World of Wiki

Throughout my years of schooling, I have been told that Wikipedia is not a legitimate source and that we were not allowed to use it in our papers. Their reason being that since anybody can add what they want on any topic, we can never know what information is accurate.

I recently read an article about "taking a stand against WIkipedia". The author, Scott Jaschik, wrote about Middlebury College and what the professors are doing about Wikipedia. They are banning students from citing Wikipedia for their papers. The purpose of this was to educate the students about what is wrong with Wikipedia and to proove that it is not all valid information.

Also, at University of California at Santa Barbara faculty stated that it "is not appropriate as the primary or sole reference for anything that is central to an argument, complex, or controversial". 

While there are still faults with Wikipedia, it is not all bad. The site is maintained and edited constantly so inaccurate information is taken out. When a student is writing a paper or doing research, they just need to be careful and further investigate what they found on Wikipedia on other sites. They just can not use it as their only source. 

The Art of Business Blogging

For my Media class, we had to find an article about blogging. It was interesting to look though many articles and websites about it because there are so many different aspects and it is ever changing.

The article that I found was about business blogging. It gave many tips that companies could use to gain more publicity for themselves. One of the tips that was given was to choose the right blogging platform. What is meant by this is that it has easy access to other social media sites so that you can promote in more ways.

One other tip that I found interesting was to love your audience. The author of the blog should be friendly with everyone, even if they post a negative comment. The company can try and turn everyone into a consumer of their product and a supporter of their company. It also stated that all comments should be appreciated because that starts a flow of conversation and you gain more traffic to your website.

The Debate Over Web 2.0

I recently read an article for my media class that talked about mainstream media and citizen journalism. The differing sides of the argument were taken by Steven Johnson and Brian Williams.

Johnson was claiming that the new Web 2.0 is not just centered around the mainstream media but it is essentially "All About Us". It consists of amateurs who are blogging gives "power to the people". It is a new forum that all can participate in.

On the other side Brian Williams stated that since there are so many opportunities for citizens now to read and write about what they want they will not be receiving the information that they need to hear. They will just be searching for information that interests them and a lot of the "important" news stories that are being broadcasted on some television news channels will not be put at the level of importance they need.

There are many different opinions that can be formed on this topic. Which helps prove the fact that there now are so many options for citizens to read about the news.

Hiding Behind the Screen

This past week I watched a PBS special called Growing up Online. There were many great points made in this informative video but the one that stuck out to me out the most was about cyber bullying. With all of the recent suicides in the gay community it is hard to ignore the fact that teens are using the internet as a way to further bully their peers. 

At Rutgers University persistent cyber bullying by classmates of Tyler Clementi drove him to jump into the Hudson River. In the month of September alone five gay men from the ages of 13- 19 have committed suicide due to bullying through Facebook, twitter, skype,  etc. 

New media is now fully integrated into many of our lives and it is a great tool for communication, but there needs to be an end to bullying though these means of technology. It is a horrible occurrence when someone is led to suicide in result of opinions and comments of others. We can only hope that good will come out of the awful suffering that Clementi and others had to face daily and there will be full awareness of cyber bullying so it will not continue.