One year down, Two more to go.

I didn't know what to expect for Digital Culture. I remember picking my options last year with nerves and excitement. I had the choice of three and had to choose two, digital culture, video and radio skills. My voice does not sound good on tape.. radio was a no no. I used to do Photography, therefore video seemed like a good choice. As for Digital Culture, I had to Google it. I suppose you could say that I used the internet, a digital technology to find something out and it worked. Thank you, technology. I read it would be about the internet, digital age, social media, and thought this could be interesting. It is no feature writing course, but that comes later. 

As a magazine journalism student, writing is my forte therefore, writing a blog was definitely something of interest to me. I had a blog in recent years, however, it was a photography blog and barely included more than 20 words a photo, so this helped with writing for a particular audience. Although the topic was about digital technology, it was surprisingly easy and interesting to write about. Even my parents were intrigued to keep reading. 

I enjoyed Digital Culture, it was good to find out all about the past, present and future of technology. Learning about something I would have never actually thought about even reading, yet alone writing about it was great. I now can hold a conversation with someone who has interest in games.(Watch out gamer geeks, I've now heard of World of Warcraft).Games was not my favourite topic in this uni, as for magazine this didn't seem to have that much relevance to it, however it was good to learn about it, and made for an fascinating blog. 

Lectures are Lectures. We all know that they are not the most entertaining on thing, its a given. To succeed, we must listen. Admittedly on times I would begin to day dream, but I understand to concepts of what Gavin was talking about. The workshops were beneficial, for although we get taught the information in the lecture, the workshops helped expand that, we got chance to talk to each other and ask questions if we were not sure. 

It is a scary thought, knowing that this is my final post for this uni. After I hand in my assessments next week, the first year of university is over!
I chose Media Production as my fourth option for my 2nd year, See you in September Gavin! 

Is something missing?

Digital Culture definitely covered a lot about the digital technology, past, present and future. It is good to know about these, for we live in the present, we wonder about the past and we live for the future. We learnt about all different kinds of technologies, and I was certainly shown a new light, however could we have learned more? 

I think we could have learned more about the journalism side of things with the future of technology, and how it will affect our lives. This was covered slightly, however, as a Magazine Journalism student learning about news and journalism is more beneficial to me in particular. 

In particular the augmented reality was a favourite of mine. The new technologies and advances available are incredible. I have also recently seen there is a new technology coming out of which you can use your eyes as a scroller on smart phones. Welcome to the future I am very interested in how this would work, if we had more time in this unit, that would be a particular interest of mine. 

Altogether, I think the digital culture unit was helpful and shown our group all to do with the digital world of wearable computers, popping out photos and how our grandparents used to live without Facebook. 

Thank you, Gavin. 

http://news.sky.com/story/1064885/samsung-galaxy-s4-launched-in-new-york

Wikileaks & Geeks.

Are you a geek? 
Are you accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits? Did you feel socially awkward?
Or are you foolish and clumsy? 
Maybe, a carnival performer, which bites the heads off live chickens?
In that case, you are according to the Inner-geek website you're a geek. 

So, do you hack phones and computers? & have you heard of Wikileaks?
Questions aside, according to Wikipedia, Wikileaks is an international, online, non-profit organisation which publishes secret information and classified media from anonymous sources. They began setting up a website in 2006, in Iceland and claimed a database of 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch! Their basic idea is to allow information to be published that couldn't be published by journalists, however, is this really ethical, when it is not supposed to be available for public interest? 

They also aim to prevent journalists being jailed for emailing sensitive documents, the 'drop box' was created to "provide an anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists".

"To bring important news and information to the public...one of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth".  - Wikileaks website

They also aim to prevent journalists being jailed for emailing sensitive documents, the 'drop box' was created to "provide an anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists"

There are many people against Wikileaks, for they have been accused hacking into many computers to find out information. However, Wikileaks have denied this believing it was "completely false". 
BBC news reported two years ago that the site released almost 400,000 secret US military logs detailed Iraq operations. 90,000 military records gave insight into Afghanistan's strategies.
The biggest was soldier Bradley Manning who posted a video on the website of the US Air Force killing 12 people and two Reuters journalists in Iraq. He believed that the Americans had the right to know.
"True costs of war"
His point seems genuine, they do have the right to know what has happened however, he released information that may cause more trouble than it would if it was still covered.
Would you want to know everything that is going on? We do have the right to know about what is going on, however, there are reasons for keeping it hush hush. Amazon web services claimed "there have been reports that governments were prompted to not serve Wikileaks  because of DDOS, which occurred but they were defended against, therefore these rumors were inaccurate. 
After all the criticisms, it's a wonder why Wikileaks is still open. I suppose they just want the public to be aware, and known however, are they really doing it the right way? 


Back to being a geek,.. could the Julian Assange be considered a geek with his supposed hacking skills? Are all the team?

Take the inner-geek test, here Geek test. 

http://wikileaks.org/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10757263

http://www.editorsweblog.org/2012/02/16/the-impact-of-wikileaks-on-professional-media

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeakshttp://innergeek.us/

Just an extra...

For the assessment, we need 13 blog posts, if I were to submit without this post, there seems to only be 12, therefore I thought I would add in the extra bits we did in a workshop with a lady who came in to conduct research on social networking, and cyber-bullying and would we report, or say something?

We sat in our normal workshop room, and she handed three sheets of paper. Two had Facebook statuses on, and the other was one for all of the group to fill in. All was anonymous  but as for this blog post, my opinion is the only one shown...  
The status's were both immature, one of was worse than the other, which you could class as cyber-bullying. 
However, as I pointed out in the class, that Facebook is one of those things where you say what you like, and get away with it. Although there are certain elements to Facebook posts, and videos which I would definitely not agree with. People post offensive statuses on Facebook which is not nice to see, however, would commenting and voicing your opinion be the best idea when you could make it worse for yourself. 

Personally, if a friend of mine posted something about another friend which was not appropriate, or irrelevant for everyone to see on Facebook, then I would probably send a direct message to that person, but I wouldn't post a comment, causing more problems, creating a Facebook war. 

We all voiced our opinions, turns out we were being recorded too (I do not have a good recorded voice). 

It was good to be there, knowing you were part of someone's actual research. 

Paratexts, Pokemon & Phones

Within the lecture we learnt about paratexts, we also learned about augmented reality, here's a bit of both...

Paratexts is additional material that is added onto the author's published work by editors, printers and publishers. These can include, the inside and back cover blurb, cover art, titles, typography, authors profile, prefaces written by someone other than the author. They are supposed to form a frame for the main text, and have the possibility to change the interpretation of the readers. 

Not only is it books, but Musayama, 2002 has the idea of 'The Open Product'. This is the idea that something, a film, has a beginning, middle and end, the credits role on screen and that is 'The Closed Product', therefore open means that something hasn't finished yet... His example is Pokemon cards. He says that yes, the film and the game have credits therefore they are closed, however, it is not over “…in search of Pokemon. Also, a player may use a cable to trade Pokemon with other players.”
It brings the question, is there ever really a real GAME OVER?

There is also the concept of Fandom. Fan's of particular films, TV shows (Doctor Who), create something similar and of interest to them which on YouTube  can often be mistaken for the real thing if they are good. 

The next half - 

Augmented reality. I have written a blog similar to this when I wrote about Google Glasses and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.. 
As a recap, augmented reality (AR) is a view of the physical world, with elements augmented by computers. Sound, graphics, video, GPS data are all mediated reality.
So, what did we learn at school today? 
We found out about a new application for smartphones that our university lecturers and techs have created. It reacts with a scanner and bar-code on a newspaper, once scanned the images come to life on  the mobile phone. The images go from 2D, boring images to 3D colourful, and cartooned images. Some the them included sound, which made it just that little bit cooler! 

These apps are still in development, but eventually just like Google Glasses, we will be seeing people with these. Reading the newspaper has never been more fun. We have got apps on phones that scan bar-codes in magazines, so this could be our future, and it sounds rather great. 







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paratex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-paratext.htm

Digital democracy ft. The youth of today

Previously I explained what democracy was, I explained different forms, and I explained about the Public Sphere, so what is left to explain?
How does it all affect us?

Digital technology is with us all day, everyday (Those who are lucky enough to have it), even in previous blogs, technology is basically us, so it is obvious that something digital, especially something that includes our opinions (democracy) is going to affect us in one way or another..
Young adults and teens are aware of the social networking sites such as; Face
book, Twitter, Tumblr, therefore similarly we almost have a public sphere of our own, just through modern technology and online communication. Those with strong opinions will write statuses to update friends about what they think should happen, and why. Others will comment and like, or discuss oppositions and one day even use a dislike button on it. It is just debating on social sites.

So, our debates may not be those that change laws and we definitely aren't new MP's however, we all get involved in those we believe in. Do you remember KONY? Kony 2012, the invisible children campaign began as an experiment to see if an online video of obscure criminal behavior, and he was famous, would the world work together to stop him? 
3.7 million people pledged their support to arrest Joseph Kony. The invisible children project was to help stop the raising of an army of children and killing anyone. The campaign resulted in a resolution by the United States and contributed to the decision to send troops by the African Union. This list included 20 "celebrity culture makers", such as George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Oprah Winfrey Taylor Swift and Ryan Seacrest. It has over 97 million views on YouTube, all those with Facebook had posted and shared the video online for everyone to see. Although it didn't result into his arrest, we had such a huge spread of people who got involved to help stop Kony. 

This evidence alone demonstrates that we are all involved in a digital democracy. We get annoyed with certain posts on our timelines, however we made a stand for something. It just proves that social networking helps form democracy. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kony_2012

The One With The Public Sphere..

In life, we have a particular way in which we have our say in decisions of which affect our lives, this is known as DEMOCRACY. It begins with a form of Government, however, Democracy allows eligible citizens to participate, directly and/or through elections. Democracy changes and adds proposals, developments and the creation of laws. 
There are also many forms of democracy, the main two are; Direct Democracy, and Representative Democracy. 

Direct Democracy developed in Athens many many years ago. Around about 550BC, so as you can imagine, it was a pretty old time. This type of democracy allowed people to vote for policy legislation and bills opposed to representative democracy in which they vote for representatives who then vote for policy actions. Being able to make your own decisions of what will affect your own life, no one else to do it for you is a reward. Some would argue and get together in groups, this shortly passed as big cities were not all able to get together.  In the 13th century, Switzerland began the modern-era of lawmaking. It is the easiest form of decision making, however there is always an opposition...

Representative Democracy, As I said before it is opposite to direct democracy, therefore it means the people are able to vote themselves, but they vote for a representing group of people who then vote. This seems like a good idea, having someone do your 'dirty work' of voting for you, what happens if we choose one guy and he makes the wrong decisions, we all hate that one guy, and moan continuously. Similarly like the politics voting for Liberal democrats and university fees, because that worked out so well... 

So, who was Jürgen Habermas? And what was his Public Sphere?

It arrived in the 18th Century, however it still holds modern relevance. He explains that the public sphere is a gathering of private people who join together to form a 'public'. They would sit around together and debate in coffee houses. Similar to the number one American series; F.R.I.E.N.D.S. They used to sit in Central Perk, drink coffee and I guess you describe it as critical debate with there differences, or maybe just Chandlers' Sarcasm. Going back to Habermas, he describes these people as wealthy and highly educated citizens of which made the discussion of art and literature become possible. 

 But, the circle of friends erupted due to economic and structural changes, boundaries of states and societies became blurry. So does this have anything to do with media and Journalism? 

Yes. 

Habermas argued that the world of mass media is cheap and powerful. He believes it attempts to manipulate and create a public where none exists. Example; advertising and public relations, this are non-governmental organization which replace old institutions of the public sphere. Within Journalism it could be seen as newspaper companies, deciding on what is good, what they've read, what is newsworthy? 

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/public/summary.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/j-rgen-habermas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy

World War? or Cyber War?

Will our lives get easier? better? Is technology the answer?

There are many strong assumptions that computers can make our lives better. Technology has already programmed itself into our minds that without it we would be lost. In some ways, we would. What would we do if the internet went down? Phone networks were turned off? It is possible. 

“Authorities can shut down mobile networks whenever they find it politically expedient” 

Evgene Morozov, 2011, The Net Delusion. No phone, no friends, no life? 

It is, almost sad to think that our lives are based around technology. We live for a device, but what can we do, its what we know. 

Television series, Revolution. Life without lights.

"We are entering the era of robots at war"
So, basically we have no more normal fighting on battlefields against men in armor, we have robots.
Remote-controlled drones, bomb dismissal  and unmanned fighting platforms to take out terrorists in Afghanistan. But there will be more.

“The human is becoming the weakest link in defense systems, unmanned systems offer a path around the those limitations. They can fly faster and turn harder, without worrying about the squishy part in the middle….the unmanned fighter jet will totally trump the human pilot eventually, purely because of physics” 

So, what are the concerns of war of virtuality? Cyberwarfare. 

It is known as politically motivated hacking to conduct sabotage according to Wikipedia. Richard Clarke and Robert Knake (2010) know this as " actions of a nation-state to penetrate another nations computers or networks for the purpose of causing damage or disruption". 

What does this mean exactly? 

It could mean more combats with explosives, bullets and missiles.  Countries are at war through hacking and computing, and it is happening now.

There is virtual war taking place in Korean Peninsula. Jarno Limnéll, doctor in military science told the Huffington Post UK that a "cyber war arms race" is now in operation on the peninsula, and that it represents a new and dangerous frontier for both sides.

It is worrying to think that we could be at war with countries in general, but computers and abilities to hack into our computers, with ability to change everything. Who ever thought World War Three would be virtual? 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/9943388/Cyber-warfare-more-must-be-done.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/10/north-korea-cyber-war-threatens-real-war_n_3052026.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare

Divided by technology

Globalization is the term to describe world connectivity. We all have a cultural similarity through media economic, cultural and media connections. Sociologist Mcluhn argued that we are now known as a global village through the world wide web. We have increased speed of communication, abilities to read and see global news and have become move involved and aware of other societies and countries. However...
Do we all have the internet? 
Are we really all connected? 
What about the...

The gap between those countries with and without technology is increasing. It has been recently reported that a third of the world's population is unable to access the internet, with 1 billion people still not owning a mobile phone. I'm using the internet, playing music, my phone is currently next to me with access to the internet, we are lucky. 

"We have been monitoring ICT prices now for four years, and there have been a 30% drop in price of ICT in the past four years" Susan Teltscher, head of ITU'S data and statistics division. 
However, the poorest countries who have access have been seen to pay the most. 

Affordability: Singapore (pictured) was highlighted as one of the cheapest places for internet

Singapore is at the top of the 161 countries of internet affordability, while Madagascar came last. The cost of connectiviity in Africa last year was 20 times higher than in Europe and almost seven times more than Americas. Recent reports show that only 70% of Americans have internet access. 

Yet these countries cannot access internet, between 75% and 90% jobs require at least some computer use, and it is said internet can improve children's educational performance. 

We are incredibly lucky that we have internet access, compared to those who do not. It is sad to think that we have all this knowledge of computing and technology and others would not know what to do with it. 

http://www.ibtimes.com/one-third-worlds-population-using-internet-developing-nations-showing-biggest-gains-795299#

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2216625/Report-shows-1billion-people-dont-mobile-phone-half-world-access-internet.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8568681.stm

http://infed.org/biblio/globalization.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/social-care-network/2012/oct/17/digital-divide-tackled-social-care

Time fly's when you're having fun.

How many hours would you spend playing a game?

Two, six, even nine, when we are totally engrossed into something that we do not stop to eat or shower we just flow. Flow is described as being 'in the zone', unaware of all that is happening around us. Although within some cases of straight focus on games it could be self-destruction, but if you have a goal to meet, there is no stopping us.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in other words; (Cheeks-sent-me-high) defines flow as when your challenges meet your skills. He suggests that when a person is completely involved in something concentration levels are high, your target is to succeed is clear therefore to succeed you know what must be done, showing that challenge and skill are in balance. He describes the flow experience as addictive yet a rewarding feeling.

The graph above displays flow. The concept explains that if you are skillful, yet unchallenged you are bored, however if you are unskilled but challenge you are likely to be stressed out. Would you rather be skilled and bored? or unskilled and stressed?

This can be shown in a daily work routine, we can be stressed in a work place and completely oblivious to others as we are completely focused on challenge yet our skills will be lower. 'Mike' suggests that we could deduct stress by reducing challenge, and increasing skills. Asking for help and improving skills with training until we get the perfect flow balance.


So, flow occurs doing playing video games, sports games, work placements, daily routines, yet it can even be developed through education. Kids in schools getting into the flow of working and succeeding. He argues that when a student is doing a task involving group work, or individual assessments to meet goals and solve problems. Flow is at its lowest in schools when it is audio and visual learning rather than kinetic.
If someone is given an activity to complete it could be boring, therefore teachers must make the activities fun for the pupils to get their full attention. Games for example, always get us motivated therefore we could apply gaming with education. Challenge the student, but keep the skills up high to complete the goal and grade.

http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/blogs/flow

http://www.edutopia.org/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-motivating-people-learn

Two can play at that game.

What is a game? 

A video game? A game of football? A drinking game perhaps? 

The word game has so many possibilities of what is a game. There are so many games in life. Sports, playground games, adult games, outside, inside, board games, gambling, broadcast media games, online games, video games, paper games, new media games such as; Guitar hero, and Rock Band. These are our newest craze. Well, that and the iPhone game '4pics1word'. 

As kids we would pretend, use our imagination and be different people everyday. We would play inside with boxes, dress ups, even the furniture, we would play outside with the trees, our bikes, even just running around was considered as fun. After we grew out of 'tig', we found more challenging games such as; Monopoly and Twister. Eventually it led to virtual characters, still pretending and still socializing just through our technology. Or at least, this is how it was when I was a kid. 

Today seems to have changed, and definitely challenged the structure of child and adult hood. We hear kids talking about the newest 'Halo' games, and how they defeated their opponent. 

What ever happened to playing dolls? 

Video gaming goes way back...

1952 - A.S. Douglas OXO

1958 - Tennis for two

1961 - Space war

1971 - Computer space

1972 - The Magnavox odyssey - the first battery powered console, without sound.

1972 - PONG

1978 - Space Invaders

1981 - Donkey Kong

1982 - Pacman

Mario, Sonic, Crash, Tetris, Mortal Combat, all late 80s and early 90s. 

As well as the development of games, the consoles have rapidly changed. Xbox, PS3 soon to be PS4, Nintendo & Wii. 

We use games for entertainment, a leisure activity. A pass time when waiting for the bus, we play 'Angry birds' or similar on our phones. However, gaming is also work. The companies that create the games have workers, those chose to work to design, produce and play games. Not only that but gaming is a form of community. Take 'World of Warcraft' as an example, this game is a virtual online game in which people can chat to others, they become a clan and help each other out when needed. 

The new technology has not only updated the older generation but the younger, many of the  younger generation have never lived without it. Media have seen issues with the gaming of younger people. They have believed that certain video games have led to child behaviour problems. Not only aggressive behaviour but some have influenced them to take action as they would in a game. The Jamie Bulger story is a solid case of this violent child behaviour caused through video gaming. Another example would be Psychologist Bandura et al, study called 'Bobo doll'. They studied into the behaviour of children, using a bobo doll and a hammer. The children were shown a clip of an adult hitting with a hammer, therefore the initial reaction was to copy this behaviour, attempting to show that kids will copy adults, no matter what the activity, wrong or right. Although games have restrictions, therefore they should not be accessed the these games however, restrictions haven't seemed to have worked in some cases. Media may blame the games, others could blame the primary socialization, however; childhood is in need of being brought back, where a child is a child. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/29274.stm

Once upon a time... became digital.

We know that the technology we have today will eventually increase to something new, 'Google glasses blog', says it all, but imagine a time before we had this technology. A time when the mobile phone was the latest technology. No, not a smart phone. One that called out, send SMS and played 'Snake'. The people who first received these technologies must have been thrilled, amazed of how fast you could talk to someone and how far it could go. Are we taking advantage of our advantages? 

We may get all excited about the new phone or laptop but do we appreciate it as much as others used too. Our technologies today are incredible and we would not know what to do without them. Although, we all loved the traditional Snake.

The speed and distance that information can travel at today is intense. We get messages instantly, and can get them from a global distance. We started with electronic mail, chat rooms (MSN) and now we have social networking and Skype. Not only do we have fast messaging but have you seen how fast we can get news feeds. Twitter is one of the most popular social networking sites available, if you follow BBC, or the Guardian and of course, our favourite celebrities (as long as it's not stalking) the news is instantly tweeted. 
Our digital era got lucky. 

So, we have instant messaging, global communications, books in computers, what else? 

Ever had a story told through platforms of episodes with a click of button? 

The younger generations of students have. Inanimate Alice is a online media designed for pre-teen students for interest, academic learning and understanding. Watching the episodes it may not have interest to me, I would much rather read a book but the interaction for children, and young students would make school, and reading much more interesting and fun rather than just going to the library and picking up a book with pages of words, kids do not really care about. Where are the pictures? 

Mediated technologies are becoming more and more popular, although often are for entertainment, some form a purpose of learning. 

http://inanimatealice.com/episode1/index.html

http://www.inanimatealice.com/index.html

What ever happened to just talking in a bar?

How do you get your news? Paper, internet, twitter? 

The word data inevitably creates image of numbers and statistics but those numbers are now able to tell a story. In the past many would argue newspapers were the way forward, but not today, with our many digital media, news stories are rolling as events happen from sources through networks of social connections. This is why today we have 'Data Journalism'. The increase of digital technologies allow numerical data to be used for information distribution through Infographics. 

Infographics are presentations of data intending to show complex information in a clear, and understanding way. They also present the information in a more interesting manor than just long winded text. In newspapers, Infographics are commonly used to show the weather, as well as maps, site plans, and graphs for statistical data. 

A journalists job is to provide the correct information to the public, however, they are also in competition to find the best, newest and most newsworthy stories first before their colleagues or rivals. Using data can help perform this investigation. Knowing the data of information can give another angle on a story. We are always after a new angle, therefore, we need to know our data. 

                            

Las Vegas Sun’s 2010 Do No Harm series on hospital care 

The Sun news found more than 2.9 million hospital bill records, which revealed 3600 preventable injuries, infections and surgical mistakes and identified more than 300 cases in which patients died. It is easy to understand the information this way, and had real impact on the public. 

Although data is hard to understand and quite difficult to place into visualization however, journalists are able to look beyond the confusion to find the secret stories. Data journalism could be the future of news. 

http://datajournalismhandbook.org/1.0/en/introduction_4.html

Have you got your Wiki Barnstar badge yet?

Everyone has or will used Wikipedia at some point. It is used for word definitions, home work, referencing, general information. Everything is on Wikipedia, so why shouldn't we use it?
The English Wikipedia page was founded in 2001 and has gained 4 million articles since. It originally was set up as a free encyclopedia, open to anyone to edit or delete the articles to what they want or how they think it should be. Jimbo Wales the co-founder and promoter of Wikipedia was the first edit to the pages in 2001. 
Linking with the open access blog previously, it shows that it is free and anyone is able to access the information however, anyone is also allowed to edit the information causing it to be inaccurate information. 

Each contributor has their own page of their edits, and Wikipedia rewards them with 'Barnstars'. They are badges to place on their pages to show their hard work. It can be pictured as giving Scouts their camping badges for doing the ironing, putting up a tent, and first aid. Although it is easy to joke about these, it is taken seriously and people are proud of their accomplishments in contributing to Wikipedia. There are so many types of Barnstars available ;
The original, Random acts of kindness, Surreal, Anti-Vandalism, Anti-flame, Philosophy
...And so many more

"We do not expect you to trust us" - Wikipedia 

However, Wikipedia not being fact has relevance to Journalism. Not all the information a journalist is given is accurate, it could be manipulated, incorrect, a lie, we can never be sure on whether or not someone is truly being honest. Hope is the only answer.

So do we trust our old friend Wiki?
From the way it is available to be edited we shouldn't but it has become such a huge part of researching it would be difficult to change our ways all for the fact it may have been slightly tweaked. We just have to hope that it is true, a valid or else school kids will probably fail their homework assignments. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.brisbanegrammar.com/blogs/library/?p=290

Anytime, anywhere, open access!

Searching the internet for academic publishing, and peer-reviewed scholarly journals has never been easier with the unrestricted access provided online. Authors publish their work online allowing access for everyone and anyone to read it, costing nothing. Authors get paid by research funders to do research, therefore publishing their articles gets used quicker and it can reduce publication delays. However, is giving your work out to the world for everyone to see, a good idea?

Schools would not agree to free work online, for students were not working to their potential best as they had got it from some one else. It could be argued as that open access is harmful, almost along the same pathway as theft. We would not actually be paying for someone else's stuff so is that stealing? Arguably, those who are not academic scholar should not be able to have access to the publishing's for it is not necessarily needed.

However, as a journalist it is quite good to read articles and other input on particular topics, without plagiarism- of course. If the work online is free it is quite useful for a normal cost for particular journals or articles is far more than what people would want to pay. Especially university students who'd rather spend their money partying than buying books they could easily get for free. Bargain?

The open access movement mentions articles and journals however it could be seen as piracy of films, TV shows, and music? We can download music online for free, watch our favourite shows and films online by streaming. Only particular websites allow this to happen however, somehow it will happen. Lime-wire was used to download music illegally, with no funds but eventually was banned, will this happen to all open access sites? 

If work is out there for us to read, it is not illegal and not copyrighted then surely it is not going to cause harm. The illegal and piracy issues is a criminal act, and always known and spoken about but will it ever change? besides we are only human who doesn't want a freebie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm

Cyberstalking

When it comes to social networking we presume it is safe, for we choose who we have as friends on Facebook, who we follow on Twitter and who can see our profiles on Instagram. However, does that mean that they cannot be seen? 

The word 'stalking' can mean a regular check on a friends' Facebook to see what they've been up to, or daily tweets to celebrities. But, it doesn't stop there, a persons curiosity can become dangerously obsessive. 

Cyber-stalking is becoming more common and has many different ways in which it occurs. False accusations, threatening emails, black mail, consistent hate crime are the most assumed types. It can be taken to higher levels, by having personal pages being set up targeted at victims of stalking, strangers posing as friends and arranging to meet, attaching viruses to damage computers are other ways in which cyber-stalkers work. 

Media often announces when celebrities have been stalked, mainly by a crazed fan, therefore they get restraining orders however, it is rare we hear how regular cyber-stalking occurs. 

Many could ask, why? Why would you want to cause harm on others, especially those who are young and innocent? They are pathological obsessive, jealous, bored, enjoy the entertainment of others feeling inferior, they can almost be considered as delusional. 

Younger girls receive sexual harassment cyber-stalking. Some cases have shown that older men have pretended to be younger girls or boys and befriended a girl, to arrange a meeting. It never ended happily. It is worrying for we can be who ever we want to be online Previous blog but so can everyone else. 

Not just strange adults, but classmates cause cyber-bullying. For example, Amanda Todd, 15 was a victim of cyber-bullying. She ended her life due to harassment of classmates putting revealing photos of her on her own social media.

It is not just the younger generation being cyber-stalked. According to BBC 'The Head teachers union' is worried about the increasing cyber-bullying towards teachers. 

"We have had incidents where teachers have been subjected to abuse for very long periods of time and have needed professional help on dealing with those issues."

The British Crime Survey 2006 estimates up to 5 million people experience stalking per year but there are no official statistics on who is cyber-stalked. People are not reporting being stalked online as a major crime. 

Bedfordshire University have brought together a 'National Centre for Cyber-stalking' to help, understand and sort the problem. 

If you are being cyber-stalked the best solution according to 'The Guardian' is to report, get support, and gather your evidence. 

http://www.beds.ac.uk/research/irac/nccr

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/08/cyberstalking-study-victims-men