Thursday, December 18, 2008

Reflection

First, I must say that this class was definitely a learning experience. Prior to taking this class, I never participated in any type of blogging. I never actually heard of this term. I have become quite familiar with this internet practice. I was amazed at how many individuals utilize blogs as wells as the methods and rationales for their use. I saw many people use their blogs to advertise business, or to generate dialogue amongst individuals with different opinions. I was very intrigued that individuals could utilize blogs as a way to generate income through advertising. I learned this while exploring the Google blog site. I was unaware that if you advertise other vendors on your blog that you would be paid for each person who went to that vendor’s site. It is becoming extremely popular amongst internet users everywhere.
Additionally, I did enjoy the dialogue that was created as a result of the blogs. People gave their opinions and feedback which I found extremely useful. Initially, I was a bit overwhelmed at the entire process. However, after more assignments were given where we had to utilize the blog, I became more comfortable. After I have completed this course, I do not think I will utilize my blog. Due to the overwhelming schedule I have, I do not find it necessary to do so.
In conclusion, I did enjoy the class. I am proud that I was able to learn new tools in regards to the internet, and digital media overall. I think that this class has broadened my horizons as a internet user. I will consider using a blog to promote my business and perhaps obtain more clients.

Activity 2


I choose this particular poem because I have strong beliefs.
I download a lot of fonts That reflected a similar biblical
or gothic type text. I choose warm and deep colors that reflect the soothing feelings that comes to you When you stand on those beliefs through trying times. The swaying of the verses from one side to the other reflects the swaying of life through Trials and tribulations and the choices that we make depending on those beliefs. I choose the blood of dracula font to reflect and emphasize words like Die, that reflects the Finality of death. I varied the font sizes and put emphasis on phrases that I believe needed to make an impact I choose the beige coloring and placed it in the background to reflect a cross.

Screen Shot Capture


While viewing the digital media, many feelings came across. When I go to any website, I always look for the structure and layout of the page. If the images are scattered without any continuity I instantly lose interest. When I viewed the attached image, I was able to stay focused on the content. I thought the page was structured very well. The information contained within this image was easy to understand. The page and the images on the page looked extremely professional.
Next, the information on this page further enhanced the overall image. It caught my attention instantly. It immediately made me feel as if this organization was seeking a certain type of candidate to apply for the position listed. The color scheme was very professional as well. I liked the way that the primary color of the image was orange. I also liked the way that they complimented the primary image color with blue. This gave the image a very professional, polished finish. I also liked the color and size of the font as well as the layout of the information.
Additionally, what I instantly noticed is the lack of advertisement on the image. I find it to be very annoying when an image of digital media, particularly a website, is cluttered with advertisements. This instantly causes me to leave the site. Because this site was not cluttered with many advertisements, I was able to remain focused and attentive to the information on the page

Friday, November 14, 2008

Module II

1.) What is [are] identified as the primary reason(s) for utilizing such sites?

First, social sites have become hugely popular over the past five years. We have been introduced to social sites such as Reunion.com and Bebo.com. But the social site that is amongst the must used and popular is Facebook and Myspace. Facebook, a social networking site launched is 2004, was created as a “social utility to connect people with friends and others who work, study, and live around them (Facebook.com)”. Myspace is described as “a place where you can create a profile page that you can use to meet new friends (myyspace.com)”.
Additionally, both social utilities however, are used for very different reasons amongst males and females. According to Raacke, the use of these sites differs amongst gender.
Research has shown that online communication fosters relationship building, improving communication between parties, and consistently documents both sex and generational differences in online communication. For example, women are more likely to engage in online communication to maintain personal connections with family, friends, and coworkers, whereas men use online communication for pursuing sexual interests and romance (Raake, pp. 169)
As stated prior, while females find Facebook as a place to rekindle old friendships, or find old classmates, males focus on quite the contrary. Males use such sites as a means to establish friendships that may possibly result in some type of sexual relationship in the future. While researches to further prove this theory is somewhat scare, the content in which males utilize such social networking sites is vastly different than the content of communications that females utilize.
Furthermore, when males contact a female on either site, there is usually a use of sexual connotation—such, “hey sexy, how are you doing tonight?” Females’ communications on both sites are different in context. I discovered this by searching through public profiles on both social networking sites. I did use search criteria that was bas upon age, locality, gender, what relationships they are looking for, etc. After going through some public profiles on both Myspace and Facebook, I found that a number of men were contacting women whom they did not know, but had some type of interest in knowing. Women, on the other hand, contacted women who they perhaps knew from the work place or an academic institution.
Also, the gratification theory plays a major role in the popularity and use of these social networking sites. The gratification theory is the basic theme of uses and gratifications is the idea that people use the media to get specific gratifications. The main idea of the Uses and Gratifications model is that people are not helpless victims of all powerful media, but use media to fulfill their various needs. These needs serve as motivations for using media.
Jay G. Blumler and Elihu Katz devised their uses and gratifications model in 1974 to highlight five areas of gratification in media texts for audiences. These include:
1. Escape — Some media texts allow the user to escape from reality. For example, video games.
2. Social interaction — People create personal relationships with the characters in a media text. Potentially this could become dangerous if people do not question the reality of such texts. It also creates a common ground for conversation in people's every day lives.
3. Identify — People often identify a part of themselves in a media text, either through character or circumstance. For example, hair style trends stemming from a magazine feature. This can go a long way in people's ideologies.
4. Inform and educate — the audience gain an understanding of the world around them by consuming a media text, for example print and broadcast news.
5. Entertain - consumed purely for entertainment purposes, meaning that text need not have any other gratifications (The Uses of Mass Communication, 1974).
The Theory of Gratification allows us to utilize a physiological evaluation of people fascination with different forms of media. This theory gives explanation and insight into why these sites are so popular. Many students utilize these sites as a pure form of “entertainment”. Other students solely use such sites to escape from reality. On these sites, profiles can be created based on pure fantasy. Many people create profiles that purely based upon the perception of what they want to be. Many of the profiles are both sites are said to be untrue in one form or another in profile content. These ties into the first notion of the gratification theory “escape”. An individual may not be totally satisfied with his/her current existence, so they will find a method to escape from such by living vicariously as a different person on the internet.
In conclusion, there could be a world of different reasons why people utilize social networking platforms. It can not be ignored that these sites are a social are a excellent source of networking. However, while these networks are a great way to utilize, build, and gain new social skills, it must be used with a great deal of discretion. Myspace has been the target of several news reports. Myspace as well as other social websites can be quite dangerous to the unsuspecting. While some use these sights for entertainment, other use these sights to prey on individuals.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

The trends & factors of Depression Amongst First Time African-American Parents

First, based upon the three assigned scholarly journals, depression was identified as a highly prevalent within the African-American community. The factors that were stated to attribute to these findings are families that fall within the low-income earning bracket, the initial transition to parenthood, living arraignments for toddlers with the first three to four months of life, child rearing, and lowly educated parents found in the African-American community.
Next, low-income earnings and poorly educated parents were found to be contributing factors to depressive symptoms for African-American families. According to Cooper, “traditional sociodemographic risk factoid for depression—having young children, inner city residence, low-income, and low education, for example—are ubiquitous among poor mothers, and depression frequently remains undetected or inadequately treated in this group (Cooper et al, 2003)”.
Additionally, the transition into parenthood is also considered to be a major contributing factor to depression for first time African-American parents. According to Cowan and Cowan, “becoming a parent is considered one of the most demanding and stressful life transitions in an individual will face, often giving rise to symptoms of depression (Cowan & Cowan, 2006)”. This phenomenon is further warranted by The National Institute of Mental Health. According to this institution, “50-80% of women experience postpartum blues, sadness, anger, or anxiety after giving birth that can last for months (National Institute of Mental Health, 2005)”. What is more distressing is the findings of a study conducted by Matthey, Barnett, Ungerer, and Waters. According to their studies, the authors uncovered two startling trends. The first trend was that “physiological distress across the transition to parenthood has the potential to impair the individual while presenting additional risk to the individual’s partner and their relationship, parenting behaviors, and child outcomes”.
Additionally, the same authors also found that preexisting factors are also present for individuals whom find themselves at risk of depression. According to Perren, von Wyl, Burgin, Simoni, & von Klitzing, “among the risk factors for post partum depressive symptoms are preexisting levels of distress, a low level of spousal support (O’hara & Swain, 1996: Simpson, Rhodes, Campbell, Tran & Wilson, 2003), relationship dissatisfaction, infant temperament (Maxted et al., 2005), stressful life events, and personality (i.e. neuroticism; Matthey et al., 2000).

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

The article on the gender differences in social portraits reflected in my space profile was interesting. It provided a lot of significant statistics that describe the social tools of cyberspace. My space provides a place for people to socialize with others. It is obvious that women mention having a significant other well more than males appear to do on their social profiles. The need for women to mention their mates is obviously clear with the statistics that were gathered and compared. You would think that we as women were passed the need for apparent reassurance or need to be defined by our relationships.

The article included a lot of statistics but it was a lot of data to take in. The most distinctive gender differences were the number of times the significant other was mentioned in the “About Me” section and how many times they were mentioned in the “Interests” sections. Males were less apt to mention their significant other in the “About Me” section than women. I believe that because my space is such a social chat room that males tend not to mention their significant other as much due to attempting to meet other women through my space.

I do feel that a women’s career, family and personal relationships are all connected due to the continuous juggling of all aspects of her life unlike majority of men whom separate work and family. It’s hard to retain one sense of self or individuality when everything is dependent on you in order to keep going. How can you separate or disconnect yourself from your current juggling act? If they have more statistics regarding that information please let me know.

The study did state that some of the statistics were based on a young group of men and women. Majority of men at that age don’t have the responsibility of an older settled male which includes over the age of 30. Some more extensive studies that include older males as well as younger might reveal different results especially being able to separate work , family and personal relationships. Even though, the majority of individuals on my space are a younger group of people generally under 30.
It is also a stigmatism for women to not have someone in their life. The idea of falling in love and being in a relationship is what you are supposed to do. So you are conditioned to make that as much a priority as any other aspect of your life or there is considered something wrong with you. Men on the other hand consider that as something that you do compared to being a part of who you are. The statistics was insightful and I would like to see further studies in this area because I have quite a few statistics gathered on my own in this area of comparing male tendencies and female tendencies. I also have more conclusions as to why women mention their significant others more than men do for a variety of reasons

Monday, October 13, 2008

Activity 3

Vaidhyanathan right or wrong? When he writes that young people engage with digital technologies, “not because they are powerful (which, of course, they are not)”—that these things are basically frivolous—does he undermine the premise that ‘digital natives’ are worthy of study at all?
First, within the Generational Myth article, Jeff Gomez, author of Print Is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age defines the generation of ‘Digital Natives’ as “kids who have grown up with the Internet, and are accustomed to the entire world being only a mouse click away”. Gomez also goes further to state that the traditional forms of print media is not creating a solution to this digital epidemic. Gomez believes that the renaissance of the ‘Digital Natives’ “are going unanswered by the traditional print media like books, magazines, and newspapers. Gomez also states that “for this generation—which Google rather than going to a library—print seems expensive, a bore, and a waste of time”.
Additionally, Vaidhyanathan is not completely true in his statements when he expresses why young people who engage with the digital technologies are not worthy research material. Digital technologies have become a means to convenient communications that require little to no thought process whatsoever. It is important to decipher what pulls the ‘Digital Natives’ to the internet as a source of research and communications than that of your local library and human-to-human interaction.
Gassar’s Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives, “argues that kids today are fundamentally different from the rest of us because their default modes of interaction involve mixing and mashing digital files and exposing (and rewriting) themselves through online profiles and avatars”. With this valuable information and insight, we know that the ‘Digital Natives’ are do not merely embrace digital technologies because it is frivolous and basic in nature. The ‘Digital Natives’ that utilize social sites such as Facebook or Myspace, While Generation X may consider the internet and such sites of little importance, this can be refuted. Such sites can be used as a dynamic tool of networking and marketing. If the ‘Digital Natives’ believed the Internet and other forms of digital technologies were frivolous, would Google exist? Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both 32, are part of this group referred to as ‘Digital Natives’. So, when is said that sources of digital technology is not powerful and frivolous, those opinions may need to be revisited and discussed further. Google was introduced as a digital technology nearly seven years ago with Brin and Page were only 25 years of age. If digital technology was not powerful and frivolous in nature, how could the this digital technology tool become global in such a short span of time? Google has single handed changed the world of global commerce, trade, and communications as we now know it. How could Google, as well as Facebook and Myspace become so popular and widely used on a global scale?
Furthermore, Mark Bauerlin, an English professor at Emory University has voiced his concern of the digital age and the impact it has on young people. In his composition, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes our Future, Bauerlin states “well if there is one way to ensure that young people do not read more books than necessary, it is to call them dumb in a title of a book”. Bauerlin is absolutely correct in this statement. Instead of focusing and criticizing the ‘Digital Natives” and how digital technology is impeding their intelligence, we should focus on what gravitates the “Digital Natives’ to digital technology instead of print media. We must accept that digital technology is a permanent part of our society and research how various forms of digital technology can be used greater as an educational tool. The ‘Digital Natives’ are definitely worthy of study to determine what digital technology has that more traditional forms of technology such as print lack.
Likewise, Emile Durkheim also embraces the notion of not labeling a group of people who are innate to uses one form of digital technology as opposed to more traditional technologies.
We should drop our simplistic attachments to generations so we can generate an accurate and subtle account of the needs of young people—and all people, for that matter. A more responsible assessment would divorce itself from a pro- or anti-technology agenda and look at multiple causes for problems we note: state malfeasance or benign neglect of education, rampant consumerism in our culture, moral panics that lead us to scapegoat technology, and yes, technology itself. Such work would reflect the fact that technologies do not emerge in a vacuum. They are subject to market forces, political ideologies, and policy incentives. More important, such work would use young people as a fodder for attacking wider social problems.
In conclusion, Emile Durkheim also believes that it is important not label a group of people based upon their technology preference. Instead, it would be more valuable to create research that would perhaps give an accurate assessment of why one group may prefer to utilize certain technology devices n their daily lives. We should research these trends and then transcend them into more important socio schemes. While Vaidhyanathan feels strongly about the Generational Myth, the digital technology ages is here and will not make and exit in the near future. We should respect this tool, and look for ways to modify it to better meet the needs of society.