When I first heard about Osama Bin Laden’s 2011 death was not from a news station, but from a friend’s tweet on Twitter. Soon after, everyone on Twitter was posting about the event, with dozens of different hashtags (#) emerging. This trend of quickly spreading information to the masses has gained momentum, especially in the recent 2011 uprisings in Egypt. In their International Journal of Communication article “The Revolutions Were Tweeted: Information Flows During the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions” (2011), Gilad Lota, Erhardt Graeff, Mike Ananny, Devin Gaffney, Ian Pearce, and Danah Boyd analyze how Twitter played a crucial role in the recent uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Because I am more informed about the Egyptian uprising, that is what I will focus on. The International Journal of Communication  is an online academic, interdisciplinary journal that mainly focuses on communication across the globe. All of the authors of this scholarly article are distinguished in the fields of communication, technology, and social ecology.

A brief history: To protest abuse by police, protestors decided to launch a large campaign on January 25, 2011, which was National Police Day. This campaign became known as #Jan25 on Twitter, and gained a lot of support. Because of Twitter and new media, protestors we able to be well organized. Soon after January 25th, many other protests came about in Egypt, using Twitter to spread encouragement and information to Egyptians as well as the rest of the world.

After taking a (mostly) qualitative approach, the authors found that the majority of information “flows” were started by individuals (most likely Twitter users and bloggers) as opposed to large organizations. As opposed to Tunisia, Tweets by both individuals and organizations gained many more responses. However, bloggers in Tunisia had a greater spread of information than those in Egypt.

In my opinion, Twitter was a very strong tool used by protestors in Tunisia and Egypt to gain national and global support for their causes. Imagine if Twitter existed during the American Civil Rights movement…can’t you just imagine Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. tweeting his “I Have A Dream Speech” in increments of 140 words?

Growing up, I used to hate when my parents turned on NPR when were on long car rides. Today, however, I actually find myself enjoying the program. At times, NPR interviews and stories can be lengthy and dry, but usually they are very interesting. My favorite NPR program is Fresh Air with Terry Gross, which covers a wide range of topics, from music, to films, to health, and much more. Perhaps the best thing about NPR, however, is that it offers free podcasts on iTunes. A podcast is (usually) a series of digital episodes downloaded from the internet. When they first became popular, podcasts were strictly audio, but today there are several visual/audio podcasts. iTunes offers a wide variety of free podcasts available for download covering a wide range of topics.

For this blog post, I watched an NPR podcast about Adele, one of the most popular female artists right now. The podcast, Adele: Tiny Desk Concert is an episode in the NPR series Tiny Desk Concert, which gives the audience an “intimate” interaction with popular as well as up and coming artists. This episode in particular is about 12 minutes long, as are the rest of the episodes in this series, but podcasts in general run anywhere from a few minutes to more than an hour.  What I like about this podcast series is that there is a video aspect to it as well as audio. Had it been just audio, I would feel like I was just listening to Adele on the radio, which I already do almost every day. There is just something different about being able to see her perform.

Despite our obsession with television and movies, podcasts are surprisingly popular. They are played in cars and at the gym. They make people laugh, cry, and get upset. Whether they are strictly audio or accompanied by video, I think that podcasts are going to be around for a while.

Do you ever wonder why certain ads pop up on your computer? Do you ever notice that those ads are usually relevant to you? This is because essentially every little move we make on the Internet is being tracked. If I am a frequent visitor to the website for Women’s Health Magazine, I am more likely to get advertisements for health and fitness. In his Huffington Post article “Don’t Be Naked” Marty Kaplan looks at the ironic nature of today’s technology. While we are more empowered than ever, we are also vulnerable to  advertisers and other industries looking for prey.

Whenever we search for something on Google or watch a Youtube video, we are giving away little clues about who we are. On Facebook and Twitter, programs are able to comprehend what we post about most often. Netflix suggests films and television shows based on what we’ve already rented. Using GPS, websites are now able to track where we are…a predator’s dream. In my opinion, I think it is a little creepy how today’s technology makes us to trackable. Similar to telemarketing, companies are paying sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ to gain information about users in order to appeal to them more. As Kaplan points out, the information we are sharing on the Internet is “fueling a burgeoning industry.” So be careful what you put out there…you could be paying the wages for a company you’ve never even heard of that promotes meaningless products!

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Marty Kaplan is the Norman Lear Professor of Entertainment, Media and Society at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

I still remember the first Youtube video I ever saw: The Evolution of Dance. In this video, a man performs a dance that consists of a medley of different styles and music. Fast forward to today, where there are millions of videos on the website, ranging from music performances, to pranks, to full length pirated films. In his 2007 blogpost “Nine Propositions Towards a Cultural Theory of Youtube,” Henry Jenkins discusses nine ideas surrounding the popular website Youtube. Jenkins is a distinguished scholar and author in the field of communication and media. The idea that I will be addressing is that “YouTube’s value depends heavily upon its deployment via other social networking sites.” When the site was still gaining popularity, the way that people viewed its content was by physically logging onto the site. Today, however, we can embed videos and share them through Facebook, Myspace, e-mail, blogs, and much more. As Jenkins writes, this takes us away from “stickiness,” in which the success of a website depends on how many people actually visit it, and takes us toward a more spreadable internet.

It is because of this new spreadability that the most famous Youtube videos have become so successful. It is quite likely that without Facebook and other social networking sites, many of these videos would not have gained so many views. This year, the video Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus made its way around Facebook and Twitter. Without knowing to search for it specifically on Youtube, the video is almost impossible to just stumble upon while browsing the site. In fact, in my opinion, Youtube is not a very browse-friendly site. We owe a lot to Youtube. It helps us to learn how to do things, it helps us beat boredom, and for some of us it serves as a stage for us to voice our opinions. Thanks to social media, a silly little fight on the MUNI has turned into a web sensation, and, of course, given us the BIEBS.

My first job was working in a scrapbook store where I was able to be creative and design cards, scrapbooks, and more, so I was excited when I learned about our personal hypertext project. When I read the directions, however, I started to panic a bit. Although I have scrapbooking and card-making abilities, I have very little experience in the webpage design business. Probably the most I ever did in the way of designing a webpage was personalizing my MySpace, which consisted of copying and pasting codes that set up my layout.

Luckily, Six Revolutions, a website set as a portal of information for web developers has come up with a list for aspiring and beginner web designers such as myself. In her article 10 Unusual Places to Get Design Inspiration, Kayla Knight discusses several ways to be inspired when designing a webpage: (1) Different Eras, (2) Nature, (3) The City, (4) The Mall, (5) The Library, (6) Magazines, (7) Business Cards, (8) Music and Album Covers, (9) High-Speed Photography, and (10) Away From it All.

Of the 10 places Knight discusses, I can relate most to be inspired by a different era, particularly for my personal hypertext. For my hypertext, I am discussing how my grandpa and grandma met, which was in the middle of World War 2. My grandpa was actually a Japanese internee at Tule Lake. There is a lot of art surrounding internment and World War 2 and I hope to find inspiration from the style of the 1940s.

When I was in middle school, MySpace was the hottest thing. I remember spending hours finding the right background, font, music, and pictures for my site. I remember personalizing my “Top 8” and commenting on friends’ photos. In her 2007 article “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life,” Danah Boyd examines the fascination surrounding social network websites, particularly MySpace.com, and aims to help us understand the gap between teenage and adult (parental) interpretations of these sites. Danah Boyd is a distinguished scholar who studies how younger generations use social media as a part of their every day lives. Her article is published in the MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning – Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume. The MacArthur Foundation particularly serves as a forum for scholars to publish works about youth and technology.

Boyd first examines the basic demographic makeup of Myspace users. She found that, of the 87% of teenagers that have internet access, over 55% of teens have an account on some kind of social networking site. I’m not surprised by this number, as I and all of my friends have had accounts since we were 13. She next looks at how MySpace first started. Unbeknownst to me, the site actually started as a site for bands to share their music. Over time, teenagers (as well as some business people) started to flock to the site and turned it into what it is today. A large portion of Boyd’s article addresses how teenagers use MySpace as a means to create an image for themselves. For example, the more elaborate your background and layout is, the cooler you are. The more friends and pictures you have, the more social you are. I remember being extremely concerned with how others perceived me when I was younger, so I was constantly updating my MySpace with new pictures, information, and friends. Today, teenagers seem to want to make everything public: who they’re dating, where they are, what they’re doing. It is because of this, Boyd points out, that many parents are so against MySpace. On the site, many teenagers let it all hang out…they curse, post inappropriate pictures, and even bully other teens. What is it about the teens today that makes them want to publicize their entire lives?

I find Boyd’s article very interesting, especially because the 13-year-old me can relate to many of the topics. In my school, the number of MySpace friends on had determined one’s real-life popularity. Top 8’s defined and broke friendships. Sadly, much of social networking is still like this today. Even on Facebook, if a person only has 100 friends, we might think that they are not very popular. A “defriending” can lead to a whole mess of drama. Although I have a Facebook and Twitter, I strongly hope that our culture will start to become private again, but I do not think that it will ever happen in my lifetime.

Just the other day, I was talking to one of my friends about Xanga. I remember setting up my first Xanga page in 7th grade and thought that it was the coolest thing ever…I would be able to tell people about my life and post pictures. Flash forward to today: Facebook. In today’s world, social networking and self-expression via the Internet play a role in every day life. In fact, this blog entry itself is just that. In his novel The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture, Andrew Keen critiques the world-wide fascination surrounding the digital world, from Youtube to Facebook to Blogs. Andrew Keen, despite his critiques, is a well-known presence on the Internet. He hosts his own Internet show, “Keen On,” where he comments and interviews about technology and culture. Most recently, he wrote  “DIGITAL VERTIGO: How Social Networks Are Destroying Our Privacy, Eroding Our Freedom and Distorting Our Identities”, which will be released later this year.

Many of us would like to believe that this new digital age, Web 2.0, is a good thing that promotes self-expression and democratization. Keen, however, strongly argues that this new age has a very dark side. According to Keen, web 2.0 has strongly undermined intellectual property because of file sharing sites that get millions of views per day. Keen also touches on how the internet, particularly through Youtube, rewards people for their stupidity. In fact, some of the most famous Youtube videos include people engaging in idiotic brawls or running over their foot while “Ghost-riding.”

In his “Keen On” interview with Simon Reynolds, author of Retromania, Keen discusses how the internet has negatively affected the music industry. As Reynolds argues, today’s generation feels as if they don’t have to pay for music. While many of us may occasionally illegally download a song or two, many of us still do use iTunes or Rhapsody to purchase music. Earlier generations had no choice but to purchase a CD or a record in a store, but with technology today, it is much easier to get music other ways, sometimes without paying. Some artists may argue that the Internet is “hurting” them, but many others would gladly thank the Internet for their success. Through Twitter and other social networking sites, musicians are able to communicate with their fans and maintain a strong image. Even earlier this week when the SOPA blackout was happening, not very many artists supported the organization. In my opinion, just because an artist is not getting paid for all of his or her songs, it doesn’t mean that they are a failure.

Although I think that Keen makes some interesting points, I think that his tone throughout the book is condescending toward those who use the Internet for the purposes that he criticizes, a group of people who include you and myself. In fact, at the end of the book, Keen goes on a rant about the immoral acts that he believes are promoted by the Internet, including pornography and gambling. And although there are a lot of Youtube videos that we might think to be dumb, there are also many that are brilliant and extremely entertaining. While the music industry has lost money because of file sharing, hundreds of artists, like Justin Bieber, have been discovered thanks to the Internet. We need to stop using money as a measure of success or failure. The Internet provides us an emotional outlet and ironically in most cases, hiding behind a computer allows us to be our true selves.

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Click here to visit Andrew Keen’s website.

Whenever we start a new quarter at school, we have to sit there while the professor discusses plagiarism and the consequence of we plagiarize in any of our work. We have heard this talk dozens of times, yet why is plagiarism so frowned upon? In his Harper’s Magazine article The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism (2007), Jonathan Lethem, an award-winning novelist, studies how, in a way, plagiarism is what has driven society for centuries. Harper’s Magazine is famous for addressing issues and provide perspectives and narratives on politics, culture, and society. As Lethem writes, we are constantly reusing ideas. For example, most, if not all, of the most popular cartoon shows on television today would have never come about had it not been for similar shows in the past. In today’s society, second-use and reuse are common, and we are constantly reshaping and rethinking the ways in which something is used.

When looking at plagiarism, it is crucial to discuss the notion of intellectual property. How are we to decide what ideas are property and what is trivial? Does something have to be copyrighted in order to be intellectual property? With the availability of technology today, as Lethem points out, even ideas that are considered intellectual property are becoming less and less like property. If I wanted to, I could Google a particular song and download it illegally from the internet. Within a matter of minutes, the song would be mine, and the odds are that the artist got the idea for some of the lyrics from the song from another artist and that artist got it from another and so on.

In general, I, like Lethem, believe that plagiarism is not always a bad thing, but rather that second-use is crucial to our social sustainability. While reading this article, at times I found Lethem’s writing to be off-topic and bit lengthy, but over all I enjoyed this article.

While I do believe that there should be a limit to plagiarism, I have to give plagiarism credit…after all, without it, I might not be sitting here typing this blog entry on a Macbook, listening to a cover of “Let it Be” by the Beatles.

With the accessibility and availability of information today, it is almost impossible for anyone to keep a secret. In the past year, the infamous Wikileaks was constantly under public scrutiny, especially for releasing what were thought to be classified government documents. In his article EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT: Wikileaks, Assange, And Why There’s No Turning Back in The Huffington Post, Micah L. Sifry looks at the nature of which things we think to be secret are constantly going public through various media sources. The Huffington Post is an entirely internet-based news source that gets millions of comments per day, which is exactly why Sifry’s excerpt is published here. In a way, The Huffington Post is similar to Wikileaks because it provides information to the public. According to The Huffington Post, Sifry is the co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum and editor of its blog, and author of six books, several of which study how technology, like the creation and use of Wikileaks, is changing politics.

Strictly speaking, Wikileaks is not a wiki, meaning that not just anyone can post “leaks.” While anyone can submit “leaks,” there are site facilitators who must investigate the information that is being presented, and are essentially in control of what is published online. In this excerpt, Sifry, to an extent, defends Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange, explaining that the website is simply part of a movement of media sources aiming to make politics available to the public. If history has taught us anything, it is that the government is notoriously private, but why? If the government is acting on our behalf, then shouldn’t we be allowed to know what is going on. As Sifry explains, the purpose of sources like Wikileaks is not to necessarily undermine or expose the government, but to not make it so exclusive. Sifry does a good job appealing to The Huffington Post audience in this excerpt because he is also able to reassure the readers of the credibility of the website from which they are reading, and because the readers are using The Huffington Post, it is quite likely that the readers are a followers of this new movement to publicize political business.

For the most part, I agree with Sifry’s arguments in this excerpt. Democracy is supposed to be a government of the people, yet there are so many classified political topics that are never made public. Personally, I believe that all secrets will come out eventually, and that it is easier to reveal them sooner rather than later. No matter how disturbing the information may be, the public deserves to know. For some, submitting information to Wikileaks or other “Leak” sources is a very dangerous task, yet people are so committed to this movement that they risk their lives to expose the truth. In high school, we thought it was the end of the world if someone revealed one of our secrets, yet look at the big secrets that are being revealed today. And the world still goes on. Information won’t be our downfall, it will be our impetus for intelligence and an open democracy.