Is Your Privacy Really That Private?

In a word, no. Our privacy today is not private. Pretty much anyone can access any information from anybody from anywhere if they have the right tools. This is the last blog post for my Media Law and Literacy class, and one of our primary focuses in the class, among other things, has been privacy and what that means in today's society. Fifty years ago, there was no Internet so everyone's information was private, which according to the Oxford dictionary, means "the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people." In other words, there was not much people could do to access someone else's personal information without their consent. Today, however, that is a much different story. In several different TEDTalks I watched and listened to, the main theme was that information today is not private, mainly due to the development of different kinds of technology. In one Talk, the speaker talked about how the license plate readers work. They take pictures of peoples license plates and convert them into text a computer can read, and it logs this information to track where everybody goes and who they are with. These cameras are noticeable at intersections to record who runs red lights, but the cameras can also be attached to the sides of police cars, which is something I did not know about. These cameras take pictures of virtually everyone's license plates to be logged in a computer. This can easily be accessed by the police station, but also the government. 

There was another TEDTalk where the speaker talked about a child's toy, a doll named Cayla. This doll can be connected to an app to interact with children as is advertised, but in the terms and conditions, it says the doll can listen to and send recordings of conversation that happens in the comfort of people's own homes. If that doesn't creep you out, I don't know what will. To know that someone can always be listening to you in your own home is a scary thought. 

I think privacy today is a serious issue. With all that's going on in the world politically, I think we need privacy now more than ever. There was another TEDTalk where the speaker spoke of a new Internet, and what he said resonated with me. He said "we need to build a new Internet where privacy is no longer just an option, but also the default." I don't know that we necessarily need to build a new Internet, but with how easy it is to access someone's information just by scanning a picture of their face, we do need more privacy in our lives. 

Citizen Journalism

This week in class, we presented our EOTO projects, which as stated in the previous blog, stands for Each One Teach One, where each student selects a topic to present and "teach" to the rest of the class. For this blog post, we are supposed to pick someone else's topic and write a post about it, and I chose to write about citizen journalism. According to the Oxford dictionary, citizen journalism, also called participatory journalism, guerrilla journalism, or street journalism, is "the collection, dissemination, and analysis of news and information by the general public, especially by means of the Internet." I interpret this as being similar to the role of the press in that they are considered the "watchdog" for the government, acting as a part of the checks and balances system. It can also be, I think, the best kind of journalism, because it is essentially citizens telling other citizens what is happening, instead of citizens being told by the government or by large news companies that could be biased to one side or the other of an issue.

As there is with almost everything, there are advantages and disadvantages of citizen journalism. I found an article detailing some advantages and disadvantages, but I will summarize what the article talks about. One advantage is that it addresses the gaps in mainstream media. It enables people who don't have professional training to use modern technology, such as social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, to "fact-check, augment or create media." This means that anyone who has access to these tools can start a blog and report events on their own. Another advantage is that it empowers local communities. It enables people who were previously excluded from certain types of media to play an active role in creating it. It is said to help improve local economies, as well as allowing people to actively tell their story that might have been otherwise understated by mainstream media. There is a TEDTalk linked in the article, and it helps to explain the advantages of citizen journalism. But, as it usually the case with everything, there are some disadvantages as well.

One of the main disadvantages is that it poses difficulties to the audience about what to believe. Unlike traditional journalism, where it is safe to assume for the most part that the information given is factual, it is difficult for people to decide what is true or not when it comes to citizen journalism. It is human nature to edit information to best suit our own likeness, so this can make unofficial journalism unreliable. Another disadvantage of citizen journalism is that it typically has a smaller audience than mainstream journalism. If somebody has a Twitter page dedicated to citizen journalism, the only people who would be expected to see it would be their friends and people who know about it. The same goes with blogs; if someone has a blog, they would reach a good amount of people, but not nearly as much people that would be reached by a mainstream journalism broadcast. There was another TEDTalk linked in the article, and it helps to further explain the drawbacks of citizen journalism.

Overall, I think citizen journalism is an important part of the media and information cycle. I think it has overall good intentions, but does not have the same widespread effect that mainstream journalism has.

Disinformation vs. Misonformation

Disinformation is false information created with the intent of harming a specific person or organization. Misinformation is false information, but it is not created with the specific intent to harm. In simpler terms, it is the concept of a deliberate lie versus an honest mistake. This week in class, we did another EOTO, Each One Teach One, where each student picks a topic to teach the rest of the class about, and my topic, if you hadn't guessed already, was disinformation. In doing research, I found that the word "disinformation" wasn't in the English language until the Cold War. It comes from the Russian word "dezinformatsiya" and comes from the name of a KGB black propaganda department. This department was responsible for Operation INFEKTION, a Soviet disinformation campaign which stated that the United States invented the AIDS disease. This was done to harm public opinion of the United States, therefore boosting public opinion of the Soviet Union.


This can and has affected society as a whole in, I think, a negative but nonetheless powerful way. In keeping with the example of Operation INFEKTION, this campaign was launched during the middle of the Cold War, and in times of war, I think people will believe what their government tells them because they, especially in the Soviet Union, have no real way of finding out what is really happening unless they are actively participating in the war. It is also a time when fear is high among lots of people, and they will cling to what little information is fed to them. In this way, disinformation is a very powerful tool that can be used not just in times of war, but also times of peace. However negative and morally wrong it may be, governments have still used it to try and influence public opinion one way or another. Either way, I enjoyed learning about it and doing research about it. I was able to learn new things about the Cold War, which is one of my favorite time periods to learn about. I love learning about history, especially World War II and Cold War history. I have always thought it's fascinating, so I enjoyed learning about this.

My Own Online Presence

I have a very minimal footprint online. I googled myself to see if either my Twitter or Instagram profiles came up in the results, and after several minutes of combing through the many, many pages of search results, I was unable to fine my profiles. I assume this is because I have them set to private mode, so none of my information is publicly available. It also means that I have to approve someone to follow me; I don't let any random Billy Bob follow me. In addition to this, I don't have a personal website, so that's even less of an online footprint that I have. When I searched for just my name, the first result was a musician who shares my name, whom I will admit I have never heard of or have ever heard his music. You can read more about him on his website.

As I mentioned earlier, I only have accounts on Twitter and Instagram, and they are both private. Both are also linked in the "About Me" section on my homepage. I don't really post that often on Twitter, if ever. I mainly use it to keep myself updated with news about things I am interested in, such as Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, and other things. I also like to scroll through my feed and find funny posts people have tweeted, and it's a nice way for me to wind down at the end of the day. I post regularly on Instagram, with one to two posts a month. I mainly post pictures of what I'm doing with friends and family. For example, my most recent post is of my family and I together for Thanksgiving, and the post before that was of when I went to visit my friend in Chicago over fall break. As with Twitter, I use Instagram to keep myself updated on the things I'm interested in.

If someone who had never seen my social media before stumbled upon my accounts, they would be able to see that I am a big movie fan. I am deeply invested into the Marvel movies, as well as Disney and Star Wars. I am always checking to see what new developments are taking place with them. They would also be able to tell that I love spending time with my family friends. Most of my posts on Instagram are of my family and friends, but there are also a couple pictures of sunsets I've taken and other things like that. I really enjoy using the social media outlets I have, in part because they also give me a way to easily share things with my friends.

Diffusion of Innovations and Instagram's Popularity

The Diffusion of Innovations theory tries to explain how, why, and at what rate new innovations are spread. The theory was published by Everett Rogers, a professor of communication studies. He argues that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated over time among the members of a social system. Rogers also points out in his book that members of the "early adopters" and "early majority" category tend to be younger, better educated, more affluent, better connected, more extroverted, and are willing to take more risks. As is shown in this diagram, a population is divided into different groups of people who adopt the innovation over time, represented with the blue bell-curve. The yellow S-curve represents how much of the market is saturated with the innovation, in other words, how many people adopt the innovation over time. If you want to learn further about the theory, I suggest you check out the website linked here.

Instagram was launched on October 6, 2010, and is the third most popular social media platform, following Facebook and YouTube, with around one billion monthly users. In its first eighteen months, April 2012, it only had 50 million users, so in accordance with the theory, it started out slow. It then started to pick up speed as more and more people were downloading it and using it. This diagram matches with the first half of the diffusion S-curve, and I imagine the amount of users will start to level off.
According to several studies about why Instagram is so popular, most have said the same thing, and it makes sense. As humans, we prefer to interpret visual images rather than written text. Instagram was the first social media platform that allowed people to share only images, and it took off from there. Visual images is not only what makes Instagram so popular - it is also the reason why visual marketing has been booming recently as well. I personally love using Instagram and seeing the pictures all my friends post. I agree that it does cause lots and lots of mental health issues for a lot of people, but I enjoy using the platform.

The Eight Values of Free Expression

As we discussed in class, there are eight values of free expression. Free expression is defined as "the right to express one's ideas and opinions freely through speech, writing, and other forms of communication but without deliberately causing harm to others' character and/or reputation by false or misleading statements." This is guaranteed to all American citizens in the first amendment through freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition. The eight values are (1) Marketplace of Ideas, (2) Participation in Self-Government, (3) Stable Change, (4) Individual Self-Fulfillment, (5) Check on Governmental Power, (6) Promote Tolerance, (7) Promote Innovation, and (8) Protect Dissent. Out of these eight values, there are two in particular that stand out to me: (2) Participation in Self-Government and (5) Check on Governmental Power.

Participation in Self-Government says that citizens will not make wise and informed choices in elections if candidates and supporters of certain policies are restricted in their ability to communicate their positions on certain issues. Citizens need to be informed on which candidates support the same issues they do and which ones don't so they can elect the person they think would best represent them in office. This is obviously big for the presidential elections, but it is important for every single election, whether it's for a local mayor or for a congressman. The next one I think is important is Check on Governmental Power. This is also known as the "Watchdog Role." This essentially says that the people, as well as the press, are a part of the checks and balances system that prevents the government from overstepping its boundaries. I read an article from Harvard Politics that gave a quote from Thomas Jefferson on the role of the press: "'Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,' Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter in 1787." The press is able to (or supposed to) keep the public informed as to what is going on inside the government to help citizens make the best possible choice at the ballot box. These two values go hand-in-hand in this way as they relate to citizens making informed choices about who they vote for. I think they are both very important and necessary to keep the country running smoothly.

High Point Mump-iversity

Mumps. High Point University has the mumps. So does Elon with six confirmed cases, but I don't go there, so it's not as relevant to me. As per the last official email from Campus Concierge, there were eleven confirmed cases on campus. As is to be expected with any campus-wide event like this, there will always be talk and rumors about what is happening. I heard a rumor saying that there were forty-two (42) students in quarantine, but again, this is just a rumor. The quarantine is set up for people who show symptoms, but haven't officially been diagnosed with mumps yet. There was even a girl in one of my classes who had it.Other rumors include that students might be evacuated from campus, a rumor that we might not be allowed to leave campus, and another rumor that HPU might extend fall break to allow for the campus to be sanitized.

HPU is also providing booster shots on campus this week, and I am sure most everybody will be getting one. I will, despite my hatred for needles. In addition to these booster shots, High Point University has also sent out precautions to take to reduce the chance that students will contract it. "It is important to remember that mumps is a virus, transmitted very similarly to the flu or other diseases spread by droplets in the air. The recommendations for reducing the spread of mumps are similar to the steps we take to avoid the flu." You can help prevent the virus from spreading by:

• Covering your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze and putting your used tissue in the trash can. If you don't have a tissue, cough or sneeze into your upper sleeve or elbow, not your hands
• Washing your hands often with soap and water
• Avoiding sharing objects that might have saliva on them, like water bottles or cups. Do not share drinks, cigarettes or other nicotine devices
• Disinfecting frequently touched surfaces, such as doorknobs, tables and counters

I know everybody on campus is worried about it, even though they may not show it. Everyone is aware what is going on, and I hope everyone takes the necessary steps to prevent it from spreading further. I myself am not that worried about getting it, but I know there is always a possibility.