Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Our Relationship With Technology, Technology's Relationship With Us

There is definitely, without a doubt, an impact technology has made on our society. 
But what is technology?

At first glance you may think of this, but what if I were to tell you it goes much deeper than that

Back in caveman times the wheel was the latest and greatest technology, which turned to fire, which turned to tools, boats, steel, the light bulb, the printing press, the telegraph, antibiotics, the steam engine, the car, the world wide web, and has now evolved into the computer in your pocket.
By definition, the term Technology is simply defined as "the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes"


As far as our relationship with technology goes, we have to much further define technology

If you were to ask me about our relationship with technology

Written Language
Light Blub
  

As opposed to our relationship with technology

Streaming Services
Computer Phones



I would give you two completely different answers!

One helped us grow, and learn, and invent, and create heightened our possibilities as a race through use of new and interesting and complicated means and the other keeps the majority of us busy and distracted from fulfilling our lives with meaningful purpose by entertaining us mainly through a screen comprised of tiny dots that change colors

I would say our relationship with older technologies and some modern technologies (Mainly the ones aimed at helping man kind, even thought there are some opposing theories on what is considered "good for it mainly with "surveillance" in mind) was / is relatively good. We conquered the unknown and molded it to our needs to move forward up the evolution chain
    -The wheel aided the transport and later the agricultural industries
    -The light blub helped social order after dark, extended work hours, increased productivity, etc
    -The printing press was the first step to sharing large amounts of information quickly
    -etc.
    
And I would say modern technologies mainly focusing on entertainment and social media have set us back a bit. The World Wide Web for example, 
People think that because we have the WWW / Internet we are somehow better simply because we have it now but the recoil happens when people don't go out to learn things anymore because they know any question they have in a google search away. 

But it didn't start this way, many original designs for these now corrupted sources of distractions were not intended to be used the way they are today
    -The first automobile gave people personal freedom and access to a plethora of other jobs 
    -YouTube (I had to mention it) just wanted to be a platform that help people share videos easier
    -The first telephone cut communication time down to almost instantly

From humble beginnings, these inventions have crumbled
    -Through the convenience of the automobile, people drive *everywhere* polluting the air and 
       neglecting their physical health    
    - 500 hours or watch time are uploaded to YouTube every second and I can guarantee you that
        not all of it is helpful, educational, and in some instances legal or ethical.

    -People don't use their phones as phones anymore, they use them to access social media and
        scroll 
looking at the same thing, depictions of the perfect life, their friend's picture of their kale 
        salad they had for lunch that day, or other meaningless garbage that they will then "like" and
        then forget about it the next day

Clearly I'm passionate about the topic but I'm not wrong am I

I mean, I'm a part of the demographic that social media like Instagram and Snapchat is supposed to be pandered towards, I am their target audience, and to me it's just the most useless waste of time but since all of my generation is on it, I feel the need to post just so people don't think I'd dead. Yes I know social media is not totally useless, I know from personal experience
    - It's connected me to people of whom I didn't have their number / email
    - It helped me contact a small business
    - It once helped me start marketing for my own small business
    - etc 
but regardless, I'd be just fine without it. 
My most recent post on Instagram was in January in which I had shown I had gotten a hair cut and realized afterwards that the only people that will care that I've gotten a hair cut will eventually see it in real life. (Thank you Randy Feltface, great comedian, check him out)

So, what can we do about it
well, there's some educational stuff on the internet so we'll want to keep that, the creative stuff too, political stuff may be annoying sometimes but it's helpful to have around, marketing also annoying but it helps businesses big and small, keep communications cause that's important, maybe get rid of the nonsensical garbage on the internet but that's funny sometimes so let's keep it, 

ummmmmmmmm
I don't know
I don't know what to do, I don't know what we can do, I don't know what we should do

I do think though, that with focus and determination one can have a health relationship with technology

I mean, right now I'm writing this on mu laptop, the same laptop that has my favorite game installed onto it and it's taking every fiber of my will power to not just play it now but I'm not, I am holding together, writing this to you

As an ending thought...
Yes technology has brought on some new problems, but it has also brought on new solutions, it just comes with change

Keep in mind that while technology can connect you to the possibilities of the world, you have to take the step to go out and achieve those possibilities

How Old Policies Affect Today

In 1800 they had no idea what the internet was yet the Sherman Anti-Trust Act made in 1800 affect us through the internet today. How?


It was a legislation passed to break up monopolies at the time

No, not those kinds of monopolies
One of the biggest at the time was the Standard Oil Company founded by John D

It was later replaced by the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914 and eliminated
    Price Fixing, Bid Rigging, and Market Allocation among competitors aka horizontal agreements

You can learn more about it in the Sherman Anti Trust Act section of this presentation


Modern day monopolies like
Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, etc.
exist and are affected by this Act today


Such as the time when... 
"The House Antitrust Subcommittee determined Facebook wielded monopoly powers in social network and has maintained its position by acquiring, copying, or killing its competitors, according to a report they released" (quoted from the Sherman Anti Trust Act section of this presentation)

The report for the Democratic majority staff, handling antitrust concerns regarding Amazon, Apple, and Google's parent company Alphabet, recommend that Congress revise and consider some possible courses of action / change, including "structural separation," -the requirement of companies to split parts of their businesses up.-
    For instance, Facebook could be forced to split up from acquired services such as Instagram and
    WhatsApp, competitors they previously bought up to rid themselves of competition and to
    heighten their influential power

"The report also recommends that Congress consider any acquisition by the big tech companies to be anticompetitive unless the companies can prove that the merger would be in the public's benefit and could not be otherwise achieved."

Hope this helps

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Quick Terms and Concepts

I'll introduce some terms / concepts that might help you better understand the media in terms of 

Awareness, the Media Sphere, Theories and Policies

Click on the definition to learn more

First up is Awareness

Propaganda: Media or news used to push an agenda, call people to action, influence an audience
Disinformation: The deliberate or intentional spread of false information
Smith-Mundt Act: Allowed "materials produced by the State Department and the BBG to be
                                   disseminated within the US"
Total Information Awareness: A mass detection program that wants to improve on the ability to
                                                       detect, classify, and identify foreign terrorists
False Flag: The act of hiding the real source and putting blame on someone / something else
Five Eyes: An intelligence alliance comprised of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United
                    Kingdom, and the United States

https://www.essexinteractive.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/icon-socia-media-marketing.png

Next is the MediaSphere

MSM (Mainstream Media): The various big brand media and news sources regarded as a collective
Alternative Media: The media and news sources that aren't mainstream, smaller, underground
Echo Chamber: An area where news, information, etc is never challenged but rather reinforced
Whistleblower:  Someone who reports things a company is doing that are illegal or endanger others
Online Influencers: A credible internet user who persuades others to act from their
                                     recommendations
Citizen Journalism: The public collecting, deciding, and analyzing news / information on the web


Up next, Theories

Illusory Truth Effect: The fact that when you hear false information repeated, it becomes true to
                                        you
Confirmation Bias: The tendency to only seek out / intake information that supports one's ideals
Gatekeeping: The decision of who can access what information
Agenda Setting: The idea that the media tends to report and set a kind of agenda based on their
                              topics
Overton Window: A model for why ideas change over time and how they can affect politics
Spiral of Silence: A models for why sways in public opinion occur


Lastly, Policies

Sherman Anti-Trust Act: Congress's first measure in prohibiting trusts 
Media Consolidation: The concentration of news sources into fewer corporations
Vertical Integration: A strategy to control a company's value / supply chain by owning its suppliers,
                                     distributers, etc
Net Neutrality: The basic principle where internet service providers cannot block content 
News Deserts: An area that lacks access to credible and comprehensive  news that feeds democracy
Cord Cutting: The process of people quitting traditional tv services and moving to cable / satellite 


It's not much today but keep these in mind when formulating your next thought on a subject :)



Whistleblowers in the MediaSphere

 

https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5fe21e7bcc9a7f41de5193e8/960x0.png?cropX1=0&cropX2=1051&cropY1=11&cropY2=603

No, they aren't literally "whistle blowers" with a whistle and maybe a reflective jacket, no
Whistleblowers (without the space in between) are much more important that your local referee for your cousin's soccer game
They even have their own national center

"A whistleblower is someone who reports waste, fraud, abuse, corruption, or dangers to public health and safety to someone who is in the position to rectify the wrongdoing" 

and 

"Whistleblowing is the act of disclosing information that you reasonably believe is evidence of a violation of any law, rule, or regulation, or gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety."



  • They typically work in or at the organization or business they file their reports about but don't necessarily have to
  • Whistleblower identities are kept confidential
  • They are offered financial rewards for to help with prosecutions
  • The title empowers citizens to step up and speak out about things that would otherwise go unchecked and unfixed
  • There are laws protecting whistleblowers if their identity is revealed and the organization in question takes legal actions to discredit them
  • Whistleblower reports are overviewed and addressed by a neutral party to avoid bias
Keeping Whistleblowers safe and free to report the truth for the benefit of the general population
http://blog.richmond.edu/heroes/files/2020/04/whistleblower-hero.jpeg




But this blog is about media and communication technologies and the laws surrounding them

How does Whistleblowing reach the MediaSphere?

To a journalist, a whistleblower is just another term for credible anonyms source, the best kind. 
Most corruption leaks out into the media because people on the inside, these whistleblowers, report not only to "someone who is in the position to rectify the wrongdoing" but also The Media 
                                             but that's when journalists have to get careful 

"Leaking can go beyond whistleblowing" as quoted again from the National Whistleblowing Center because it "often involves the unauthorized release of sensitive material, some of it valuable to the public." 
So, the whistleblowers job is to report to "someone who is in the position to rectify the wrongdoing" and when they don't do that, by reporting to the media, "they can be charged with a crime" 
hence why they might be so keen to stay anonyms 

Some super famous cases involve...
Edward Snowden, he basically exposed a whole bunch of NSA Secrets learn more
You can see him talk more about it in this YOUTUBE VIDEO, what a way to relate back


Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning worked together, Chelsea being the whistleblower and Julian being the founder of WikiLeaks, to expose the US Army with information like the 
https://shadowproof.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Screen-Shot-2020-02-20-at-6.12.27-PM.png

Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers, containing secrets on the Pentagon regarding the Vietnam War
etc.

So, as future or current journalists, producers, directors, etc. remember

  • Know the Laws - to protect yourself and the whistleblower
  • Protect Anonymity - so they don't end up going to jail, getting fired, being sued, etc
  • Understand what the whistleblower is risking by coming to you with their information
  • Different Whistleblowers have different rules they have to follow
    • "While the Whistleblower Protection Act protects public employees' rights to speak out about misconduct, it does no apply to members of the intelligence committee, since they work in a classified environment where the information is usually sensitive or secret"

Monday, April 19, 2021

Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations Theory

Not every new technology is going to take off, and those who do seem to follow a certain pattern, but what is this pattern, it's called 

Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations Theory
The theory that all innovations such as new technologies and new ideas follow a specific pattern of growth

it comes with its own diagram

An interesting presentation on this subject can be found on SlidetoDoc.com

But it can apply to anything, and I mean anything, Here's one dedicated to Netflix alone

https://celluloidjunkie.com/2015/01/19/movie-theatres-face-inevitable-netflix-effect/

As far as YouTube goes, since that's bee a trending topic on this blog, let's make a Diffusion of Innovations Diagram for YouTube

A whole timeline can be found at IntrestingEngineering.com but for now I'll mention the dates I think are most important

April 2005 - The first YouTube video was uploaded  titled "Me at the Zoo"
September 2005 - YouTube gets it's first video with 1 million views, a Nike ad
January 2009 - US Congress and the Vatican open their own YouTube Channels,  
October 2012 - First time YouTube partners with ABC to live stream presidential debate
March 2013 - YouTube reaches 1 billion unique monthly visitors

Making our graph look a little like this

While YouTube is still very popular today, and some dates might change in this diagram as time goes go, this pretty much resembles YouTube's history along the Diffusion of Innovations Theory

Friday, April 16, 2021

Antiwar? What's That!

  Have you ever heard of ANTIWAR.COM or The American Conservative

Yeah, Me neither

But I mean, it's not surprising. The government is always trying to censor Antiwar voices since...ALWAYS

We just only notice when there's a war going on and it's blatantly obvious but more so because those voices are left out of the mainstream media on a regular basis

Regardless of gender, age, race, and most noticeably, political spectrum, nobody seems to like war, and who would...

Well, the government


On the economics side of things anyway

THINK ABOUT IT

  • It Provides Jobs 
  • Manufacturing Thrives
  • More people wan to buy weapons and ammo
  • Money moves at a faster rate
You can read more in this Article: The Pros and Cons of War by Stefan Grasso

All that being said, I still appreciate not being in war times right now




Predecessor of YouTube, Traditional Television

https://www.brandknewmag.com/youtube-vs-tv-where-should-advertisers-stand-in-the-battle-of-the-boxes/

While my latest post about YouTube informed you as to its original purpose of being a solution to the lack of an easily accessible and user friendly video sharing platform, its main product are the videos themselves. People usually log on to YouTube to watch videos of all genres for all purposes!

and what better transition to today's post than to take a blast to the past, *don't feel too old now* 😂 

✨Traditional Television✨

https://entertainism.com/who-invented-television

While I did not make this image, it is a very good one, found here

Some Facts

  • 1927 - Philo Taylor Farnsworth created the world's first electronic television in his 20s
  • 1938 - American electronic television sets were produced and released commercially
  • 1955 - The first wireless remote was released
  • 1951 - CBS's first colored TV program ran
  • 1966 - CBS took the lead in bringing colored films and programming to all television
  • 1993 - 98% of American households owned a TV
  • 2005 - Flat screen TVs were introduced

I learned about this in school from a girl named Evelyn who did a nice presentation on it 

But tough luck TV, YouTube's got you there too *dramatic dun, dun, dunnnnn*



Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Overview on Youtube

Youtube is the number one video sharing platform currently
but how did it get here?

Founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, and Steve Chen


YouTube's original purpose was to be a simple video sharing site where people could upload, share, and watch video content without restrictions but has evolved into what it is today with

500 hours of watch content posted every minute

And is making itself out to be a decent living for strong content creators by taking advantage of
The Youtube Partner Program and Google's AdSense
 











With the Partner Program:                                            With Google AdSense:
Creators have access to a lot more                                 Creators can earn money by selling ad space in
recourses and features that can turn                               their videos that they upload
their videos into revenue                                        
                                                                                                Learn more here at 
You can read more about the                                                  Google AdSense
Partner Program and its eligibility at
     YouTube Partner Program    
      Overview and Eligibility      

A good timeline of events can be found at Interesting Engineering's article on YouTube which features a nearly month by month timeline of YouTube history from 2005 to 2020

Like anything, YouTube is going to come with its

      Advantages                         and                      Disadvantages

            - Free                                                                                    - If you plan to post and make money
            - Integration with Google AdSense                                        you'll most likely need an editor
            - Clean and Clear                                                                 - YouTube doesn't supply any 
            - Stay up to Date                                                                     equipment 
            - Easy to Use                                                                        - Copyright issues occur
            - Easy Rating and Feedback System                               - Privacy infringements occur 
            - Privacy Features                                                               - Not all videos are suitable for 
            - Safe Browsing                                                                       children yet children can access it
            - Quick Access                                                                      - YouTube can take down your 
            - Wide Variety of Videos and Categories                                 account
            - Easily Share Videos through other Social                    - YouTube has a LOT of rules
              Media outlets through YouTube

The main Advantage / Disadvantage topic I see when it comes to YouTube is Money
While YouTube may be free, it isn't necessarily 

If you just want to browse through YouTube, looking and laughing amongst yourself or friends, then yeah, YouTube is free, You don't need to pay for anything.

If you're trying to be on the other side of that, starting a channel to make some money by posting video content for others to browse through with themselves or friends, then that's a different story

While using YouTube just to post your video may be free, the video equipment in order to film is not

Successful YouTubers have professional lighting, audio, video, effects, sets, products, editors, sponsors, etc and I can promise you, it wasn’t cheap

In this sense, YouTube can be seen as a fairly gated community where the rich are successful and make money off of their professional video content whereas the not so well off only have a camera and post only their raw footage because they don’t have the means nor the knowledge to change them but that’s where YouTube is unique again

Some people may only have a camera and others may have the whole shabang and they are all equally uploaded to the same site and it comes down to talent and presence

While the professional may look the part, if they aren’t funny for a comedy channel or informative for an information channel, they aren’t going to get the likes whereas if the guy with only a camera is hilarious for his comedy channel or really knowledgeable for his information channel, people are going to want to visit that channel, maybe even that video again. They’re going to show their friends and they’ll do the same. Eventually, as time passes ans that simple channel gains in popularity, that content creator will get paid and be able to afford all the expensive things he needs for his channel to grow even further.

It’s the quality of the content that matters and the equipment can only get one so far. In the end, it’s you who is in front of the camera  

That’s why I think YouTube is so special. It’s a great opportunity for talent that might be overlooked due to pretty much anything to blossom into it’s full potential to go farther than it could have without it. 

Tuesday, April 6, 2021

A New Age of AI

When it comes to the age of AI

Do I think that the age of AI and mass automation already here? Yes

China already cashierless super markets and uses facial recognition for payment
Embark has already developed self driving trucks, they still have a driver but it's only a safety measure

Do I think that automation will create a lot* of new challenges that we need to overcome? Yes

Half of Americans can't afford a $400 sudden expense, so when a robot takes your job and you're out of
    work for a week, a month, a year, it can do a lot of damage.
There's already self ordering at fast food chains while cashiering is the #1 job in the greater DC region

Do I think this could be really helpful? Yes

Doctors are using AI to try to diagnose breast cancer earlier in development, when it is easier to remove and trying to detect when surgery is or isn't needed to stop some unnecessary procedures. 

Do I think this could be really dangerous? Yeah

The world of computers and AI are trying to make things easier, more efficient, more personalized to the individual but what I can see happening is a world so personalized to each individual that they
only see what they want to see and never learn new things
only see things that they agree with and become closed minded, isolated 

Do I think that because of these challenges we should stop? No

I do think that this will be, in all honesty, really hard for the world as a whole.
While automation's main goal is to make lifestyle easier and businesses more efficient, the side effects can't be ignored, automation is not only coming for blue collar but white collar jobs as well
It's a constant back and forth

Automation is good it's making businesses more efficient > It's replacing workers > History's seen this before, those workers will evolve into different kinds of jobs > We don't know that > But it could happen > etc. etc.

While I think on the social justice side of things, I think we should hold back a little
We can barely get our society to function equality across race, gender, sexual identity, sexual preference, etc.
If we can't even teach ourselves to be equal, how can we teach an AI, when the ones at the top running everything that ever was are white men, a demographic that not only has next to no persecution in history but also holds the place as probably the most racist demographic 

A great link to see some inequality in AI already is this article right here
Who is Making Sure the AI Machines Aren't Racist