Posts

My Relationship with Technology

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  Technology is and always will be a majorly important piece of my life in all aspects; personal, work, and otherwise. Until recently, I’ve always used social media and the Internet overall for enjoyment. Whichever form that takes, whether it’s media consumption, photo sharing, or something else entirely, it has always been for entertainment. However, over the past couple years at High Point I’ve gained a new perspective on the Internet, especially through my studies as a media production student. My online presence has an impact on my future, and I needed to reevaluate whether or not I was using the Internet to its full potential. I don’t think my use of the Internet for entertainment is a bad thing at all, but I also think it’s important to think about how I could be using it professionally in order to advance my career goals. For example, while I wouldn’t mind if a potential employer found my personal Instagram account, it’s definitely not the best display of my skill set within...
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Blog Post #11 - Privacy Online

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  The discussion about privacy on the Internet and regarding technological innovation is a complex one. Ethics come into question frequently, as oftentimes users willingly give up their personal information and the corporations that use the info are usually within their rights. They can use our information, but should they? Is it ethical?  In a lot of specific examples of this lack of privacy, it can be extremely difficult to choose a side. The one I have in mind is of local law enforcement using license plate readers to capture photos, dates, times, and locations of vehicles and drivers. It is uncomfortable and undeniably a suspicious breach of the privacy of Americans. However, I can think of a few different scenarios in which this database may be helpful. For example, in a missing persons case these photos could be used to determine locations and timestamps of someone missing or kidnapped, enabling law enforcement and search and rescue to close in and save the person. The...
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Blog Post #10 - A.I. and the Future

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  There are a lot of important facets to think about when considering how A.I. is already an aspect occupying most, if not all, of our daily lives. From RING doorbells to Amazon Alexa and other relatively new innovations, A.I. is becoming more and more common in our homes and workplaces. The most important take-away for me that I had already been previously thinking about in a way is that it’s becoming imperative to consider the pros and cons of implementing these new innovations into one’s life on an individual basis. People must weigh the benefits and negative consequences when it comes to their own safety and the safety of their families.  Obviously technologies like Alexa and RING come with a lot of positives in terms of security and an overall interconnected home network, but there are also negative consequences to consider. Is it worth completely throwing privacy out the window in order to maintain safety and security? These decisions cannot be made for you, and one must...
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Blog Post #9 - EOTO: Gatekeeping

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  Gatekeeping is a term that has been around for years, and the theory itself was described all the way back in the early 1920’s. On a smaller scale, the theory can refer to the reluctance of people on the ‘in’ in regards to a specific hobby, for example, to allow new people to learn more information. The example that always comes to mind for me is when you see fans of a smaller music artist hesitant to share a song name and gatekeeping in fear that their small artist may get too popular for it to be ‘cool’ to listen to. On a larger scale, however, gatekeeping is an entirely different issue. Similar to censorship in the sense that it involves the filtering and restricting of certain information by the media to the public, but while censorship removes ideas and information once they have been posted or said, gatekeeping doesn’t allow the information to be distributed in the first place. As private companies, news and media corporations have the inherent ability to filter out and ‘ga...
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Blog #8 - Diffusion of Innovations: TikTok

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  One very unique example of a recent innovation that I think is especially interesting when viewed through the lens of the Diffusion Theory is TikTok. The app has been around for around 5 years at this point, but has only grabbed ahold of society in the way that it has in the past year or so. Why is that? When TikTok first came out, it was a rebrand of the Musical.ly app. The majority of society saw this app, and subsequently TikTok, as a place where cringeworthy content is created, and were hesitant to be a part of that. Over time, however, it became more and more popular for typical consumers. The graph below shows a portion of that growth, and it’s apparent that it took off out of nowhere. Growth was initially pretty steady until around early 2018. As the content created on TikTok became more “normal”, more and more people started to accept it. I know I personally downloaded it in early 2020 pretty reluctantly, after being nagged by my friends. I still have friends who don’t us...
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Blog Post #6 - Anti-War Voices

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  There are a few different reasons why anti-war voices are kept out of the mainstream media and silenced in general. The biggest one that comes to mind is that the mainstream media simply doesn’t exist to bring fair, unbiased news anymore. They don’t want to provide facts, diverse opinions, and open-mindedness, because these things are not what is going to make them money. They want the biggest, most exciting story there is. Even if it’s not in the best interest of the general public and society as a whole, if it's going to make them money, these media companies are going to distribute and broadcast it. Unfortunately, war is good for making money. It makes people tune in, whereas an anti-war opinion piece may not. Upon doing further research on the topic, I discovered that it goes even deeper than that. A lot of the mainstream media companies and corporations have significant financial interests in war. For example, “in the build-up to the Iraq War, MSNBC was owned by General...
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Blog Post #5 - EOTO Paramount+

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  Paramount+ is a “new” streaming service that we’ve likely all become familiar with over the past couple months, and it may seem as if it came out of the blue. The first time I became aware of it was during the Super Bowl in February, as there was an ad for it during almost every single commercial break. I also noticed that most, if not all, of the entities being advertised belonged to CBS, which is no coincidence, because the Super Bowl was televised nationally by CBS. Upon further research, I discovered that Paramount+ isn’t really new at all. It is a rebrand of the CBS All Access streaming service, which has been around since 2014 but never really got a lot of traction, probably due to the fact that it could only be used exclusively for streaming CBS TV shows and movies. The rebrand of the streaming site, along with the expansion of its selection, is undoubtedly an attempt by CBS and Paramount to compete with larger streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+. While not ...
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