Participatory culture- Blogging

The participatory culture that I contribute to is Blogging. Blogging is an online community of social networking. People share their views and thoughts about various topics and publish them on the Internet for the public to see. Blogging is becoming so popular that news companies look to bloggers in the general area of an accident for information if they themselves cannot access the scene or, are where the breaking news has occurred. They allow people to express their own opinions on people and news that are around them. 

Although I think that I have only scratched the surface of the blogging world I do think that I have brought some interesting information to the table. I do not think I have experienced the full effect of blogging because an important part of blogging itself is to have feed back. Even though I have sent my blogging link to friends and family I have yet to experience the opinion from a person I have no relation to. I think that if I were to have both negative and positive feed back that it would help my blogging abilities. Thus far I think I have done an okay job, considering in the beginning I was a little scared of what people were going to think, or say about my thoughts and opinions on the topics I have chose. 

But I have come to realize that blogging is no different than having a facebook. I publicized my life on a social net work I have pictures, friends and family  personal information that I freely gave away thinking that only my friends were able to see it. Really in comparison this blog does not fully publicize who I am only my thoughts and opinions are exposed. Although I am sure that if someone wanted to pish information from me they could leave my blog page with quite a bit of information to help them along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

Culture Jamming

Culture jamming is the destruction of a mass media or communication to illustrate a negative view of itself. We usually see culture jamming in an activist form, a social movement against commercialism. To be blunt, culture jamming is simply standing up for what we believe is wrong with a situation at hand. For example, if someone were to be a vegetarian and walked over to KFC and posted a picture of a dead chicken in a KFC bucket, and people were to notice the poster, that would be culture jamming. Standing up for what we see is wrong with the mass media and drawing attention to that problem by raising awareness where it all began.

Culture jamming sometime includes transforming a mass media into an ironic satirical illustration of itself using the medias original communication method of posters, commercials, billboards and much more. It is also known as media hacking, information warfare, terror art and guerilla semiotics all in one. Culture jammers  are all about exposing politics and corporations that use the media to control our behaviors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cjBhc3CZPE&feature=related

Mark Dery, The Merry Pranksters And the Art of the Hoax, December 23  1990,

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE7DF123EF930A15751C1A966958260, November 26, 2008.

http://www.kentuckyfriedcruelty.com/

Buy Nothing Day!

Buy nothing day was originally invented by a Canadian artist, Ted Dave and was promoted by the Canadian Ad-busters magazine. The first buy nothing day was held in Vancouver in September 1992. BND was presented to the people of Vancouver as a day to assess the over consumption issue in not only Vancouver but throughout the world. Today, it is celebrated in Canada on November 25, while in other parts of North America it is celebrated on the Friday after Thanksgiving. 

Ted Dave, is an artist activist and an actor. He was working as a graphic artist of Georgia Straight and became increasingly frustrated with the cost of day to day living. As a result he decided to start Buy Nothing Day, which he states that, " Absolutely everything around us in the urban environment is set up to be coercive, to get you to by things spontaneously." Although this day is to promote restricting how many useless items we buy, many critics say that it will only promote  people to buy things that they need the following day. Ted Dave omits the idea by telling critics that Buy Nothing Day is simply a start in which people will eventually make better choices to restrict themselves from over consumption. 

Personally I think that Buy Nothing Day is a huge eye opener to the general public. My Media Studies class and I, last year had promoted BND  through posters and announcements to the school. It was interesting to see how many of us failed when the time came. Most of us didn't even realize that we had purchased something. It was almost like just a routine to hit up the cafe for one of their amazing cookies every morning. I am going to admit that I did this on BND and didn't even realize that I had failed before I even sat down in my homeroom class. I felt awful, I had been apart of a group of people who were promoting this day for weeks and when the day finally came I did exactly what I was not supposed to do. Could I have lived without the cookie, of course I could have.

BND opened my eyes as well as many others in my class, to see just how many things we waste our money on, and don't even realize that we have done it! Since that day, especially now being a university student living on my own I have learned how important it is to spend wisely. It is not always about where you buy things if it is "name brand", I can hardly tell the difference any ways. It is about doing what is better for not only our bank accounts, but for our environment.

 Between 2004-06 Canada has an total waste disposal of 52, 475, 943 TONNES. If those numbers aren't a big enough eye opener for one to cut back on their over spending on useless things, I don't know what will. Buy Nothing Day is certainly a  stepping stone for Canada and the world to cut back on their waste disposals, to help better our economy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_jpG6kv6Pw

John Mckay, Vancouver actor better known as an activist,  September 15, 2000, http://www.teddave.com/nothingtext.html, November 19, 2008

Stats Canada, Disposal and diversion of waste, by province and territory, 2004 and 2006, http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/envir32a-eng.htm, November 19, 2008

Net Neutrality

The most important issue we have with publishing information of any kind on the Internet is that there is no way of censoring it. Net neutrality, in Canada protects the rights for all Internet users to have the control to surf Internet content they wish to see. It promotes free expression in what content or information the users wish to publicize on the Internet. Websites like neutrality.ca disputes the idea of charging certain IP accounts more than others to access websites, it also supports the idea of presenting the public with more valid content. 

Writers who have ideas based on concrete and valid content are the kind of writers that net neutrality supports. It supports the interests of the public, focuses on the well being of the public without restricting what they can access on the Internet. Instead net neutrality promotes the idea that there should be a larger amount of valid information versus the countless amounts of 'jargon' that we are presented with today. The private interest, that the Internet is full of is what the government is trying to protect. Users who abuse the right to having control over what information they release and what information they do not. 

It has become a growing problem in Canada and in the United States. The government wishes to protect its people from online predators etc. Websites like neutrality.ca are asking the government to define the rules in which they would like to place on the internet.  

neutrality.ca

Mapping out who owns what...

Sony corporation first came about in New York City. If you haven't already been aware, sony is the leading manufacturer of audio, electronic, video, communication and information technology in the world. This corportation in the near ending year of 2008 made an outstanding amount in sales, with a whopping 88.7 BILLION DOLLARS. Not bad for a comany that has 991 million additional companies to support their production. Sony has holdings in film, television, music (record companies like So So Def records) and as far out as clothing and accessories.

When thinking of corporations in the 21st century, I personally think using a metephore such as; like a family uinit, one that works together to reach a common end, is completeley true. Everyone wants a family to be sucessful, but in the end I also dont agree that a family works to be successful so that all of the thanks, gratitude and wealth goes to the head of the family. Which is what happens in the corporation world. Sony has holding in a variety of the entertainment world solely so that they make a profit off of them. Most of the time they do not change anything that is going on in the company.

If anything they offer advertisements and so on for that company. These ads that are produced by Sony make a profit for both companies, but in the end most of the credit goes to the top corporation involved, which in this case would be Sony. Personally I think it is scarey to see that only a few corporations that have an ever bigger impact on media than Sony, for example Disney, have a huge amount of holdings in the media world. For a more insightful look as to just how much media companies own visit the site listed below.



http://www.cjr.org/resources/



Citation

Ted Asocks, corporate fact sheet, August 2008, Sony electronics inc., October 30, 2008 http://www.sony.com/SCA/corporate.shtml

False news

News is supposed to be about something that doesn't ordinarily happen in the world. Newspaper articles are supposed to include timeliness, proximity, prominence, consequence, conflict, suspense, human interest, novelty and progress. When a specific story fails to meet at least one of these nine news pegs, like for example; human interest, it is tempting for a journalist to tweak the story to draw more of the public into reading their article. In regards to reporters, they may interview someone of importance and once they are finished getting the footage may take it to be tweaked to make the story more interesting. When false information is published or broadcasted to the public it not only can ruin ones career but also effect the companies authority in reporting valid news.

If a journalist or a reporter were to present false news to the public it is an obligation for the company to print or report another article the following day clarifying or apologizing for printing false information. Often people lie to reporters, others are honest but give their answers on a bias terms which gets printed into articles. When this happens the public accuses reporters of distorting the truth. However, once this is done it is most likely that the public will think it is a cover up for the wrong that was done, a means of desperation to brush the problem 'under the carpet'. It could ruin their reputation as a reporter, or journalist which in turn could cost their jobs, and it will cost the company millions of dollars in libel law suits. Some of these false stories are not done intentionally.

Personally, I think that it does make the printing company look terrible when false information is printed, but after reading about journalism and public relations it is clear to me that once any false information is printed to the public the issue is automatically dealt with. Yes, we the public should be able to trust reporters and printing companies completely in terms of what they print for the public to read. In turn we should also trust and respect their industry enough to know that once a mistake is made that they will do what ever it takes to fix it. More importantly "budding" journalists should be aware that they need to make sure that they get their information from reliable sources. It is their job to report concrete news to the public, people should not be forced to question what you are writing.

HelloMoto!

Whether it is 4am or 12 in the afternoon, my cell phone is a huge part of my life every single day. It is the first thing I use when I wake up, and the last thing I use before I go to bed. It tells the time for me, when to get up, it updates me on what is going on in the world; with friends and family. It is with me 24-7 and I am constantly checking it for text messages and missed phone calls, ANYTHING!! It's something that is constantly with me and when its not, I feel completely naked. Three years ago when I didn't have a cellphone, I'll admit life was bearable. My friends still called me, on our house line. Thinking about it life was a lot less stressful, I never felt obligated to return a text message, mainly because I couldn't. I wasn't guilted into answering a phone call or returning one because as we all know the telephone we have at home doesn't display MISSED PHONE CALLS all over the display box, plus an additional text message to make sure you read the screen.

Now when ever I get a phone call I'm always debating on whether or not I should pick up the phone call or let it ring. What am I debating on? Well if someone has a cellphone the chances are they will always have it on them 24-7, some will even have it with them when they go to sleep (I ALWAYS have my phone on and at my side). I'm debating on whether the next time I talk to that person if they will ask, " how come you ignored my phone call?" Well I don't know about anyone else but if I were told, "I just didn't want to talk to you." I'd be a little upset. But then, if you do answer the phone and the person on the other end is full of energy and is just so happy you answered, mean while your on the other end sighing and the whole bit, in the end you wish you didn't answer. Now don't get me wrong here, I love talking to all of my friends and family but when you've been on a bus for 4 hours just trying to get home, and all you want to do is sleep and be in a quiet place, it seems almost like a chore sometimes to have to sit and talk on the phone. Again, if I don't answer the phone call could be an important one who knows unless you answer?

Any ways needless to say I never thought that having a cellphone would be so much fun and so much work at times. In the world of cell phones they never get tired only the people using it. My advice to someone thinking of buying one, make sure you give it good thought before hand, it might just take control over you with just the simple gesture of dialing the first number.