My Online Presence

     Honestly, this topic scares me a lot. I never thought much about my online presence before I took this class. I knew in the back of my mind that privacy was non-existent, but I thought that there was nothing I could do about it. It was one of those things where I didn't want to be educated on it because it scared me so much. However, after taking this class I have a deeper appreciation for technology and the internet because of how impressive and widespread it has become after a short amount of time.

         Social Media 

        I have a pretty large online footprint for only being a mere nineteen year old. I am on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Tik Tok, and probably so much more. I do not think things through when I join a new social media platform. If it is the new thing and people are doing it, then I'll probably hop on the bandwagon and see what it's about. After taking this class, I am now very aware that these platforms are businesses who have access to all of your personal information and they continue to collect and use it for their personal gain. This will probably make me more hesitant of joining new social media platforms, because I think that the extent that these companies go to is often too far. 

    Facebook is one of the biggest culprits of why people are often very skeptical of being online. They own Instagram and make a majority of their money through advertisements. This article  describes the way that Facebook advertising works. They target your advertisements based on your age, location, gender, and a plethora of other personal information. That means that if the advertisements on your page are interesting to you, then Facebook has a pretty big grasp on who you are. The reason why this is scary is because Facebook and other companies that make money from advertising knows its customers better than most people in their lives. I am willing to bet that Facebook could get me better Christmas presents than my own mother.  

    Aside from the creepy advertising that these companies do, something that massively came into light this year was the regulation of content by these social media corporations. During the election, Facebook was "factchecking" certain posts and blocked content that was deemed to be untrue. First of all, any idiot can tell that these fact checkers are extremely biased and only block certain content. These are private companies that are using their influence to skew the way that people think. We live in an age where everyone finds their information online, so to see such blatant censorship of content is extremely discouraging to the fundamental principles of this country. 

My Personal Footprint

    I have grown up in a time where everyone was always on the internet. I started my Instagram account when I was still in elementary school and I witnessed the rise of the world's obsession with other platforms such as Snapchat and Tik Tok. I am probably guilty of sharing too much information on those accounts. Sure, my platforms are private but I don't know every single one of my followers. Any random person could do a quick Google search on me to find out my birthday and the city I live in. From there, it really is not too hard to find out other information these days. It does not scare me as much as it used to, because every kid in the world with a cellphone has a social media and does the same thing. Personal information suddenly doesn't seem that personal when there is quick access to it with a simple search. 

        With all of that being said, I am pretty proud about what is out there about me on the internet. When you search my name on Google, the first link that comes up is my LinkedIn account. I have worked hard on my LinkedIn page and I think that it is pretty good. It gives the general public the assumption that I am a pretty professional person. If somebody read my profile, they would know that I have done a lot at a young age and hopefully that gives off a great impression that would make people want to hire me. My Facebook and Twitter page also come up. I am not embarrassed about anything that is on those platforms and I don't think there is anything on those that would cause an employer not to hire me. It is pretty normal content that wouldn't catch an employer's eye in a negative way. There isn't much about me on the internet other than what I choose to post. 

    I think in this day and age, you have to be pretty comfortable with the whole world viewing what you put on the internet. Even if your page is private, there is nothing truly private about the internet. Companies can even pay money to view your private Snapchat stories. I definitely freaked out a little when I found out about this. The amount of inappropriate content I see posted on social media even by my peers in this class is enough to get someone fired. The golden rule that I try to live by is that if my grandparents would not be ok with my content, then I probably shouldn't be posting it. 

    This post centered around social media, because that is the majority of my online presence. The majority of people don't have articles written about them or a ton of unflattering paparazzi photos on the internet for people to ridicule. Your online presence for the most part is what you want it to be. However, it is hard to keep up with the world without having social media. People are often judged even more harshly for not having any social media. Society normalizes sharing information on the internet which makes it easier and easier for companies to curate personal advertisements for you. 

    This class taught me to be aware of my presence on the internet and to take privacy seriously. Just because certain companies own most of the internet and can control people through social media, that doesn't mean they are right or ethical. Being educated is a pathway to fighting these companies for privacy rights. My online footprint might not be 100% controllable, but I can do what I can to be careful about what I post online. Unfortunately, a lot of us get into social media and internet sites when we are kids and don't know any better about the power of the internet to ruin lives. The best we can do is routinely clean up our online presence to make it the best that it can be. 

 

EOTO: Smith-Mundt Act

 I am so glad that my group got randomly assigned to present on propaganda this week. I researched the Smith-Mundt Act and I feel so much more knowledgeable on the United States and their propaganda schemes. I will be totally honest, I was a little shocked and disappointed to learn that the United States takes place in propaganda, but I guess every country does it now. Today's blog post will be a special one all about the Smith-Mundt Act. 

The Smith-Mundt Act was passed in 1948 and the official name for it was the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act. This was first introduced by Congressman Karl E. Mundt and it was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. By passing this law, the U.S. Department of State had the basic legislative authorization for propaganda activities. What does that mean? It means that the U.S. Department of State could now communicate to audiences outside of the United States through broadcasting, face-to-face contacts, exchanges, books, movies, magazines, and other media. Congress funded these activities through appropriations. When this act was passed in 1948, it should've scared anyone outside of the United States. Essentially the U.S. passed a law stating that the U.S. State Department could lie to anyone outside of its borders. Scary stuff. 

Because of this act, the State Department could create an information service to disseminate abroad information about the United States and its people. This includes the President, Congress and all other government officials having something to do with matters affecting foreign affairs. The key to remember about this act is that it only allowed distribution of these materials outside of the U.S. This ensured that United States citizens would be immune to the propaganda of their own country. 

After this law was passed, Voice of America (VOA) was founded in 1942. This was a government-funded news service that showed its broadcasts of pro-American news stories around the world. The VOA was part of the United States Office of War Information (OWI), which was a controversial organization created for the distribution of wartime information. The OWI conducted psychological warfare overseas, using radio and print publications to demoralize the enemy. They also collaborated with Hollywood to develop propaganda films. These films were pro-American and really helped to boost support for war. 

Example of a pro-American propaganda film by Hollywood

 The Smith-Mundt Act was pretty much the same until 2013 when President Obama made some major changes to it. He signed legislation that made it possible for some materials created by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the nation's foreign broadcasting agency, to be disseminated in the U.S. This change eased restrictions for Americans to access government-funded media content upon request that was made for foreign countries. 

This modernization of the Act was very controversial amongst Americans. Half of the country thought that President Obama had signed a law allowing propaganda to be actively pumped into the United States, which is simply not the case. Even under the new revisions, it is still against the law for government-funded media to create programming and market to U.S. audiences. All that Obama did was make the content accessible to Americans. 

The Smith-Mundt law has a rich history and is still an active part of our lives today. It is important to be aware of it and know what exactly it is. Propaganda is not always recognizable so it is good to know if you have a chance to be exposed to it. The moral of this blog post is that you should always be careful about the information you consume, especially if it is from the government. This law only had to do with the U.S. State Department. That means that any other government department could be distributing propaganda. As United States citizens we still don't have access to the Pentagon's propaganda which is a haunting concept. Propaganda is a powerful tool and it is up to us citizens to be aware of it so it doesn't affect us. 

Privacy: The Common Goal That Brings Us All Together?

  I always hear that there is an overwhelming lack of privacy in the world, but I have never stopped to think about what that means. We are living in a world where the internet has been around for less than thirty years, however it is now a force that knows pretty much everything about everyone. Pretty scary, right? 

Google, Facebook and other popular sources get billions of dollars from advertising and creeping into your personal life. They have access to every email you send, every post on social media, and even every internet search. What does that mean for you? Well, it means nothing about your life is private. At any moment in time, someone could do their research on you and you would have no idea. The reason why this is so worrisome is because people practically live their lives online. We search the answer to any possible question that pops up in our mind and we tend to overshare on social media. 

One thing that is particularly scary when it comes to privacy is email. There is such a lack of privacy when it comes to electronic mail, that every email is public. You may think that it is not that big of deal, but think about it. You exchange emails ALL THE TIME. Every business exchange or even catching up and sharing personal details with loved ones. Private companies like Yahoo and Google have access to everything and they don't even need to tell you if they are looking at your emails. It is insane to me that people are unaware of this fact or don't seem to care. 

I watched a Ted Talk that talked about the privacy of emails. Well, the lack of privacy. Essentially the server has access to unlock your encrypted emails. It is crazy to think that even when people encrypt their emails and think they are protecting their privacy, they are not at all. There is a company called ProtonMail and it is a free encrypted email. This ensures that the only person that can unlock the encrypted data is the person who the email is sent to. It is not widespread, because it is expensive when you are trying to spread software like this and you can't use advertising. However, something amazing has been happening. The importance of privacy is bringing people together and people are donating to ProtonMail and keeping the company alive. 

I guess the moral of this post is that privacy is important and we can do our part to stop private companies from infiltrating our lives. We can support companies such as ProtonMail and be more aware about our digital footprint and who has access to it. It is crazy stuff we are talking about, but awareness to the problem is the first step. 

Diffusion of Innovation: Is Paper Money Becoming Outdated?

 

Money is at the center of everything we do. We are educated for 12 plus years in the hopes of getting a job that can fulfill our basic needs. Everything we do revolves around money. But how did we come to a point where we placed our worth around the value of a piece of paper? Relating the invention of paper currency through the lens of the Diffusion Theory, it is clear that the timeline of paper currency is spread out longer than most inventions and ideas would be. 

Paper currency was one of the biggest inventions to date because it changed the way we conduct things. Originally, humans would trade various objects to get what they wanted. This caused lots of inconsistency and the trading business had plenty of problems. 

The pioneers of paper currency were the Chinese. The first real use of paper currency popped up in the 11th century during the Song Dynasty. This was the innovators part of the diffusion of innovations. Only one part of the world was actively using this invention.

Pictured above is Jiaozi, which is the world's earliest form of paper currency

Since paper currency is a harder innovation to tackle, the early adopters, early majority, and late majority is hard to pin down. People saw how amazing it was in China and it spread throughout the Mongol Empire until it finally reached the United States in 1775. Yes, there is SO many years in between the origin of paper currency until 1775. The point is that paper currency was so innovative and useful that it keeps reaching its peak for years to come. Since we still have access to it and it is still prominently used today all over the world. 

What I can argue is that we are now finally reaching the laggards stage of this innovation. For years and years after the invention of paper currency, there was no other alternative. When people payed for things, they used paper currency. However, with the invention of credit and debit cards it is rare to see people pulling out cash to pay for something. It is pretty hard to tell for sure since paper currency is still used, but with digital forms of cash becoming more and more popular, I am willing to bet that when we look back at this time period years from now we will see that we are amongst the laggards of paper currency. Paper currency was an amazing invention and is still somewhat useful today, however, it is being severely overshadowed by paperless options of currency.

Today, my blog post was probably unconventional compared to others on this topic. However, I wanted to take this opportunity to apply this theory to an invention that is still relevant to the lives of everyone.

EOTO: Presentation Week

 

The last two weeks in class have been very interesting! Every person presented on a technology that exists and taught the class a little bit about the history of it. I really enjoyed these weeks, because I learned a lot about my favorite technologies. 

    The technology that I was really fascinated by was Spotify. I am a huge Spotify fan and I will forever think that it is better than Apple Music or any other music streaming platform. What I didn't know before the brief presentation in class was that it was actually several other things before it was Spotify. There were many different prototypes before Spotify was born. That was a common theme with all of the technologies presented, which I thought was really interesting. Every single great technology that people use everyday is the result of numerous tries. Another interesting thing about this presentation was finding out that Spotify was founded in 2006. It was a slow growth process for the company, but now it is thriving and doing so great. Overall, I enjoyed listening to this brief presentation on Spotify, because I learned a lot in a short period of time. 

EOTO: Personal Computer and Personal Computing

 

     Personal computers. We all use them and they have become a crucial part of our lives. Whether we keep our lives stored on a Mac or a PC, these devices have play an important part on how we go about out life. Today I will be telling you guys a little but about the history and timeline of personal computers. 

The First Personal Computer

The first personal computer was introduced in 1975 and it was called the Altair 8800. It only had toggle switches and binary lights for input and output. It was the first computer to sell in large numbers. They sold over 5,000 computers in the first year. It retailed for $395. If you wanted it to be assembled for you it was $498. Bill Gates and Paul Allen saw the success of the Altair 8800 and formed the company Microsoft.

Pictured above is the Altair 8800

Apple

In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple’s only kit computer and in 1977 they launched the Apple 2, which was a color computer with expansion slots and floppy drive support. The Apple 2 was one of the world's first successful mass produced microcomputer.

Pictured Above is the Apple 2

VisiCalc Revolutionizes Personal Computing

In 1978 the first electronic spreadsheet entitled VisiCalc was made. This technology was revolutionary for the world of personal computers, because it turned them into a useful business tool. Before the creation of this software, personal computing was seen as merely a game machine or a replacement for the electronic typewriter.

Pictured above is an example of VisiCalc software

First Portable Computer

In early 1981, Adam Osborne introduced the world's first portable computer. The Osborne 1 was about this size of a suitcase and had a tiny 5″ display. The computer weighed 10kg.The whole package sold for $1,899.

Pictured Above is an Osborne 1

First Laptop Computer

The first laptop computer also arrived in 1981. It was called the Epson HX-20.  The HX-20 was about 8.5″ by 11″ and maybe 1.5-2″ thick and used a microcassette to store data. It displayed 4 lines of 20 characters on an LCD screen above the keyboard.

Pictured Above is the Epson HX-20

Most Significant Event of 1981

The most significant event of 1981 for the personal computing industry was the introduction of the IBM PC on August 12. This caused Microsoft to get IBM to agree that PCs would not be an IBM exclusive. This paved the way for the clone industry.

Pictured Above is the IBM PC of 1981

Year of the Computer

   Time magazine called 1982 “The Year of the Computer” as the industry grew up. By 1983, the industry estimated that 10 million PCs were in use in the United States alone.

Pictured Above is the cover of TIME magazine in 1983

Apple's Biggest Failure 

In 1983 Apple introduced the Lisa which was a huge failure. Each computer sold for $10,000 and Apple lost a total of $50 Million.

Pictured Above is an Apple Lisa

Apple Macintosh

The failure of the Apple Lisa paved the way for the Apple Macintosh which came out in 1984. It was much more affordable at $2,500. This is where the timeline of personal computers end. Ever since the Macintosh, the use of personal computers has developed greatly. As of February 2019, 74% of Americans owned one.

Pictured Above is an Apple Macintosh

The Importance of Promoting Innovation

 

          All eight values of free expression speak to me, as I recognize the important of living in a country that gives its citizens fundamental rights. As a Broadcast Journalism major and theatre minor, promoting innovation is extremely important to me. If free speech was not protected under the constitution, I would have picked another major and minor. The idea behind promoting innovation is that when free speech is valued and protected, the community will be more energized, creative and interesting because they will actively fulfill themselves in many diverse and interesting ways. As a journalism major, I exercise my freedom of speech by constantly jotting down topics and events that interest me. I then interview people and write feature pieces on what is going on. The reason why people read these articles and the articles that are on various news sources, is because they are unfiltered and true. Free speech gives journalists the capability to push the limits without constantly looking behind their back with the worry they might go to prison. The pieces that are remembered in history are the ones that uncover some scandalous government secret or the exposés on powerful members of society. None of these would be written without our first amendment right. Journalists are able to write what they want and thus the world of journalism keeps innovating and pushing the boundaries of what journalism is.

    Another aspect of promoting innovation that is important to me is performing arts. My minor is theatre and I love to attend and be in shows that are powerful and have a message. Most of the time, the shows are very innovative because the artist choose to take a risk. For example, Hamilton is one of the most famous broadway musicals ever made. Lin-Manuel Miranda write the show and took some extremely big innovative risks. Instead of only focusing on Alexander Hamilton's positive contributions to the government, he took a deeper look into his personal life. This made audience's realize that he wasn't just some untouchable hero that they previously thought. This show probably wouldn't have been written so harshly if free speech wasn't protected. Speaking poorly about the government can get people into a lot of trouble in other countries.  The very culture of the United States of America is built on an influx of ideas and colorful speech. Free speech is arguably the most important right given to us as citizens of the United States. A nation where millions of people are not afraid to speak their mind fosters a society that is continually changing for the better.