Read The media #2

The next article I evaluated is from CNN and it is one talking about how Gaurdsmen and contractors are suing a company for not informing them about chemicals at a site they worked at in Iraq

Is the information in a given article accurate?
The Information is this article is accurate
Is there missing context that might undermine the premise of a given article or television segment? There is not missing context that read that would undermine this premise of the article.However is doesn't give any response from the company that is being sued in their defense. It would have been a better article if they would have gotten responses from the company or people outside the people suing.
Which experts are quoted--and, in turn, who isn't allowed to give their opinion what does this leave out? The experts that are quoted in this are the layers for the gaurdsmen and contractors The only opposing view that is presented is a spokes woman from the company being sued. The actual CEOs of the company arent heard in this article.
Is the selected media simply reinforcing the status quo on a given topic, even though there may be no reason to assume that it is correct? The media isnt supporting the status quo because persaonally i didnt know about the issue and neither did many other people.
Why werent CEOs interview? Maybe becausethey didnt want to give out any information about the lawsuit.

How to Read the Media

The article we chose is one from the NY Times about how electric cars are expensive and only the rich can afford them so why should taxpayers back the project.
Is the information in a given article accurate? We would say yes that it is because it does indeed a ridiculous amount of money to purchase and even make these electric cars. The article presents figures on how much it costs the companies to produce the cars and how much people have to pay. The taxpayers shouldnt support this idea if the cars aren't accessible to everyone with any income.
Is there missing context that might undermine the premise of a given article or television segment? there is some missing information in the article. I couldnt find any quote from a taxpayer reacting to what they think about the deal whether they supported it or not.
Which experts are quoted--and, in turn, who isn't allowed to give their opinion what does this leave out? Again the author gets information from CTO's, and Workers for the companies. However they dont give anything from the side of the taxpayers on how they would feel. They also dont say how the heads of these car companies would try and help make these vehichles more affordable.
Is the selected media simply reinforcing the status quo on a given topic, even though there may be no reason to assume that it is correct? The author is not just reinforcing the status quo of the public because even thought it may be common knowledge that these types of cars are expensive, the public probably doesnt know enought about then to go out in masses and purchase these cars.
Extra Question Does the Media cover this issue enough? No we dont believe that they do cover this issue enough. They do however report on when the companies do release the "New Enviornment friendly Car." However they dont look at the logistical side of the issue of how people would pay for them

Growing up Online

The documentary "Growing up Online," really detailed the new changes in technology that people are starting to adjust to. Fortunately young people dont need to adjust because they are used to the technologies and accept them as norms. Personally, I was able to connect with many of the topics brought up in the movie, from the obsession with the cell phones to noe technologies in the classrooms. The movies also exposes the real dangers of the internet and how young people can be targets of online predators. We as the"internet generation" need to stay on top of the possible danger of the internet.

Watching the Watchdog

In the article,"Who is Watching the Watchdog?" by John Dunbar, Dunbar discusses a theories of "the spinning door," "Frequent Flying," and "Whats occurs Behind Closed Doors."

The Spinning Door Theory, refers to Federal Government employees that will occasionally leave their jobs with the government and move on to work in an area that they formerly represented. This could become a problem because the government employees could take with them some "Insider Information" that they received during the previous job and carry it over to their new job. Only Government employees working in high positions are required to follow a set of rules once they start working in the industry.

Next, Dunbar discusses the theory of "Frequent Flying." This refers to FCC officials who attend industry events are then treated extravagantly by the companies that they work for. This becomes an ethical issue for the companines. The FCC officials would more likely be bias towards companies that treat them better.

Lastly, Dunbar discussed the theory of "What Occurs Behing Closed Doors." This Theory is discussing the companies that meet with the FCC behind closed doors frequently when discussing media ownership rules. Since these meeting occur "off the record" the public has no knowledge of what occurrs during these meetings.

Chairman Powell says that the industrys influence on the FCC has at times gone too far. This is absolutely true.The media affects every part of our society today. the media dictated the trends in fashion,music, sports as well as many other things. I do think that there are cartain things that can be done to the media help protect the publics intrest .

Merchants of Cool

Today’s media in general is much more immersed in the lives of people. The media sets the trends of today’s culture by the images it puts in magazines, ads and TV. What we see in the media subconsciously tells us or makes us want certain things to keep up with the trends of today's society.

The first type of tactic that is used by marketing teams is narrow casting. Narrow casting is a type of advertising geared specifically towards one type of audience, not towards the general public. There are many examples of ads that are describes as narrow casting. One example if this is ads talking about “protecting your nest egg.” These ads are really talking about people who are going to retire and want to protect their 401k for retirement. These ads aren’t geared towards anyone 0else except people who are getting ready to retire. Another type of of advertising is “branding/ creating a culture around a brand." One example of this type of advertising is an ad that i saw on TV a few months ago, which talks about how BMW has created its own subculture, become part of pop-culture. This ad shows how much the brand "BMW" has become so much part of our lives in many aspects. BMW AD

Another technique that is used by companies is called "cool Hunting." Cool hunting is a technique used by companies where they pay analysts to interview and talk with focus groups to find out what they perceive as cool in today's society. The talk with the group about what they think is cool and not cool, where they think trends will go etc. The companies pay the individuals a few hundred dollars to come in and talk with their analysts for a few hours . For the company that is not that much money to spend when the will be making hundreds of thousands of dollars off this information.

Another type of Marketing is product placement. This is another major marketing technique that companies use. This basically refers to the place where companies chose to place their products or ads. For example. candy companies choose to place their products at the check out to make the consumer think that its a last minute thing that they can get before they are done shopping.

Right now, I think these types of marketing aren't going to go away anytime soon. I think that companies will refine these types of advertising and maybe copme up with some new ones. I don think the public will direct hich way the media turns and i think that the media will decide the trends of our culture in the future.

Wirelessing the World: The Battle Over CWNs

CWNs are Community Wireless Networks that are networks set up in a community. They allow for open freely accessible , non proprietary system of internet access used to have small networks. They are a way for residents to build resources in tehir communities,saqve money, and free themselves form the worst excesses of profit-driven business models.CNWs help bridge the "Digital divide" by eliminating one facet of the problem, and even help bridge the divide between resource rich and resource poor areas by providing low-cost alternatives.
There are a number of barriers to market entry that major wireless companies set up to protect their monopolies . The first thing is that they buy small technologies that they know will become big before they do so that when they do become big they can keep all of the money andmaintain their monopoly. Another thing they do is offer bundles packages. Theyoffer telephone,internet and television services together to you think that it is a better deal when in actuality it not much better, only cheaper for a time. Another thing that companies do is offer technology that is interoperable. This means that the technology can be used in a wide range of devices but still being controlled by the company.
Corporate consolidation and the early buying of technologies resultes in fewer companies comtrolling more of the wireless mareket share. If companies buy all of the small technologies before they get big and populate they cabnn buy them cheapy and when they do get popular they have the right and keep all of the money for themselves. This results in fewer and fewer wireless companies being offered.

Government and the economy

4. What needs be changed to allow the creation of a "sustainable economy"?
To allow the creation of a more sustainable economy, we need to do a number of things. First we need to start making more of our products here at home in the US instead of importing much of our consumer products. If we created more products at home, then we would use less money outsourcing our jobs. Next, we need to creat more reuseable form of energy. We need to use things like solar, power, nuclear power and wind power, instead of using gas and propain. Next, our government needs to work on a longterm plan to help balance the economy. With the stock market doing so bad and the prices of consumer goods up, the government needs to comeup with a long term plan to help everyone.

How you can help the FCC- Reading response

1. Do broadcasters use radio and television to quickly and effectively respond to the local communities needs and interests? Give examples to support your answer.

I think that broadcasters do you radio and television to quickly and effectively respond to the local communities and interest to some extent. I think that they are usually on top of alerting people to important information however they aren't always geared towards the correct audience. For example if a News organization reports a story about an outbreak of a virus, people watching or listening to the report who aren't from that area may get worried and take action so . I think that there is a need for more local news outlets.
A way that broad casters do effectively respond if they report on something that is relevant the whole audience. For example, If the report on how the stock markets plummeted that day, that's news that going to effect every one regardless of where you live.

2. Are there certain kinds of local programming (Public Media Values) that should be available, but are not being provided by broadcasters? what could some examples of these be?

There are certain types of programing that should be available that arent being provided by their broadcasters. One type would be an outlet for local media such as music, enviornaental and social group to allow they vioces and opinions to be heard by the community that they may not have had teh chance to do before. The author says that if the bigt companies are going to come into the small towns and tear up the streats and disrupt life, then the should have access to channels to have their voices be heard by their community.

3. What could the Federal Communication Commission do to promote localism in broadcasting? Explain three of these examples of public-service-oriented projects that are already in process across the US.

One thing that the FCC could do to promote localism in broadcasting, is to have " Lacalism Hearings" in town accross the US giving people the chance to voice their concerns to the FCC. Another thing that the FCC could do, aside form the hearings, is set up local offices where people can go and give opinions with out going to the actual FCC offices. The last this that the FCC is doing is giving more Local organization channels on TV and radio so they can get their vioce out there.

Extra

What is the "spectrum" that the authors refer to?
Spectrum refers to public airwaves. Public airwaves are the ways that people get their information whether it be TV, Radio, Internet or some other kind of outlet.

McChesney's critique and Current Campaigns

McChesney talks about how news outlets and media are driven be profit motives. He also talks about how media can be driven by the deregulated by their ownership. He also talks about how corporate media will set us free. Todays campaigns are also aiding the profit motives. They pay news outlets money to run ads and reports on news for their campaign. Political campigns are also associated with certain news companies. for example Fox news is usually associated with the GOP and MSNBC is usually associated with Democrates. The media is responsible for airing the negative campaign aids the the candidates release. So The current political campaigns are very similar to the critiques that McChesney is discussing in chapter 1.

CAE-Steve Kurtz

I believe that this case with Steve Kurtz is a very interesting one. First, the direction that the case went and the extent that it was taken was a little extreme. I understand that Kurtz didnt want to take a plea deal for something that he didn't do, however from what it said, 4 years is a little extreme for something that should have taken a couple of months. If it were anyone else, i dont know if it would have been handled any differently because how would the cops know just by walking in on the scene the extent of the resources that Kurtz had. So, no i don't think it would have been any different for anyone else.
I think that the fact that Kurtz had the bacteria and he didn't have any type of medical clearance to posses the specimen, didn't help his case given the fact that he wasn't allowed to have them anyway.
I do believe that if the government looked at the whole issue and not just the bacteria and all the negative things found in his house, then he would have been cleared of the charges.
In the end, I think like he said , this has made himself and the CAE more motivated . Also, I believe that what he was doing was right b/c he was trying to inform people about products that contain genetic material since the companies weren't doing any tests themselves.I also believe that by him dragging it out prevented the government for setting a precedent from being able to rail road any amateur just for simply being interested in the wellbeing of all humans

Cult of the amateur quiz

1984 (Version 2.0)

There have been a number of results due to the sophistication of technology allowing individuals to collect personal information about others. The most obvious one that i can think of right off the bat is the use of Parasite programs by hackers to monitor the internet activities of other people. The hackers use programs to see: what sites are being visited, credit card information and interests just by hacking into someones computer without them knowing or having any idea that someone is watching. This allows people to steal identities and personal information to help themselves gain access to something or somewhere. This also allows hackers to obtain information to online bank records, personal email, as well as all types of password protected information to be freely viewed just by using a parasite program.
I dont know if this is true or not but i think that the programs(if there are programs) should be illegal. Hackers may be writing the programs themselves or there are programs that are sold. But I question how they even came about. I do know that some families or even school use programs such as these to monitor children while they are on the computer and I think that its fine for those reasons, but using the program with in intent to do harm is just not right and should be illegal.

CNN.com vs. iReport.com

Though iReport is a subsidy of CNN, there are many differences between the two sites. The first difference that i notices was that the stories on ireport are more opinionated where as the stories on CNN are more Unbiased.

The next thing I noticed is that CNN has more significant stories on the front page such as the economic crisis where as iReport has stories about the closing of a Conney Island roller coaster and opinions of the new Facebook.

I noticed that on CNN, it has articles about why tomorrows Presidential debate should go on as opposed to iReport which asks iReporters to share their opinion of what should happen.

On CNN it contains stories about how the government should spend the 700 Billion dollars to save Banks, lenders, mortgage firms etc. On iReport, the iReporters talk about how the governent should give the money directly to the people.

Truth vs. untruth

The assignment was to make a posting about an "untruth" spread through the use of Web 2.0 technologies and contrast it with the truth from a reliable source. Since tonight is the last baseballgame that will ever be played at the original Yankee Stadium, I chose to look at which baseball park was considered the best my fellow baseball fans. I found an untruth at CBS sports line message board which asked that same question of what is the best baseball stadium. Many of the posts stated almost all of the stadiums in the MLB from Petco park in Pittsburgh to Camden Yards in Baltimore to Wrigley Field in Chicago. These all are great ballparks im sure and maybe I am a little biased but according to the article on ESPN it states that Yankee Stadium is the best/most important ballpark of all time. It states that the legacy, visitors, atmosphere(to name a few) all add up to making it the best ballpark in history.

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