Blog 11

annotation

"Challenging the Digital Divide." Flexibility.co.uk - Europe's Leading Website for Smart and Flexible Work Resources. Web. 28 Oct. 2011. <http://www.flexibility.co.uk/issues/debates/divide.htm>.

            This article really focuses on the basics of the digital divide and how we are trying to tackle the problem. This article shows how the attack is being built up by the government and corporations to close the gap with new technologies. Also it stats facts if all this work and push to close the divide is even worth it in the long run. This piece will really help me when creating my finally project.

"Digital Divide Still Present in Washington, D.C., Broadband Map Shows." Government Technology: State & Local Government News Articles. Web. 28 Oct. 2011. <http://www.govtech.com/e-government/Digital-Divide-Still-Present-in-Washington-DC.html>.

            In this article it shows how the digital divide is still a concern in Washington. It gives some numbers such as a grant was given to the capital of 1.5 million just to put computers in the cities libraries. It really gives off a good message that the government is trying to do all it can to help less fortunate areas become closer to the digital side of things. This will really help me back up my statements in the final piece.

Everyone, Internet For. "America's Digital Divide: Millions in America Have Inferior Internet Access | Media | AlterNet." Home | AlterNet. Web. 28 Oct. 2011. <http://www.alternet.org/media/129956>.

This article is geared more towards the statistical facts behind Americas digital divide. It touches not only on the inner cities problems with the divide but even parts of the United States that people have never heard of. These places are rural areas and places with little connection to the rest of the world. In this article they also have a nice debate that is a solid argument if the divide is really one of America’s major problems.

"America: The Growing Digital Divide." TechCrunch. Web. 28 Oct. 2011. <http://techcrunch.com/2007/05/06/america-the-growing-digital-divide/>.

            This article shows that the digital divide really is not just a current problem in the United States but a growing problem in the United States. This article truly is a technological breakdown of the divide from year to year. I find this info to be extremely valid and crucial to my overall understanding of my topic.

web blog 10

Superorganism in a biological scenes is the tissues and cells or the small parts working together to create an action or a specific role. With these small parts working together it builds up to help the ecosystem or the big picture per say. When dealing with technology this method of superorganism is used a lot in many different ways. An example is from one of the lecture we had in Dolan auditorium this year. We were informed about crisis mapping which is a perfect example of superoranism. People from all over the world that individually mount to an extremely small percent report information to build a huge worldwide crises map to help people in need. It shows that every little thing matters and every little thing contributes to the full effect. Now the real question is, does Facebook depend on a superorganism approach? I personally believe they do depend on superorganism. I believe this because Facebook is a social network and the part “social” is crucial. Every Facebook user or account holder is part of the overall Facebook world. The individual user is the smallest piece or the “cell” and being a cell you can share picture and events with the rest of the other users or “cells”. If every user didn’t believe they were a part of the big picture then there would be no picture.

web blog 9

Emergent behavior happens every day in different ways and in certain areas. We all experience these emergent behaviors weather we are involved directly with them or we observe them from the outside looking in. An example for me would be we I used to drive home from high school every day. My school was 25 minutes away on the freeway and in the mornings around eight o’clock I would experience traffic jam. This traffic jam would be considered an emergent behavior. Everyone had a place to be and was in a rush for their individual reasons. With this being said, people started making dumb and aggressive driving moves. This only led to the roads being more cluttered and confusing. The roads were designed to only handle so much traffic at one time. At this certain time in the day there was an overload causing backup. From my perspective the traffic is moving slow because of the other peoples bad driving, but the perspective of the other drives is my driving is bad. Maybe it’s not that anyone’s driving is bad but it’s just the systems fault.

web blog 7and 8

1.)    The US government should institute formal policy that bars overseas sales of systems that provide targeted Internet surveillance if such systems are used to violate human rights or freedom of speech (such as the current internet censorship in China).

Pro

The United States government adding in a policy that influences overseas sales of systems could be a good thing for the people of china. With the sales of American based routers it could lead to more human rights. With this comes the freedom of speech and educates the people more about local and worldwide news. With the censorship in China being so heavily enforced it gives the citizens a feeling that the Government is hiding something from them and will not let them speak their minds. The answer to the problem is a democracy such as the United States needs to step in and help the less fortunate. Helping can mean a lot in the case of the Chinas great fire wall. From the Cisco leak it stated “The document is the first evidence that the networking giant has marketed its routers to China specifically as a tool of repression. It reinforces the double-edged role that Americans’ technological ingenuity plays in the rest of the world. Companies including Cisco, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google have faced criticism for cooperating to various degrees with the repressive Chinese regime, and the document leak on Monday came one day before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing into U.S. technology companies’ participation in foreign government censorship programs.” With this being said it shows that American corporations are involved in the firewall but for a negative reason. They are only in there to make sales but the companies said they gave the routers to the country but didn’t set the restrictions on. Being an American company the government should get involved and make the country of china follow are rules for internet censorship to improve the lives of the Chinese people. This will also allow both economies to start to improve due to the fact it will intermix the two countries in an area where we had are differences. All people are created equal and deserve the same rights. It should matter were your born on the map. Everyone should have the same tools to use and same advantages for success.

Con

Some people say that if the United States were to pass a policy it would possible be a negative. China is a country just like the United States of America and we wouldn’t like it if a country tried to change the way we run things. Yahoo and Google both stated along the lines that they must follow and respect the rules of China. If the government of the USA were to propose a law to make internet censorship in china illegal, there still is a great chance it wouldn’t pass or come into effect for many years. Some people want to keep the way of the fire wall because it allows their kids to study more and not be distracted by Faecbook and other networks that American kids use every day. From one of the articles the ministry of china stated “The Chinese Foreign Ministry lashed out Friday against criticism of China in a speech on Internet censorship made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, calling on the United States government “to respect the truth and to stop using the so-called Internet freedom question to level baseless accusations.” We must respect the government of China because that’s how they feel their country runs the best.

web 7

When I first walked into this class I think it was safe to say that I didn’t know much of anything dealing with the digital media and social justice. From this class the most alarming and interesting information to me was on the digital divided. From the material learned in class and the input of my fellow classmates I would love to inform others on where I think the digital divided needs progression. I would also do this by taking what I have noticed before the class, such as family experiences and stories from others on digital issues. I believe it is now or never because the problem will only get worse as new generations keep popping up. This generation is all about technology and keeps pushing innovation further and further. The way I am going to explain my concerns about the digital divide dealing with social justice and digital media is clear. I am going to use digital storytelling to pass the information along so maybe more people will become aware of this growing problem.

            As I was reaching the internet for sources on the digital divide I came across some really interesting opinions and thoughts about the topic. One of the sources that I really enjoyed broke down the digital divide into 3 stages. The first stage was called the economic divide and was stated as the simplest out of the 3. To generalize the passage, it cost a lot of money to connect to the internet. They gave a fact “Dells cheapest computer costs 379 dollars.” The second stage of the digital divide was claimed to be the usability divide. The fact of the matter is that people can be given a free computer and not even know how to turn it on. I am sure we all have that older family member that hasn’t ever touched an electronic device. At the same time I am sure we all know a young child in school that hasn’t yet been taught how to work a computer. So what should we do? I think we should make the software and programs more simplistic for its new users. The third stage is the empowerment divide. This stage just shows that people have computers and only use them for certain reasons. This makes sense because in class we talked about providing and learning when it comes to the internet. Some people don’t know how to work search engines and get to valuable information that they could benefit from.

            For my story line I was going to act as if I were a person of the government trying to propose a plan to close the digital divide. In this story I plan to make valid points from my two articles that I have chosen to use for information purposes. I also will incorporate how we can use Facebook to limit the divide and other social networks.

"The Digital Divide." UC Atlas of Global Inequality. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/communication/digitaldivide.php>.

"Digital Divide: The Three Stages (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)." Useit.com: Jakob Nielsen on Usability and Web Design. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/digital-divide.html>.