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Week 13 Blog

My favorite app is probably Letterboxd. It's a social media platform/website that my friends and I use all the time to keep track of our movie watching history. You can log, rate, and review movies, and see the activity of thousands of other random people. I love how unique of a platform is, and how a community has formed on it of poeple who are just really into movies. It's also really functional, allowing me to remember exactly when I watched certain movies going years back. When chosing to use an app, I usually appreciate design factors like clear and easy to use buttons. Also, minimal to no advertisments is best. Additionally, I find it really great when the app's developers frequently listen to community feedback and update their apps, like Letterboxd does.

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Week 11

Anything that remains in use outside of work/school hours comes across as an instant privacy concern to most people. I’ve heard stories in the past about companies who monitor employee activity outside of work, and how that’s created trust issues for employees at the company. I feel like in any relationship like employer/employee or school/student, the party with power needs to show that they place trust in the other group. It always seems like companies are most successful when they trust their employees and don’t push them too hard. You hear the same things about schools, with students at really rigorous colleges often being less happier. Although having a monitor that can track activity all the time violates privacy from the start, it’s most important that the school isn’t always aware of your activity outside of classes. I think if something like this had really been announced, more students would have stayed home or people would have fought back against it and complained.

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Week 10

I definitely agree w the themes regarding information privacy/ethics in the second article and find them to be really important. I actually just had to create a little presentation on something similar for another iSchool class, where we’re discussing the use of robotic police dogs in NYC. I think that as information technology has rapidly progressed, it’s been more difficult for the laws and ethics surrounding it to catch up. Social media/the internet are still so relatively new in human history, we haven’t been able to see how people in the past have solved these brand new issues. I found it really interesting how the article discussed the ways in which this impacts power dynamics and social structure as well. It’s also fascinating to compare the information ethics landscape in the United States with other countries around the world. We’re lucky here that we don’t have to experience as much censorship on the internet as other places do.

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Week 9

My paragraph: Wikipedia is a reliable source that should be allowed as a research tool by universities. While many people were initially unsure of the accuracy of Wikipedia's content, over the years that myth has been dispelled. There are hundreds of thousands of users updating the information on Wikipedia out of the good of their own heart, so people around the world can have information on millions of topics. The information tends to be largely accurate, with pages often being updated for joke reasons and then restored back to normal.

Feedback: Now take a look at the following two paragraphs which use the sources to present a similar point of view. Both paragraphs present a clear argument. Which structure is most similar to your own paragraph? In your opinion, which structure makes the point more clearly? Wikipedia has become a popular source of information and ideas for many students (Colón-Aguirre and Fleming-May 2012). A study at the University of Washington found that over 80% of undergraduates admit to using the online encyclopedia for their academic work. More surprisingly, it seems that many members of academic staff also use it (Eijkman 2010), although they may not admit to this (Aibar et al. 2015). While Wikipedia is easy to use and clearly provides a rich source of information, there are concerns about its reliability and credibility as an academic source. However, as Selwyn and Godard (2010) argue, it is not practical to try to prevent its use. Considering Wikipedia’s potential benefits and the fact that it is already used so widely, it would seem advisable for universities to allow students to exploit it, but to encourage and perhaps teach cautious and responsible use. For example, students might legitimately use it to gather initial ideas for a project, before seeking further information in more traditionally acceptable resources: indeed, students could be shown how careful use of the Wikipedia might lead them to key sources which they might not otherwise have discovered.

I’m a bit unsure of the website’s purpose since it didn’t really give it feedback, it just directed me to look at similar paragraphs. The site was able to detect the syntax of my paragraph though, as it determined that I had responded to their question in a supportive manner. It’s interesting that this is able to be detected, since it could effect responses in something like an automated software. Being able to detect user sentiment can help persuade someone to think/feel a certain way during an interaction. 

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Social Media Power

The platform I chose to look at for this blog post was Instagram. Instagram is a photo based platform, meaning that long form text content isn’t typically posted. On Instagram, you typically look at a large amount of pictures in a short amount of time, seeing little bits and pieces of thousands of other people’s lives. It’s difficult to browse these photos without comparing yourself to the people in them, and wondering why your life isn’t like theirs. This is a really common problem that many people experience, and it’s especially prevalent among the younger demographics that use Instagram the most. Due to the way their platform works, people are trying to become influencers themselves, which was a profession/dream that was unheard of until recent years. Another way in which Instagram has power over it’s users is in it’s explore page. The content users see on that page is determined by an algorithm, and is often based on content the viewer has browsed before. What you see is being directly determined by Instagram, which can have a direct influence on your life. A third way in which Instagram has power over it’s users is through its recommended profiles feature. If you visit a new profile, Instagram will recommend similar accounts for you to follow. This can create an endlessly addicting loop of constant content to view, causing it’s users to keep coming back and using the app. I think it would be useful if Instagram looked out for it’s users more and put in features to limit addiction/time spent on the app. I know too many people, like my sister, who are just way too caught up on the app and the politics of it (likes, followers, etc).

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Misinformation vs Disinformation

I think that misinformation is information that is incorrect just due to ignorance. For example, if someone tweeted a fact that they thought was true but their statistics were mistakenly wrong. Disinformation, however, is information that is intentionally presented to be incorrect. This is typically done with the intention of tricking someone, or trying to change their beliefs by showing them incorrect information. I think two groups that can be heavily affected by this are young people who are new to the internet, and old people who are also new to the internet. Both groups don’t really have the experience navigating the internet to be able to decipher which information is true or fake. They may not even know to be looking for fake info, so it’d be easy to influence their minds with mis/disinfo. Another group that could be affected by this is are international users browsing websites/platforms that are primarily in english. If english isn’t their first language, it may be difficult for them to spot some of the minor mistakes that may occur in misinformation.

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Week 6 Blog

What do you think of Google pulling in data to better answer your questions: Creepy or helpful?

I think it’s a little of both, but ultimately creepy if it’s done without the users consent. Also, they’re most likely selling the data to advertisers without the users permission as well. I’d hope that even if they were collecting my data, they’d be honest about it and let the public know. It sucks but this is just a common practice that occurs when you sign up to use a website on the internet. At this point, my data is already out there so I don’t personally really care what happens anymore. It’s one of those things where if I had a choice I’d rather them not collect my data, but it realistically won’t have an effect on my life. I’d be interested to see if there are any cases where someone’s data being sold resulted in a big change occurring in their lives.

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Week 5 Metadata

The Metadata in this case in anything that can be used to classify and store the data, meaning the persons first, middle, and last name. Additionally, their date of birth, address, SSN, and state ID number can also be considered metadata. Using this metadata, Dr. Paige C. Morgan is able to look people up and confirm that they’re registered to vote. It’s helpful being able to have multiple ways to identify someone, but it’s also difficult since not every database is set up in a universal manner. As Dr. Morgan mentioned, not everyone has a name that follows this standard format, so their data gets messed up when it’s input into the system. This is especially crucial when dealing with such an important task like voter registration. Data retrieval in a situation like this can easily prevent someone from being able to vote, thus changing the results of the election. I definitely agree with her intended solution, although she says herself that there isn’t really one direct way to go about fixing this. It’s all about making sure people are aware their information can get lost like this, and having them know methods for recovering that data.

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Information Needs

What were you going to find information about? I was looking to learn more about a film called Eternity and a Day by Theo Angelopoulos.

Why were you interested in this information? I had just watched the movie and was completely blown away by it, I wanted to learn more about it’s creation.

What were you going to use the information for? I really didn’t have any purpose other than just learning something and enriching my movie watching experience. After I watch something I love I want to find out as much as I can about the film and the director. The first place I typically search is google, and I read results from everywhere really. Sometimes I’ll go to wikipedia to read about the production history, or I’ll search up the movie on reddit to see people’s opinions. With Eternity and a Day however, it was really obscure, so I wasn’t able to find much information on my initial search. I next went to SU’s digital library and also JSTOR, to see if I could find any scholarly analysis on the film or the director. I then read all the relevant articles and essays I can find, absorbing the info and writing down things in my notes that I really want to make sure I remember. The process doesn’t take too long, it’s all dependent on how passionate I feel and how much information is even available. 

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Social Media Post IST 300

Here’s my most recent post on social media which I made last week. My friends and I released a short film so I was just putting it out on the internet. I contributed the text for my own post, but for others my friends and I wrote it together. The post contains a trailer for our short created by my friend Evan. The contents of that trailer, the short itself, was made by my friends and I. The content is all original, with our own footage and music. We got a really great reaction which was nice, and the post was shared by many of our friends on their own accounts. We also posted it on Reddit where many strangers interacted with the post, commenting on it and discussing the short.

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IST 341 Bio Assignment:

Hey! I’m Griffin, I’m currently a senior in the iSchool and I was born and raised in NYC. I love watching movies and making them with my friends. I also really love listening to music and going to shows. After school I’d really love to work in those industries while making art with my friends for fun. I haven’t designed anything like what we’re doing in class before, but I’m definitely interested in design as a subject and specifically graphic and interior design.

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Definitions of Information

It’s weird but information is just such a commonly used and accepted term that I never really thought about how to define it. It seems like one of those things that’s just defined by what it is. It can be used to describe such a wide variety of things which makes it so difficult to come up with one exact definition. Reading the article and seeing all the different ideas and perspectives on definitions of information was really cool, it’s interesting to see how people’s occupation/background change how they approach their definition. The one that resonated with me the strongest was Richard Derr’s definition, that states, “ "…information is an abstract, meaningful representation of determinations which have been made of objects." His words most closely represent what I feel, which is basically that the concept of information is so abstract the only way to define it is by discussing the abstraction of it, and all the meanings it can have. Derr's further qualifications that he lists are also really helpful for narrowing the definition down further, and for clarifying what exactly he means. One of those qualifications that he lists is that "the representation be meaningful," which is not something I necessarily agree with. I think that the purpose of a piece of information can be to provide some meaning to people, but for it to be information it doesn't need to be meaningful. I think something complex like philosophical theories should be considered information just as much as something simple like the weather or a basic equation.

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Hey guys I’m griffin! I’m from nyc and I’m currently in my last semester at Cuse. I really love music and movies, when I’m home my best friends and I are always going to shows and making short films. I take a lot of 35mm pictures too, and currently work for a record label called 100% Electronica. I’d find it really interesting to learn/discuss more about the impact of technology on those two industries. For example, it would be cool to look at whether or not people today watch more movies due to the popularity of streaming services and the constant information about newly released content.