Final Blog Post

Digital technology is definitely expanding as time goes on. When I was in middle school I was only just being introduced to the world of social media - and looking back now even that seems young. Today, it seems that the age of children that use social media and digital technology just gets lower. The app Tik Tok just came out a little over two years ago and is currently one of the most widely used social media apps. Sometimes when I am on Tik Tok, I see kids as young as seven or eight years old posting to the app. This thought is scary to me because when I was seven years old I was not concerned about anything digital technology but rather I was enjoying my childhood years. Social media has filters to what people can and cannot post, but users still find a way around it. Most of these social media apps have a minimum age requirement to join due to the content which can sometimes be inappropriate that is shared across these platforms. It is dangerous when children lie about their age to gain access to these social media platforms because they are exposed to many things that they should not know: foul language, graphic content, and in some cases even sexual content. This is an issue that needs to be taken more seriously as the age of children using these social media platforms continues to decrease. 

I am guilty of being slightly addicted to my phone, my screen time is probably higher than it should be, and recently I have been trying to work on limiting my phone usage. With an invention like the iPhone, everything is right in front of me. I can text, call, get news, make purchases, and so many more at my fingertips thanks to my iPhone. Since I have been using an iPhone since I was in sixth grade, I have formed a dependency on it that is slightly damaging to my mental health at times. Social media paints a certain standard that many people, including young girls, fall victim to believing. Cyberbullying and low self-esteem have definitely risen drastically since I first started using digital technology. While many measures are taken like social movements to spread body positivity and put an end to cyberbullying, it still takes place every day.

My major is Social Media & Digital Communication, so digital technology is a huge part of my life. I am constantly using digital technology and social media to find new strategies to improve my knowledge within my major and help me be successful in school, but that does not mean I can’t limit my usage of it. However, digital technology helps me in many ways. One of the most fascinating ways I use digital technology is how it helps me stay in touch. For a few years, my cousins lived in Australia and my uncle currently lives in London, so whenever I need to talk to them, I can do so thanks to digital technology. It makes it extremely easy to contact family and friends to stay in touch with. Another example is how I keep in touch with my grandparents - since COVID-19 I have not seen them often, but my uncle created an app called Speak2Family that allows my brothers and I to send voice messages, videos, and pictures to them that plays through their Alexa to help them stay in touch with us. I have four brothers, and most of them don't live at home with me and are scattered across New York, so if I ever need to catch up with them or Facetime my brother to see my nephew, I can do so quickly. My parents and grandparents did not grow up in a digital era, so they do not use their phones or social media and see no desire to it, but they do find it useful to contact my brothers and me.

Katie Smith is probably one of the most generic, American, names - so Google searches are not very handy when looking me up unless you had very specific information about my life. This probably will benefit me in many ways in the future. For those with less of a common name like some of my friends, social media pictures, social media accounts, sports teams, and hometowns come up when you type their name in on Google. This is something that not many realize when posting to social media - employers can find your social media accounts very quickly and it is important to watch what we post online because it stays there forever. Technology is amazing in many ways and has helped the world advance immensely, but not all technology is used in a positive light, and that is something we all should keep in mind as we go about our day-to-day life.

Blog #10: Gatekeeping Theory

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To put it broadly, the Gatekeeping Theory is the process of selecting, and then filtering, items of media to be presented to an audience. It takes the countless pieces of information into the limited number of messages that reach people each day, and it is the center of the media's role in modern public life. There are people that take information on millions of events and turn it into a subset of media messages, these people are called mediators. A task like narrowing all the potential messages to so few seems nearly impossible, but there is a tedious process that makes it happen every day.  There can be several different news outlets reporting on the same incident, and each news source can give a different message about the incident to their audience. 

It is important to note that gatekeeping is not censorship. Gatekeeping is about maintaining the quality of the content and its relevancy. Censorship is the removal of discussions about what the controller sees as disagreeable topics.

On social media, I often see people trying to gatekeep. For example, I have been on Tik Tok and a video will pop up where a girl is wearing a really cute outfit. In the comments of the video, people will ask her where her outfit is from, and she will not respond. People then will comment "Why are you gatekeeping clothes??" This is how I originally thought to use the term "gatekeeping" until I researched it for my second EOTO project in a way that focuses more on the media sources. 

There are five factors that go into the process of gatekeeping: 

1. Individual: this would be a journalist who reports on the news & has the most influence over a news article 

2. Routine: themes shown in the news and other media is always in a pattern, meaning that media organizations have schedules to follow and have a specific time for each category 

3. Organization: media organizations have their own views, agendas, and propaganda. These organizations also have to follow certain rules and ethics

4. Extra-media: most media organizations are governed by related ppl in organizations & institutions who have a say in what is published, like sponsors, advertisers, government, etc. This is a really important factor because it suggests that media companies are highly influenced by financial supporters. This means that negative views associate associated w these related companies will not pass through the “gate” for publication 

5. Ideology: societal ideologies must be followed by the media as it influences what is reported. The norms and values of people must be respected by the media.

Gatekeeping has a huge impact on society as a whole today, especially currently where misinformation is constantly being spread. It is very easy to become a reporter today since there is such easy access to technology, anybody can share information on the internet. Gatekeeping is needed now more than ever because of clickbait, fake news, and misinformation. People want honest news, that does not push a certain agenda or bias - but these are very hard to find. An article has shown that only 44% of people trust the media. There is still a need for news that is credible without too much distortion of the truth. Media sources have gained a lot of online presence through the rise of social media and as a consequence, the role of gatekeeping has turned into "audience gatekeeping". Audience gatekeeping is the process in which users share news-items and comment on them based their own opinions, which leads to people retelling and redistributing news agendas.

Gatekeeping is a controlling process and is influenced through many areas within the media organizations. The question this begs is: to what extent can we really trust the media, to provide us with unbias, truthful, honest news, that is not subjective to opinion, political, or financial incentives? 

Blog: #9 : Diffusion of Innovations

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I have recently learned a lot about Twitter through the research project we have done on EOTO technology. The Diffusion of Innovations is a theory that looks to explain how, why, and the rate technology spreads. 

In the graph, it shows how people react to technology over time. When using this theory for Twitter, it makes a lot of sense to me. Professor Smith talked about how he was a "pioneer", or as labeled in the graph, "innovator" for Twitter. Two years before Twitter launched, they did a test trial on people to see how the public would use Twitter before it officially launched to the public. Early Adopters would be people like myself. Twitter launched in 2007; I started my Twitter account in 2014 and have been using it as a daily form of social media since then. 

I believe that so many people became early adopters to Twitter because of the same reason I did; it was a way to find out information and keep in touch with friends and anyone with a bigger platform who released beneficial news to their followers. Since Twitter is easily accessible, as well as quick and easy to use, it attracted many early adopters. Twitter also spread through word of mouth, it was very up and coming in the first couple of years after it was launched to the public.

This is how the five stages of the adoption process were for me when discovering Twitter: 

• Knowledge/Awareness: this is when I was in 7th grade (slightly too young to be using Twitter), but everyone in my class was starting to use it and it was a very popular form of social media. 
• Persuasion: I was interested to find out how my favorite celebrities were using Twitter as they constantly were promoting their Twitter accounts on other social media platforms. 
• Decision: I used the Twitter app to keep in touch with my friends as well as find out new information about celebrities. Once I realized how much time I was spending on the app, I decided I would continue to use it
• Implementation: I looked at how Twitter was impacting my daily life, I found it useful for what I was looking for through the app which was staying in the loop with what celebrities and my friends were up to every day. 
• Confirmation/Continuation: I decided that Twitter was a great source for me to de-stress and there were many ways that I could use Twitter for my own benefit. I confirmed to myself that I would become a daily user of Twitter and still use it for the same reasons to this day. 

While Twitter has become very popular, there are many people who do not use Twitter and have no interest in doing so. My parents are an example of these "Laggards". They believe that at their age, there is no reason for them to have social media as they struggle with new technology as it is. This is a reason many people do not use new, trending social media apps. Another reason is that people do not see Twitter as resourceful for them, or they simply just do not see a desire in any social media. There are many negatives in addition to positives when it comes to using Twitter, but I personally believe that there are more positives than negatives. 

Blog #8: EOTO Presentations Review

 

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I found the EOTO group presentation project very informative and fun. I enjoyed my topic, Twitter, and found out many things I did not know from my group partners as well as from other groups. 

From the first group, I learned that Google bought Youtube for $1.6B. This was interesting to find out because I did not know that Google and Youtube had a partnership or that Google was willing to put that much money into it. There is always the risk of one company buying from another one and having it not be as successful as they hoped for. Luckily, Youtube continues to stay thriving and Google is probably making a good profit. I use Youtube often, but I did not know that their subscription costs $64.99 a month. That price seems extremely high for a streaming subscription as most are in the $10-$15 a month range. I really enjoyed learning about Youtube from the first group and also was informed that the highest-paid Youtuber makes around $24 million dollars a year and is only eight years old. The fact that the job of a Youtuber is one of the most sought out jobs in the world does not surprise me - it looks very fun to create content on Youtube, and big Youtubers have major success. Who would want to stress about school, just to get a desk job when you can make money creating content for others, anyway? 

I learned from the second group that the printing press was invented in 1450. I was surprised at this because it seems like inventions like the printing press usually are not made until the 1800s. I also learned that the World Wide Web was not invented until 1989. I never really thought about when it was first invented, but I would not have expected it to be that recent. 1989 was only 32 years ago, and at first, it had no buttons or pictures. When we look at how much it has expanded since then it is almost mind-blowing. I learned a lot about video streaming from the last group. I am not really invested in gaming or streamers, but it is a whole side of the internet that has a wide fanbase and attracts many. 

It was especially interesting for me to learn about many of these topics that I was not familiar with, and I thoroughly enjoyed finding out new things. Learning about the invention of technology is always fascinating because many of these technologies did not come out that long ago, and now most people cannot imagine living their lives without them.

Blog #6: Twitter

 

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Twitter was founded on March 21st, 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams. Jack Dorsey was a software engineer with the idea of finding an easy way to share his friends status' at any given moment. He wanted to create a communication platform where people could share their status at any day and time. The founder of Odeo, Biz Stone liked the idea. Eventually, Dorsey, Stone, and Williams decided that they would keep it simple yet effective and created a 140 character limit on the text. By August 2006, Twitter was officially launched to the world. 

Twitter is defined as a platform that allows you to share real-time, thoughts, information, and links with the Web at large and to be able to communicate directly, privately, or publically with other users. The unique part of Twitter is that users can share their status at any time but cannot exceed the 140 character limit. Twitter is easily accessible, as you do not need to have a Twitter account to view tweets and can get to Twitter via safari or phone app. 

Twitter is used in many different forms. There are many "sides" of Twitter that allow nearly anyone to find something that interests them. The platform is used for keeping in touch, activism, entertainment, business, news, and discussion. I personally use Twitter if I need a good laugh or if I am interested in what's "trending". 

Since Twitter is so widely used on the daily, new things are trending every day. Most times the things trending is what is going on in the world or media at the current moment. There are also several other tabs that users can find news, sports, fun, or entertainment. It is extremely simple to find something on Twitter because all it takes is a simple search and Twitter will bring you to what you are looking for with a keyword. 

Twitter is widely used as a top social networking platform, and many celebrities use Twitter which influences their fans to create accounts in order to keep up with them. It is important to note that unless it is from a verified source, you should not trust everything you see on Twitter. Since it does not take much to create a Twitter account, almost anybody can make one. People use Twitter to share their thoughts, feelings, and opinions which oftentimes are biased. If you are looking for a verified source on Twitter, your best bet would be to go under the "News" tab and look for a verified source. 

Some recent statistics and fun facts about Twitter are: 

• Twitter has over 340 million users
• There are over 500 million tweets sent per day 
• The AD revenue from Twitter in the U.S in 2020 was $1.6 billion 
• 71% of Twitter users use Twitter to get their news
• The Twitter app has 11.7+ million downloads from the App Store

Blog #5: Artificial Intelligence

 

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There have been too many times where I was discussing something about a product - and the next thing I know, it is in my recommended browser on my iPhone or laptop. The question "Is the government listening to me?" has been a recent question over the past few years as more people began to notice that their algorithms were matching up with something they said or looked up. 

Artificial Intelligience (AI), is demonstrated by machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions or any machine that exhibits traits associated with the human mind like learning or problem-solving. AI runs on and is fueled by data, and it continues to grow every day. I remember when the car Tesla first came out and everybody thought it was basically the future. Now, I see Tesla's everywhere I go. The growth of AI is rapidly increasing as the world now relies more on digital technology. The thought of AI is fascinating to many but also leaves some skeptical. 

As we browse through Google, we are allowing Google to hold records of our browsing history, GPS location, and data. All those times when we are on websites and before we are allowed to continue we have to "accept the cookies" - that is basically how we are getting advertisements targeted to us while on different websites. Google takes our browsing history and compiles an algorithm in a recommended column on our browser. Since I am an avid online shopper, if I am looking at dresses on a specific website, later on, I will be shown a selection of dresses in the side bar of a different website. This is where the question of whether or not the government is listening to us comes in. I personally believe that Google complying with all of my browsing histories is a little creepy, and I can't help but wonder where else it is being shared. As AI evolves, it increases the ability to use personal information in ways that intrude on privacy interests. 

Amazon's Alexa is another controversy that has many questioning if it is storing out information and voices. Technically, Amazon's Alexa is always listening. Alexa does hold our data based on what we ask her to do but it goes a little bit beyond getting advertisements on our browsers. Alexa knows our shopping lists, our music, and uses it as a marketing strategy to direct Amazon products to us. 

It is also a little unsettling that facial recognition is used for so much today. In China, facial recognition is used for nearly everything and they even pay with it. Apple came out with facial recognition that allows users to unlock their phones and purchases all through a simple smile. To many, this feels like an invasion of privacy, but Apple and iPhone still continue to be widely used. AI leaves many worrying about taking labor away from humans. Wired magazine analyses the way AI changes and advances. Wired believes that AI will most definitely start to take jobs away from people within the next few years 

While there are many factors of AI that leave us skeptical, there are also benefits to AI. AI is advancing to learn how to stop cyber threats and identity breaches. As we give websites our information, phone number, email, etc., we are increasing the risk of spam/threats to our privacy. AI is programmed to recognize when there is a threat to our security and stop it before it happens. Another positive of AI is that it helps cure deadly diseases such as cancer, by using advanced technology to be able to detect a cancerous cell. 

Artificial Intelligence is not going anywhere anytime soon, but as the world continues to grow in digital technology at different speeds, we can understand patterns and what to look out for. The world is turning digital and new inventions are constantly coming out, but I believe that artificial intelligence is here to stay.

Blog #3: Marketplace of Ideas

 

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The traditional "marketplace of ideas" was intended to justify freedom of speech in terms of optimal outcomes in the production of truth. John Mill said that when truth and falsehood are allowed to freely grapple, the truth will win out - and that the grappling makes the truth stronger.

 Thanks to digital technology, information seems to be available at any time. However, because anybody can share their thoughts on the internet, cultural biases sometimes get in the way of the spread of information. John Mill believed that nobody truly knew the truth, or that no one idea alone embodies the truth. Mill claims that the free competition of ideas is the best way to separate falsehoods from fact. 

Looking at the most recent presidential election, candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden had broadcasted debates to help American voters hear their policies and ideas, and help voters choose who they want to vote for. The presidential debates have a big influence on how the election will go and candidates are meant to be camera-ready. Throughout these debates, both candidates have made claims that have been fact-checked by verified sources. 

In the 2020 Presidental Debate, both Trump and Biden were fact-checked many times. For example, Trump claimed that the COVID-19 antibody treatment was a "cure" when in reality it is not. At the time of this debate, there was no "cure" for COVID-19, and researchers checked with the FDA to confirm. Biden's claim that Trump's plan could defund Social Security was also proven to be a false claim. There are many more claims from both candidates that were proven to be false, but it goes to show that viewers cannot believe everything they see in the media. 

People always want to be right and support their candidate. Trump and Biden's supporters believe what their candidate says is true and try to justify their claims despite being fact-checked by people who actually did the research. People can say whatever they want, even if it's not true but as long as it does not harm anyone they can say it. The marketplace of ideas justifies this as freedom of speech and would argue with something like censorship. 

With social media apps such as Twitter, people are allowed to say whatever they want due to the First Amendment and freedom of speech. After the debate, many people went on to Twitter trying to justify their candidate's claims even when it was false information.  Everyone wants their truth to be the real one, but just as John Mill says, "the truth will win out".