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