final post

I think that the most important thing I learned this quarter in class was about the digital divide among citizens of the United States and the world. I had never really paid much attention to it until it was brought up in class. I didn’t realize that so many people were and are being left behind when it comes to new technology. As I stated above I think that it is important to stay educated about these new technologies and inventions especially after learning more this quarter about the technological imperative. I think that the digital divide is one of the many problems that citizens of the world need to be aware of and if we don’t it is going to continue to cause a bigger gap between the haves and the have nots.

Out of all of the topics and technologies that we have discussed in class I think I would be most interested in learning more about html and website design. I had a lot of fun using simple site even if it was just briefly. I have always wished that I was better at using programs on the computer and being able to create stuff online, like a lot of people my age know how to do. I think it would be useful and fun to be able to design a website. I do not see myself using this knowledge for anything work related, but I still think that it knowledge that I would like to have.

I think the topics that I was least interested in was the news online. I just did not find it very interesting to talk about, because for one I do not really like indymedia and also I just think it is kind of a boring topic. I feel like in so many different comm classes I have had we talk about the objectivity of the news. I guess it seemed kind of redundant, but I would not have even thought about it unless I had to answer the question, so what I am saying is it was not that bad.

Week 7 Extra Credit

I found Professor Gill's analysis of the two websites very interesting. The thing that really struck me as odd was how both sites struggled to meet certain requirements or preferences basic to websites. I do not understand how both candidates would not have the best web designers creating their site. It is not like they are short on money and both candidates would know the impact the internet is having on politics. I also found it interesting how President Bush's website was intended for users with a faster dial up and Kerry's was much more basic. Like professor Gill said, I thought that was really interesting and seemed kind of reversed for their political parties related to internet accessibility.

Week 7

I think the internet has had a huge impact on politics. I found it interesting how most people believed that they received the majority of their political information on TV, and how in response to this many newspapers started creating online versions of their papers. I couldn't believe that there are over 5000 online editions of newspapers. I think that the shift to the internet that is starting to occur will be positive for citizens becoming more informed. With more information available through different mediums, it will give people more opportunities to follow and discuss politics. Although, people being informed will ultimately still come down to whether or not they take the time to become informed, but I think giving them another option as to how to do this can only help.

Questions-

Do you think citizens will eventually say the internet is their main source for gathering political information?

How do you think the internet will affect the next presidential election?

What are some of the negative effects the internet is having on politics?

week 6

I thought it was interesting to read about how Americans were able to come together through blogging after 9/11. It is obvious that blogging is becoming a popular forum for expression and account of news over the web as of late. I think the important thing to think about when analyzing blogging and it's affects on our media, is that it really is just a personal account of what happened. I think that it might have a negative impact if any on established media. I personally think of blogs as something people use either as a personal journal, which for the most part doesn't interest me, or as a chance to have their voice heard, which again for the most part doesn't interest me. I think people already complain enough about news not being objective, so I think reading someone's personal account would certainly not be objective. I think that most people will stick to our established media for things that are important and use blogs as a fun way to communicate with friends and have an opportunity to publish something online.

Questions:

What do you think caused blogging to take off at such a fast pace?

Do you personally read blogs as a source of news or strictly for fun?

Do you blog outside of class?

Week 5

I think it is important for communication scholars to study the open source movement, because it is a key social movement directly related to and up to date with new technology and forms of communication. The open source movement has essentially given the power back to the people and allowed everyone the chance to let their voice be heard. Now anyone can be a producer and the government does not have complete control over what is said over the internet. I think the problem with this is something we have touched on earlier this quarter in class and that is, is there too much information on the web? The more people that try and send out their message just makes their and everyone else's voice less heard. I think that the open source movement is a good idea in theory, but I think the fact that it is so unorganized makes it hard for it to have the effects and implications in which the creators might have wanted. However, whether or not it is successful I still think it is worth studying.

In what ways do you think the open source movement could be more organized in order to have their voices be heard?

Do you think the fact that the programmers work for free will ever interfere with the movement?

How do you see the movement changing in the next 10 years?

Week 4

It is pretty interesting to think about how closely tied us humans are to machines and how quickly this has increased over the last half century. The readings definitely opened my eyes to this. Looking over a couple other people's posts I do disagree w ith the idea that this interaction and dependence will start moving in the other direction. Don't get me wrong I think the idea of human like robots is pretty far fetched, but I do expect humans to keep creating more intelligent computers. I think that humans are smart enough to continue creating machines that will simply always be machines. Inventing programs to reflect true human emotion is impossible. Overall, I am quite happy with the dependence on machines I think it has just made my life easier and I can spend time doing things I like while machines do the monotonous tasks humans use to be responsible for.

Do you see an increase or decrease of human dependence on machines?

What machine do you take most for granted?

How do you think human interaction with machines will change over the next 20 years?

Week 3

As much as I hate to say it, I think there is too much information on the internet. When I first started using the internet in middle school I could have spent 16 hours a day fascinated with all the information that could be accessed, but now when researching things it is almost impossible to come across relevant information unless you are using the universities databases. I don't necessarily think that there is too much information, but I do think that the information out there is too hard to navigate. I don't think we should stop people from being producers of the internet, but I think we need to develop some "super" search engine that can get rid of the stuff that pops up when you are researching a specific topic. However, I guess my conclusion is that having too much information isn't always such a bad problem too have. I would rather have to sort through too much information than be searching everywhere for any information.

What steps can be made to make the internet easier to navigate?

Which current search engines do you think find the most relevant consistent information?

How can we get rid of the overload of information, without taking away a person's freedom to be a producer online?