DTC 375 blog #7 Above Top Secret....the Conspiracy Theory Forum

There is a website that I like to frequent which is forum based. It is called Above Top Secret. It mainly focuses on conspiracy theories, but it also is a source for alternative news, political discussions, and even news about new science and technology. While I rarely interact and post, it is very interesting and entertaining to read what other people post. The arguments that are started can be intense, and it is interesting to see what conclusions people make. It is a vast online collection of topics, and as such, there are a variety of interesting people that frequent there.

You have those that are tired of getting their news from mainstream media and want an alternative source with different views. At the same time, people interested in mysterious subjects like UFOs or Bigfoot congregate on their set of forums to discuss sightings and theories. Or some of the members discuss political subjects.  What makes the website so interesting is the fact that there are such diverse subjects, and so there are many people that have different viewpoints.

Many of these people like to argue. So you will have people that are very abstract minded mingling and discussing diverse subjects with those that are very logical minded.

The language used varies by topic, but for the most part, it is similar to other forums on the Internet.

For instance, “Flaming” is a term used to describe when in an argument someone is verbally personally attacked in a non-constructive way. This is instead of an argument focused on the issue. “Flaming” is frowned upon, and will gain the flamer a lot of negative attention usually, creating a cycle of flames. With the controversial topics often featured on this site, the “conversations” can become heated, and flaming can be very prevalent. However, this one of the things that makes the website that is so interesting.

Above Top Secret : http://www.abovetopsecret.com/

Blog Post # 3 DTC 356 Unit 2 Take Aways

This unit built upon the foundation set by the first unit. While the first unit discussed how the Internet evolved, and how it has initially changed our society, the second unit talked about the Internet today, and how it is being utilized. We first started out the unit by discussing the history and legacy of social networking. How it evolved over the years from small sites, with limited markets such as college students, or business professionals, to the broad and open platforms that exist today. There is a great infographic that we discussed in class,  entitled a “Short History of Social Media”, and presented by Shea Bennett. It was a cool way to show in the form of a pictorial timeline how social networks have evolved. It can be found at http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/files/2011/08/history_social_medla.jpg

 

Then we moved right into how social networking is being used today. This encompassed how it is used positively and how it is used neutrally. Social networking is a great way to efficiently spread information. It keeps people up to date, and makes it easy to get a message out to a large amount of people. After all, on Facebook, the largest social network today, there are after all, according to their about page, over a billion active users. However, while it could easily be used as a method of communication, a way to launch direct action…it often is not. There is a little word that gets thrown around called slactivism. “ Repost if you want to save the rainforest!” or “ like to stop animal cruelty!” or “ change your profile picture to protest this!” simply liking and reposting or modifying your account to show support of a cause, but not actually doing anything about it in the physical world, to change the situation is slactivism, or in other words, lazy, slacking activism. The picture that I found off of the IPhone app IFunny does a great job poking fun at this idea, and commonplace Internet attitude. While liking to show support is positive, it does not raise the money or resources to actually feed hungry people in a developing nation. However, once we identified what slactivism was, we switched to activism, and how individual organizations functioned.

So, the focus of the final part of the unit was devoted to analyzing activism on the Internet and how social network has aided and hindered it.  Individual organizations, such as PETA, the Audubon Society, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving not only have websites, but they utilize social networking as well. Some however, such as PETA do a great job of integrating social networking. They use Twitter to pass along news, Pinterest, YouTube to post related videos, and they have lots of interaction with the users that follow them. On the

other hand, some of the other organizations present them selves as if they have simply just jumped on the social network bandwagon. They have very sparse, and unorganized social networking pages. This makes it seem as if they didn’t give it much thought and are not utilizing the pages to their full potential. In order to stay active, an organization must continuously recruit and encourage young prospective members to share their views. This way the next generation can carry on the work and keep the organization alive. Social networking sites are a great way to do this. Many organizations such as Green Peace are great examples of this., there Face Book profile contains lots of information, and it is aimed toward youth, with cool designs (https://www.facebook.com/greenpeaceusa ).

Overall, this unit was really interesting. I learned a lot about how social networking has changed society, and about the positives and negatives that go along with it.

DTC 375 Blog post # 6 Old School Tech

Dear future college student….

You know, right know you have it pretty good, my elementary school years were a lot different then yours are now….half of the stuff you don’t even question we only thought was science fiction! You know that really cool cellphone your parents have that you like to play

with? ( or maybe you have super cool parents and it is actually yours!) well, when I was

your age,  we didn’t have those! My parents phones could call someone, and they could hold contacts…the really fancy ones had a calculator, or speed dial. I remember when the concept of texting was brand new… and foreign…( why would you take the time to write something to someone when you could just call them?) I remember hearing on the radio in the car when I was your age that they figured out a way to make a camera work in a phone, and within 5 years they were planning on putting it in stores for people to buy. 

Wow! I remember thinking….we were getting closer to Star Wars by the day…my mom thought it was a radio show joke/hoax I remember the forbidden email button on my parents phone….it was deactivated…that was extra…it cost to much! I remember that if I wanted to know what a friend was up to, or if they could hangout, I either left the house, and knocked on their door, or I memorized their phone number, and called their house phone. Yep… the house phone… it used to ring all of the time…and each time it was a surprise… you never knew who was actually calling you until you picked it up… caller ID wasn’t included… a lot of  land line phones were not digital…there was no screen to see who was on the other end of the line…just buttons, and a curled stretchy cord. A lot of things tied into that phone line… fax machines…the phone lines themselves, and the internet.

Think it is annoying when you try to get on a webpage, and it takes more than 3 seconds to load…something must be wrong!!! Its broken isn’t it? Well… that was insanely fast when I was little. All of the little things you are used to doing… watching videos, searching….playing games? That would have never happened…. Searching maybe…. But

guess what Google wasn’t really in use until the end of 1998…I was in kindergarten then. Playing intricate and complicated online games….no, that wasn’t really happening, and there was no YouTube to watch your favorite silly videos. Guess what?  YouTube only came around in 2005.

There were ways to put video on the internet…people could put them on websites … but there was not really a collection of them in one place. Even when YouTube was first starting….most people I knew did not have the capability to use it, their internet was too slow, and it would tie up their phone lines. So there you have it… I think I pretty much covered all the fun things on that shiny smart phones of your parents…. The games, texting, videos, email, and fast internet access…. When I was your age… I played Pokémon my Gameboy Color ( with a parent enforced ½ hour a day  strict limit) , and read lots and lots of books for fun…But hey! 15 years from now you can tell a future college student about the " good ol' days" when technology was " ancient" ! 

DTC 356 assigned blog #2 Audoban Society

For our group project, we are analyzing the social network usage of the Audubon Society. The Audubon society is an organization devoted to conservation, and raising environmental awareness. They tend to focus a lot on education according to their main website. Though they work to take conservation measures for all of nature, their main focus is birds. Upon a first look, it seems as if they have many of the social networking sites covered. While they do have accounts with Pinterest, Linked in, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, we have found that they actually are not very well utilized.

             For instance, Facebook is a wonderful platform to “sell” your organization. When we analyzed their Facebook, it lacked a clear description of who they were. The description simply contained a statement on how old the organization was. There was a spot to donate, but without a clear description of who the organization was, and what the mission was, I doubt the donating through Facebook was successful. They also listed a few events, and had some pictures. A few people were posting things to the page about the organization, like pictures they had done on their own nature walks. We decided that they could easily reevaluate their Facebook, and it would help to draw in more people.

On the other hand, we found that their Twitter was actually utilized in an alright way. It also could use a better description, but it looked good, and they seemed to be using it to deliver relevant information. That being said, we surmised that twitter was used often by a younger generation, and they should utilize their twitter to better inform that target audience.  

In addition to Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest is also one of the social networking sites they use. Most of the content of their Pinterst are pictures of birds. They have one category with a few funny memes, and another with interesting crafts and activities. While I personally do not use Pinterest, I know of many people who go on their for crafts and other cool ideas. Due to this, we thought that maybe they should focus more on that type of content, and relate it to birds or conservation, verses the random bird pictures that takes up most of their account currently.

Like many other organizations, they also have a YouTube. For advertising, and Public Relations purposes, YouTube can be so useful. However, like their other social networking presences, it is not. For one thing, it is a little disorganized, and the content seems random. If they were to organize it a bit more, and put videos into organized and informative playlists it might be a little better. Also, they do not have a good description of their organization on their channel.

Last but not least, they have a Linkd In as well. Like the other social networks that they use, this one could be used a bit better. They again do not have a whole lot of information about themselves up for the user to see. For a networking site like linked in, this is crucial. A lot of the information about important aspects like internships, and career information is buried.

Due to these aspects, and how our group felt when we were researching and discussing the Audubon Society’s social networking presence, I would have to say that I agree with Gladwell. He argued that social networking has nothing to do with an organizations presence on social networking. The Audubon Society is a very well known and successful organization even without a strong sense of social networking. That being said, in today’s world, they would do even better if they focused in on social networking, as that is the way to draw in younger generations. That way they can keep it going strong for years to come.