Computer Science /Course Specific Learning Outcomes fulfilled:
· Communicate online in various media and genres — such as wikis, blogs, social networking sites and discussion boards — evaluating and selecting the appropriate register for the audience and the information being conveyed
· Use information to provide evidence for a claim, understanding the importance of authority, context, and attribution
· Create a project or presentation in digital format, integrating appropriate illustrations and/or audio-visual enhancements and links to web sources
· Analyze trends in digital information
After preparing to participate by reading and/or viewing this week’s resources, respond to the prompt below by going to the Blog and creating a new entry. If you would like, you can then respond to a post made by one of your peers. For more information on how your work will be evaluated, see the blog rubric in Course Information.
COM 110: Week 4 Summary
Duration: (1:25) User: n/a – Added: 8/2/16
YouTube URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ8fyMGx14I
Hi Students, welcome to the week four unit on blogging and social networking. The fascination with self-publication that was revealed in the early days of the internet shows no sign of abatement, although it continues to evolve. The blog format used by individuals in the past has morphed into a plethora of posting options, from live videos to photos that disappear to the 140-character Twitter post, whose content can reflect anything from self-absorbed silliness to political resistance. The big winners are the social media behemoths like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, all vying for readers and clicks. As The Atlantic put it in a 2015 article, “those social networks got so good at their job that they became coursing rivers of reader attention, worth billions of dollars—meaning that they can redirect a tiny bit of that flow, an amount unnoticeable to them, and refashion entire industries.” In this unit you have the opportunity to choose from a list of articles about all aspects of this ongoing seismic shift, and to reflect on the articles you read in a blog post.
This week Tasks:
1. Watch the Unit Summary video.
2. Read six of the articles listed.
3. Post to the Class Blog about the readings you chose; include an image.
Required Reading:
Read any six of the following articles. Since you get to choose which articles you want to read this week, you might want to review the titles and skim a bit before you begin, and then read strategically, picking some that stick to a theme, or that are about topics you want to explore…or you could just dip into the list at random.
1. How I learned to Love Twitter, Margaret Atwood, The Guardian 4/7/10
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/apr/07/love-twitter-hooked-fairies-garden
2. Gladwell vs. Shirky: A Year Later, Scoring the Debate Over Social-Media Revolutions, Wired, 12/27/11
https://www.wired.com/2011/12/gladwell-vs-shirky/
3. Where Weiner Went Wrong, Jami Floyd, WNYC, 6/17/11
http://www.wnyc.org/story/141350-where-weiner-went-wrong/
4. Why Chomsky is Wrong About Twitter, Salon.com, 10/23/11
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/why_chomsky_is_wrong_about_twitter/
5. Pinterest, Tumblr and the Trouble with ‘Curation’, Carina Chocano, New York Times Magazine 7/20/12
6. Social Networks Can Affect Voter Turnout, Study Finds, John Markoff, New York Times 9/12/12
7. Tumblr is Not What You Think, Adam Rifkin, Techcrunch, 2/18/13
https://techcrunch.com/2013/02/18/tumblr-is-not-what-you-think/
8. Which Should I Leave First: Twitter or Facebook? Paul Mason, The Guardian (UK) 8/19/2013
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/leave-twitter-facebook-paul-mason
9. Why Are We Still on Facebook?, Maria Konnikova, The New Yorker, 2/4/14
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-are-we-still-on-facebook
10. Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’ Keith Hampton et. al., Pew Research Internet Project, 8/2014
http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-the-spiral-of-silence/#fn-11806-1
11. Reclaiming Our (Real) Lives from Social Media, Nick Bilton, The New York Times 7/16/2014
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/fashion/reclaiming-our-real-lives-from-social-media.html
12. 5 Crazy Ways Social Media is Changing Your Brain Right Now, AsapSCIENCE, YouTube.com 9/7/2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HffWFd_6bJ0
13. Are Selfies a Sign of Narcissism and Psychopathy?, Gwendolyn Seidman, Psychology Today, 1/8/15
14. What Blogging Has Become, Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 2/26/15
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/02/what-blogging-has-become/386201/
15. Inside the Isis Social Media Campaign. Lauren Walker, Newsweek, 3/6/15
http://www.newsweek.com/inside-isis-social-media-campaign-312062
16. Who Spewed that Abuse? Anonymous Yik Yak App Isn’t Telling, Jonathan Mahler, New York Times, 3/8/2015
17. Meet the Instamom, a Stage Mother for Social Media, Hayley Krischer, New York Times, 11/14/2015
18. When Presidential Candidates Go Too Far on Social Media, Nick Corasaniti, New York Times, 12/29/2015
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/us/politics/social-media-election-2016.html?smid=pl-share
19. Ghosts in the Machine: Social media has changed the way we mourn, for the better. Jenna Wortham, New York Times, 12/23/2015
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/magazine/ghosts-in-the-machine.html?smid=pl-share
20. Who Controls Your Facebook Feed, Will Oremus, Slate, 1/3/16
21. Social Media Trends 2016, Layla Revis, Huffington Post, 1/5/16
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/layla-revis/social-media-trends-2016_b_8914190.html
22. Why Microsoft Likes LinkedIn, Quentin Hardy, New York Times, 6/14/16
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/technology/why-microsoft-likes-linkedin.html?smid=pl-share
23. 5 Facts About Twitter at Age 10, Drew DeSilver, Pew Research Center, 3/18/16
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/18/5-facts-about-twitter-at-age-10/
24. Coming soon: express even more in 140 characters, Todd Sherman, Twitter Blog, 5/24/16
https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/a/express-even-more-in-140-characters.html
Assignment:
After reading (select six of the articles, go to the Class Blog and post your thoughts. Remember, everyone will have read a different set, so be explicit in talking about the articles you read. Add some visual interest to your blog by including an image that is thematically related to this week’s topic, either an image you saved to your computer or a screenshot that you took. You might grab a screenshot of a post on Twitter, or of a chart or graph from one of the articles you read, or of any evocative image related to social networking. (See optional materials if you need help grabbing a screenshot or uploading an image.) Here’s an example:
Here are some questions to help you get started in composing your blog post. You do not need to answer all or even most of these questions, but read through them before you begin for help in framing your post:
· How has social networking evolved in the past 10+ years?
· What is the appeal of social networking and of publicly sharing private information?
· In what ways is this online content different from the social engagement of the past, and in what ways is it similar?
· What are some of the demographic differences among users of various social networking platforms?
· What does the growth and change in social networking mean for big business, for news organizations, for governments and politicians, and for ordinary individuals?
· How do companies and news organizations use blogs now, and what attracts users to “follow” or “friend” an organization’s posts?
· How is micro-blogging on sites like Tumblr and Twitter different from the blogs of the past?
