Facebook!

Okay, let's talk about my Facebook page, Ceaseless Celebrations.



The plan was to post every day about unique holidays like National Toilet Day, Nut Day, and Comic Book Day. I picked this topic to make a age with because I thought it would be fun, and maybe I would come across something I could use on the Dixie State University Student Association page.



This is the type of post I generally made. I look up holidays on the internet, and post about them on my page. As often as possible, I ask a question to see if I can get anybody to respond on the post.

These are the types of people I planned to target:

Ashley:
Millennial
Lives at home
Uncommitted
Limited attention span

Jennifer:
Middle aged
Empty nester
Self focused

Jim:
Procrastinator
Stoner
Impulsive

The page started out with 0 likes. I got a huge spike in likes right out of the gate because I got all my classmates, and family to  like it. It fell way off from there... probably because I didn't post very often OR consistently.

I wanted to boost the whole page, and not just one post. None of my posts are meant to have any reason to promote themselves individually.

Looks like this is the end. Wish me luck on presenting this to the class.

On the Media

Let's talk about Playboy Magazine. No more nudes!

Physical: We're talking about a magazine, which is interesting, because people think that print is dying. 

Psychological: I think playboy is doing this because sex has become such a big deal that they are making a smart business move getting sidestepping the controversy. Don't get me wrong. There have always been people upset about Playboy, and pornography, and the like. What I'm saying is that the big gay revolution is happening right now, and it's making people fight back more. Playboy is likely lumped in with all the other sex hungry, fetish mongers.

Cultural: I think that back when playboy started (1953) the cultural eye glared a little less intensely at sex related magazines, and now that people are becoming more polarized, Playboy is cooling it's jets.

Social: EVERYBODY is talking about this, and EVERYONE has an opinion, and EVERYBODY'S opinion will be reflected somewhere on the internet.

Temporal: I think people are looking at this the wrong way. Playboy isn't trying to "clean up" their magazine, or "coming to the light". They're trying to maintain their income.

My Comments: I think Playboy might have made a really smart, and daring move. They can sell the magazine in more places. It's more socially acceptable to buy it. This is a huge PR move. People are going to buy so many issues of this magazine that Playboy can sit back and relax while people decide how they feel about it.

Last note as always: I never claim to KNOW very many things, especially when we're talking about places I've never been, people I've never known, theories I've never tested, and experiences I've never had.

Climate Change 2.0

Let's talk about Climate Change.

I'm not sure I can remember a time when climate change wasn't an issue, and I'm a little tired of it. I realize that this is important, and I should be taking it seriously. There are people in the world who are trying to make sure that the world is still healthy for their children and grandchildren, and for generations to come. I think the biggest problem then becomes getting everybody else on board. It's a near impossible task to get enough people to care enough to make a difference. There is such a stigma attached to the type of person who fights to save the planes. They are either all hippies and tree huggers, or they are crazy lunatics. Think about the last time you saw a meme on the internet about climate change.

I think whoever figures out a way to make enough people care about climate change should get some kind of award.... or a high five... or a hug.

Last note as always: I never claim to KNOW very many things, especially when we're talking about places I've never been, people I've never known, theories I've never tested, and experiences I've never had.

Religion 2.0

First, let me start this post by saying that I'm upset we picked this short week to talk about religion. We could TOTALLY talk about this for two class periods. That being said... here we go.

Religion has always been a fundamental part of humanity. Every culture has it's own way of fulfilling the needs of its people, namely through different types of religion.

ALL PEOPLE have some basic needs:
1. Explain the unknowable
2. Facing mortality
3. Infuse hope
4. Calm anxiety about everyday adversities

When we are suffering, and we feel alone, it helps to have a tender maternal figure there to help us feel like we are being cared for. This is why most major religions have figures like this. Ex: Mary, Durga, Khadija, Hecate.

Religion is also important for social moderation.

This is not the part where I go into a long, drawn out rant about how religion is to control people! And this is a CULT! And Y'all are sheep!!

This is the part where I say that we need to come to know, and understand the purpose in religion, because these needs are important. Even in these times where there are fewer and fewer people who believe in religion, "we still have to die. We still need to be comforted. We still need to be reminded, in conditions of aggressive capitalism, of our duties to the community and to the poor. And we still need somewhere to take our disappointed ambitions, frustrations, and sorrows." People like to feel like there's something or someone looking out for them.

I think religion is a valuable, and important way that human beings can fulfill these needs. The thing is... that it's not the only way. And I think that's an important concept too.

On The Media

Contexts:

First of all, I feel I would be remiss in refusing to mention the extent to which I hated the background noises in this On the Media post.

Physical: Working with computers, and putting your information on them is dangerous. People get their information stolen all the time, and it's not always as obvious as in Ina's story.

Psychological:
Innocent people are being victimized, and this makes people afraid. Because of the nature of their crimes, these hackers do not have to look the people they are hurting right in the eye, and this means that the hackers don't have to deal with that and the victims are even for terrified of internet security issues.

On the other hand, I think many people think they are impervious to hackers because they have never had anything bad happen to them or anybody they know. I think I way be one of those people because I have never really bothered to protect myself agains things like that.

Social:
How interesting that hackers have a social system set up so that they can get more work... I guess it just goes to show that even criminals have to be organized.

Temporal:
I worry that because these are computer files, and therefore not physical items being stolen or ransomed there is no really sure fire way to make sure that things like this can never happen again.

Cultural:
This is where we wonder about how much digital crime we will put up with before we move away from online culture, and toward something new. I also wonder if we will choose to ignore all the issues with computer crimes simply because we've learned to just deal with the cons.

I think the normal way of the world is to hobble along with the times, and do our best but ultimately forge ahead. I also happen to believe that hackers can not be stopped. That's like fighting a war on terrorism. How do you know when you've won?

Last note as always: I never claim to KNOW very many things, especially when we're talking about places I've never been, people I've never known, theories I've never tested, and experiences I've never had.

Privacy 2.0

Let's talk about internet privacy. How much privacy can we expect to have in an online world where we share everything about ourselves for the public to see, and social media sites sell your information to third party companies who want to directly advertise to you?
I feel like the whole point of social media has become an opportunity to share intimate details about our lives with other people on the internet. Now people are complaining that people on the internet have too much information about us. People either say that privacy is an obsolete idea, or that there's not enough being done to protect us from those who would use our information with malicious intentions.
Back in the day, when we all had Myspace accounts, people weren't very worried about who was viewing our information. Now that our lives are lived largely online, and we hear stories every day about people's information being used dishonestly, people losing their jobs, and cyberbullied, and people are scared. People are starting to smarten up and not put so much out there on the internet.
There is hope, though. Younger social media users are being way more careful about what kinds of information they post online. Who do you know that still posts their personal phone number online? Probably no one... Because people are getting wise.
Not only are there people trolling your social media accounts for information about you, there are also third party companies who are buying your information from social media sites like Facebook. Their goal is to directly advertise to you based on your browsing history, or your "likes" on Facebook posts, and people are freakin' out about it.
Personally, I'm not that worried about it. Perhaps because I've not had a personal AM they type of person who will buy something based purely on the marketing prowess of a company because great marketing schemes are something that I can appreciate.

On the Media

Let's talk about abortion... again.

Contexts:

 Physical:
This is about abortion opinion polling. The problem is that the polling for this topic are not very accurate

Temporal:
The funding for Planned Parenthood may be reduced very soon, and it's "let's talk about politics" season so people are talking about abortion.

Psychological:
Abortion is a very serious, sensitive topic, and how we feel about it almost always has to do with our own experiences with it, or with people we know who have dealt with it. I think it's interesting that some people care about how strangers experience abortion separately from what their religious/political beliefs are.

Cultural:
People just have no idea what's going on. No one has enough information to make judgements about abortion, and people are bored talking about it because it's such an old argument.

Conclusion:
This podcast is about how opinion polling works when it comes to abortion, and I am very glad that someone is talking about this. I have always thought that peoples opinions about abortion had to be more complicated than they have been portrayed in the media ether, and that is EXACTLY what we're talking about here. People don't only believe one way or another. It's much more complicated than that.

Last note as always: I never claim to KNOW very many things, especially when we're talking about places I've never been, people I've never known, theories I've never tested, and experiences I've never had.

Democracy 2.0

The idea that the internet allows us to access all kinds on information sounds very exciting. Publicly available data has the potential to change how people get involved in politics. My knee jerk reaction, though, is that we can't expect our people to let go of their tight grip on apathy and get interested. Democracy will always be about who talks louder, not accurate representation of groups of individuals.
I think that expecting a conversation between representatives and constituents is a little naive, just like Pia says in her TED talk. There are too many people and too few officials for real, effective conversations.
I think that as people sit behind their computers judging politicians, and coming up with new and exciting ways for millennials to ignore politics, we should all remember that we hopefully have taken the time to educate ourselves about what it takes to make the big decisions we're criticizing.
Last note as always: I never claim to KNOW very many things, especially when we're talking about places I've never been, people I've never known, theories I've never tested, and experiences I've never had.

On the Media: Debunking Migration Memes

Impacts of social media: I think the impact of social media in this are pretty obvious. We're literally talking about social media memes.

CONTEXTS

Physical: We're talking about memes that are being shared on shared on social media sites in Europe.

Social: These memes are made either by people who have malicious intent, or people who are trying to be funny/relevant. The people who are seeing these stupid things online are the real problem because they are sustaining these ideas and themes, and they don't even really know how carelessly impactful they are being.

Psychological: The purpose of these memes is to cause people to think of refugees in a specific way: They are dangerous, deceitful people taking advantage of the people and the government. 

Cultural: I'm not sure if this is racism, or a cynical greed for hostility and antagonism. 

Temporal: Memes come from our young people, and our late generations. The way we use them is just like how propaganda posters were used in the past. People don't need to believe every part of what they're looking at because those ideas take root in our mind. I've heard about studies that show that people are likely to believe information even after it has been disproved. So even if people kind of know that it's wrong, they still kind of really believe it and that's what's happening here. 

Veracity: I think this might be the only On the Media post I do correctly because my answer for this section may always be the same. I think I have no business discussing the accuracy or authenticity of the information presented here because I don't know much else about it besides what I heard in this On the Media podcast or read about on the internet, and isn't that kind of what the problem is with this whole meme sharing thing? People don't know what the heck is going on because they're accepting information to be true which they do not know that validity of. 

That being said, I think it comes down to trust. Whose information can we trust to be reliable? I believe that memes are being posted all over social media in Europe, that they are a problem. The rest may all be speculation.

PERSONAL COMMENTS

There are parts of this story I don't understand such as: Who takes the time to make all these memes? Why are people circulating them? Why can't we all just get a long?

Last note as always: I never claim to KNOW very many things, especially when we're talking about places I've never been, people I've never known, theories I've never tested, and experiences I've never had.

Okay, here goes my first Correctly done On The Media post. The part of the show I'm focused on is the part about the World Trade Center terrorist attack. I listened as Brooke walked through the museum while describing her experience.
The museum opened in May of the year 2014. "The National September 11 Memorial Museum serves as the country's principle institution concerned with exploring the implications of the events of 9/11, documenting the impact of those events and exploring 9/11's continuing significance."  Brooke talks to [man] at one point about how they made decisions about the design of the museum, and that was the part I thought was VERY interesting. He talks about how they let the large space of the building speak for itself to describe the enormity of the event, and about how difficult it was to decide how severe to make it, while protecting the emotional wellbeing of those visitors who experienced the event, and those who know next to nothing about it. Can you imagine the emotionality of going through all the information to do with the attack and deciding how much to disclose to the patrons of the museum? I'm thinking about how emotional it was for me to think about the events of that day. While I was exploring 9/11 related information online, I was overwhelmed by what was out there. How much harder is it for people who were there? for the people who were nearby? People who lost family members? The struggle to balance the experiences of those people is the museum is mind boggling.
It's interesting to note, though, that when Brooke was there there weren't a lot of tears. Is this to do with the apathy of society these days? Meaningful healing? or the onset of forgetting? I feel like it's a combination of both healing and forgetting. This country has been through disasters before; natural disasters, war, poverty. This, I think is the natural process of healing. Event, immediate reaction, long term reaction, memorial, "museumification", neglect.
Kinda funny that they have a gift shop though, am I right?

True Crime

Let's talk about TRUE CRIME. It's a non-fiction genre of literature in which the author actually talks about elements of real crimes, and it has a really bad reputation of being kind of sleazy. It's kind of like a text version of COPS. 
Apparently, the difference between the really good true crime books, and the really trashy ones, is the position of the author. If the author writes as if the gory details are the most important part, then it turns into a creepy little story meant to raise the hair on your skin. If the author focuses on the real story, the whole thing, and the uncertainty of the ending of most of these stories, then the author has succeeded in representing the more authentic way of writing a true crime book.
Part of the criticism of true crime stories is that authors often aren't educated in psychology or familiar with case studies and information that would legitimize their work.
I think it's interesting that crime fiction is more acceptable to people in general because the crimes in the story never actually happened. It makes it okay for people to be interested in reading because it isn't real.

Ceaseless Celebration

I made a Facebook page! The name of my Facebook page is Ceaseless Celebration, and the purpose of this page is to make you aware of holidays and observances that you might've otherwise been utterly unaware of! I know, you're excited.

The plan is to post 1-2 times a day about the various exciting, and sometimes obscure, holidays and observances. The goal is to post articles, images, and videos featuring information about the holiday, and visuals of specific people celebrating these holidays. I will do my best to find people I actually know to showcase in these posts so that I can tag people as much as possible. People LOVE it when they're tagged on social media!

Personas of people I wanna target:

Ashley:
Millennial
Lives at home
Uncommitted
Limited attention span

Jennifer:
Middle aged
Empty nester
Self focused

Jim:
Procrastinator
Stoner
Impulsive

Racism?

Let's talk about racism... I am a little uncomfortable talking about this topic because I don't know what's right. I've been thinking a lot about this #blacklivesmatter movement, and there are a lot of other people talking about it too. And it seems EVERYONE else knows how to feel about it. I grew up color blind, and I don't mean I can't distinguish between red and green. I mean that I disregarded other's skin color. Recently, it's been brought to my attention that this is absolutely the wrong way to think about race and color because it disregards the struggles of individuals dealing with discrimination.
The #blacklivesmatter movement started as a response to the Trayvon Martin shooting and the acquittal of the alleged shooter, George Zimmerman. It grew to be a huge anti-racist, anti-police brutality movement across the whole country, and has become quite the controversial topic of conversation as more cases of racially motivated police brutality cases are brought into the public eye.
Some internet goers responded to this movement with another hashtag: #alllivesmatter. The interesting thing about this is how many different people are coming from similar perspectives, but disagreeing over whether or not the movement should be #blacklivesmatter or #alllives matter.
As for myself, I commonly come to the conclusion that everyone is a little wrong.

Here we go!

This is my first post of the semester and I'm not sure how formal I need to be. I've listened to a podcast about losing electronic data as a result of a natural disaster or technological growth titled "Digital Dark Age". There is more information to be lost than I can even imagine, so shouldn't there be a way to hold on to it?
Brooke Gladstone brings up the idea that we may be subjected to some kind of natural occurrence that may wipe out our electronic data. We're talking something like a sudden enormous solar flare, or the creeping decay of time. Information, if kept digitally only, my not survive a sudden disaster and will certainly not be immune to the decay of time.
Humans have also had a long history of destroying themselves or failing to retain important information with various media types. As we get excited about the technological industry, we leave the old tech behind never caring or worrying about how not to retain information stored on obsolete pieces of technology. Vinyl records might have made their way out of our lives if it hadn't been for the hipsters deciding that it's way cooler to keep them.
Now, we have to remember that when information is lost in these ways, it's not only "big picture" information like a recording of the lunar landing, or scientific data. We also will lose our personal data. Facebook photo albums, digital music, and electronic texts of all kinds. It's possible that, if all digital information is lost, we could be living in conditions similar to the 1400's. As a society we could forget everything.
In a panic, now, about how our digital data could possibly survive? We have retained information before using animal byproducts and resources like whale oil and calf skin, but these methods are not good enough. Digital DNA is a storage method involving using artificial DNA and seems to be very dependable especially when kept in the cold. It can last a very long time.
The problem with digital storage now becomes one of responsibility. What entity should be responsible for spending the money to begin such an intense, expensive project? This is where I start to falter a little. My knee jerk reaction is to put all responsibility on the government, but that means taking more money from us to make that happen. And then, how do we get the cooperation of other governments to work together on this one. Other cultures may not feel that it's important enough, or they may not be willing to work together to make it happen.
Let us hope, together, that we figure this mess out before our day of digital reckoning.