Youtube's Cute Copyright Video

So we discussed in class a lot about copyright with Youtube. I decided to do a Youtube search about copyright and came across this funny but educational video. It's Youtube using Glove and Boots to explain their video copyright policy. I don't know if you've seen any other Glove and Boots videos, but some are pretty funny.

Here they go over a lot of what we talked about in class: Youtube has algorithms to search through videos and if any content matches copyrighted material, then they will take down the video; You can appeal a take-down decision about your video. In the video, one of the puppets, Mario, is mad because another puppet is criticizing the video he has made. His friend puppet, Fafa, tells Mario that he can't just go taking down people's videos because he doesn't like what they're doing or the content. I guess that's Youtube's policy with individual users, but as we discussed in class, it seems that big media companies can do just that, even if the video creator isn't infringing on copyright laws.

I looked beneath the video to read people's comments and see what they had to say about Youtube's policies, but the comment section has been disabled! I'm guessing the comments got nasty and Youtube wanted to shut it down, but I don't know for sure. This relates to another class theme about online discourse and commentary and how there is a need for more civility and thoughtful discussion. So I'm appealing to you all to offer some thoughtful discussion about the basis for Youtube's decision to allow big media companies to take down individual users' videos they don't like. On the one hand, Youtube is a private company and has every right to make contracts with whom they wish and to set their terms of use policies that users have to abide by. On the other hand, if what makes Youtube Youtube is mostly user-generated content, self-expression, and video variety, then shouldn't Youtube be more loyal to that segment of its customers? What do you think?

 

Copyright Fighting Piracy

Going off of Kayla's post, I like the theory that "if you are using something non-commercially and it doesn't affect the market for the copyrighted work, it should be fair use." Unfortunately, I think the problem lies with the piracy more than anything, and this is why this theory can't work. At least not yet. Yes, the outdated copyright laws should be updated. Why hasn't it been updated yet? I think it has to do with the fact that creators of content like using the current copyright laws to protect their work against piracy (or anything that could put their work in a bad light OR take away potential profit).

Quick Point on Piracy: 

The anti-piracy bills SOPA/PIPA in early 2012 was an attempt to fix piracy. Big name websites like Wikipedia, Google, Tumblr, Twitter, and YouTube all protested these bills (check out this article for a refresher on the internet wide blackout) because it was not only blocking piracy, it was destroying creativity, free knowledge for around the world, and promoting censorship. We are still in the process of finding a happy balance between blocking piracy but keeping creativity and fair use.

Example of Copyright Problem:

My curation tool is YouTube. We did talk a lot in class about the problems with YouTube's terms and conditions, as well as its appeal process. So I'm going to focus on a different side of copyright issues with YouTube that isn't necessarily YouTube-the-company's fault.

When we upload songs/movies/movie extras/etc not our own, we are taking away chances for the original content to be paid for. To break it down: artists who use streaming sites for their music get paid for it. The Beggars Group (record company Adele uses) said in a statement by founder and chairman Martin Mills that in 2012, "22% of the label group's digital revenues came from streaming - and that the majority of its artists earn more from track streams than track downloads." That sounds great. Here's the issue: when YouTubers use songs to create lyric videos or powerpoints to a certain song, the potential money that would go to the artist for their song is taken away by free listening that doesn't go back to the artists. Plus there are websites designed to rip the MP3 off videos to download onto the computer for free. The same goes for video content. By watching extras online, or watching full videos in parts on YouTube, the money that would be spent purchasing the content isn't spent at all because people can watch it for free as many times as they want (until YouTube copyright programs flag it, but with 100 hours of video content uploaded every minute, it's hard to keep up).

Here's an artist talking about how free music online has its benefits as well as downfalls:

I remember getting into a discussion with my roommate a couple years ago about how it wasn't fair for artists who make thousands of dollars to squabble over $1.99 song that's being put up on a YouTube video. Maybe if only a few people watched the video and only a handful downloaded the content illegally it would seem like a petty thing to argue about. But. It is still an artists content that they deserve payment for, no matter how rich. And when you have an estimated 82% of people on the internet downloading at least one file illegally, 24% watching streaming movies online, and 32% downloading films still in cinema, that's a lot of money not going to the owner (source may not be reliable, and I couldn't find any decent statistics on illegal downloading in US, but still - several thousand people download content illegally and that's still a lot of money).

Here's another thing though that I've just started reading about though: CD Baby. Apparently when someone uses a copyrighted song in their own video, the song's owner can use CD Baby to ID the song, place an ad on the video, and direct money from views to the owner. So why people aren't using this more often (or maybe it isn't really effective - haven't gotten to do much research on this yet) I don't know. And it still doesn't solve the problem with video content. But anyway. That's my two cents and what I've been able to research so far.

Other articles for further reading on YouTube/copyright topics:

YouTube's Copyright Problem

How Musicians Make Money From YouTube

Types of Content Theft

Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of All Time

House Piracy: Over 1 Million People Watched 'Game of Thrones' Illegally

Copyright Monstrosity

The monster of copyright.
This image, of course, from Wikimedia Commons.

Is calling copyright a monstrosity a little too much? Well, yes. But I don't think anyone will disagree with me that the system is monstrous. I'm an editor, as I've mentioned before, and I've had to deal with copyright in varying levels of depth in different jobs.

Let me introduce you to my not-so-little friend, the Cornell copyright cheat sheet.

I can't tell you how many times I've referenced this PDF. I don't expect you to read all of it. Please don't read all of it. But you can get the gist of it. You can see why I love the year 1923--public domain and nothing you can do about it! Don't some of the terms seem excessive, though? I'm trying to think of a reasonable purpose for having a copyright extend 70 years past the death of the author (not even just when it was published), but I can't.

Also, it's just too complicated for any non-expert to work through. Do people really expect others to know that works published from July 1, 1909 to 1978 in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands (if it was published in a language other than English and without subsequent republication with copyright notice) should be treated as unpublished works until such date as US-compliant publication occurred? It's laughable.

Now, a lot of what I deal with is print or at least something for official publication, and a lot of people seem more concerned with being able to share things on the Internet non-commercially without being tracked down and sued. I think both points are fair, and I have one main suggestion for simplification.

If you are using something non-commercially and it doesn't affect the market for the copyrighted work, it should be fair use. I know that that is part of fair use, but there are other stipulations. Personal example: If I am wanting to use an image in the design of a non-profit, non-sold-at-all, student-project magazine, I think in most instances I should be able to without paying a royalty. In my particular case, it will in no way affect a market for the photograph or photographer.

Of course, there are a lot of other areas that need to be simplified, but that's my first thought and whack at it. We need to not make the common people into victims who are in charge of defending their innocence in violating laws made too complicated for most of them to understand.

Directing Your Digital Fate: Douglas Rushkoff's Program or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age

I've heard conflicting opinions about the healthiness vs. usefulness of internet immersion, and have consequently felt guilty about all the time I spend online and been hesitant to immerse myself even more. Rushkoff’s book  Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age has a good reader rating on Amazon and is about the best ways to digitally immerse ourselves, so I'm checking it out.

After skimming this book, I see that the author focuses a lot on telling the reader the way humans work and the way the internet works in order to tell the humans how to make the internet work their way. This is reflected in the illustrations, whose main subjects are always human. Several of the chapters have italicized paragraphs at the beginning, which seem like a sort of abstract of the chapter.

Early Social Proof

When I posted on some social sites that I was reading this book, I asked, “What’s the best way to go about life & digital life in the Digital Age?” I received some responses on Facebook: my aunt and cousin “liked” the status, and my mom gave a couple of pieces of advice to answer that question. They were concerned with protecting one’s digital identity and reputation, with passwords and posting intelligently. While it wasn't quite the angle I’m looking at, her response does reflect the “be careful” attitude my family has about internet activity.

Similar Books

When I looked for similar books on Amazon and Google Books, both search engines recommended more of Rushkoff’s books. Amazon recommended three – Coercion: Why We Listen to What “They” Say; Life, Inc.: How Corporatism Conquered the World, and How WE Can Take It Back; and Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now.” Google Books just included the latter. Present Shock also happens to be more current that the book I’m reading; it was published in this year, whereas the other was published in 2011. It seems to delve further into the “command” of one of the chapters in Program or be Programmed: “Do Not Be Always On.” Other books the engines recommended are also about the psychology of the internet, how business can use the internet and how corporations have taken over the internet; and even Unbored: The Essential Field Guide to Serious Fun.

 Who Cares?

When searching for this book and its author on Twitter, I found several mentions of Rushkoff and his book from people in several countries and of several backgrounds. Usually, though, their backgrounds had something to do with computers or brand marketing. There were also YouTube links to the author’s presentations about the book’s message, and links to a couple of interview articles. When searching on Facebook, I found a fan page for the book which is not very active and has 268 likes (now 269, with my like). However, there were several interesting articles posted, which told me that Rushkoff publicly took himself off of Facebook, and also that computer ignorance is a threat to personal freedoms, since technical ignorance is being exploited in courtrooms. I shared that article on my Facebook page and on Google+. There was also a Facebook page with this book’s name, which mostly had programmer jokes.

On Google+, I mostly found links to Rushkoff’s work but I also found further explorations of the concept in education and even medicine. Recommendations of his work were generally more thoughtful than those on Twitter, since there is more space to speak on Google +. For example, John Wohn wrote four paragraphs about the book, beginning with, “Don't be put off by the title; Rushkoff is not (exactly) saying that everyone needs to be a Java programmer.” I even found a meme.

Aside from giving me more links to purchase the book and visit the author’s web site, Diigo gave me more interviews with Rushkoff and more blog posts about it, including one from a venture capitalist that mentioned that companies are desperate for programmers. Through Diigo results, I also learned that Rushkoff has helped start CodeAcademy, a free web-based site which teaches how to understand and write code.

Formal Reviews

I didn't find a formal review of Rushkoff’s book on our HBLL’s aggregate database, although I did find that he has written articles more than once for CNN. What I have seen so far tells me that he is very respected in his work and has several platforms to speak from. The closest thing to a formal review that I found was an enthusiastic blog-style review and interview article on Wired.com. 

Informal Reviews

The informal reviews I found critiqued the book and mainly found it to their liking. ChristianHumanist.org said that the book mainly asks “ten penetrating questions” rather than giving commands, which I think, based on what I’ve learned so far, is a great way to put it. I was glad to see in another article that there’s more to each “command” than its chapter title and a short summary, several versions of which I have already read in other articles. I also learned that this book won the “Neil Postman Award” (Neil Postman and Douglass Rushkoff are both Jewish and write about technology).

Course Inclusion

I found the syllabi from several classes which use Rushkoff’s book as a textbook. Some were a little surprising; though there were several computing classes requiring the book, it is also required in a writing class, a gaming class, and a major part of the Fall 2013 Introduction to Music Technology class at the University of Florida. One of the computing classes looks similar to a Digital Humanities web publishing class I’m currently taking, and I think including the book in that context would help incorporate more humanities skills in the course. 

Multimedia

There are several YouTube videos of Rushkoff speaking about the concepts of this book and of his other books. They range from a minute to over an hour. On Flickr, someone posted notes that they drew, perhaps at one of Rushkoff’s speeches. A phrase which intrigued me was “Companies should get their friends to friend each other.” Does this mean that companies should get their "friends"/competitors to network with each other?

First Impressions of the Book

On my first read of the book, I noticed Rushkoff's narrative of internet/media/human history. There’s one for nearly every “command.” Sure, the narrative is occasionally meladramatic and oversimplified – for example, “Until interactivity, we were defenseless emotional targets for the advertiser,” (Kindle Locations 293-294) – but it gets his point across and helps put the “command” into perspective.  His simplicity is one of the things which makes this book so accessible.

The point which was most novel to me was his explanation of how digital media has altered our thinking without most of us realizing it, valuing “the recent over the relevant” (Kindle Locations 361-362) and “offloading our thinking” (Kindle Location 382) and mental processes onto our computers and the Web. And by the way, the note above which mentioned companies' friends? It was saying that businesses should help their fans network with each other, to reinforce each others' patronizing of their business.

My Thinking So Far

I can understand why people recommend the book, and I look forward to reading it more in depth. I would like to examine more deeply the digital biases he points out, like the "choice filter" and attempting to be "always on" like the computer is. I'm not sure I agree with him on a section about how the digital world narrows our decisions in general, so I would like to look into that more. I might try to get my mom to listen to the audiobook so that we can discuss some of the concepts our family culture is more against, like sacrificing complete privacy for an online reputation.

Citizen Journalism Curation through Google Alerts

Google alerts seemed to me like the perfect curation tool to learn about citizen journalism, since new material is always being created. My concern was that I would be drowning in the number of results every day unless I had a long string of search terms and Boolean operators. Luckily, things have been working out so far, and I think I'm going to add more alerts. Here's how I started out:

Pretty simple. I wanted the best results for citizen journalism once a day so I could keep up but not be overwhelmed. So far, this has meant that I've received an alert every day with one new article to read. That has been pretty manageable, and from what I've been reading, I think I want to add "participatory journalism" to my searches as well.

Selected Results

This article from an African newspaper deals with the rise of citizen journalism and, quite unusually for the genre, provides quotes from a lot of scholarly references. Niyomukiza says that while citizen journalism has its perks (immediacy, new opportunities for minorities, citizens can go places the mainstream media can't), it lacks some of the things that make the mainstream media worthwhile (professionalism, meetings ethical standards, reliability, knowing sources). The parts about ethical standards were particularly interesting to me. Citizen journalists, he says, "don't care about privacy, sensitivity, balance, etc" and don't live up to the standards that would be expected of professional journalists. He suggests that citizen journalists learn basic professional journalistic standards.

One article from an emergency management journal considers how citizen journalism has contributed to the dissemination of information during crises. What is interesting about this article is the way it depicts professionals and citizens working together, instead of being in conflict with each other. A citizen might publish a survivor's diary, eyewitness statements, pictures, or video, and then a professional journalist would come across it and link these first-person accounts together to create a larger story. The authors also note that decision-makers in crises should integrate information from their citizens into their decisions in the future.

Exploring Wikis

I'm sure all of you have been to Wikipedia, which is probably the most popular wiki. Although all of my high school teachers told me to never cite Wikipedia in an academic paper, I've had some college professors who are ok with it. Wikis seem to be gaining more respect in the academic world. They are emerging as a collaborative way for researchers to document and write about their findings. I did some research about the history of the wiki, and here is what I found, on wikipedia of course.

"A wiki is usually a web application which allows people to add, modify, or delete content in a collaboration with others. Text is usually written using a simplified markup language or a rich-text editor."

"Wikis can serve many different purposes both public and private, including knowledge management, notetaking, community websites and intranets."

Ward Cunningham invented the wiki, and the word "wiki" is Hawaiian for "fast" or "quick."

Academic Uses

• Wikis have been used as a language learning tool. 
• Professors, students, and researchers have used wikis as a publishing and review tool.
• Teachers have used wikis for their classes.
• Wikis are also just used a source of information about a topic like Dr. Burton's wiki on rhetoric.

There are also wiktionaries, which are wiki dictionaries. I'd like to do start off using the wiki I create as a wiktionary probably. I would define terms that are specific to different internet subcultures or just choose one subculture to focus on and create a wiktionary about the terms members of that subculture use to communicate.

Pop Culture Uses
Wikis are also used for less scholarly pursuits. There are wikis that detail specific popular games, movies, TV shows, books, etc. For example there is a wiki for Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, Marvel comics movies, The Hunger Games, and more.

I think creating my own wiki will be fun, and since I am applying for the master's program in linguistics at BYU, it will be a good research tool for me. It is nice to have a place where you can organize information from different sources relating to the same topic.

Please Excuse My Extra Post

I promise this will be quick guys, but I just wanted to share something I've basically just learned...or at least a concept that has finally broken through the walls around my brain and said HEY LOOK HERE.

I've made two Google+ posts about Matt Haig today already so sorry for the spam. But I just discovered this author through means of the internet and a good friend of mine. As majors in the humanities, I think a lot of what Matt has to say on his blog really just puts everything into perspective. At least for me.

Right now I'm going through all of his posts. Some I agree with completely, some have strong language. This one though is what I'd like to take a moment to focus on and quote profusely.

Haig says "a writer these days is not a solo player (if we ever were)" and that's funny, because I think plenty of writers like to think of themselves as a recluse who can't publish anything until it's ready and perfect for the audience to read. He goes on to say that in a digital world, he gets to be closer to his readers more than ever before. He asks for advice from his readers, talks and interacts with them because "a reader’s involvement in a book no longer starts and ends with them buying it and reading it." They put up YouTube videos (which he links in his blog post), make tweets and review it, and so on. Maybe this too is about curating content: preserving what we read by making digital responses to it and not just a personal, silent-judgment of "why yes I like this book" or "no never read the heathen cretin!"

In class we've kind of talked about how our identities on the internet is a controversial topic, from wanting to be all revealing about our personal lives to leaving the smallest digital footprint possible. I know personally I don't like having myself all out there. That's just my personality type. But with our professors' enthusiasm, and what Haig says about being positive with "the author's mystique [fading] thanks to the internet," I think I'm learning to not be so quiet anymore. We are creating communities online, curating and discussing and involving each other in ways no one has ever been able to before. Why not take advantage of that?

One more thought, I'd just like to point out Haig's concluding thoughts. He says "the internet is taking stories back to where they first started. Back to humans, telling tales to each other, and getting each other involved as we sit around the fire, or in our caves, [or our Pequods heheh] tapping into the most universal experience we have – imagination."

Hopefully this keeps you guys excited about what we're actually doing in this class, especially with midterms and everything going on in the busy middle-of-the-semester rush. If not, I'm just glad I had somewhere to post this because to me, this takes our class goals and makes it more personal for me. And hopefully Dr Burton and Dr Wickman don't mind this post here. Kudos to them for teaching me about using the digital world to my advantage!

Youtube - Actual Curation and Academics

I realize in my last YouTube research post, I didn't focus too much on the academics behind it or curation and how the video site integrates that. I guess that's an example of posting our drafts and research while in progress - my post wasn't really about curation, even though that's what I said I did in my title! So here I'm going to look at the use of playlists and how that curates content.

YouTube adds a visual to the literal. There's a difference between reading a "how to" book or Wikihow and watching a "how to" video (what's more fun when learning to tie a tie, this guy with nice music in the background or pictures that look like they were drawn in the 90s?).There's something more than just reading about Marshall McLuhan and watching his interviews and see him talking about what he's writing (I say Marshall McLuhan because I've been researching him for our book project). As a visual learner, I think that's why YouTube not only has success in the pop culture aspect of the digital world, but the academic world as well.

I just want to point out quickly some different ways Youtube curates content before talking about playlists and academics: the suggested videos on the side about what you're interested in, tags on videos, annotations that include links in videos to related topics, and view count (including likes and dislikes) all curate content. MarketingProf’s Chief Content Officer Ann Handley said "content curation is the act of continually identifying, selecting and sharing the best and most relevant online content and other online resources (and by that I mean articles, blog posts, videos, photos [etc]) on a specific subject to match the needs of a specific audience." So for YouTube, we find reliable sources based on us watching certain videos, the cookies of our searches on the computer that websites analyze to help suggest content to view, the tags we search and the YouTubers we deem reliable after giving them our attention.

So what are the good ways in which YouTube has promoted academic content, or at least authoritative content? It preserves content, for one thing. When I was searching Marshall McLuhan, one of the first things that popped up were playlists made by random people (without lots of subscribers or views) collecting his interviews and putting them all into one list. So how did I pick one playlist over another? And what gives these YouTubers with hardly any views or followers rights over another? Well for one thing - these playlist creators spent enough free time to make a playlist on their own about Marshall McLuhan. If they didn't care, do you think they'd waste time putting a playlist together? I wouldn't. Also: by looking at the titles and video icons, I can tell which interviews are actually about the subject I'm researching and which aren't. Plus all these videos are interviews and content right from television or radio stations and put right into a video. Can't get more reliable than a video of the actual author himself. So what improvements can be made to create reliability behind curation and content?

I'm not really sure I have an answer to that yet. I had a brief thought that if profiles on YouTube were more important to look at than the actual videos, the people behind the uploads would be more reliable. But you know...I don't think that's true. Part of this class is about finding what's on the internet and deciding what's good content vs the anthologies the rest of our classes require us to read because that's "reliable and scholarly." I don't know anything about the three or five or ten anthology writers with expertise and doctorates to make them more reliable than the video upload or blog post. And to be honest, I'd much prefer to spend my time reading something that motivates people enough to create a video response to a book or write a blog post or create a playlist of everything their favorite author has made an appearance in. There is something raw and real about people with pure intent and interest in something. It's more personal to research the every day person writing/vlogging/etc about something that interests them than reading a 5000 paged book with big words and a hundred patents and twelve editions. And in the end, one person making a video or post about something they care about makes them more than ordinary. It makes them an active participant in something greater. It involves them in a community of learning that unfortunately many universities and schools are too scared to find useful yet.

But times are changing just as the digital world is. Maybe we'll stop being book snobs and be all-media-accepting some day.

Exploring George Orwell's 1984

I’m reading George Orwell’s 1984. I want to look specifically at “newspeak” and other ways Big Brother tries to control language to control people. I’d like to look at the spread of information in digital culture today and compare that with Big Brother’s suppression of information and texts.

Preview

I noticed the chapters do not have titles, and the book is divided into different sections. The lack of chapter names probably goes along with the bleak theme of the storyline and possibly the suppression of information and texts by Big Brother. There is the appendix at the end with The Principles of Newspeak. I started skimming the appendix, and there Orwell outlines the rules of Newspeak: the vocabulary, morphology, grammar, etc. Apparently Newspeak was created to diminish the overall English vocabulary and limit thought. I’m interested to see how Newspeak is actually used in the novel.

Early Social Proof

I put up a Facebook status on Tuesday morning telling my friends I was reading 1984, and I asked if they had read it or had any thoughts about it. I mentioned that I saw connections between Big Brother’s use of language and today’s politically correct language. I got a few thoughtful responses. My high school AP English teacher said, “The recent Snowden leaks about the NSA make me realize Big Brother is watching us at all times. We also are seeing the simplification of language. Have acronyms everywhere... Even shorter than contractions like "minipax." Torture was big a few years ago. Orwell was just 30 years ahead of his time.” A girl from my homeward said, “I think that the ‘perpetual war’ of 1984 is akin to the perpetual conflict between major political parties. It is a self-sustaining industry that keeps people busy and gives the impression of progress without really changing much.”

Similar Books

I searched Amazon and Google. Both sites recommended other books by George Orwell, but Amazon recommended some others that had similar themes to 1984. Amazon recommended Brave New World by Aldus Huxley, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, and Fahrenheit 451: A Novel by Ray Bradbury. Both Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 are set in dystopian futures. The Lord of the Flies deals with the reality of the brutal aspects of human nature. All three books are cautionary tales about the possibilities of the future.

Who Cares?

I searched for “George Orwell 1984” on Facebook and Google+. Facebook informed me that 1,118,543 people “like this topic.” On Google+ I found a lot of posts from newspapers and individuals talking about the NSA surveillance scandal, PRISM, and how sales of 1984 have skyrocketed since news of the government spying broke out in the media. Apparently 1984 is still very relevant to today since people are actively talking about it, and more people are reading it with all of the concerns about big government.

Formal Reviews

I searched for reviews on the library webpage. There were several, but one I thought that was really relevant to digital culture was countering another reviewer’s claims that Orwell was not a genius. In his “Homage to George Orwell” published in the Midwest Quarterly, Peter Firchow writes, “All of his work, let me repeat, even including some minor, transitory pieces like reviews, is still in print, and his fiction and major essays a, along with much of his journalism, have been translated into just about all of the major Western languages.” He cites the availability and circulation of Orwell’s texts as a sign of Orwell’s genius as a writer. This reminded me of today where the mass circulation of someone’s words and writings can be so common that it would not necessarily distinguish them as a genius. But then again all of Orwell’s writings were published into print, and many of them are available online. One of the things that Firchow thinks is characteristic of Orwell’s literature is the tendency to create an environment that exists in the real world but to not have many specific cultural or other references to that place. In this way, Orwell creates a timelessness and a situation that everyone can place themselves in. He does this is 1984 too, where you know the main character is in England, but the character could really be in any dystopian city or country. It makes the story very applicable and powerful that way.

Informal Reviews

One review I particularly enjoyed on Goodreads gave a synopsis of the book through a completely modern lens. The reviewer says, “In George Orwell's 1984, Winston Smith is an open source developer who writes his code offline because his ISP has installed packet sniffers that are regulated by the government under the Patriot Act. It's really for his own protection, though. From, like, terrorists and DVD pirates and stuff. Like every good American, he drinks Coca-Cola and his processed food has desensitized his palate to all but four flavors: (sweet, salty-so-that-you-will-drink-more-coca-cola, sweet, and Cooler Ranch!(tm)). His benevolent overlords have provided him with some war happening somewhere for some reason so that he, and the rest of the population, can be sure that the government is really in his best interests.” This really brought the story home for me. It is obvious that 1984 can be compared to our day, but I think review is a creative way to analyze the story in today’s context and to provide social commentary.

Multimedia

A lot of media has been created about 1984. I searched tried searching for George Orwell 1984+digital culture, but I didn’t get the greatest results, so I simplified my search to 1984. I found a lot of remix images of 1984 themes and today’s politics like this picture.

 To be continued . . .

Exploring Citizen Journalism with Dan Gillmor’s We the Media

I shared this post on my Google+ account:

I've been trying to figure out what's happening with modern journalism--it seems like an article shared on Facebook gets more credit than it should without examining the source. I'm starting Dan Gillmor's book (We the Media) to start sorting through #citizenjournalism .  #amreading 

I got this book recommendation after expressing an interest in citizen journalism. I want to look at what kind of journalism and news is most valuable to people, or perhaps where they get their news. What makes a source credible?

Preview

From taking a brief preview of the book, I can see that Gillmor covers a wide range of subjects. Just from browsing I’ve seen blogs, talk radio, SMS, file sharing, podcasts, photography, and wikis as sources of information, as well as several others. Gillmor introduces his topic by talking about how the public both fact checks and adds to the professional media—people become both producers and consumers of news. Gillmor seems to take an overall positive view of grassroots journalism, though he has cautionary sections.

Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man and Digital Culture Participants

I am reading McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man to hopefully understand more about different types of media. I'm told that this book has been discussed a lot through the years (despite being dated - it was published in 1964), and it proposes that media itself, not its content, should be the focus of study. Since we've been talking about curation and I've been looking into the idea of "the man behind the post," I'm hoping I'll get some more ideas and viewpoints from reading this.

Preview
No pictures in 396 pages of content (but at least I can turn to page 394...). Other than that quick observation, I think McLuhan's going to really focus on his idea that media is what changes society and not the content it produces/supplies. It's broken into Part I and Part II, with Part I introducing his ideas, but Part II focusing on different types of media and the power of the "written word." There's a lot of metaphors - something about a light bulb and "hot media" vs "cold media."

Digital Isolation and the Languages of Connection

This is a response to Cheri Lenkensdorfer’s post, Isolation in a Digital World. She talks about the isolation experienced by people who don’t have the latest technology, e.g. smartphones. I think she have a great point; I’d like to back it up and also to play the devil’s advocate a little.

I’ve also been on both sides. My best friend, who lives in Idaho, didn’t get texting until a few months ago and still doesn’t have a webcam. I don’t have a smartphone or tablet, which cuts me off from the app world and the joys of mobile internet access. When I was on my mission we were not allowed to text, and it was aggravating. For example, sometimes contacts we’d call would insist on us telling them via text who we were before they’d pick up the phone, creating an impasse. (Happily, that rule has changed. Along with many others regarding internet use.) In a more voluntary case of lack of backwards compatibility, I’ve also missed a mission companion’s wedding reception because she didn’t really use Facebook to invite people and we hardly ever talk in person.

In the case of my friend not making a Facebook event and me not having a smartphone, you could argue that we isolate ourselves. I don’t like the costs of a smartphone, but technically we could both get what we lack. Nothing’s impossible; my 86-year-old grandpa bought an iPhone a couple of years ago and uses it at a basic level to look things up, text, take pictures, and talk with his family. Although his iPhone doesn’t have a data plan, he also has an iPad which he uses to video chat.

 

I don’t have a picture of him on his iPhone, but you can see it on his belt. We’re pretty tickled by his technology usage.

Technology can and often does help us to connect. In many ways, it can be our connecting language. If someone you love but whom you rarely talk to – like your grandma or your tween-age brother – tastefully tweeted or updated their Facebook status every couple of days, wouldn’t you feel like you better knew what was going in their lives? And be more likely to comment or otherwise interact with them? My aunt kept a blog for a while, which the rest of us loved, and now my tween-age sister blogs as well. I love reading their blogs, and sometimes comment. Has your family ever given a piece of tech to a relative in the hopes that they’ll use it? I’m sure we’ve all wished that someone was “with it” in technology, whether that means being on Facebook, Skype, or Instagram or a games app.

Cheri said, “I think it's really easy to get so caught up in the cool new gadgets and toys that we forget the importance of watching out for the people around us. Luckily, the fix is just as easy: remember to look out for those around us.” I think that goes for the less-tech-privileged people as well. It’s important to try to connect with people in their connection language, whatever it is. Those of us without “standard” technology or software can probably reach out more just like those enveloped in their technology. Whenever I do get a smartphone, I’ll be better able to connect with people I know. While respecting financial limits and the limits of “old age,” we are too young to get stuck in a technological rut. There is so much out there and so much more to come!

YouTube Curation

So I'm looking further into YouTube curation. What I've realized more and more in my research is that this isn't just about putting up videos and getting a lot of hits. It's about advertising yourself, your product, your talents, your history, your world. People use YouTube academically, for entertainment, for literal advertisements, for business, for anything and everything. There's so much more to it than just making videos.

First, here's a link to why the advertisements on YouTube (that most viewers find annoying) actually turn out to be successful for those advertising companies. It's a playlist called YouTube Case Studies.

There's even a page on YouTube telling potential advertisers Why It Works. YouTube only charges when people watch your ad. It provides a targeted audience for companies looking to advertise. It's not just ads on television where someone can change the screen, but it provides videos across the internet which means people with access to computers, phones, tablets, etc can see the ad. There are analytic tools that give stats on who's viewing a company's ad and these companies can build a following by making their own channel.

Of course YouTube also has their Partnership Program to help their creators. And of course here's the list of the top 100 most subscribed channels where every day people are making it on the internet (just ignore the music channels like Rihanna and One Direction). To check out success stories just type in Draw My Life and there will be plenty of youtubers who talk about how they ended up making videos and how this channel changed their life. This video is long, but it incorporates a lot of how collaboration, crowdsourcing, and just using the things available to you will get you to where you want to be:

(sWooZie's Draw My Life video)

Of course there is the academic side of YouTube that I'd like to explore too. Having plays up to watch in parts (which I do for my Shakespeare class), watching PBS or Discovery, or even uploading AP Literature projects or class projects is a fun way to get information out there. In class we discussed how sometimes we search online how to do things for a visual on what to do. So I suppose one of the questions I'll have to look into more is what makes the source qualified or authoritative?

I'm still working on getting more information and everything, but. I'm really excited to explore this more.

A Brief Introduction to Tumblr

Allow me to briefly introduce you to Tumblr. Tumblr is a microblogging site which to me straddles Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest in style. As of October 14, 2013, it hosts more than 141.5 million blogs (called tumblrs by some, including me). Users can post original content as well as content which belongs to or originated from someone else.

Before I start linking to various tumblrs, here is a hefty content warning. As with any blog or news feed, your experience with Tumblr is what you make it, but it is more difficult to find a completely family-friendly environment. Tumblr has no language controls. Usernames and comments often can contain profane language. How often you come across them depends on which tumblrs/users you "follow," but it's difficult to avoid. This lack of editing also carries over into visual content, but in my experience it's easier to avoid than bad language. The only nudity I've seen on Tumblr is in Renaissance art. Many, though not all, of the links on this page will have some profane language in their destinations.

In my experience, most people use it for nonacademic purposes, such as to express and geek out over various fandoms. These tumblrs often include gifs [x], which some find very annoying. (Again, you can usually avoid them depending on whom you follow.) Of course there are many jokes [x], but there is also some thoughtful fandom- [x] and non-fandom-related analysis. I have found promotional photography/personal blogs [x], cosplay blogs where people swap advice about cosplaying [x], a Herman Melville reading blog [x], and commercial, official, political academic, and academic hobby blogs (see: [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]. By the way linking with the [x] is common on Tumblr, though I may be overusing it in this post). 

As I see it, Tumblr has a lot of potential but has not yet fully matured as a microblogging platform. There is a huge potential audience; a post with Queen Elizabeth inspecting her grandsons in the military has over 400,000 "notes" (instances where someone likes or shares a post). Current barriers to growth, though growth is definitely happening, include Tumblr's reputation for being a time-wasting/gif-ridden/NSFW site and the poor designs of some tumblrs (if you've clicked on all my links, you'll find a couple of examples). However, it has a lot of influence and potential. As amateur analysis occasionally makes the rounds already, I believe that more "serious" content can and should become more prolific. I look forward to seeing more advertising done for more serious tumblrs so that the platform will be better utilized as an engine for discussion, action, education, and change.

11 Untranslatable Words from Other Cultures

In class recently we've talked about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I saw this on Facebook a while back. I think it relates well to how speakers of different languages may see the world a little differently or at least have certain cultural priorities or things of worth that are uniquely expressed in their language. I'm in the process of curating some information and facts about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and I think I will discuss it in more depth in a later post. What do you all think about these 11 concepts? Do the people who speak these languages really see the world differently from English speakers?

Analogies in Papers: A Reflection on the Paper for Midterm 1

It's my last semester as an undergraduate English major, and through the years I think I've started to develop an idea of the connections between comments that professors give about papers. Everyone, of course, has their own vocabulary and way of describing what it is that they are looking for. In the end, though, they (professors) are often referring to the same or similar things.

In our last class period, Dr. Wickman and Dr. Burton talked about the weakness of analogies without analysis. Maybe you've had other teachers use the same vocabulary, but more likely they've said other things to push papers further: "Think of the implications of that claim" or "But why does it matter that you've pointed out this similarity?"In some ways, all of these comments are pushing us to get past our simple claims and complicate them.

I'll give a bad couple of sentences from my paper:

"As the gatekeeping in the novel expands from including only the captain to including the mates, the crew can find value in the doubloon, the supposed motivation to be the first to sight Moby Dick. Likewise in digital culture, expanded gatekeeping allows for more people to find value in information and media that before might not have appealed or been available to them."

I just equate the two: Moby Dick and digital culture. This is like this. When really, what I meant to say, and what I hope comes across better in the rest of my paper (which you can read here), is a bit more nuanced.

Anyway, feel free to read and comment on my paper if you wish. You can even point out more bad analogies if you want.

And here are some more bad analogies, just for fun (from funny2.com):

Midterm Paper Final

I tell you what - this paper was rough to start. I had ideas floating around, had my outline, had my notes, but nothing really stood out to me in terms of a "so what" for the paper. But after reading your comments and really thinking about the essence of socially optimized research and Moby Dick, I was finally able to finalize my ideas and hopefully I did that successfully.

Sometimes (and maybe most of the time...and I'm sure plenty of you fellow writers can relate to this) I get hung up on the details and semantics behind writing the perfect paper - something that will get me a good grade or stand out to be so impressive it's mind blowing. But that's just not realistic. I heard in an interview once with a writer that "you don't get it right, you get it written." I hear it all the time: just write it. Just do it. After I wrote this paper, something that was academic but perhaps not perfectly formal, I realized that by not holding up on those details (semicolon here or comma, full three lined sentence or short ones, direct quote or paraphrase) I was able to just enjoy writing the paper.

Here is the link to my paper. Feel free to read, respond, and/or argue against my ideas. Hope you guys had fun with your papers too!

Mary's Midterm 2 Moby Dick Pre-writing

Here are some of my thoughts for my paper.

In class we discussed how machines are like mirrors in a way; they reflect ourselves back to us. They help us gain self-understanding, but we can't fully master them. Moby Dick is a symbol throughout the novel to Ahab, Ishmael, and the readers of whatever we want him to be. We use symbols as tools to represent what we want them to represent. I think Ahab uses Moby Dick as a tool/machine to represent himself/self-loathing/evil. Ahab sees himself reflected in Moby Dick. But because Moby Dick is a machine, Ahab is never able to master him, or if Moby Dick is a symbol for Ahab, then Ahab can never fully master himself or at least the dark parts of himself. It's significant that Ahab has an ivory leg. He sees more of himself in MD because of this.

In a way Ahab sees everyone as a tool or machine. He sees them all the tools of destiny or fate. He uses his crew, his charts, compass, etc. to hunt down Moby Dick. In a way, man is the lesser machine in the novel and nature (Moby Dick) is the greater machine. This brings up the whole human vs. nature debate. And In our own lives with the technology we have, aren't we the lesser machines? I mean the machines we design have far greater capacities than we do. So maybe Moby Dick then is the machine Ahab designs in way, the symbolism he places on Moby Dick gives Moby Dick a life, meaning, etc. that he wouldn't have in the story otherwise. Moby Dick could have just been any other sperm whale, a white one, but just another whale in essence. But because Ahab uses Moby Dick as machine/tool as a symbol for his self-loathing/evil, Ahab really kind of creates Moby Dick. Frankenstein?

Another point with machines/tools and humans: why are humans pitted against machines? We create machines after all, yet in our culture there are several movies where humans are at war with machines. Where does this enmity come from? Maybe humans envy machines because of their greater capacity. Maybe Ahab envies Moby Dick. There is the speech he gives on the deck talking about sperm whales and their unknown world, everything they've seen and experienced, knowledge they have that man will never know. Maybe Ahab envies this. One thing that seems to separate human and machine is passion and purpose. Machines don't have a passion or self-purpose (we create machines for a purpose, but they don't have one on their own). Ironically, Ahab's own passion to hunt for Moby Dick really turns Ahab into a machine. He abandons his wife and child, endangers his crew, and become inhumane. He then pursues a single-minded ultimately meaningless objective to kill Moby Dick. Aren't machines designed to pursue single-minded objectives until they accomplish their assigned task?

So back to digital culture: we use so many social media tools that reflect ourselves back to us. Although we don't use social media with the intent to destroy it, we maybe use it as a machine to represent ourselves and in a way find ourselves or come to understand ourselves. But we cannot fully master our digital culture or social media because it is a mirror of us. And like Ahab maybe this means we can't fully master ourselves. Maybe that's why we spend hours and hours on the internet, creating profiles, and sharing our thoughts with others. Moby Dick is like a mirror for Ahab and our digital culture is like a mirror for us as individuals and as a people.  

So that was long and convoluted, but hopefully you all understand what I'm trying to get at. What are your thoughts?

Eliza's Midterm Post: Pre-writing

Below is some light pre-writing. At this point, the question/thesis concerns the lack of true connection and on the excessive consumption or focus on consumption in Moby Dick and in digital culture (for some). It's loose but it's an example of pre-writing, pre-outlining.

Paper:

Topic that interests me: the transition from consuming to creating/connecting.

How this did or didn’t happen in MB:

·         Ahab’s focus was to consume the whale, you could argue. He did lots of creating and connecting (though not true person-to-person connecting – he was an isolated creature), but in his madness it was all focused towards killing and consuming the whale.

What are the similarities and differences between consuming online and Ahab’s hunt/killing the whale?

·         When you’re consuming in excess, you’re trying to bite off more than you can chew. The internet has “more to see than can ever be seen, more to do than can ever be done.” (TLK) Ahab ended up biting off more than he could chew.

o   There are likely academic papers on the futility and meaning of his chase – it wouldn’t be hard to connect those to digital consumption.

·         When you try to consume something, it remains but the satisfaction is gone because you’ve e.g. already watched that movie trailer you were anticipating for months. The fun in consumption, you might say, is thinking and pondering…e.g. frame-by-frame analyses of the next Harry Potter movie…(Pottercast!) and Frozen… However, it depends on the content and your consuming habits. News (read, swallow, been there read that) vs. movie trailers (savoring every frame!)

How is Ahab creating and connecting?

·         Others are working on this. He did his research and found people to sail under him.

o   Btw, he created things for his crew to consume – food chain?

o   Kylee’s prewriting: http://teamishmael.blogspot.com/2013/10/kylees-midterm-post-2.html

How is Ishmael creating, consuming, and connecting?

·         If I argue that Ahab was consumed in the chase to consume, I could argue that Ishmael is the opposite – he’s creating a TON of stuff and trying to connect with and affect his readers (someone remarked about Ishmael’s comment re: oil – every drop you burn = a drop of blood spilt so be careful)

Pip’s madness from isolation (http://teamahab.blogspot.com/2013/10/charting-path-to-connectedness-midterm.html#more)

Pip’s madness and Ahab’s madness – Ahab has a focus and so seems productive though he isn’t really (economically speaking) – and Pip has no focus except his past sins.

·         (This could be another paper – internet user stereotypes)

 

Mary's Midterm 1 Reflective Post

Here are my previous blog posts:

Collaboration in Research

The Spiraling Whirlpool of Constant Revision and Balance
"ending the tyranny of the hit"
Moby Dick: the Video Game
How reliable are rating systems for media? It depends on what you're looking for.
Online Identity: Happily Undefined
Blogging: I took the one less sailed by

Transcending Time and War: Moby Dick and the Literary Canon

A Christian Savage and Christian Savagery
My Intro

It's difficult to say if there's a common theme among all of them, but some topics that I have been interested in are online identity and the potential for anyone's creations to be circulating and consumed through the internet. 

I've learned a lot about digital culture so far in this course. Some key topics that come to mind include digital culture's wide-spread influence, the creation of subcultures and networks, and online identity. 

Digital culture is affecting so many fields and areas of life: education, business, arts & culture, journalism, government, medicine, etc. Kayla did a great post about oDesk and freelancing as a writer, editor, or designer. Her post illustrates how digital culture has changed business and how companies can now outsource online for cheaper labor like they already do in the physical world. 

Because of digital culture, networks of people can connect like never before. Several digital subcultures have developed. This goes along with the Long Tail a little in that non-mainstream things are produced and consumed at huge rates. Similarly, non-mainstream people can connect, create non-mainstream products, sell them, and consume other non-mainstream products more effectively.

New types of genres have developed because of the potential for digital creation and because of mainstream culture and subcultures. Here are few examples: memes, apps, the rant, the manifesto, the tutorial, the vine, fanfiction, and gif. How are some of these text-based genres different from written their print counterparts? Do they all even have counterparts or print comparisons?

Digital culture raises questions of tension in several areas: identity, authority, openness, control, participation, isolation, consumption, creation, the natural, the artificial, human, and technology. But these conflicts can be resolved, and depending on perspective some of these concepts mesh together rather than cause conflict. Derrick comments on the conflict between humans and nature in his post. He argues that humans and nature don't have to be in conflict. 

As mentioned above, one conflict that comes with digital culture is identity: how people portray themselves, how their online identities match with their physical ones, whether they are a part of a subculture in the real-world vs. online subcultures, and if those groups are the same. 

I am particularly interested in pursuing research on online identities and subcultures through a linguistic perspective. There are plenty of subcultures in the physical world: geek, burn-out, jock, hipster, goth, gamer, etc.; just think high school. There are also a variety of subcultures online. One thing that defines a subculture or culture is its language. Any group of people develops their own in-group language that distinguishes them from others. There has already been some linguistic research done on this topic, like Chris Taylor at Rice University has done. I'm interested in doing my own research on this subject. Does the mode of communication (internet) change how groups develop their own linguistic traits? Are there different dialects for members of subcultures that only interact online vs. members that also interact in person? What will be the most prominent features of online subculture language: vocabulary, syntax, register, orthography, etc.?

Eliza's Midterm 1 Reflective Post: Consume/Create/Connect

These are the posts I’ve put online so far:

·         Call Me Eliza.

·         DigHT What?

·         Discovering on the Shoulders of Giants, e.g. with Pinterest

·         Science Writing in Moby Dick  

·         #LDSConf Experience

I don’t see much of a theme in my posts so far, but I would like to ponder on this page about a topic blogged about by Kylee of Team Ishmael in a post called “Seeing Good.” She talked about a perspective change regarding video games. I want to discuss a similar perspective change through my own lens.

Here’s where I’m coming from: Before my mission, I spent a lot of time online doing things that really weren’t necessary, every single status update on Facebook and hunting repeatedly for smidgens of news about upcoming films and albums. The internet helped me keep up with some news and people, sure, but I was overusing it to procrastinate and soothe. During my mission, I decided to spend less time on the internet and more time in “real life.” (Texting and Facebook were introduced in missionary work after I went home.) I have been slightly successful in that resolution and have been proud of it, so this class’ enthusiasm towards and focus on embracing and exploring technology and the internet is a bit jarring.

I didn’t realize that a clear, even public, online life is so important now in the real world, and I’m still concerned about excessive time spent online. That time online was mostly spent consuming, in my case, and it seems that many negative stereotypes concern excessive consumption. Our class emphasizes connecting and creating as the other two sides to the digital literacy triangle. Connecting and creating are crucial skills in the modern career world.

My research/writing question is this: what is the most effective way to help knowledge/social media/news junkies transition into regularly creating and connecting online?

Socially Optimized Voyage (Midterm Prewriting)

Here is my brief outline for what I'm thinking of doing my paper on:

Basically after talking about Socially Optimized Research in class last Wednesday, I got this impression that this is what Captain Ahab did preparing for his voyage to get Moby Dick. First he had to "tell people" about the trip. He searched high and low for different crew members to join him (even if they didn't initially know they were going on a trek for an unbeatable white whale) who had a love for the sea and training in whaling. Next step is "curating research." There's a quote in chapter 44 about how Ahab has "large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea charts" and books and and logs of sperm whale sightings. Then we have "searching new media and social networks" (content vs people) which to me would be the first mates (specifically Starbuck) who have more insight on this quest, but still aren't scholars on Moby Dick (this is a little different from my initial notes above - more specific and less about all the crew members who fit better in the "tell people" stage). In addition to that, I thought of the log and the line in chapter 125 and how Ahab went from a compass to "new media" using the log and the line to get pointed in the right direction again. Last is searching traditional scholarship. All the ship captains Ahab talks with during the voyage would, to me, be the traditional sources he would go to for specific information about the whale because these ships like the Rachel (ha I said Rebecca in my notes - ignore that) actually encounter the whale.

Anyway, I'm still working on an exact thesis statement and the "so what," but any thoughts? If you think I'm stretching it please let me know. Good luck to you all on your own papers! I've seen some really excellent ideas.

Kayla's Midterm 1 (Post #2)

I talked in my earlier midterm post about how we assign value to media as a group of gatekeepers. Now, I want to connect that to Moby Dick and the paper I need to write about it. I'll talk about the old model: limited gatekeeping and a new model: expanded group of gatekeepers, and how that new system works with assigning value.

My example here is the gold doubloon.

Old Model: Limited Gatekeeping--Ahab

In the old model, the captain is the sole gatekeeper. He tells the crew what to do and what to value (i.e., Moby Dick, the gold doubloon as payment).

New Model: Expanded Gatekeeping--The Mates (+the crew?)

Now, the model expands to include (at least) the mates. In chapter 99, each of them muse about what the value of the doubloon is to them.

• Starbuck interprets God in the doubloon.
• Stubb uses an almanac of star-signs to interpret the doubloon.
• Flask just sees the doubloon as money and how many things it will buy.

The value that Ahab assigns to the doubloon isn't the same as what the crew assigns it. They all keep going after Moby Dick, but maybe they are more united in purpose than they are in motivation.

Because that's the strangest thing to think about, right? Why in the world does the crew follow Ahab when they have no personal vendetta against the white whale? What makes the journey valuable to them?

Where Do We Belong (Midterm Reflection Post)

So to examine what I have so far, here's the index of my posts as of right now:

• About Myself (intro post)
• Syntax of Moby Dick and the Internet (syntax of Moby Dick and how that relates to today's digital syntax)
• Classifying Literature and Blogs (the different classifications/labels that apply to Moby Dick and the written word in general)
• Avatars of Moby Dick (looking at the persona of Ishmael, the many genres Moby Dick fits with, and how this all relates to the avatars we create for ourselves on the internet)
• Crowdsourcing with Moby Dick (how people are using crowdsourcing to sponsor Moby Dick)
• Catching Our Moby Dicks of the Internet (discussing long tail effects and the isolation vs community we find online)
• Which Character are You? (discussing personas of the characters in Moby Dick and how they would be avatars of people in this class/entering digital culture)
• Spiraling into Academic Blogging (discussing the spiral metaphor and the class' next steps in blogging)
• Digital Culture in the LDS Church (how the church approaches the advantages of the internet)

I think a lot of my posts relate to the people behind the post. This theme is especially pointed out in "Which Character are You?," "Avatars of Moby Dick," and the second paragraph of "Catching Our Moby Dicks of the Internet." I've even mentioned in plenty of comments on other people's blogs and in Google+ updates how people use the internet and crowdsourcing in ways to promote their work. I commented in this post asking how scholarly blogs will find a place in the internet, a Google+ update talking about how this video found its success on the internet, commented here how the LDS Church has found ways to utilize the internet, two more comments here and here thinking of everyday people behind academic posts giving credible information, and so on.

Needless to say, I'm a bit more focused on what the person behind the screen has to say, and how to effectively get out there through the proper avenues online. We talked in September about Kompoz, Galaxy Zoo, mormon.org, Wattpad and dozens more websites available for crowdsourcing, for getting out there. But with so many options, it's difficult to decide which avenue would be right for you, and how to be recognized as a credible blogger, or musician, or cinematographer. In addition to that, what characteristics and goals will put one person into the Youtube vortex and another in the Vine world for example? Blogger vs reviewer? Ultimately I suppose I'm asking this: where do people entering the digital world belong in the digital world?