not see how these two relate to each other but they do. In fact without online communities, today’s journalism would not be what it is.

According to Jan Fernback & Brad Thompson article Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?, communities are a very import aspect of peoples lives. This is one way that journalism and online communities are alike. Both are very important to people’s lives today. Today almost everyone is linked to one online community or another. Also many people today cannot go a day without checking the news to see what’s going on in the world or their local community.

Not only are these two topics very important to people today, they have also become tied together. According to the article we had to read for class We the Media, written by Dan Gillmor, online journalism is the way of the future. This relates to online communities because on the internet there have been many communities dedicated to the presentation of news, in the form of news feeds, blogs or web sites. The one that I have become most familiar with this semester is the online blogging community that is called Blogger.com. Blogger.com is free to anyone and is very easy to share opinions, news, and your personal life on. Blogger.com is a community because you are able to check other people’s blogs and give feedback to individuals at your own risk. Through it you can belong to many different communities, such as ones you create or the one that was already created when you signed up to be apart of the site.

Another way Online Communities are related to Journalism is that so many people are becoming part of these online web sites dedicated to journalism and blogging, that both have increased the promotion of democracy. In the article Journalism = Community = Democracy by Jonathan Dube it says That “historically creating community has always been a key element of journalism, and thus of democracy.” This means that journalism is what brings people together into communities, if its from blogging communities or to people who share the same view, it has all in the end promoted democracy. These things working together creates democracy because people are able to write or report on anything they want without being worried that they will be restricted, which we all know is democracy.

Journalism and communities are related to each other in many ways whether its from promoting democracy, to creating a online community through common interests or just belonging to a simple online community like blogger.com. As online communities countinue to grow we can be expected to see journalism playing a big role in there development. Every online community that you see today has some form of journalism involved in it. No matter how big or how small the community is. Communities and journalism, though seemingly separate things, have much in common.

References:

Dube, Jonathan (2004, October, 15). Journalism=community=democracy. Retrieved April 27, 2007, from http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/001619.php

Frenback, Jan, & Thompson, Brad (1995). Virtual communities: abort, retry, failure?. Retrieved April 27, 2007, from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html

Gillmor, Dan (2004). We the media. 1, Retrieved April 27, 2007, from http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=WeTheMedia.html&tipe=text/html

Wikipedia! Everyone Can be a Part of It

Doing this extra credit assignment has opened my eyes and has shown me what a wonderful tool the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia is. I have never used Wikipedia until this class. All my previous teacher have told me that the site was not a suitable source for information and to not use it, so I stayed away from it. Taking this introduction to the internet class has shown me that Wikipedia is not that bad of a place to start research. I have learned that Wikipedia is a good place to go when you are first learning about something or when you need a quick explanation for something. Lately instead of typing into Google a word or a phrase to get its definition or to find out what it is I have been going first to Wikipedia. I find that Wikipedia gives you more of what you are looking for and more information that you want, unlike Google where you have to sift through the information to get what you are looking for. Wikipedia is a great place to start research but a person should never do all their research through it, because the information is edited by the masses and not by professionals or credited persons.

Starting this little project, I had no idea how to edit a Wikipedia page. I knew you could but never really paid attention to how to do it. Not only did I not pay much attention to Wikipedia before this class, many people have discouraged me from using the encyclopedia. I never knew how easy editing a Wikipedia page was. I didn’t even know how about doing it until I saw the example in class. Once I saw how to edit the pages in class and read the introduction to editing pages and the tutorial, physically editing the pages were the easy part. The hardest part of this extra credit project was picking what topic to do. Wikipedia has become a very big online encyclopedia, with anyone able to edit it. Because of this all the topics that I could think to edit or to add text to was almost non-existent because everyone had already contributed all the information needed for the topics. This is why I started my own page. This way I could write my article without having to worry if I was going to have enough words to count for the extra credit. This way I could write what I wanted and be unlimited. But trying to find a topic that wasn’t already discussed was also very hard. It took me about two days of talking to many different people to figure out what to do. In the end, my mom suggested that I write a article about a local woman from my home town. Once I got researching and writing the article I became very interested in her. I was surprised that I have never heard of Rose Knox before because she seems to be an outstanding lady for her times. I believe that she is not getting the recognition that she deserves. Writing the article has shown me to go beyond the basics to find something that is unexpected because you will enjoy it more.

Doing this project has also shown me how much I take pride in my work. When I submitted my page I didn’t want anyone to touch it. I liked what I have written and I didn’t want anyone to take information off the page. I wanted it to stay the way it was. When I checked the history I noticed that someone had edited the page and at first I got a little upset because I spent so much time working on the page, but then I noticed that the person just fixed the layout of the page a little. Since then though, no one has touched my page, which I am very proud of. I am glad that the work that I had submitted to Wikipedia was acceptable enough for it to still be posted in the encyclopedia. I hope the page stays up for the future to come because I believe that Rose Knox is a very important lady in history and others should know a lot more about her.

References:

Rose Knox. (2007, April 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:00, April 27, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rose_Knox&oldid=123399324

http://www.wikipedia.org/

Net Neutrality: The Way To Go!

Since the beginning of the internet the information and access to it has been free to use. This would be considered Net Neutrality, which is sometimes hard to define exactly what that is. The best definition that I found through my research on this topic is that net neutrality is “the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet” (Net Neutrality, Google). Bellow is a video from youtube.com that talks about net neutrality.

This topic is very important for the way we use the internet in the future. The current debate over this subject is very tricky because it will be very hard to please each side of this debate. The debate that is becoming an important subject everywhere is, should people be able to have a free internet without regulations or should big businesses have the right to own the internet and charge fees for using it and limit people’s accessibility. Ever since the beginning of the internet people have been allowed to use it when ever and how ever they wanted to without worrying about having to pay fees or being limited in what they can search. This whole idea of net neutrality is important because it promotes democracy and freedom of speech. So the major problem in this debate is that the big companies like Time Warner and Verizon want to create a closed internet where everyone has to pay a fee to use it whereas other people think it should be open and allow anyone to use it anytime for free. The reason the big companies want to make the internet closed is so they can make up for the losses in profit that they have been experiencing because of the decrease in the telephone usage. The businesses see that there is a place with the internet to make a big amount of money so that they replace the money that they have lost over the years. One the other side of this debate, those who are for net neutrality and don’t want these big businesses to take control over the internet, have tried to create laws that protects the free use of the internet. So far no law has been set in place to give us the use of the internet for free and prohibiting the big businesses from creating a closed internet, but there has been some very successful debates in congress to move towards creating these laws.(Save The Internet.com)

I believe that the internet should stay the way it is now and that is to still have net neutrality. If we no longer had net neutrality, the way the internet would work would be that each time you wanted to use the internet you would have to pay a fee and then every time you try to use sites that are under another company you would be charged for using there sites. All in all I think this is very unfair. Why should we have to pay for something that in the past has been free. I believe that everyone should have the right to have access to the internet for free and everyone should be able to gain access to any page they want. The internet was formed for people to be able to connect to others and to share information for free. It was not made for big businesses to take over and limit what you have access to and for them to charge you money. I believe that the only reason the big companies want to take over control of the internet is to create money which they already have enough of to begin with. There is no need for them to take over the internet, which has already been established for free use and for people to gain entrance to any page they want. Net neutrality is an important part of our daily lives and I believe that it should stay the way it is now and not be messed with because there is no reason to fix it.

References:
(2006, December, 8). Huge victory for real people as telco bill dies. Retrieved April 13, 2007, from Save the Internet.com Web site: http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2006/12/08/congress-closes-telco-bill-dies-on-the-vine/

(2007). A guide to net neutrality for Google users. Google, Retrieved April 13, 2007, from http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality.html

Virtual Economies

Virtual economies are a very controversial topic in today’s society. Virtual worlds are starting to take form of a real life economy, with one-on-one social interaction and the following of some of the unwritten rules in society today (Giles, 2007). These virtual economies even share many of the same features that our society has in the modern world. Wikipedia describes Virtual economies as “an emergent economy existing in a virtual persistent world, usually in the context of an Internet game. People enter these virtual economies recreationally rather than by necessity; however, some people do interact with them for "real" economic benefit.”

In virtual economies today, there are two different types of virtual economies called “open” virtual economies and “closed” virtual economies. “Open” virtual economies are online worlds were people are able to buy and trade tools and virtual property for real money. The most popular “open” virtual economy is known as Second Life. More then 10, 000 people visit this virtual economy every day. Second Life users are allowed to buy, sell, or even trade there commodities for real money. One person even reported on becoming a millionaire in “real life” through her Second Life property business (Giles, 2007). The problem with Second Life that people see coming up is that, this virtual community is like gambling and people will start losing money with it. People may come so addicted to this game, like so many other games and end up losing money in the end. Another view on this subject though, sees Second Life helping people who are unable to find jobs in “real life” being able to invest in this game and make money that is necessary to survive. Second Life’s are a great way to make money, if done right. Another virtual economy that is ever present in today’s society is called a “closed” virtual economy. “Closed” virtual economies are those that do not buy, sell or trade items for “real” money, though they do buy, sell, and trade items with virtual money of some form, but there is no “real” money backing them up. An example of an “closed” virtual economy is the very popular World of Warcraft. More then 7.5 million people have a subscription to this magical world known as Azeroth. World of Warcraft is the most popular game in the internet not only for its graphics and its make believe characters but also for the way the game can simulate a “real life” community. This online virtual economy also allows for its users to feel part of a online community where each player can be part of a guild which goes and fights the big bosses. World of Warcraft allows its players some sense of belonging (Levy, 2006).

Virtual economies are very big in today’s society. They allow the users to participate in economies where there are made up characters and made up items such as tools, property and, commodities. In the future these online virtual economies not matter if there “open” or “closed” are going to be a part of our “real life” economies. They have become too popular for them not to become an everyday ritual for many people.

References:

Giles, Jim (2007). Life's a game. Nature, 445, Retrieved April 6, 2007, from https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/courses/1/200701_256304/content/_687574_1/giles_2007_lifes_a_game.pdf?bsession=20715099&bsession_str=session_id=20715099,user_id_pk1=180750,user_id_sos_id_pk2=1,one_time_token=

Levy, Steven (2006, Sept. 18). World of warcraft: is it a game?. Newsweek, Retrieved April 6, 2007, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14757769/site/newsweek/page/3/

Virtual economy. (2007, March 29). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:04, April 6, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Virtual_economy&oldid=118822136

Journalism

Journalism is considered “the collecting, writing, editing, and presenting of news or news articles in newspapers and magazines and in radio and television broadcasts” (journalism, Answer.com). Today journalism is the most effective way to get the news to the rest of the world. In the past people had to relay upon newspapers and magazines only for there news but to day, the internet has expanded the way we get our information. Now people can log onto the internet and go to news sites such as CNN, go to online newspapers, and go visit numerous blogs that have been dedicated to give you whatever news you want.

This week’s assignment was to choose and articles on a topic from both a newspaper and online source. I have chosen to write about the lawsuit that is being put upon the Delta Zeta sorority from DePauw University in Greenscale, Indiana, from 23 girls who have been removed from active membership, claiming they were removed because of their looks and race. My newspaper article, Kicked off Ind. Campus, sorority suing for reinstatement, was from Thursday’s issue of the USA today and my internet article, Sorority accused of kicking out unattractive members sues university, is from CNN.com on March 28th.

Both the newspaper and the internet article convey the same story but in different ways. I’ve noticed that in the newspaper article the writer used an inverted pyramid (journalism, Wikipedia) method were the most important message or portion of the story is expressed and from there all the rest of the story or news unfolds. The internet article was more of a summery of events that had taken place, and was more focuses on giving a none bias report of what has happened. The internet article was more of an informational article then the newspaper article was. Also the newspaper had a lot more quotes, whereas the internet article didn’t. The newspaper articles also had direct quotes that people involved had to say about the story which was something that the internet articles didn’t have. The internet articles paraphrased what people had to say, instead of giving the direct quotes. If a person wanted to find out more about what details were going on in the new story then I would suggest them in reading the newspaper article on this subject then the internet article on CNN.com, which basically summarizes what’s been going on.

Not only does that content of the newspaper article and the internet article differ, but so does the presentation of both. The article that I choose from the newspaper had a big picture and a big title which caught the attention of the reader. The newspaper article also was in column form which people today, recognize as a newspaper story format. Also the newspaper its self had many other articles on the same page, causing a person to be drawn to other articles and not just that one article. The online article had a much smaller title on the page, had no picture, and was written in a normal format and not in columns, which are all very different from the newspaper article. The online article, instead of having other articles on the same page, had just one article per page, but also linked to other articles that were popular or that related to that subject. With online articles it is much easier to search for similar articles under the same topic then it is with newspapers. In this way online articles are better for searching for topics then it is for detailed breaking news.

Newspapers and Online articles have changed the way that we receive our news today. Though newspapers are still being read and being printed I believe that online articles and blogs are the preferred way of getting news from the internet.

References:

Journalism. (2007, March 28). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:40, March 30, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Journalism&oldid=118575756

Journalism. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved March 30, 2007, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/journalism

Marklein, Mary Beth Kicked off Ind. campus, sorority suing for reinstatement. (2007, March, 29). USA Today, p. A2.

(2007, March, 28). Sorority accused of kicking out unattractive members sues university. CNN.com, Retrieved March, 29, 2004, from http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/03/28/troubled.sorority.ap/index.html

Online Communities

Communities are a very import part of everyday life. Through out a persons life, a person will belong to many different communities like that of a neighborhood, work community, smaller groups like sports community or clubs, and online communities like ebay, facebook, , a blogging community, plus many more communities. Without communities we would be lost. The purpose of communities is to have a sense of belonging and reliability on others. Without the formation of communities a person would be alone in the world. Without communication with others our society would be totally different, it would be each person for themselves. This is why communities are one of the most important aspects of our society. Communities are what make the world as we know it today.

One community that has become more popular over the last few years is online communities. According to Wikipedia, an online community is " a group of people that may or may not primarily or initially communicate or interact via the internet .” According to this definition, one online community that I belong to is facebook.

Facebook was originally created for college students, but has expanded to include everyone who has an email address associating them with a network (facebook, wikipedia). Facebook is free to all its users and allows people to create a profile in which you can state your interests, activities, town, relationship states, education information and anything else that you want to disclose. Facebook also allows its users to have a profile picture and upload pictures. This allows for other facebook members to connect a face with the information given. This also allows for stronger social bonds to be formed. The best thing about facebook is that you can set your page to privacy, which allows only those who are your friends to see your profile, allowing you to have somewhat of privacy with who sees your page. This in a way is creating your own community of those who can see your page. The pictures that you are allowed to put up on your page also create a social tie because you are sharing your life with others. This creates a tie because the people looking at the page will get to know you in some sense through the pictures you put up. Another way that facebook creates a social ties is when you add people to be your friend. This allows for you to add more people to your friends list thus increasing your community each time. Adding friends also allows you to meet new people and to talk to them bonding together your social worlds. Another way that facebook helps create a social tie is the feature where you are able to write on each others wall. Writing on a wall is leaving a comment for the person the wall belongs too. This creates a social tie because a person is able to communicate with everyone else who they are friends with on face book, creating a community of other face book users. Communication is one of the key factors in community, without it there would be no community. Facebook is a perfect example of an online community that has increased the community ties in society without making us disconnected from the world and its communities.

Community is one of the most important concepts in our society. Without it we would be lost. Communities are what connects us to the rest of the world. If there was no community then everyone would only look out for themselves and have no social ties to anyone, creating a totally different world then we are use to today.

References:

Facebook. (2007, March 20). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:25, March 20, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Facebook&oldid=116552685

Virtual community. (2007, March 18). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:24, March 20, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Virtual_community&oldid=115921446

I Can Be Anything I wanna Be!

In today’s world it is so easy to be anyone you want to be because of the internet. Everyone is associated with some form of online identity on the internet. The problem is though, how do we know who we are associating with. The identities that people take on can be sometimes misleading. How do we know who the right people are and who are the bad people corrupting the internet? And the answer is, we don’t. We take risks each time we associate with people we don’t know on the internet, hoping that they are who they say they are.

Communicating on the internet is very different from communicating with another in person or over the phone. During these activities you know who you are talking to, unlike on the internet where you may have no idea who the person is that you’re communicating with or conveying information to. In Donath’s article “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community” he says that “knowing the identity of those with whom you communicate is essential for understanding and evaluating and interaction.” If this was true then why do people communicate with people online? And the answer is because you are able to participate in a whole new world that you might not be able to participate in, in the actual world. The point to most online Identities is to hide who you truly are and become and anonymous user. According to Wikipedia, with online identities, people are allowed to redefine themselves in any manner that they wish.

Redefinition of ones self can be a good but can also be bad. When you take on an Online Identity you are able to be someone that you aren’t or you’re able to enhance or better yourself. This form of identity could be good if you wanted to explore something that you felt you could never do being your normal self. A person could use Myspace or facebook to create a new image that would make that person feel better about themselves. Also, by pretending to be someone else, a person might gain the confidence to do things and say things that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to say. The downside of online identities is that because you don’t know who you’re communicating with, you may be taken advantage of, or be lied to. Everyone who is using the internet is not using it for good reasons. There are people out there who are using the internet to take your information, there are people there trying to convince you to do things you know are wrong. There are many different kinds of people using the internet, but you have no way of knowing who they truly are unless you know them and have met them in person.

One online identity that I use everyday is my Instant Message screen name. The name I use, haberb1872, is taken from my name and my address, but yet it still hides who I truly am. No one I talk to would know who I am unless I told them. It is almost impossible to know who I am from this ten letter identity, unless I gave them my information. With this screen name I can become anyone I want to be.

One problem though with having a screen name is that you have the risk of someone trying to steal your name and pretending to be you. According to the term “identity theft” on Wikipedia there are four types of identity theft. The one that would be associated with this type of identity theft would be identity cloning. Identity cloning is a person is trying to become you, in the sense of using you’re name but not you as a person. If someone took my screen name and started to pretend to be me, this could be bad because they could be using my name to send out bad messages or use it to harass other people. This in return would make me look like a bad person to other users. And this is never a good thing. No matter how hard you try to keep your identity yours, there is always a risk of someone intercepting it to use it for bad. There is no way to stop this from happening, you just have to try your best and go along with life.

References:

Donath, Judith (1997, November, 12). Identity and deception in the virtual community. Communities in Cyberspace, Retrieved February 22, 2007, from http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html

Identity theft. (2007, February 21). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:41, February 23, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Identity_theft&oldid=109824112

Online identity. (2007, February 15). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:42, February 23, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Online_identity&oldid=108207999