While I am aware of the presence of bullying online, the subject was something that I had forgotten about until I completed the readings for this week. The article, “How the Internet Has Changed Bullying,” made a good point that adults face cyber-bullying just as much as kids and adolescents, but in different forms. The
The articles that stood out most to me in week ten of our class centered around the topic of teens and social media. The first article was entitled “Teens, Social Media, & Technology 2018” and discusses how most teens have a “near constant” presence, and that the we (as a society) don’t yet understand the …
This past week I was the discussion leader. I had the chance to choose the articles concerning pop culture in the information age. We did not have the chance to meet last Tuesday and were told to post about one article we were suppose to read for Tuesday. I was not aware since I was …
Similar to the Information Age, pop culture is constantly changing and not staying stagnant. A testament of that can be seen in Alex Baratti’s article “The 25 Most Memorable Tech Moments in Pop Culture History”. I could not help but connect to several of the references in the piece. Back to the Future made me […]
Memes and memetics has a long-standing history that expands beyond the boundaries of the modern internet. Richard Dawkin’s theory of memetics is a very interesting one when applied to how modern internet memes are born and spread. The idea that a random piece of culture, from a funny image to an important even, can be …
Continue reading “What Makes a Meme? A Concise History of Internet Memes”
The media culture that began in the twentieth century has experienced continual evolution since the end of the second world war. The medium of choice has continaully shifted over the years, with television being the medium of choice from the…
Who runs the world? Tastemakers! One of the readings from this week came from Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction into Mass Communication by Andy Schmitz. Schmitz begins by making the connection between the mass popularity of Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, otherwise known as “Lindomania,” to that of the hysteria that followed the Beatles, also […]
Ah, how so much has changed in just two short years since Farhad Manjoo wrote his article. Yes, of course, the internets have been the most important change to the world since, well, since ever. The access to information for education; the immediate connection to as-it’s-happening-news; and the ability to provide connectivity—or the opportunity for it at least—to almost every person on the planet cannot be overstated. How… …ever… When author Farhad Manjoo wrote his optimistic article on the ‘State of the Internet Union’ things must have clearly looked different from his perch. And that is understandable since his perch is so close to the Den of the Devils in Silicon Valley, California. That said, I applaud Mr. Manjoo’s desire to write a fluff piece Cough! I mean, although I applaud Mr. Manjoo’s intent: “How the internet is saving culture, not killing it” I think he misses the mark on how he defines “culture” and “art.” Ok, yes, the physicality of the internet the architecture of the internet allows for the access to art and culture… …but, it isn’t saving culture and art. And here is where I identify the specific ‘bone’ I’m going to pick with the article: the issues of censorship and demonetization by YouTube and Patreon just to name two. To be fair to Mr. Manjoo on the one hand, the ability to place art, and cultural content on YouTube does exist of course to I guess, anyone. However, the other side of Mr. Manjoo’s point, that of all levels of content creators to make a living off these platforms, and [more importantly] freely express themselves WITHOUT censorship has clearly changed in the two years since he so glowingly said: “It’s difficult to overstate how big a deal this is.” Oh yeah, that has changed. But not in the way that portrayed: “the digital economy is finally beginning to coalesce around a sustainable way of supporting content.” Hmmm…maybe demonetization and or censorship of creators’ videos wasn’t a big deal in March 2017? In other words, because of faulty algorithms, or clumsy human moderators, or just blatant censorship of content, more and more of the legacy YouTubers [ Dave Rubin, DeFranco, PewDiePie, Nerd City, Creative Insider, H3h3, etc,] videos are being recommended less=resulting in less views, or not being easily found in the YouTube search tool, or just straight up demonetized before they are even posted. So much for the ability for an artist to support themselves, eh? Anyway, for an up-to-date counter argument to Mr. Manoo’s article, I recommend reading Julia Alexander’s April 17, 2018 article for Polygon.com, “YouTubers Look to New Platforms After View Suppression: The Philip DeFranco Show May Not be Able to Survive” here, and Nerd City’s video: “RATED M FOR MATURE: Youtube’s Secret Rating System EXPOSED! How to Stop it from Censoring Channels” below
In the article there were several pieces of technology that I didn’t know where in the media. This could be due to the fact that most of them occurred when I was either not born or when I was too young to remember them. I think that only thing in the article that I was […]
The first article, Understanding Media and Culture by Andy Schmitz about the link between culture and technology from photography to modern social media. The increase of diverse forms of entertainment everyone to enjoy, becoming more inclusive, but has the effect that no one program or channel could dominate the attention of the American public. With […]