Thursday, October 23, 2008

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.

Monday, October 13, 2008

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

Thursday, October 2, 2008

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.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

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.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

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.