Blogging and Politics
It was a dark and stormy Tuesday night, but thank God my electricity was not out for if it were, I would be banned from my only happiness: the BLOG RING! I signed on to the internet with trepidation yet excitement. After going through the usual hoops to gain access to my haven and signing in passwords and usernames here and there, I finally reached the world of internet communication and sharing of ideas: free speech at its most liberal. To my horror, I came to find only one message from a fellow blogger I have never met. I decided to check out the stranger's new blogs. That was a mistake. When the screen popped up the information presented was quite disturbing. It talked about the different ways to torture people for pleasure. The conclusions seem obvious: the internet can be deceiving. With today's technology it only takes a few seconds to send an instant message from New York to Australia. Since the beginning of voice mail to the advancement of blogs and instant messenger, people use the internet as a source of income and information. So why has blogging become the new process of spreading news? Well, it all comes down to politics. Blogging has changed the internet realm by influencing the way people respond to politics.
From my perspective, a wise thing to do would be to first do a thorough analysis of the website. Go through and see what the weak points are and try to analyze a solution. Aim Higher College has deployed an open source blog package. This package uses a database backend and allows users to create user IDs, sites, and their own content to post it. Recently, the service has had off-campus users who have posted links that appear to be directed towards university resources, but they are getting redirected toward off-campus malware sites. It seems that the website the college has deployed has become target of a DoS attack or other malware attacks.
However, books and newspapers are not our sole source of the written word. Online blogs, articles, and newsletters now exist. Television and books have merged into one: the Internet. Revolutions, riots, and rebellions don’t just happen in our living rooms now, they happen on the go with us. On the subway, when we’re waiting in line at Subway, at our friend’s house as he talks about how he’s “way into subs.”
One of the most important and difficult professions is teaching. Teachers play a vital role in nurturing the intellectual and social development of various students during their maturing years. Teachers employ more time with the students on a daily basis than parents do. Thus, parents entrust the teachers with an enormous responsibility to guide their children to become useful members of society; however, this task becomes difficult for a teacher when she faces the lack of respect and discipline from her students. A Pennsylvania teacher, Natalie Munroe engages a vast of stress and abuse from her students when she taught at Central Bucks East High School. Munroe posted a blog on the internet in which she addressed the problems about her students, the parents, and even the school administrators. Eventually, East High School suspended Munroe from her job over the blog. Many people believe that she is not criticizing about all her students, however, all her criticisms are geared towards the disrespectful adolescents who failed themselves by choosing not to learn; therefore, the school administrators should not suspend Monroe over a minor “profanity-laced” blog (McGraw, par. 6).
In conclusion, Carr and Gladwell’s essays have proven that the internet positive effects are outweighed by its negative effects. Carr has found he is unable to finish a full text anymore or concentrate. He thinks that the internet has taken our natural intelligence and turned it into artificial intelligence. Gladwell discusses how nowadays, social activism doesn’t have the same risk or impact as former revolutions such as the Civil Rights Movement. The internet is mostly based on weak ties based among people who do not truly know each other and would not risk their lives for their
Eating disorders are psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habit (Nilsson 1).They are self-destructing disorders that either cause excessive eating or limitations on eating, seeing as the disorder is not one that is most pleasant, one would find it hard to imagine that there is a whole online community that promotes the disorder to millions of others with little to no restrictions. This community is known as ‘pro-ana’ or ‘pro-anorexia’. For years ‘pro-ana’ blogs have floated around the inter webs without rules and regulations. Many youths go to websites such as Tumblr and they spend hours looking at images of skinny models and anorexic ‘Tumblr girls’. In this way they themselves begin to lower their own self-esteem and in turn begin living the ‘pro-ana lifestyle’ which includes extreme food restrictions, insane workouts, and punishments if they intake too many calories. The idea of ‘pro ana’ is bad as it is but actually choosing to live that way in order to become skinny is even worse. Because of the harmful nature of ‘pro-ana’ blogs, it would be better if they were supervised and, on occasion where they go too far, terminated.
The Internet offers a much greater potential for interactive communication between information senders and receivers than the more traditional methods of communication such as newspaper, radio and television. Freedom of speech ascertained by the constitution is not an absolute right. Depending on the medium through which information is delivered various degrees of the freedom to express one's self is protected. Internet communication may be analogous to either a specific existing communication medium or even several. Current free speech protection begins to dissipate as it is applied to the uncertain confines of the newly developed Cyberspace.
The Power of the Media in Politics The mass media possesses a great deal of influence in society and politics in the United States. Newspapers, radio, magazines and television. are able to use their own judgment when reporting current events. The The power of the mass media is an asset to the government in some instances and a stumbling block in others. Recent technology and regulations related to The media have improved the means by which the public can get information.
One of the drawing features of the young Internet was its freedom. It’s "...a rare example of a true, modern, functional anarchy...there are no official censors, no bosses, no board of directors, no stockholders" (Sterling). It’s an open forum where anyone can say anything, and the only thing holding them back is their own conscience.
Contemporary social movements such as Arab Spring and Kony 2012 use the Internet and social media as potential tools towards change. But why are some more successful than others. This paper argues that when news outlets see the potential for change, they “premediate” (Richard Grusin) its possibilities, and make that change ever more possible in their coverage. On the other hand, extant stories that are more reactionary do not get the same amount of new exposure, and remain static. In other words, our media - not just social media, but news organizations - play a great role in shaping current events. I will compare and contrast the unfolding of the Arab Spring story, and how little changed regarding Kony 2012, as cases in point. Both of these events were propelled by something we use in our every day lives: the internet. The network of connections that internet has, was able to bring these two social changes to not only there home countries but also to the entire world. With the rise of social media and the increasing news coverages, the Arab Spring and Kony 2012 were able to show just how much power the internet can have on change in the world.
...has so much power. The findings of this research could be used by campaigners in an attempt to swing an election in their favour, creating an unfair bias in parliament and denigrating the ideals of democracy.
The media is sometimes called the “Fourth Estate” because of its influence in shaping the course of politics and public opinion. Some people are influenced by what they read or hear and others are not. There is a well-known psychological process called selective attention. Wilson, Dilulio, and Bose define it as “paying attention only to those news stories with which one already agrees.” (290)
What is politics? Throughout history, people have participated in politics on many different levels. They may have participated through a direct democracy, in which they directly governed, or they may have participated through a representative democracy, in which they participated by electing representatives. As citizens’, people have participated in politics to attain the things they needed or wanted, the valued things. Participation in politics has been the way that people have a voice and change the things that directly affect their lives. Throughout the course of history, politics has been the competition of ideas; they decide who gets what, when, where and how.
The political atmosphere has significantly changed over the years, along with the developments in the area of technology and mass media communication. The advances in this area have provided the opportunity for the civil society to get politically involved and the ability to engage in debate about the current issues. This will be discussed using Clay Shirky’s article The Political Power of Social Media – Technology, the Public Sphere and Political Change, as a lens to look at media communication and technology influence on a particular political movement of high current interest and importance, the gun control debate. However, this influence and impact is only possible when the population has complete freedom to use the Internet, which is not
Robinson, S. (2007). "Someone's gotta be in control here": The institutionalization of online news and the creation of a shared journalistic authority. Journalism Practice, 1(3), 305-321
Keen, Andrew. The cult of the amateur: how blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today's user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values. New York: Doubleday, 2007. Print.