Get Hype

The blog I chose to take a further look at was (cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices). When I searched this blog it brought me to Global Voices Online. This blog is a very “high-tech” blog in my eyes. That is a good thing however; there are many options of blogs to choose from. The first thing I noticed was that I could choose what region and topics I wanted to look at. Under that blog I chose to view a specific post to get an even closer look, it was called National Sports: Unique Expressions of Countrywide Pride.  The page is well presented with a good size heading and the previous options for searching. Next to the post are maps of the regions I chose and other related links. There are also photos and videos of what the post is describing. MacKinnon’s statement in the book about this blog relates to the site very well. She sated, “we want to point to the most interesting and important information that’s coming off the international blogosphere.” This site allows you to choose the areas and topics that are most interesting to you the reader. You might think I have misrepresented MacKinnon’s work, but MacKinnon does provide interesting and important information that isn’t always mentioned in the media. This allows people to search a wide variety of  information.

By focusing on things such as G. Bush’s money contributes to the terrorists in the Middle East, Huffington is overlooking many more serious problems that the United Sates are facing. There are so many issues that the U.S. is facing today such as poverty, illness, and employment. When the people of today focus on rumors and street talk about our political officers it is just a distraction for the problems that should be brought up instead. Although these comments were stated I do agree that the blogosphere did have a huge impact on changing many political views, this is a point that needs emphasizing because so many people don’t realize this importance. The facts that are posted in the blogosphere many people would never see in the media or any other way. Huffington mentioned in her essay that anyone can put up facts in their own blog about any topic. The facts will reach to some people, but obviously if the fact is not true it is quickly commented on to change.  

I have decided that parents should not monitor everything their children write online. Sometimes teenagers do need to be checked on and observed as to what they are looking at online, just to know that they are being safe. Everything however, isn’t needed to be checked on in my book. Nussbaum stated in her chapter My So-Called Blog “exposure may be painful at times, but it’s all part of the process of “putting it out there,” risking judgment and letting people in.” This phrase is perfect for teenagers using their blogs for releasing tension. The child that she interviewed in Westchester County did this same exact thing. He felt as if he was an outsider who always was picked on and put down by other students throughout his school. So his online journal was for venting and releasing his anger. Wanting other people to hear him out and know how he truly feels. This one example made it seem clear to me that there is a good and a bad out there for online journaling. That example was obviously the good but it is what all parents are worried about that is the bad and this is why I said in the beginning that not all things need to be checked on but just the fact that their being safe is necessary.  

The three social computing technologies that interest me the most I picked by how much I know about them. I picked chat rooms, email, and file sharing because I have heard and only used them a little amount of time. The three marginalized groups I chose as most interesting are children, learning differences/disabilities, and people without health insurance or insufficient healthcare. Finally the three regions that I would love to learn about would be the US, Middle East, and South and Central America. I looked up a little bit of each item and got the information I was looking for. I’m most interested in children involved with chat rooms in the United States. All over the internet I found all these scandals with children involved with the internet. I think it would be very interesting to actually learn the reasons why and see how the police catch the online predators.  

The paragraphs that I’m interested in are in Kline and Burstein’s chapter “I blog, Therefore I Am” starts on page 247 and continues onto 248. Basically the chapter states that blogging gives a person the identity they always wanted, kind of hidden but also powerful. It is a place where they can go to feel better about their abilities, ideas, and daily lives. Blogging creates an all new reputation controlled by empowerment. This ability can change lives for good and really get through to the individual blogger. As if I write the information about them gets repeated it may ease their real pain or struggle that was there in the beginning. The bloggers stories may be read a couple times or even read by millions of people. The feedback is what really triggers the bloggers emotional being. It may create lasting relationships or just a simple conversation about their personal feelings. Not everyone is always pleased with the different opinions or information exposed, but that is the risk of creating that empowerment.      

For this homework assignment I decided to look up the term “double-loop marketing”. It is mentioned on page 108 in Kline and Burstein’s book Blog. I learned that a marketing consultant invented what is most known as “mind share” to “wallet share”. In other words Christian Sarkar created a method for businesses to get their advertising methods well discovered into the blogosphere. I found this information online at www.doubleloopmarketing.com . The term was not clear to me at all when reading it out of the book. I thought the name was creative and it did catch my eye. His little step by step building process for gathering more consumers and creating more profit is getting the attention. Everyone might just have their own opinion on if the system really works. There is a statistic on the website that states engineers and vendors spend close to 20,000 dollars in advertising through his double-loop marketing system and seem to get 11,000 dollars in return.  So I’ll leave the judgment up to you.

In this essay I found that there are really two sides to every conflict. Yeah that seems a little common but really in this essay I saw it as the bloggers absolutely do not get along with the journalist and the same thing goes for the journalist. They don’t like how one another presents their political views. Bloggers have stated that most forms of the media put out information that the people want to hear. Instead of putting out the facts that should be known because the information is important to our daily lives. There are a lot of mistakes made by the media that bloggers tend to fix, or state the truth about. I loved the part where “they say there are many cases when blogs are the first to provide readers with important information, I say if they provide the information how did they get it, and other readers must have the same opportunities if bloggers are just ordinary people sharing political views? In the beginning of the essay there were a lot of statistics about how large the blog life has grown over the media. So as I continued on reading it seemed to drag on about all the medias downfalls. I would like to know exactly where the bloggers get their information?

Burstein’s number nine states, “The numbers of bloggers will continue to grow because the numbers of knowledge workers in our societies are continuing to grow.” I defiantly agree with this one the most because I believe that working with computers is becoming the next big thing. More and more jobs today are creating computer positions that need to be filled. How can they just hire anyone though? Some businesses are paying for their employees to be educated in computer technology. Why you ask? Well, companies today need spokes people to pass the word on for them. Meaning, people who are critical thinkers who can influence others bye creative writing and catch the sale or a client depending on the business. What I’m trying to say is that blogging is going to keep growing because people look and study blogs for opinions on things they know little about. This is one of many aspects of the blog life.

First blog of my life.

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