Online Networking Do's and Don'ts

Two online networks that I would use for my brand are Linkedin and Twitter. Two social networks that I wouldn’t use for my brand but can be helpful for others are Pinterest and Tumblr. I strongly believe that the most popular social networking site in the world, Facebook, should not be used for personal branding ("Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites," 2014).

I do not think that Twitter is useful for networking in the traditional sense. Twitter’s character limit makes it hard to hold conversations with people. However it is useful to demonstrate your knowledge of a topic. I use twitter to keep up with the world. It is helpful to follow relevant organizations, such as planned parenthood or the UN. I can retweet their tweets. If someone else shares content I shared I know it is popular. Schawbel agrees that Twitter should not be used in isolation (2009). The chapter by Deckers and Lacy encourages networkers to share news stories with the contacts they build (2011). Twitter is one way to reach many people at once to do this. Also, Twitter is a great way to keep up with what organizations are currently bragging out.

Linkedin is the most obvious choice to use for professional branding. The first step for success on Linkedin is to fill in your profile with your full employment history. I have been contacted because of my profile for sales jobs. It is helpful to join relevant groups on Linkedin. This gives you the opportunity to network with people in your field of interest. I am in such groups but not participate enough. It is also encouraged to connect to places you would be interested in working. Some employers post their job opportunities directly on linkedin and you can receive an email when the are put up.

I do not advocate using Facebook for professional branding if you do not need to. In my line of work it is no longer necessary. I believe that everyone should have somewhere to be themselves. Having to be fake, putting up a veneer, or representing your brand always has a bit of fakeness, takes a toll on personal relationships. Thus it is good to maintain a place to be your authentic, unedited self. This presents a different problem then for maintaining your brand, keeping out of the public eye. It is so important to keep up to date on Facebook’s changes of their privacy policy. You do not want information to be shared accidently. Sometimes I participate in contests that require me to post publicly on Facebook so that a page can see it. After I post publicly, I have to change my posting settings back to friends only. I try to delete my public post after the contest is over. Pictures shared by others are another area of concern. You should always check what the sharing settings are of photos you are tagged in. Obvious things that should be removed are anything public of you drinking, doing drugs, mostly naked or being racist. “A third (34%) of employers who scan social media profiles said they have found content that has caused them not to hire the candidate”  (Smith, 2014).

Even websites that are not traditional social networking sites have features that enable their use for job networking. For example Indeed and Monster both allow individuals to post their resumes so that recruiters can contact them. This is a form of networking. Another social network that is specific to job hunting is idealist.org. They focus on non-profit jobs. They have profiles of over 100,000 organizations. I have a profile on this site but I need to update my profile.

The type of jobs individuals are applying for should influence their level of use of online networking opportunities.  For example if your brand is that of a creative, marketing type you should be using more online networks than a scientist. If you are a media type then you should be using Pinterest and Tumblr. I do not think that these are important for the average brand because this is more for fun than work. Pinterest could host your resume in a creative format but it is better to have a webpage. Tumblr is full of photos mostly but some major organizations have profiles that they maintain such as Planned Parenthood. Both sites are used to share infographs, which are pretty ways of displaying data. It makes sense for major brands to be interspersed with personal posts. They want to be relevant in people’s lives so they present their brand everywhere. Serious media networkers want the same thing. They want hiring managers to be seeing their brand everywhere so they can not forget it.

In summary, online networking is only a piece of the networking professionals should be participating in. Linkedin and Twitter are two sites that all people working on building their brand should be using. Most everything else should be saved for fun, non-networking purposes.

References

Deckers, E., & Lacy, K. (2011). Branding yourself: How to use social media to invent or reinvent yourself. Indianapolis, IN: Que Pub.

Schawbel, D. (2009, February 24). Top 10 social sites for finding a job. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2009/02/24/top-10-social-sites-for-finding-a-job/

Smith, J. (2014, April 16). How social media can help (or hurt) you in your job search. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/04/16/how-social-media-can-help-or-hurt-your-job-search/

Top 15 most popular social networking sites. (2014, December). Retrieved from http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites

Personal ethics

Write a journal post that examines your personal ethical outlook using the ethical frameworks you have read about this week. Evaluate your personal ethical framework by examining it from a meta-ethical perspective. Note that you may draw on more than one type of ethical framework in your own decision making. Why might this be a good idea? What are the sources of your personal ethical framework? 

This weeks reading were not about ethical frameworks for non-communication professionals. The only article about basic ethics was the article from Santa Clara University. I have a basic disagreement about the meaning of ethics vs morals. I believe that ethics are a group mentality and our morals are our personal decisions, but I will use your wording for this assignment. 
My ethical framework is highly personalized. Because I do not follow a recognized religion, my ethical basis does not start on that level as many people's do. I do have and enjoy having deep conversations about my own ethics and their basis. Really this means that my ethics are not easily described and more open to interpretation and change. I agree with most basic human ethics- murder is wrong, helping others is good and such. Thus the source of my personal ethical framework is conversations that I have with others and reading. My ethics are still being formed and reinforced by my interactions with society. 
I would say I align more with the rights approach mentioned by Velasquez et al. (2009). I also believe in working for the common good, and I am a Democrat because of my alignment with these ideals.  According to Gallup polls, I am currently in the third lowest rated ethical profession- car sales and hope to move down to a even worse ranked profession: lobbying ("Honesty/ethics in Professions," 2013). I am not beholden to any ethics laid out by an ad agency group since I am not a member (Neff, 2011). My employer expects me to not follow my own ethical guidelines. 

References

Honesty/ethics in professions. (2013, December 5). Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/1654/honesty-ethics-professions.aspx

Moyer, J. (2011, January 7). Ethics and public relations. Retrieved from http://www.instituteforpr.org/ethics-and-public-relations/
Neff, J. (2011, March 17). Advertisers, agencies get new ethics code for review. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/news/advertisers-agencies-ethics-code-review/149464/

Velasquez, M., Moberg, D., Meyer, M. J., Shanks, T., McLean, M. R., DeCosse, D., ... Hanson, K. O. (2009, May). A framework for thinking ethically. Retrieved from http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/framework.html

Final Paper

 analyzes the legal and ethical issues related to digital media surrounding a current event. The paper will also include a self-reflection on how the implications of the current event affect one’s personal ethical framework and role as a communications professional.

I am not excited for this paper. I am not a long, drawn out writer. I am not sure I will be able to write 15 pages about anything. 



Internet neutrality is currently under threat. How this issue plays out greatly effects digital media future. Legally, companies are fighting it under freedom of speech. As with many internet issues, there is not precedent in this new area of speech. So far the laws they have written have failed after much public involvement.  Ethically, organizations are fighting these new rules from internet providers because it violates their codes. This issue will not affect my personal ethical framework as much as it affects my internet freedom. As a communications professional I may be affected when trying to get views and get content published. 

People change, laws change.

Hi audience- I am on to my next class which has journals instead of blogs but I will keep sharing with you because I love you soooo much. 


What are the sources of law? What is the meaning of law as it has evolved in the United States? What has caused these laws to evolve? Are there situations when breaking a law is acceptable? Provide examples to support your answers.

Laws are created by our government. The US government as we see it now was formed by the signing of the Constitution in 1787. The three branches of government, executive, judicial and legislative, all create laws in different ways. Technically, the whole purpose of the legislative branch is to create laws. Laws are then amended by the judicial branch or executive. Laws are created to protect people from each other and from the government, and to ensure efficiency of government bodies. Government has grown with our country and thus our laws have changed. When America was first formed our population was all of 3,929,214 and there are now about 318,679,000  Americans ("Demographic History of the United States," 2014). The size of land governed by our laws and the cultures protected have changed and grown. Early America was not the melting pot it is today. Our nation's religious morals have changed. Technology's growth has changed how laws and crimes can be carried out.  Our most basic government structure and inalienable rights have not changed since we signed the Constitution. But the laws pertaining to our rights and how they are limited have changed. Some of us that were not granted equal rights in the Constitution had to fight to get them much later. It only makes sense with how much change the world has seen that our laws have also evolved.

Of course there are times when you should break laws. If our laws were perfect they would never have to change. Sometimes breaking the law illuminates that is it not just and proper. Some laws have been abandoned over time, such as sodomy laws, which shows that sometimes laws are not correct. Through out prohibition people everywhere were breaking that law and it lead to that laws repeal. Before Roe v Wade illegal abortions were commonplace. This was unfortunate because it lead to unnecessary deaths but sometimes saved lives of women that would have had to resort to other options. The deaths highlighted the public health implications of keeping this otherwise safe and normal procedure out of the realm of regulation. Civil disobedience can be acceptable when carried out the right way. Some people would argue that the large amount of protest helped bring an earlier withdrawal from Vietnam. Although we have a right to protest, many people look extraordinary measures. Everyone today would say that civil disobedience in the civil rights demonstrations was acceptable, even if they didn't agree at the time.

Demographic history of the United States. (2014, August 30). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_the_United_States

Stubenville Rape Trial was not compromised by Anonymous

Review the following article: High School Football Players Accused of Rape: Lawyers Slam Anonymous Release of Video, Photo.

Was the release of the video in keeping with the journalists’ Code of Ethics? Why or why not? Based on the information in this article, what do you believe the outcome of the case should be?

This is a terrible article to link to. First, go read the wikipedia page and get all the facts. Yes, I trust wikipedia more than a news company- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steubenville_High_School_rape_case Of COURSE the prosecution of a case is not going to like that proof exists that their client is guilty. It doesn't violate their right to a fair trial because the jury was going to see those photos anyways. The article by Oppel has an excellent account of the fact that the perpetrators were sentenced because of their social media and text message threads (2013). 

Rape cases are not fair. Getting a fair trial as a rape victim is a joke. Anonymous is not a journalist. They are a web group. Thus they are not accountable to the journalists code of ethics. The video doesn't contain the victim or the men being tried, just a third party making jokes about rape. I would  still say that their actions were still following the code of ethics. They were  "Tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience boldly, even when it is unpopular to do so"("SPJ Code of Ethics," n.d.). Anonymous wanted to show how rape culture was so pervasive in our towns when Stubenville was trying to cover it up. 

I understand in the story that they mentioned the victim being revictimized by a photo being released without her consent. However it was already all over social media!  A similar story happened recently and the girl came right out with her name to state how horrible it was ("16-year-old Girl Says Her Rape Went Viral, Disturbing Photo Being Mocked on Social Media," 2014). The girl in Stubenville's name was never released. That is actually increadibly impressive. I did not look at the photos but it possible and likely that they did not show the victims face so she was not identifiable. Yes, she was probably upset to see them being spread even more widely over the internet but she likely was avoiding social media after her peers had ripped her apart. You could say that Anonymous was not " Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects" ("SPJ Code of Ethics," n.d.). However, even the judge admitted that the perpetrators could have been tried as adults. Many adults were later tried due to the video surfacing because it revealed the extent of the cover-up going on through out town. 

The problem is the lack of prosecution in rape cases. I understand the intent was to make sure that the rapists were properly punished by society because they didn't receive fair sentences. All of the boys in the video were not punished. I know what the outcome of the case was, and unfortunately I googled for updates and found even more depressing news. One of the convicted criminals was released and is already back on the football team (Augustine, 2014)!

References

16-year-old girl says her rape went viral, disturbing photo being mocked on social media. (2014, July 10). Retrieved from http://myfox8.com/2014/07/10/16-year-old-girl-says-her-rape-went-viral-disturbing-photo-being-mocked-on-social-media/

Augustine, B. (2014, August 12). Ma’lik Richmond, convicted in Steubenville rape case, returns to football team . Retrieved from http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ma-lik-richmond-convicted-steubenville-rape-case-returns-football-team-article-1.1900655

High school football players accused of rape: Lawyers slam Anonymous release of video, photo. (2013, January 4). Retrieved from http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/04/16352593-high-school-football-players-accused-of-rape-lawyers-slam-anonymous-release-of-video-photo?lite

Oppel, R. A. (2013, March 17). Ohio teenagers guilty in rape That social media brought to light. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/us/teenagers-found-guilty-in-rape-in-steubenville-ohio.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Reisenwitz, C. (2014, April 02). Brad Pitt's Steubenville film will help fight rape culture. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathy-reisenwitz/brad-pitts-steubenville-f_b_5078616.html?utm_hp_ref=steubenville-rape

SPJ code of ethics. (n.d.). Retrieved August 19, 2014, from http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

Multimedia

What a relevant week to be discussing multimedia in news. Journalists are being jailed, getting tear gas thrown at them, and this is all just in one city in America. What multimedia you should include in a post depends on the content and audience. Scientific journal articles often include graphs and charts with the data laid out in a more visual manner. This doesn't mean that more graphs are always better. Charts should never be accepted as true without careful inspection. 
Newspaper articles should almost always have a picture. I like that mashable has little headshots of the authors with every story. Stories about race written by white people should be read in a different light. Photojournalists have a difficult job, as was revealed in Ferguson this week. An Al Jazeera camera team was setting up video equipment when police in riot gear threw tear gas at them. They quickly fled their equipment and then a swat team came and turned off lights and pointed cameras down. Thankfully, another news station was more hidden from view and able to take a video of this happening. In our day and age of police violence and the he said, she said following police brutality cases, video provides solid proof. Otherwise we might be able to ignore news that shakes our sense of right and wrong. This is a photo of a local reporter who was one of the first to get to the Ferguson protests-

What kind of tone does that set for the story? 
And this is just for actual news articles. What about stories? One website that has great stories is medium. Apparently, some people thought that this article on helping self-recognized pedophiles was incredibly disturbing. But it reveals an opportunity for art to really change the direction of a story. The point was not to create shame or repeal people but to open our eyes to others reality. So, the art director has the job of setting the tone. They wrote a detailed article about how many steps they had to go through to get to the finished product. 
We live in a world that never stops moving. There are always distractions. How are people supposed to be able to concentrate on reading a long article. Scientists are always releasing new articles that say if we want to be able to remember more or this or that then we should be listening to certain music while reading. This weeks new finding was that music with a heavy bass line makes people feel and act more powerful.  But as a I am not a auditory learner, I find it problematic when other people choose the music. I would rather play my strange collection of music that I find helps me focus. I remember the days of myspace and geocities pages being all over burdened with multimedia. My page would automatically start playing a whole playlist when it loaded and the pause button wasn't easy to find. There were sparkly banners everywhere. I don't like NPR articles that are only audio, no transcriptions. 
Overall, multimedia is woven into every part of our online environment. It is generally a great benefit of our technological advancements but can be a burden. Editors and content creators should always be thoughtful when choosing what types of multimedia to include in their pages.

Blogging Best Practices

One of my favorite blogs is the smitten kitchen. The author is a NYC woman with a small kitchen and small family who writes detailed descriptions of food and recipes from various sources. Most of the recipes are not unique but instead she will simplify something in a fancy food magazine so you don't have to find that expensive ingredient or use so many pots. Her writing is very accessible and relatable. She doesn't violate any of the rules laid out in the food blogger code (Burton & Greenstein, 2009). She generally posts about 3-5 times a week. She shares enough life details that you almost feel like you have gotten to know her as she announced when she was pregnant and then the baby photos. Her blog is so popular she wrote a cookbook and went on a nationwide supporting book tour. Her recipes are just what she is cooking but she loves fresh fruit and vegetables so the recipes are generally timely. Her site itself is simple, clean and easy to navigate. She owns her own domain name and doesn't have intrusive ads, she buries them at the bottom of the post. There is not a way to share directly on facebook but there is the more important pinterest sharing tool. However it is not as obvious as on other webpages. 



My recommended best practice echos what the article by Chelidonis said, choose and stick to a topic (2011). If you are writing a cooking blog it should be more friendly and less formal than a blog about women's rights. Your topic should guide all other aspects of your blog. Is it important that people share it widely? Then incorporate easy, large, obvious sharing tools. If it is just for a smaller audience, you may not need this. 

Burton, B., & Greenstein, L. (2009, April 30). The code. Retrieved August 7, 2014, from http://foodethics.wordpress.com/


Chelidonis, I. (2011). 12 steps to launch a successful blog. Retrieved from http://www.dailyblogtips.com/steps-to-successful-blog/

Press Release: Joe Paterno dead from cancer complications January 22, 2012

Facebook Post: Joe Paterno dead from cancer complications at age 85: Full story here.

Today, the Paterno family released news that the former Penn State football coach died from complications of lung cancer. His family has been at his bedside at the hospital in State College since he was admitted nine days ago. His son Scott released to the public in November that Joe had a treatable form of lung cancer. PA Governor Tom Corbett released this statement " As both man and coach, Joe Paterno confronted adversities, both past and present, with grace and forbearance."



Joe Paterno. (2014, July 22). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Paterno

Statements on the death of Joe Paterno. (2012, January 22). Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/22/statements-on-death-joe-paterno/#ixzz1kFNsNoyu

Social media I use

Three social media I use are
1. Twitter
2. Social network sites- such as facebook, but you should not be able to see it.
3. Blogs

I think that choosing which social media tool to use is mostly dependent on what you are trying to accomplish with your post. Are you trying to share a short or long message? Is it more important to reach the largest possible audience or a specific audience? A small, more active audience can sometimes generate more change than a loosely connected group.
The limit on twitter makes it ineffective for mostly everything. News organizations that use it must learn a new way to attract attention to article links that often obscure the truth. It is good for established organizations as an alternative means of sharing links and sharing photos.
Facebook is a constant stream like twitter. You can not guarantee that your content is at the top of peoples pages without paying. This social media outlet is where most people spend the most time. In 2012 56% of Americans had social media accounts and I am sure the number has only risen since then (Fox, 2012). An example of a successful page for a company is Old Spice. It is not easy to link social media 'likes' with increasing profit. The most effective way to grow your audience on facebook is with humor and cuteness. If your brand lacks this then you have to consider how to create it and possibly give up some seriousness. Because of its size, facebook is best for reaching a wide audience. 
 Blogs are an excellent way to share longer articles.  However, I would not consider them an effective way to market content. Generally you share links to a blog through a different social media site in order to generate clicks to the blog. Blogs are normally shared via an RSS feed or web feeders. It is not an easily accessible thing to find a new blog unless you find the link through a different social media source. New bloggers have to establish an audience. They may share it with friends and have to establish trust before growing. Blogs are best for sharing detailed information with a deeply entrenched audience.  I am excluding "blogs" on news sites because they are more like columns.

Fox, Z. (2012, November 28). This Is How Much Time You Spend on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2012/11/28/social-media-time/

Untrained authors and Supreme Court decision translations

 Today an extremely important Supreme Court case was decided. Hobby Lobby sued the government in order to not pay for the contraceptive mandate that is part of Obamacare. NPR and other news sources posted the result almost immediately- Hobby Lobby won. The story was expanded over time as more reactions were obtained. The author of the NPR article is Bill Chappell. He does not have a law degree and does not exclusively report on Supreme Court cases, but he is a long time NPR contributor ("Bill Chappell," n.d.). This article is part of their blog called "the Two Way" which reports on breaking news. 

The most direct way to find the result of Supreme Court decision is to read the decision which is posted directly on their website. For the average person, this isn't always comprehensible. This decision was 97 pages long and includes the majority opinion, a concurring opinion from Justice Kennedy, and 2 dissenting opinions, one from Justice Ginsberg and one co-authored by Justices Breyer and Kagan (Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 2014).  There are almost 40 footnotes in the opinion and the dissent from Justice Ginsberg, which often reference other cases.

Most of the story is quotes from sources, the very first of which is a reaction from the White House which is passed through the Press Secretary Josh Earnest. It is always questionable using an edited reaction like this that was specifically crafted to become the talking point on the subject.

The next source was the Supreme court decision itself. This is obviously a very reliable source. The author took quotes from both the majority and dissenting opinion to avoid bias. 

The next quote is from SCOTUS blog, which is a very widely known and respected resource for these decisions. The link itself it not quite accurate as it is takes you to a live blog that has changed over time.  So it is hard to find which individual actually said the quote taken from the site- is it one of the regular contributors or a random guest? The editors of SCOTUS blog almost all are lawyers who have argued at the Supreme Court. Thus they can translate the dense decisions into plain English. 

The article then has some quotes from NPR's legal correspondent Nina Totenberg ("Nina Totenberg," n.d.). It is almost questionable that she didn't just write an article herself. These quotes could be old as they just explain the substance of the case, not the current decision. However, it does not link to an article that these quotes are taken from. 

The most questionable sentence of the whole article is this "The case, Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby, is perhaps the most important decision of the high court's term, legal analysts say" (Chappell, 2014). Why wouldn't you pick one legal analyst that actually said that? 

For more background information on the basis of the case being sent all the way to the Supreme Court and all of the legal reasoning behind the arguments, Bill links to an article that is on NPR but is actually partner content written by a Kaiser Health News journalist Julie Rovner. 

We then finally get to some background information about the plaintiffs in the case, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialists, and they include a link to the latter website, but not the former's. This may suggest bias. 

The final 2 links are mostly superfulous. He includes links to the "Emergency Contraception Website" which have information about Plan B and Ella which were a particularly controversial part of the case ("Emergency Contraception: Plan B," n.d.). These links were clearly there to suggest that educational sources; the website is run by Princeton University, do not think that emergency contraceptive counts as abortion. 

Since this author is not the most credible on this topic, the large number of sources used, and the good quality of sources make this article more reliable. I would not trust a random personal blog to detail Supreme Court cases, but a veteran journalist like Bill Chappell with his wide network makes this more credible. The media have made mistakes reporting Supreme Court decisions before see this article about the Wolf Blitzer mix up on the individual mandate decision- Supreme Court health care ruling: CNN, Fox news wrong on individual mandate (Fung, 2013). Overall, I think Montecino would find this to be a credible source (1998). But I can not wait until someone tricks major networks into reporting a Supreme Court decision going the wrong way again with our unrestricted blogs. 

References

Bill Chappell. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/people/14562108/bill-chappell

Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., No. 573 (June 30, 2014).

Chappell, B. (2014, June 30). Some companies can refuse to cover contraception, Supreme Court says. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/06/30/326926331/companies-can-refuse-to-cover-contraception-supreme-court-says?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20140630

Emergency contraception: Plan B. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://ec.princeton.edu/pills/plan-b.html

Fung, K. (2012, June 28). Supreme Court health care ruling: CNN, Fox news wrong on individual mandate. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/28/cnn-supreme-court-health-care-individual-mandate_n_1633950.html

Montecino, V. (1998, August). Helpful hints to help you evaluate the credibility of web resources. Retrieved from http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm

Nina Totenberg. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/people/2101289/nina-totenberg

Learning via social media

How do you know what you know? Name one new thing you learned using a social media site today and explain why you believe it is true. What source did you use to acquire this information? At times, are social media sites reliable for obtaining credible information? 

Lets play 3 truths and a lie. Which story is not true?
1. North Korea declares Seth Rogen and James Franco movie an act of war (O'Neal, 2014)
2. Obama Announces Plan to Forgive Student Loan Debt ("Obama Announces Plan to Forgive All Student Loans," 2013)
3. This Sri Lankan Newspaper Repels Mosquitoes (Luntz, 2014)
4. America's favorite national pastime: Hating soccer (Coulter, 2014)


They all don't sound that true, but the lie is number 2. When I read all of these headlines, I immediately questioned them. Item 1 is an article from the AV club, which is related to the fake news site The Onion. Sadly, North Korea is truly upset by this comedic movie about an attempted assassination of their Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Number 2 is a click-bait headline from the fake news site the Daily Currant. I was very disappointed that well educated people sharing such an obviously false story. But the appeal is obvious, it is something we want to believe. Click bait headlines are a byproduct of advertising money being linked to page views. This incentives "journalists" to puff up headlines to force you to click through. One page that is known for doing this all the time is Upworthy. I am so tired of this that whenever I see a link is from them I will avoid it.
I actually believed number 3 the most, because it is from a source that I generally find to be reputable, a page called I fucking love science. Yes, a page with a swear word in the title is generally more accurate than many others.
And item number 4 is an attention grabber from media seeking Ann Coulter. I was suspicious when I saw the title because I knew it was an attempt at her reviving her brand. But she was indeed saying something completely outlandish to get people to talk about her.

Whenever I question the validity of a story linked from social media, I will click it and look for sources. If I do not see any links, I will be more suspicious. I often consider who shared the story, as Kovach and Rosenstiel pointed out, aggregation is a form of journalism (2010). I am less likely to investigate things shared by my other skeptical friends who post only well vetted articles. Considering how much time we spend per day with social media, there is no reason we can not use it for good. If everyone has such high standards for information that the accept from social media, we can indeed get the truth.

References

Coulter, A. (2014, June 25). America's favorite national pastime: Hating soccer. Retrieved from http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-06-25.html
Kovach, B., & Rosenstiel, T. (2010). Blur: How to know what's true in the age of information overload. New York: Bloomsbury.
Luntz, S. (2014, June 29). This Sri Lankan newspaper REPELS mosquitoes. Retrieved from http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/sri-lankan-newspaper-repels-mosquitoes
Obama Announces Plan to Forgive All Student Loans. (2013, August 22). Retrieved from http://dailycurrant.com/2013/08/22/obama-announces-plan-to-forgive-all-student-loans/
O'Neal, S. (2014, June 25). North Korea declares Seth Rogen and James Franco movie an act of war. Retrieved from http://www.avclub.com/article/north-korea-declares-seth-rogen-and-james-franco-m-206212
Weigel, D. (2013, March 11). Why does the Daily Currant keep duping journalists? Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/03/daily_currant_satire_the_fake_news_website_keeps_fooling_journalists.html

New Media Perspective

 What forms of new media do you use daily? How has new social media influenced your perspective of events? Are these positive or negative influences?

I have an account on almost every social media site it seems like. I am most active on facebook. My pinterest and twitter accounts are mostly abandoned because of how much I work. I get all of my news through new media. I follow a couple of news sites like NPR and Slate on facebook and will click through from there to any stories with an interesting tag line. I also follow some blogs such as feministing and friendly atheist. New media has changed my filter of information. As Kovach & Rosenstiel point out in Blur, newspapers changed what stories people were exposed to (2010). This is similar the ideas presented by Ethan Zuckerman in his TED talk (2010). Social media gives me the option to see only stories that I want to read. I do not have to be presented with negative opinions of people I like. I can avoid news that challenges my personal views. You can see how this works with a facebook feed. If I have a friend that constantly posts opposing political views, I can remove them. So, as I am currently using them, social media is isolating my perspective of events. It can leave people wrapped up in their own bubble of wrong information. This has really been highlighted by people who are anti-vaccine. They involve themselves in communities that further enforce their position and can drown out everyone saying otherwise. Every person who has strongly held beliefs will demonstrate the same resistance. Mostly, I would say that social media has a negative affect on our perspectives. Ethan Zuckerman showed us that a much better use of social media is possible. Our hashtag campaigns are an example of this. Social media can be a great learning tool and expose us to things outside of our limited scope of the world. But we do need to push for this positive experience to be the norm, because I certainly do not think it is this way now. 

References

Kovach, B., & Rosenstiel, T. (2010). Blur: How to know what's true in the age of information overload. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.

Socha, B., & Eber-Schmid, B. (n.d.). What is new media? Retrieved from http://www.newmedia.org/what-is-new-media.html

Zuckerman, E. (2010, July). Listening to global voices. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/ethan_zuckerman