Friday, April 19, 2019

Alternative Media


Alternative Media

      Alternative Media is a rather broad term but at the same time, is not hard to understand. This form of media differs from well established media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Whether it differs in the way it uploads its content, or formats their website, or even how the media content is distributed. Alternate media can appear in many different forms such as print, digital, audio, video and so on. In 2019, it seems like everyone, no matter what the age is, has a voice. Which some may think this is a good thing, but in reality it has lead to just as bad issues as good issues. Being able to say anything to anyone from the comfort of ones home, has made the luxury of communicating have issues it has never come across before. This ability to share information so easily and directly has also caused a overload of information on the internet that causes one to have to question the credibility every time one reads something. On the other hand, one might say that the information overload is a good thing and allows more people to research the news and figure out whether it is corrupt or not. Society is effected by alternative media in many good ways and bad ways. It has caused false information to travel across the globe until it is correctly euthanatized by people who have done research or are actually there. It has also caused donations to flow in from people who think they are sending money to a good cause, but are actually getting scammed. But the crazy part is, you can flip that right back and say how much alternative media has helped getting information out there that mainstream media does not cover. For example, a alternative media website called southfront.org is 100% funded by its readers and supporters and gives updates on the Syrian War and other controversial topics that are not covered as much as it should by mainstream media. When people come together and use alternative media it can do really  amazing things, but when people abuse their power and post corrupt information, it can be really bad for society. At 20 years old, you don't really think about how things may effect the next generation, but media is something that generally always gets me thinking, what are my kids going to have to deal with that I never had to. My generation has already been so tremendously effected by social media, technology, and alternative media. We believe everything we read, our intention spans are at a all time low, and we give attention to the things that should not be given attention and ignore the important things. Its crazy. At least my family that is spread out all across the world, can connect so easily. 




Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Online Presence

If you would have asked me, do you think you show up if you google your name ? I would have said absolutely not. When I was little, I use to dream about being able to google myself and information appear. To me it use to be thought of as a compliment to have information on google. It meant you were famous or people care about you. Now, many years later, I am completely terrified about how much information I can find just by typing in my name and my town. This has tremendously changed my mindset about how I go about social media and honestly, makes me think twice about even using technology. I found my parents name, all of my social media, and even my home address. I still am trying to have all this information deleted, but am afraid it might be too late. 

The only cool thing I got out of researching myself is my football highlights still appear online. In the future when I am missing the game of football even more than I already do, it is still available just one google search away. It's truly remarkable that so much information is just a few clicks away. But in this instance, the bad outweighs the good by a lot.

It is not that I am hiding my social media and information, but it is more for protecting myself from issues like identity theft, credit card fraud, and interfering with job opportunities. We were all once young and dumb, the only difference is in our parents generation they did not have everything on video through the use of Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter. 

Overall, by taking the time to research myself, I have learned so much about how big social media and companies like google, make so much money. In reality they sell our information that we think we can trust them with, and making billions because of it. Looking forward I am going to try and get this information off the web, and be much more mindful of what I put online. 

https://www.hudl.com/profile/1848138/Sam-Kelly




Monday, April 1, 2019

Diffusion of Innovations

 The Innovation of Twitter


Twitter has transformed tremendously since it first came out in 2006. It started as a basic app that was just for putting your thoughts out there to the world. Now it has become a news outlet with real time information coming out every second of the day. From sports games, to weather, or even concerts, Twitter provides it all. Every news station, sports team, and famous person has a twitter. Everyone uses twitter differently, and thats the best part about it. Theres not one specific way to use it, it is completely personal.
I use twitter for a lot of different reasons. The main reason is the unbelievable laughs I get from this app. The way twitter can connect people from all over the world, makes the app truly special. It might sound corny, but Twitter is very informative with culture. There is roughly 326 million users on Twitter, putting out information and news from every corner of the earth. Honestly I have learned so much about different cultures just by "following" so many different people.
Another reason I love Twitter is because of the real-time updates on sporting events. All I have to do is search the team or player that I am interested in and then instantly get all the information I could possibly need. Not only do I get the accurate updates on the sport, I also can see every users tweets that mention the team or player.
The way Twitter gives accurate and real time updates, along with comical tweets gives it just the right touch of seriousness and comedy. It is not exactly the place for users to be extremely sensitive solely because of the fact anyone can tweet at you and say anything. Although there is ways to block users and blocking seeing users tweets, theres always that chance a user can receive insulting tweets.
I use Tweeter daily, along with millions of people. I can confidently say that the majority of the news I read about everyday, comes from Twitter. 




https://twitter.com/sam_kelly23


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