3 Blog Posts For Due Date 12/04/13

Nov. 12: Discuss anything you may have learned from our guest speaker (Zak Beasley, joint MS/JD graduate student) who talked about privacy law. How do you think the idea of privacy will affect you in your future career, or in society as a whole?

I thoroughly enjoyed when Zak Beasley came to our class to talk to us about privacy because this is a huge issue that is very important to our generation. Privacy is something that the citizens of the United States of America are slowly losing, and before we know it, the government and every one in the entire nation will be able to access everything of ours that we need to be private. For instance, there is a lot of drama about employers basing their choices of hiring employees off their Facebook and Twitter. Although there are ways to make your page private, nothing is truly private. On the new iPhone 5S models there is a fingerprint scanner to get into your phone instead of using a four digit passcode, and Apple admitted that the government would have a copy of the fingerprint used to open the phone. When Zak Beasley came to our class to talk, I felt extremely interested in what he was talking about because he was super passionate about it. He showed that privacy is something he really cares about. The amount of government control that is quickly being incorporated into our daily lives will cause the amount of privacy that citizens have to go down. As much as I would like to believe that it is a situation that will get better, I believe it will do nothing but get worse. It will affect my job because as privacy goes down, more rumors will start which affects my credibility as a writer. Sources will slowly stop being willing to talk. Hopefully by some miracle something happens to stop this.

Nov. 14: Discuss your opinions on the idea of privacy in society in the context of social media. How does your representation of yourself on social media reflect you as a person– do you censor yourself?

I feel like censoring myself on social media is extremely important at this point in my life because with me being in school and needing to find a job in the future after graduating, I never know who is pulling me up trying to dig up information on myself. As I stated in my previous response, the government is trying to gain as much control over the citizens of our country as it can. With improving technology, it is so easy for the government to have access to anything we access and/or put on the Internet. Unfortunately, I feel like the way social media is growing, the way we represent ourselves on social media will matter more to employers than the way we represent ourselves on other tools such as our resumes. Unfortunately, it is the citizens in this country that are putting the power into the hands of the government to take away our privacy. However, I feel like there are situations where people shouldn’t be allowed privacy. For instance, I believe that people on food stamps and welfare should give detailed reports of what they spend the money on. However, when it comes to our twitters, instagrams, facebooks and pinterests, I believe that what we do should be private if we want it to be. There is an option to keep your profiles public, but if chosen to be private, it should stay private. There shouldn’t be a bunch of loopholes for the government and employers to be able to get around if they want to creep on our information.

Nov. 19: Discuss our guest speaker, Bryce Young, a director in Kansas City’s independent film community. What insights did you find in regards to information management?

There were several interesting things that I took away from Bryce Young’s visit. One thing that I found extremely interesting is the fact that he has success even though he did not attend college. Unfortunately, I do believe that the value of education is decreasing. I know he was all like “stay in school” but honestly, it seems like a college education isn’t as big of a deal anymore. This is good for the people who can’t afford college, but it’s not good for those of us who are paying to be here. I feel like if I was in film school at KU, which I’m not, but that my talent should be looked at before someone who didn’t attend college. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Another thing that I took away from the visit was interesting information about reality television shows. I raised my hand to talk about my experience at Bravo’s “Vanderpump Rules” show, but it was interesting to hear about his experience with MTV’s “Teen Mom”. It’s crazy how all these television shows make so much money yet so much of it is fake and scripted out. I guess something I can take out of this in regards to information management is that not all information management is good information management. For instance, how the episode he talked about of Teen Mom where they used only bad footage to make the dad out to seem like a bad guy. That is definitely not good information management because it’s picking and choosing what to use in order to create a false image! But, in regards to his own film making, I really enjoyed watching one of his episodes, it was really good and he is a great film maker!

APA CITATIONS:

(2013, October 10). Social media seen as biggest privacy risk. Illawarra Mercury. p. 11.

The Future of the Press. (2012). Times, The (United Kingdom), 2.

Lederman, J. (2012, July 16). Privacy vs. science: Seeking legal clarity. Buffalo Law Journal. pp. 1-8.

Steve, D. (2012, April 19). DPP’s new guide on privacy and journalism. Daily Mail. p. 19.

3 Blog Posts For Due Date 10/30/13

10/08/2013 – Blog Topic #1: Write about your final paper topic and why it interests you.
My final paper topic regarding the evolution of my journalistic field of choice consists of analyzing the gradual changes of technology and media, and the effects it has on jobs that we want to acquire. For instance, my preferred job of choice, owning, creating and running my own publication, will greatly benefit from the proper use of social media networking. Journalism is a very competitive field to go into, and setting yourself apart from the many others is hard to do; and although the evolution of technology and media has made it harder to get a journalism job, the use of technology and media can also make it easier to make your abilities more well known. My final project, the curation, will possibly be a golf themed curation. Golf is something I have always participated in throughout my life, and I think it would make an interesting and unique curation for this project. The visual will most likely be a blog, consisting of different pictures, websites, and how-to tips. I haven’t completely set my mind on this topic but I feel like it would be a great one to do. I am glad that the final paper and final project are different from each other so we can elaborate on two different topics. 

10/22/2013 – Blog Topic #1: Discuss the evolution of media and predict how you can adapt in your future career to future changes.
The evolution of media throughout the last view decades is wonderful to examine because it really is astounding. Ever since the first development of the first computer ever, so many different tools of technology have been invented – such as MP3 players, cell phones, smart phones, and tablets. However, one common thing in most of these tools of technology is the fact that they can access the Internet! The internet has become every person’s connection to current events going on in the world, a way to get in contact with friends and family, and to research topics for school related assignments. Not only has technology put the classic use of mail to an almost end because of e-mail, but very rarely are books such as encyclopedias and dictionaries needed because they can all be accessed online! With all of this being said, I think it is very important for all students in college, especially journalism students, to realize the impact it has on our future jobs! Due to peoples’ desire to access magazines, books, newspapers, etc. online, the demand of hard copy publications of magazines, books, newspapers, etc. will continue to decrease. Therefore, students in college should definitely make use of a blogging website, and continue to promote their skills through other social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and other networks. In my opinion, one thing that makes a person stand out in what they do is having the ability to adapt to different situations and having the ability to know how to handle them. With technology and media constantly changing, the importance of being able to adapt to it is crucial. 

10/22/2013 – Blog Topic #2: Write about the career field you hope to enter and that you could use for your final paper.
The career field that I am hoping to enter upon graduating college is the news and information side of journalism. Throughout both my high school and college careers I have been greatly involved in publications of different types, and could not see myself pursuing any other career. Although working for a well known publication such as Cosmopolitan magazine would be awesome, I think my ideal situation would be creating, owning and running my own publication, specifically a magazine. I believe the biggest obstacle in achieving this would be getting my magazine to be well known. Unfortunately, I’m sure there are many publications that ultimately fail because not enough people know about it. I would love to start a fashion magazine, but bigger publications that are more well known, such as Vogue or CoverGirl, may triumph and demolish any new publications that try to enter the fashion world. However, with a properly thought out business plan, accurate advertisement and a great use of social media to promote any publication I decide to build could help promote the success of my publication. Using social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are highly important tools to use when promoting your industry – regardless of what industry it is! I think talking about all of this for my final paper will be great for my final paper, especially when elaborating on the use of social media websites. The use of technology has changed the world of media so much that people probably don’t even notice it until they realize how it affects their every day lives, such as the job they get. Journalism students especially have to deal with this because of the media and social media’s impact on hard copy publishing. 

APA CITATIONS:

Charalambous, S. (2013, October 02). 5 ways tech is changing the face of journalism (but not the internal organs). Retrieved from http://memeburn.com/2013/10/5-ways-tech-is-changing-the-face-of-journalism-but-not-the-internal-organs/

Mahapatra, L. (2013, October 13). News on facebook: How social media is changing news consumption. Retrieved from http://www.ibtimes.com/news-facebook-how-social-media-changing-news-consumption-infographic-1446304

 

3 Blog Posts For Due Date 10/04/13

09/19/13 – Blog Topic #1: Write about what you think of the class so far. Be honest.

Okay so this class is way easier than I thought it would be, aside from the fact that I cannot get myself to speak up in class. This class doesn’t have much homework, which is a plus in my eyes, and I feel like most of the stuff we do in class is based off our opinions. We have reading to do, but I feel like as a teacher you ask us for more of our opinions of knowledge rather than our knowledge of knowledge. If that makes any sense at all. I feel like I can be myself in this class when it comes to performing on my school work, and I feel like as a teacher you care about our opinions. Obviously you do, or this question wouldn’t be an option for our blog. 🙂

09-24-13 Mandatory Blog: Complete this tutorial and then tell me how you can use this for your final project.

I think the most useful thing I learned from the Power Searching with Google activity was the search by image tool. On the show Catfish, Nev always searches people by picture with google and I always wondered how he did that. I thought it would make things so much easier! Then, the tutorial taught me how to do that. I definitely find it useful because it will be so much faster finding certain pieces of information with that tool, especially information relating to specific photographs.

09-26-13 Mandatory Blog: Tell me about researching in the library today and how what you learned can help you on your final paper or project.

So what I found the most interesting at the library was when she told us that the databases that are available to us online are only available to us while we are KU students! I guess I probably should’ve put two and two together, but I guess I just didn’t realize that it is a resource that I will not have forever. And that some people pay to have access to what we have access to through the online database search! It provides such great information for research and will definitely come in handy when I’m doing my curation project.

10/04/13 – Discussion points: Okay so Dr. Guth’s tweet “The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you.” (Hudnall, 2013) is not pretty. At all. And although I feel like as a professor at a University he SHOULD NOT have tweeted that, we are entitled to freedom of speech. As journalists, that is what we learn all about. The boundaries we have, and to what extent we can breach this boundaries. I don’t think he should’ve been put on “paid leave” because I do not think that what he tweeted deserved a lost job. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But I guess I’m entitled to my own opinion as to how it should have been handled, just as the Chancellor does.

1 APA citation:

Hudnall, D. (2013, October 02). Ku’s david guth blunders into a red-state test of the first amendment. Retrieved from http://www.pitch.com/FastPitch/archives/2013/10/02/kus-david-guth-blunders-into-a-red-state-test-of-the-first-amendment

3 Blog Posts For Due Date 09/13/13

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8/27/13 – Blog Topic #1: What is information?
Information is many different things. Information is knowledge obtained through studying, research and investigation. Information is facts learned through someone or something about someone or something. But the most important aspect of information is how one interprets it. Information is what you make out of it. How one person interprets a piece of information may be different than how another person interprets it, therefore the information may be miscommunicated. 

09/10/13 – Blog Topic #2: Do people say they may be “right brained” or “left brained” as an excuse (if they lack math or artistic skills, etc.)? Discuss. ­
People do have the tendency to accuse their lack of skill on how their brain does or doesn’t think. In my own personal history, I have liked to blame bad grades (i.e. physics, chemistry, trigonometry) on the fact that my brain “doesn’t work like that”. It seems as if for classes such as chemistry, no amount of studying helps me succeed in the class because my brain just cannot comprehend the information. However, for English classes, I can sit down and write a solid, informational paper in just an hour or so. Letters make much more sense to me than numbers do. I think that this same concept applies to lots of people, and people like to justify their lack of skills on something they have no control over to seem like they’re at some sort of disadvantage. How can you punish a person for not being good at something they have no control over? I think it gives a person reassurance to believe that the reason why they are not good at a certain task is because they’re body/brain does not allow them to be good at it.  

09/10/13 – Blog Topic #3: Do you identify yourself as traditionally “right” or “left” brained? Discuss.
I would definitely identify myself as traditionally right brained because I believe I am best at creative and expressive tasks, instead of traditional left brained tasks, which normally involve analytical and logical thinking. While left brained thinkers are better at critical thinking, juggling numbers, analyzing language and incorporating logical thinking, right brained thinking is better at expressing emotion and more artistic tasks. This is why I definitely think I am more right brained than left brained, because I like to consider myself an artsy person. However, although I consider myself more successful in the creative field than in the logical field, I do obtain left brained skills as well. I do like math, and have always thought I am pretty good at it. However, I find the most ease in right brained tasks because my brain sees artsy things in a less complex light.