My Final Essay

What am I sick with again?
Every year the flu season marks the beginning of a time where our country goes into pandemonium. Everyone prepares themselves as well as possible for the flu by getting vaccines, washing their hands, and by completely exiling those that have already been infected. However, this year there was a slight difference with people’s perception of what they should do in preparation of the coming flu season. Panic was struck into people causing many to take some normal precautions as well as some extravagant ones. What were some of these precautions that were not typical to prior flu seasons one might ask? Some people speculated that by not purchasing pork products, not consuming pork products, and by eliminating all contact with pork that that possibility of becoming ill would decrease. Now a person might ask “How would eliminating pork products from daily life have anything to do with reducing the chance of catching the flu?” but, if you weren’t aware of it, there was a recent “swine flu” outbreak eight months ago which has caused all of this pandemonium. The thing that people didn’t realize however is that in reality there was no swine flu outburst and instead it was a H1N1 pandemic. So how exactly did this “swine flu pandemic” arise when in truth it was only a H1N1 outburst?
Sometime in April the original “swine flu” outbreak began to emerge somewhere in Mexico with the sudden illness and death of many people. Scientist began to uncover the cause of this and found that those infected and those that have died had strains of the flu called H1N1 that of which is very similar to strains of flu found in the swine flu. With that handful of information the media took its own approach on the story which was to broadcast to the entire world that there has been a swine flu outbreak. During this time every time you visited CNN, The New York Times, or MSNBC, all you would see is “Shutdown of schools caused by the swine flu or swine flu still more to come”. Everywhere you looked you would see the words SWINE FLU in black bold print. With this sudden spike in cases of the so called “swine flu” many people began to become weary of purchasing pork products or even eating anything pork related. This entire situation was not helped with the perpetuation of swine flu fear by many other websites and blogs which discussed how people should stay away from pork. There were some articles that were published by smaller news stories that did not even mention H1N1 and instead only mentioned the swine flu pandemic. Headlines like” U.S. Swine Flu Deaths Now Estimated At 4K” and “President Barack Obama Declares Swine Flu A U.S. National Emergency” only increased fear and forwarded the idea that there was really a swine flu pandemic. However, as time progressed there was an almost immediate change from headlines including swine flu to H1N1.
Originally this entire fiasco arose from the similarities that swine flu has to the H1N1 as shown in Times magazine (Aug). Before 1990 there were cases of multiple viruses such as human H3N2, avian flu, Eurasian swine and classic swine flu. Over the years these viruses mutated and took bits and pieces of DNA from one another changing its form and the type of virus. In 1998 we see a re-appearance of these viruses in swine H3N2 and Swine H1N2. Again these viruses go dormant for several years mutating under the radar until recently. Now as the “swine flu” begins to prevail again, scientist began to unveil which virus was exactly affecting our populations. Upon gene analysis, many similarities between previous swine flu out breaks and our current outbreak was shown. Because there were similarities between the swine flu and H1N1 there was still uneasiness that the H1N1 could be transmitted from swine to humans. So technically Swine flu is under a branch of the H1N1 but the current H1N1 2009 that is affecting us is not the Classic swine flu that affected us in prior years. Again the H1N1 2009 that is affecting us only has strains of DNA from the classic swine flu. Many remember the reported cases that emanated in Mexico where there were reported pigs and humans that were infected being infected with the swine flu. Many believed that there was a transmission of the virus from pigs to humans. However, as some organizations (globalresearc.ca) reported, many of the reported cases did not publish that the person was actually infected before the pigs on the farm were even infected. As we can see there was little media coverage on what the H1N1 truly was and instead focused more on how many cases arose and the possibilities of a large pandemic.
Changing the news media’s choice of words from swine flu to H1N1 was a movement that was started by the pork industries. With the sudden decrease in pork sales the industry was feeling an immense blow to their sales. The industry already knew much of the history of swine flu and what it really was and with that the industry pushed scientist to reemphasize the fact that it was a H1N1 pandemic and not a swine flu pandemic. C. Larry Pope, the chief executive of Smithfield Foods says that “Swine flu is a misnomer and that people need to be concerned about influenza, but not eating pork.” (Innacurate ‘Swine’ label Par1) Even Dave Warner, communications director for the National Pork Producers Council says that “This flu is being called something that it isn't, and it's hurting our entire industry," "It is not ‘swine flu’, and people need to stop calling it that ... they're ruining people's lives (the pork industry)". By a change in name, people would not have the subconscious perception that it was pigs causing this pandemic but instead it was a pandemic that is only being transferred to a person by some other. By this time you could see that press sphere was making a turn and going back to the original sources of information. This 180 degree turn was then accepted by the large media companies, which in turn was then relayed the message to the readers. Even after the pork industries motioned for a change in name of the virus, many blogs and sites continuously used swine flu instead of H1N1. Even though there were many obvious statements that the technical name of the swine flu was in fact H1N1, many still did not see the correlation between the two. To clarify this CNN other larger media sources and even the World Health Organization responded with articles that blatantly told the difference between H1N1 and swine flu. The next big headlines that were published included “Stop Calling It Swine Flu!” and “U.S. officials want 'swine' out of flu name”
Once all of this was said and done everything went back to normal. News media sources simply continued to propagate the H1N1 scare keeping the pandemonium alive and strong. As we can see many news media sources took their own approach towards this entire H1N1 situation. Instead of forwarding the correct things, many articles got warped into talking about swine flu instead of the H1N1. Since the larger sources said that this was a swine flu pandemic, much of the smaller sites simply forwarded their articles from these larger sources which further increased the use of the term swine flu.
The entire time this situation was occurring my outlook of what was happening was somewhat biased against the news websites. To me it seemed like there was a major up play on the entire issue and still is being up played. Up until Nov 12 (for the year 2009 only) CNN reports that there has only been 3900 deaths caused or related to H1N1. Now even though 3900 people are a lot of people in reality it isn’t as severe as compared to the regular flu. The National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) states that the US has roughly 20,000 deaths that are caused and related to the flu. Even though the H1N1 has only been around for eight months, there has been an average of 500 deaths per months due to the H1N1. If you compared the H1N1 500 deaths to an average of 1600 deaths due to the common flu, you can see that the H1N1 is so much more miniscule. The flu accounts for three times the amount of deaths compared to the H1N1 (this correlation shows us that we should be much more worried about the common cold), but what does the news propagate into our media the most? That’s right; the H1N1 has a larger story compared to the flu which in turn makes many people forget about the common flu. Much of this has to deal with how much attention the media can get from the people. Who wants to hear about the common cold when you can hear about how the H1N1 has claimed four thousand? Or even better, what headline sounds better “Out Break of the Swine Flu Erupts in Mexico” of “Out Break of the H1N1 Erupts in Mexico”. Obviously people are going to want to hear about the swine flu just because they know what swine flu means and not H1N1.
Though I may be biased towards the news media, I do so only with probable reasoning. Knowing that our world has already done much research on the swine flu and all the Hemagglutanin Neurominadase (H#N#) there should be no reason for there to be miscommunication of what is happening. A quote from Global Research says that the World Health Organization (WHO) “has a large number of so-called recorded cases were the result of data manipulation” (in reference to swine flu cases) (The A H1N1 Pandemic Par 2). They also say that “a large number of so-called recorded cases were the result of data manipulation. The Mexican data used by the WHO to justify the phase 5 pandemic, largely pertained to cases of non-specific rather than laboratory confirmed H1N1 influenza. Out of the 159 deaths reported prior to the WHO’s decision on April 28th, only 7, according to official sources, had been corroborated by laboratory tests of H1N1 infection.” This quote brings up question that sometimes data is manipulated and that some things are blown out of proportion. This is relevant in the sense that as more and more people start to realize the fact that some organizations are falsely doing things more and more research will be done in order to bring the truth to the world. Currently there are several blogs concerning the fact that the H1N1 is really not that big of a deal and is simply being blown out of proportion. Some blogs like Blueduckcopy, Findingdulcinea, the Marquette Tribune, and many other sources are those to begin the next phase of the H1N1 story. As more of these smaller media channels arise, going against all of the already propagated news, more and more people will see the truth. I believe that as people read these blogs and learn why we should not be so afraid of the H1N1, the nation’s ideals will slowly begin to change. And as these ideals on the severity of the H1N1 changes the news media will begin to realize that not so many people are reading these stories and that they can no longer make a buck off of this fiasco. So in a sense these blogs could be the end of the line for the H1N1 story
Even though this story is starting to draw near to an end, it’s still funny to see how the news media will spin its words in order to re-create hype in the story. Headlines from MSNBC and The Washington Post like “Swine flu may have hit peak, but not over yet” and “Swine flu cases fall in U.S. but may rise with holiday travel” simply does not make any sense to me. How is it possible that the U.S. has seen the peak of this pandemic but there is more to come after holiday travels? I thought the peak of something is the highest point was it not? And why do they want to offer the public a chance of hope but seem to take it away so fast. The second headline seems to be saying to me “Everything seems to be getting better and it seems like you’re going to live but you might die still”. Why not just say that there could be an increase in the number of cases after travels. Again much of this seems like it goes back to “let’s see how much hype we can get out of this story” and “how much can we scare the public with this pandemic so that they keep reading about the latest news”. Well I say ignore it all. Don’t give into all of the media’s propaganda instead stay informed about the situation and dig deeper into story. I’m not saying that the media itself is wrong but instead that they are obviously out to make a buck by putting the best spin into their stories. Not only can you see this outlook through the H1N1 story but you can see this ideal in many others (the fall in housing prices, automobile companies declining, and many others). If you simply follow a story for long enough you can sometimes see that the media wants us to fear so we keep coming back to them to read the next chapter of the story. So next time you’re reading a news article, read deeper and further so you don’t immediately fall into the mindset that the news media wants you to be in.
Works Cited
"6 Reasons Swine Flu is Not a Big Deal |." Blue Duck Copy: Professional SEO Writing Services. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"The A H1N1 Pandemic: Pig to Human Transmission of the Swine Flu?" GlobalResearch.ca - Centre for Research on Globalization. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"Deaths from Flu - WrongDiagnosis.com." Wrong Diagnosis. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"H1N1 cases fall in U.S. but could rise with Thanksgiving travel, gatherings - washingtonpost.com." Washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"Inaccurate 'swine' flu label hurts industry, pork producers say - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
The Marquette Tribune. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"The New York Times Log In." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"Stop calling it swine flu! Paging Dr. Gupta - CNN.com Blogs." Paging Dr. Gupta - - CNN.com Blogs. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"Swine flu may have hit peak, but not over yet - Swine flu- msnbc.com." Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science, Technology, Local, US & World News- msnbc.com. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"Swine Flu: No Big Deal?" FindingDulcinea | Online Guides | Internet Library | Web Resources. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"WHO raises pandemic alert to second-highest level - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .

Semester Overview

After a year of classes without any classes that does not involve any major pieces to be turned in, there was a change of pace when I entered this class. Writing made my brain turn on its creative side in order to pump out all my work. The most memorable part of this entire semester probably had to be the readings that were done that related to what literacy was and was not. Reading some of the peoples ideals of what is and is to become was really interesting. I never really paid any attention to how the internet, tv, and other media sources really affected us. To me it simply was mind opening and made me have a more realistic outlook of our society’s literacy. I do believe that through this class my writing style has changed for the better. I can tell that when I write my papers, I have a stronger more definite point of view and I do my best to argue my case and point. Before I never was a fan of taking one side of the story so I simply listed the facts that I found. Now however, I am more willing to investigate into the topic and forward and counter the things that I read. By doing this I have learned my way of taking an approach to an article.

My essay needs revision but its done

What am I sick with again?
Every year the flu season marks the beginning of a time where our country goes into pandemonium. Everyone prepares themselves as well as possible for the flu by getting vaccines, washing their hands, and by completely exiling those that have already been infected. However, this year there was a slight difference with people’s perception of what they should do in preparation of the coming flu season. Panic was struck into people causing many to take some normal precautions as well as some extravagant ones. What were some of these precautions that were not typical to prior flu seasons one might ask? Some people speculated that by not purchasing pork products, not consuming pork products, and by eliminating all contact with pork that that possibility of becoming ill would decrease. Now a person might ask “How would eliminating pork products from daily life have anything to do with reducing the chance of catching the flu?” but, if you weren’t aware of it, there was a recent “swine flu” outbreak eight months ago which has caused all of this pandemonium. The thing that people didn’t realize however is that in reality there was no swine flu outburst and instead it was a H1N1 pandemic. So how exactly did this “swine flu pandemic” arise when in truth it was only a H1N1 outburst?
Sometime in April the original “swine flu” outbreak began to emerge somewhere in Mexico with the sudden illness and death of many people. Scientist began to uncover the cause of this and found that those infected and those that have died had strains of the flu called H1N1 that of which is very similar to strains of flu found in the swine flu. With that handful of information the media took its own approach on the story which was to broadcast to the entire world that there has been a swine flu outbreak. During this time every time you visited CNN, The New York Times, or MSNBC, all you would see is “Shutdown of schools caused by the swine flu or swine flu still more to come”. Everywhere you looked you would see the words SWINE FLU in black bold print. With this sudden spike in cases of the so called “swine flu” many people began to become weary of purchasing pork products or even eating anything pork related. This entire situation was not helped with the perpetuation of swine flu fear by many other websites and blogs which discussed how people should stay away from pork. There were some articles that were published by smaller news stories that did not even mention H1N1 and instead only mentioned the swine flu pandemic. Headlines like” U.S. Swine Flu Deaths Now Estimated At 4K” and “President Barack Obama Declares Swine Flu A U.S. National Emergency” only increased fear and forwarded the idea that there was really a swine flu pandemic. However, as time progressed there was an almost immediate change from headlines including swine flu to H1N1.
Changing from a swine flu to a H1N1 outbreak was a movement that was started under the pork industries. With the sudden decrease in pork sales the industry was feeling a real large hit to its sales. The industry already knew that the so called swine flu pandemic was really a H1N1 pandemic which is something only similar to the swine flu (the H1N1 is a strain which can be found in the swine flu but IS NOT THE SAME). With that the industry pushed scientist to reemphasize the fact that it is a H1N1 pandemic and not a swine flu pandemic. The pork industry could no longer sustain forcing the media to make a change. By this time you could see that press sphere was making a turn and going back to the original sources of information. This 180 turn was then accepted by the large media companies which in turn was then relayed to the readers.
With the almost sudden change of names of swine flu to H1N1 influenza there came much confusion of what was occurring. Many people began to wonder whether there were two pandemics going on at once. With two different virus names being discussed in the media, a simple misconception was a result that should have been obvious. Before this change many articles stated that the H1N1 strain was of the same family from swine flu. Media sources makes many correlation of the swine flu with H1N1 as seen in the proceeding example “More than 2,700 other patients worldwide are believed to be suffering from the virus that government officials call by its technical name, 2009 H1N1.” Even though there were many obvious statements that the technical name of the swine flu was in fact H1N1, many still did not see the correlation between the two. To clarify this CNN and other larger media sources responded with articles that blatantly told the difference between H1N1 and swine flu. Now the next big headlines that were published included “Stop Calling It Swine Flu!” and “U.S. officials want 'swine' out of flu name”
Once all of this was said and done everything went back to normal. News media sources simply continued to propagate the H1N1 scare keeping the pandemonium alive and strong. As we can see many news media sources took their own approach towards this entire H1N1 situation. Instead of forwarding the correct things, many articles got warped into talking about swine flu instead of the H1N1. Since the larger sources said that this was a swine flu pandemic, much of the smaller sites simply forwarded their articles from these larger sources which further increased the use of the term swine flu.
The entire time this situation was occurred my outlook of what was happening was somewhat biased against the news websites. To me it seemed like there was a major up play on the entire issue and still is being up played. Up until Nov 12 (for the year 2009 only) CNN reports that there has only been 3900 deaths caused or related to H1N1. Now even though 3900 people are a lot of people in reality it isn’t as severe as compared to the regular flu. WrongDiagnosis states that the US has roughly 20,000 deaths that are caused and related to the flu. Even though the H1N1 has only been around for eight months, there has been an average of 500 deaths per months due to the H1N1. If you compared the H1N1 500 deaths to an average of 1600 deaths due to the common flu, you can see that the H1N1 is so much more miniscule. The flu accounts for three times the amount of deaths compared to the H1N1 (this correlation shows us that we should be much more worried about the common cold), but what does the news propagate into our media the most? That’s right; the H1N1 has a larger story compared to the flu which in turn makes many people forget about the common flu. Much of this has to deal with how much attention the media can get from the people. Who wants to hear about the common cold when you can hear about how the H1N1 has claimed four thousand? Or even better, what headline sounds better “Out Break of the Swine Flu Erupts in Mexico” of “Out Break of the H1N1 Erupts in Mexico”. Obviously people are going to want to hear about the swine flu just because they know what swine flu means and not H1N1.
It’s still funny to see how the news media will spin its words in order to create hype over a certain story. Headlines from MSNBC and The Washington Post like “Swine flu may have hit peak, but not over yet” and “Swine flu cases fall in U.S. but may rise with holiday travel” simply does not make any sense to me. How is it possible that the U.S. has seen the peak of this pandemic but there is more to come after holiday travels? I thought the peak of something is the highest point was it not? And why do they want to offer the public a chance of hope but seem to take it away so fast. The second headline seems to be saying to me “Everything seems to be getting better and it seems like you’re going to live but you might die still”. Why not just say that there could be an increase in the number of cases after travels. Again much of this seems like it goes back to “let’s see how much hype we can get out of this story” and “how much can we scare the public with this pandemic so that they keep reading about the latest news”. Well I say ignore it all. Don’t give into all of the media’s propaganda instead stay informed about the situation and dig deeper into story. I’m not saying that the media itself is wrong but instead that they are obviously out to make a buck by putting the best spin into their stories. Not only can you see this outlook through the H1N1 story but you can see this ideal in many others (the fall in housing prices, automobile companies declining, and many others). If you simply follow a story for long enough you can sometimes see that the media wants us to fear so we keep coming back to them to read the next chapter of the story. So next time you’re reading a news article, read deeper and further so you don’t immediately fall into the mindset that the news media wants you to be in.

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/11/stop-calling-it-swine-flu/
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/24/swine.flu/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/29/swine.flu/index.html
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/f/flu/deaths.htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34066494/ns/health-cold_and_flu/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/20/AR2009112001820.html?wprss=rss_nation

essay 2

What am I sick with again?
Every year the flu season marks the beginning of a time where we our country goes into pandemonium. Everyone prepares themselves as well as possible for the flu by getting vaccines, washing their hands, and by completely exiling those that have already been affected. However, this year there was a slight difference with people’s perception of what will happen with this coming flu season. Panic was struck into people causing people to take some normal precautions as well as some extravagant ones. What were some of these precautions that were not typical to prior flu seasons one might ask? Well some people thought that by not purchasing pork products the possibility of becoming infected might decrease. Some people might ask “what does not buying pork have to do with reducing the chance of the flu?” but, if you weren’t aware of it, there was a “swine flu” outbreak two months ago thus causing all of the pandemonium. The thing that people back then didn’t realize is that in reality there was no swine flu outburst and instead it was a H1N1 pandemic. So how exactly did this “swine flu pandemic” arise when in truth it was only a H1N1 outburst?
The original “swine flu” outbreak originated in Mexico with the death of sixty eight people in April. Scientist began to uncover the cause of this and found that those infected and that have died had strains of a virus H1N1 that is very similar to that which is found in a swine flu. With that handful of information the media took an approach which was now able to broadcast to the entire world that there has been a swine flu outbreak. During this time every time you visited CNN or The New York Times, all you would see is “Shutdown of schools caused by the swine flu or swine flu fears”. Everywhere you looked you would see the words SWINE FLU in black bold print. With this sudden spike in cases of the so called “swine flu” many people began to become weary of buying pork products. This entire situation was not helped with the perpetuation of swine flu fear by many other websites. There were some articles that were published by smaller news stories that did not even mention H1N1 and instead only mentioned the swine flu pandemic. Headlines like” U.S. Swine Flu Deaths Now Estimated At 4K” and “President Barack Obama Declares Swine Flu A U.S. National Emergency” only increased fear and forwarded the idea that there was really a swine flu pandemic. However, as time progressed there was an almost immediate change from headlines including swine flu to H1N1.
Changing the outbreak from a swine flu to a H1N1 outbreak was a movement that was started under the pork industries. With the sudden decrease in pork sales the industry was feeling a real large hit to its sales. The industry already knew that the so called swine flu pandemic was really a H1N1 pandemic which is something similar to the swine flu. With that the industry pushed scientist to reemphasize the fact that it is a H1N1 pandemic and not a swine flu pandemic. By this time the press sphere was making a turn and going back to the original sources of information. This 180 turn was then accepted by the large media companies which in turn was then relayed to the readers.
With the almost sudden change of names of swine flu to H1N1 influenza there came much confusion of what was occurring. Many people began to wonder whether there were two pandemics going on at once. With two different virus names being discussed in the media, a simple misconception was a result that should have been obvious. Before this change many articles stated that the H1N1 string was of the same family from swine flu. Media sources makes many correlation of the swine flu with H1N1 as seen in the proceeding example “More than 2,700 other patients worldwide are believed to be suffering from the virus that government officials call by its technical name, 2009 H1N1.” Even though there were many obvious statements that the technical name of the swine flu was in fact H1N1, many still did not see the correlation between the two. To clarify this CNN and other larger media sources responded with articles that blatantly told the difference between H1N1 and swine flu. Now the next big headlines that were published included “Stop Calling It Swine Flu!” and “U.S. officials want 'swine' out of flu name”
Once all of this was said and done everything went back to normal. News media sources simply continued to propagate the H1N1 scare keeping the pandemonium alive and strong. As we can see many media sources took an approach towards this entire H1N1 situation. Instead of forwarding the correct things, many articles got warped into talking about swine flu instead of the H1N1. Since the larger sources said that this was a swine flu pandemic, much of the smaller sites simply forwarded their articles from these larger sources which further increased the use of the term swine flu.
The entire time this situation was occurred my outlook of what was happening was somewhat biased against the news websites. To me it seemed like there was a major up play on the entire issue and still is being up played. Up until Nov 12 (for the year 2009 only) CNN reports that there has only been 3900 deaths caused or related to H1N1. Now even though 3900 people are a lot of people in reality it isn’t as severe as compared to the regular flu. WrongDiagnosis (A website with good credentials) states that the US has roughly 20,000 deaths that are caused and related to the flu. Even though the H1N1 has only been for eight months, there has been an average of 500 deaths per months due to the H1N1, while compared to an average of 1600 deaths due to the common flu. The flu accounts for three times the amount of deaths compared to the H1N1 (this correlation shows us that we should be much more worried about the common cold), but what does the news propagate into our media the most? That’s right H1N1 seems to be a larger story compared to the flu which in turn makes many people forget about the common flu. Much of this has to deal with how much attention the media can get from the people. Who wants to hear about the common cold when you can hear about how the H1N1 has claimed four thousand? Or even better, what headline sounds better “Out Break of the Swine Flu Erupts in Mexico” of “Out Break of the H1N1 Erupts in Mexico”. Obviously people are going to want to hear about the swine flu just because they know what swine flu means and not H1N1.

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/11/stop-calling-it-swine-flu/
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/24/swine.flu/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/29/swine.flu/index.html
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/f/flu/deaths.htm

On our approach to the last blog.

To take an approach in Harris’s book is similar to those in his previous chapters (forwarding and countering) but in a sense still different. When taking an approach your whole purpose is not to necessarily simply put another writer down but to use some of their piece in such a way to benefit yours. This is not to be done by simply putting the other piece down or saying that their piece was incorrect but instead buildings block for your own. I guess basically you could say that by taking an approach you will be getting support from another text.
As I read through the New York Times I hardly ever think about whether the writer is taking an approach. I guess when looking back to previous articles that I have read you can see a correlation with how the writers decide to write and those methods of Harris. Some examples of taking an approach could possibly be seen in the blog I read which complained about the CO2 emissions around the world. Much of the article discussed about the true facts about how much CO2 is released by key leaders such as America and China and Europe and how these leaders should reduce go about doing this. However, upon further reading, you notice that the blogger starts talking about the pros and cons in the events that will take place. I always understood the why and how we should decrease CO2 emissions, but the blogger started to realistically put down things like using mandating a decrease in oil consumption and how in the short term effect there would be a major increase in price of many things (transportation bottles ect). I guess I never really saw this as taking an approach.

Who says are society changed

America’s outlook on the news really hasn’t changed much from the past. Daniel says in another post that the news industry has been dropping down recently. However, it seems like Daniel did not analyze the situation in its entirety. Daniel discusses the fact that the average American only spend a limited amount of time on the internet reading what he or she chooses to read instead of getting a various variety of news. However this has always been like this. Before there were even news stations the only thing people ever wanted to hear about is the latest gossip of who did what and what happened, not the political news about how many bushels of corn was grown by a certain county. A prime example of this is the Salem witch trials. Everyone in Salem was drawn to the news about who was a witch and what did they do. Now a day journalist simply must be able to become creative with their stories. This may simply be a reason why the New York Times and other news company have reported loss in profits. What is failed to be mention is the fact that there has been an increase in bloggers and other sites that proved smaller news stories that have increased in profits. Yes it is true that our society wants blips of pieces of news but is that not true for anyone? How many people really want to sit and hear a long story instead of just getting the facts? I say all this now simply because it seems wrong of me to say that our society has changed for the worse. In reality we have always been this.
This blog post was editing one from much earlier concerning the news and the issue of it going down hill.

To counter or not to counter, that is the question

Countering could be seen as the same countering used in chess, you’ll make the first move and I’ll counter it with something good in response to your move. Now my move might not be understood to you but to myself and possibly chess followers of mine might understand what my objective is, my style, my way of playing out the game. This goes to be the same when countering in writing. When a writer publishes something I might decide to counter his or her piece with one of my own. My piece won’t only about contradict the other writer’s piece but instead it will mainly be focused about building up my own ideas. Using some flaws in the other article in order to prove my point and saying that bits and pieces of the other article is true but… I think _______ are just some of the things that are done when countering.
When reading the Huffington post it might not seem like there are lots of bloggers that counter. But all you have to do is scroll down and see what other people have said. After reading about how large companies shouldn’t become too large or they should not exist, there are many that disagree and try to prove their own point about what they think. Michael Martin counters a blog by pointing out that the company executives do know what to do and that we should trust them. The only problem with this counter is that I don’t fully understand why I should trust the CEO’s of these companies. To me it seems like he disagrees with the fact that they aren’t the cause of the problem but cannot fully explain why. However his counter does open my eyes to other possibilities of why there was such a large collapse and shoots me to places for me to investigate. I think that the problem with countering at times is that you may sometimes counter the wrong time. Yes it may be on track and the new writer does introduce his own ideas by stepping on top of the other piece. But sometimes when countering we lose the truth in the now squished article.

Can you forward me that?

Harris’s definition of forwarding is the continuation of a previously read text by the writing of your own which creates an urge in the readers to continue reading on a certain topic. Using someone else’s work as a base for your own work makes for a really easy way for you to continue the story in your own words.
After following the Huffington Post, I’ve noticed that many will post a link at the bottom of their blog to either another blog or an article of some sort. One blog that does this really well was talking about Obama’s healthcare reform. Throughout this article it discusses about what is happening in America with the government bailouts and the stimulus package and obviously about the healthcare. All these subjects have had discussion on what they plan to do. In the article we can obviously see that the blogger uses much of his own opinion on how they have worked, giving them praise and saying that the soon to be healthcare act will be a great success. Now obviously I do not agree with the bloggers idea and to me I feel like this article has lost some its the authenticity (due to the fact that it seems like the author has misinterpreted certain things that has happened due to the stimulus package or the government bailouts). The author seems to be putting in what THEY think happened instead of what really happened. However, even though the author puts what he think is occurring into the post, i do see some truth in it which makes me question further what I myself have read and my interpretation of my readings. The change in perspective when forwarding some writing seems to be both a loss and gain creating a love hate relationship for it.

What relationship?

After all the readings with the New York Times and the blogs of chosen I’ve started to see a slight relationship between the two. Generally when I read articles in the New York Times I will read it and have nothing else to say about it. Usually the articles I read are simply informative and just go one way. But as I started reading blogs from scienceblogs, sometimes I would find a blog that would cover the exact same thing that I read in Times. Usually these blog would seem a lot less dry when reading compared to articles in Times but I would say that would be due to the fact that I am reading an article about something I already read about which sparked interest in me. I also noticed that sometimes the articles in the blogs seemed more personal than compared to those in Times. To me getting both styles of writing was perfect, I could simply get the facts and dry bones first then I could get more of an opinionative stance on the topic which would leave me to sometimes either question the article and do more research on the topic or further change my stand point on the issue. To me this is another step in how we as readers should be getting our news. Instead of simply reading everything from one source and souly believing in a company that could be spitting out lies, we should be reading from multiple areas in order to see both sides of the story. As we can see in Jarvis’s diagrams, the press sphere is changing into a sphere where news will soon be obtained from many sources, in turn opening our eyes to more than the highly propagated bias news.

Old press New BloggingP

Sullivan discuss his reasoning why he blogs and what it actually means to him. Jarvis shows us that there we as readers are straying away from the publishing companies and more towards a broader range of places to obtain our news. What is the similarity between the two articles? Are there any similarities if any? I choose to say that there are a few similarities here and there. Sullivan discusses tells us that one of the reasons why he blogs is because there is a feedback aspect to it. Instead of writing a paper and having it go out to the readers only to be criticized behind the authors back blogging allows the autor to receive feedback on any piece that he or she write. In Jarvis’s diagrams we see a linear chart where the news goes to the press, and the press informs us. However we see that there is no circle and that the informed are not putting anything back into the press. People like Sullivan are beginning to destroy this chart and making it more of a circular aspect where the readers also have a role in the news.
Another chart in Jarvis’s article shows the readers surrounding themselves with all types of sources. A reason readers might want to get their news from a different source is because they are tired of having the same opinion that they always get. Blogging is a different style where Sullivan says “You feel as if you know bloggers as they go through their lives, experience the same things you are experiencing, and share the moment.” This is contrary to simply getting the news from the press. In a sense Sullivan is adding more places to where we as readers can get our news.
Furthermore, we know that as readers that if we stick to the press we are only receiving one side of the story. Generally we never get different views or perspectives on one story when watching the news. Sometimes we don’t even hear about certain stories. Sullivan says that “Some of this material—e-mails from soldiers on the front lines, from scientists explaining new research, from dissident Washington writers too scared to say what they think in their own partisan redoubts—might never have seen the light of day before the blogosphere.”. With blogging however we are now able to be informed about different subjects from all sorts of views.
Blogging seems to be shutting down the old style of how we receive our news. With the internet publishing is a very simple thing that is free. With that the expectations of the readers have changed. We no longer want one side of the story, or even a biased view of it. We don’t want to hear about what somebody else thinks is important. Instead we want to read what WE feel like reading. The readers wants opinions, the readers want variety, the readers want the real news.

News Models

The press-sphere is a demonstration of what exactly the news has become. Before this happened the press had primary control over the news. Reporters would go out to get news, a report was written, the article would be published, and finally the article would reach us. This was how it always was until we started to change our perspective on how we want out news to be conveyed to us. In the article it shows that we have begun to incorporate different types of press and links. Now with the internet it has become a lot easier to get the news without the press. News can go from on site to our friends and finally to us as the reader. An example of this would be where I see a police take down a burglar in front of my house, I report that on facebook, and all my friends read my facebook status. By doing this we completely skipped the press and the time it takes for them to publish a story. The internet has simply made it easier for news to travel around. To me all of the models seem to be correct and make complete sense. The model that seems the best to me is the atom story model. It seems very true that a story will attract videos and photos links and other things.

News News News News Newsssss

I’ve been reading the New York Times for quite some time now. Every time that I get on to read some articles I am always drawn to certain articles pertaining things that I am fond of. Articles that usually stand out are those that are on headline news. These stories generally have something to do with current events or political discussions (health care reform or what should be done in the Middle East). I believe these stories catch my attention just because they are one of the hottest topics that are talked about a lot in our society. With that being said I try to read these stories so that I can be civically involved. The only problem with this is that I generally miss the other stories that relate to politics or other agendas that I am not so fond of talking about. Politics is one topic that I was never really well versed on and has much to it. Since I already don’t know much about it and I never talk about it I never seem to read any articles that are about politics and who says what and who wants what. Since I have been reading the New York Times my attitude towards many topics has changed. Before I didn’t really care about debates that happened that concerned political related things. Now that I do have some knowledge on the topic I always get involved in the discussion. One thing that I do feel like that should be changed is how I feel about not reading enough. Sometimes colleagues will discuss something that appeared on the news the night before. When you have no clue about what they were talking about generally you would get the urge to get online and keep reading the news until your brain hurts. But in reality the right thing to be done was to accept the fact that we will never know enough.

Whatsup with all the guilt?

Many of us will encounter somebody else today and have a conversation with them. Actually that’s not true; all of us will actually meet someone and have a conversation with them whether it is how their life going, to homework issues, to how they can’t wait it till the weekend. During the time you talk to you talk to that person generally you have some input that pertains to the topic. But what happens when the other person starts talking about current events. Will we be able to put our own input into the conversation? Or will we be left in the dark completely confused on what to say.
I think this is one of the reasons why many of us feel guilty when we don’t stay on top of the news. We understand that if we don’t keep up with it that eventually it will catch up with us and bite us in the butt. None of us want to look stupid in front of our friends so we try to current events but when we don’t we know we should have used the three hour break to at least read ten minutes worth of material. Even I get this guilt a lot of the times. I especially get this guilt when we start to get ready to vote. I know I am really illiterate when it comes to politics so obviously when everyone is talking about who their going to vote for and why they are I have no room to argue left or right whether they should or not.
To me it seems like the best way to become civically engaged is to use some passive and active methods to stay on top of the news. Being passively can simply mean changing your homepage to the NewYorkTimes or making it so that whenever you turn on your TV you are automatically on a news station. By doing this you are pretty much throwing news at your own face whenever you do something. Now whenever you turn on your TV you will be directed to a news station where hopefully they have something interesting going on which will distract you from what you originally were doing. Being actively engaging can be a little bit harder on the other hand (is it just me or does this sentence seem rhetorical). To be active engaged we must simply force ourselves to make time to get online and start reading news articles. For me I find this easiest when I am with my friends and none of them are talking or when they are talking about something that I have no interest in. During this time I usually pull out my phone and get online to the NewYorkTimes and start reading different articles. Though everyone might not be able to do this, others can simply get online when they don’t want to do their homework (this way you still are productive when you take a break).
No matter what I think it’s very important for all of us to feel guilty when we aren’t on top of current events or the news. With the guilty feeling it shows that we want to be able to converse with our friends and not look foolish.

What i want to read

For the next few weeks I plan on following the following blogs:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/ and http://wordsinmachine.blogspot.com
I plan on following the first blog because as I read the blog posts much of the articles seemed to be very clear and unbiased, also much of the blog talks about things that are pertinent to today's society. The second post is simply a site that seems like it can offer a lot to me. I love to read any article that has a relationship to science so obviously the second blog seems fit.

Oh where art thee my news?

Many people get their news from reading news papers and watching the television. I on the other hand get all my news from other sources in different types of mediums. News isn’t only about what bill the president signed off on, or where he goes to delegate with. Webster’s definition of news is either the information about a recent and important event or previously unknown information. This means that anything I read that I didn’t know about is technically news.
With that being said I get a majority of my news from many websites. Obviously I get a lot of my news from CNN and NewYorkTimes but that’s not the only place to get news from. I also get a majority of my news from www.spikedhumor.com. This website is primarily like a YouTube but instead it hosts a mix of either comical videos or news related videos however, sometimes these videos are simply clips from sites like CNN or Fox. Even though it might not have the most recent videos, the news articles that it always post up are always much more recent than compared to the big news companies. I really like this website not only for the fact that it post up interesting articles but because it gets articles from all around the world. Many times have I found out about new technological breakthroughs that happen in Japan that I never would find out about on regular websites. To me it seems like we should open up to other websites other than CNN just because whenever you go to these sites its generally all the same news.

The Internet vs Literacy or The Internet = Literacy

Here is the link for my paper edit away if you wish.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ARfUu0uI0Pr-ZGRkdzg3MjVfMWY3YzV2aGRr&hl=en

Before people edited
The Internet vs Literacy or The Internet = Literacy
As we progress into the digital age, we are seeing changes in multimedia use. Music, movies, and literature are all noticeably different compared to before when we didn’t have the magical wonders of the internet. But how is technology affecting all of this? Better yet, how is the internet affecting literature in America? Is the internet a place where our next generation can find good articles and pieces? Maybe the internet is making it easier for us to write simple blog entries and some serious papers. Or perhaps the internet is actually causing younger generations to have a shorter attention span to what they read and, on top of that, ruining the proficiency of the writing skills in young Americans.
Princeton’s definition of literacy is the ability to read and write. Dictionary.com states that literacy is the quality or state of being literate, especially the ability to read and write. What do these really mean though? In “America the Illiterate” Chris Hedges believes that being literate means that you should be able to read a mortgage document and understand every nick and crack inside of this (to me this makes no sense because if you gave this task to the majority of Americans, many would fail to fully comprehend it). I believe that literacy is the ability for people to be able to comprehend what they read and write in a professional tone of voice. When it comes to reading, I believe that America’s youth should easily be able to read the New York Times or CNN, and comprehend what the article is saying, and put back some input. Writing, on the other hand, is a different story. Literacy in writing should be the ability to compose documents such as an email, a short blog, or even an article that would be pertinent to many people. I do believe that it is important for the youth of America to be literate in today’s world. But does the internet affect our youth’s literacy?
Many people believe that the internet is causing our youth to become illiterate compared to previous decades. In the Princeton review of presidential election speeches, the grade level of the speeches decreased as the years grew closer and closer to present day. Chris Hedges explains that this is because the internet has caused us to become illiterate. In “Is Google Making Us Stupid” Nicholas Carr states that Google has made us lose the ability to read and comprehend long articles online. I do believe however, that these articles are slightly biased and do not take other things into consideration. When Hedges states that the presidential speeches have deteriorated in grade level, he fails to mention that this is long before the start of the internet. These speeches probably dropped in grade level because it would make more sense to appeal to more people (in the sense that more people could understand the speech). The reasoning behind why people do not understand longer articles could possibly be simply the fact that the reader has no interest in the article.
If the internet is not hindering America’s literacy rate, what is it doing? I do believe that the internet is actually improving our youth’s literacy rates in many different ways. With high speed internet being easily accessible to everyone, it is much easier to be constantly reading any article. My parents always said, “The more you read the smarter you’ll be.” I never understood why they said this until recently. I believe they said this because reading improves how fast and how well you interpret text. Since there is so much out there for students to read, their ability to interpret different text should be a lot better than those who don’t read a lot. But why should there be people that don’t read a lot? Since the internet is unrestricted to people with no educational background, low social status, or anything else there should be no reason that anyone doesn’t read an article or document a day.
Not only is the internet a place for us to read, but it is also a place where we can write. With the simple use of the internet anyone can publish anything they want on the web with a few simple clicks. Before the use of the internet, only the rich or those good enough could publish their writings for the general people. “Most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn't a school assignment. Unless they got a job that required producing text (like in law, advertising, or media), they'd leave school and virtually never construct a paragraph again” (Thompson “New Literacy”). This would mean that more people would have less of an incentive to write those small articles that would only be read by a few people. Now, however, since it is so easy to publish online, many people will take a few extra minutes to post up what they want to say. People like me are examples of this. I write this article with the knowledge that I will be able to spread this to readers like you. Writing more in our daily lives is beneficial in the sense that we will be much better versed in what to say and how we want to express ourselves. Had it not been for the internet many of us would only be able to write personal narratives about ourselves or perhaps a research paper instead of good articles full of opinions and argument.
I do believe that we should integrate technology much more into younger generations to improve literacy rates. Today’s forms of writing seem very useless in daily practice. How are students really going to apply a letter to the reviewer in their future or even a research paper? Sure there will be some that will apply these pieces to their daily lives, but I would say only twenty percent at most would find it applicable to daily life. I believe that it would be much more important to teach the youth how to write a formal letter with the use of very eloquent words, or maybe even how to take good notes. Integration of the internet into studies can be done with many different activities. Teachers could use more communication between the students through email, blog assignments, or even have them write short articles in response to certain events.
Not only could the internet benefit students in their writing proficiencies but also in their reading proficiencies. With the speed of computers and the internet, when we get online our screen is full of different browsers and tabs, all simultaneously up with different information and text. “Then we do about six different things at the same time… we have our homework open…” (Bronwyn “Tomorrow Multiliteracies”). In Bronwyn T. Williams’s article, we see that the young technology-frenzied generation is accustomed to having multiple things going on which teaches multitasking skills. Throughout the week these students will read more words in one week online than in the class. Since students are already reading so much online why not have them write about what they read online? Incorporating technology into student life could never be so much easier.
There are many people that do oppose the integration of technology with school. In Betty J. Sternberg’s article “Technology in Classroom” the concern that students will begin using text terms (Ex; C U L8ER) instead of formal ways and also that incorporating emails into student activity opens them up to internet predators. However, what people who share the same opinion as Betty Sternberg should realize is that if teachers emphasize the fact that written text should be done in a formal manner, text language would not prevail. Many of the problems that people see can easily be fixed by constantly emphasizing to the students what should be expected from them and what they can and can’t do.
I believe that with the progression in technology and internet, younger generations will be more literate than compared to those before. The technology-based generation is now reading increasing amounts of text every day, even more than in classes. Online readings not only keep their minds interpreting harder and harder text but it also keeps them up to date with current events. Writing is also easier and more relevant to everyday use. All these are great reasons for our society to incorporate internet and technology into our school systems.





Work Cited
Williams, Bronwyns T. "Tomorrow will not be like today”: Literacy and identity in a world of multiliteracies." Literacy & Identity (May 2008): 682-86. Print.
Sternberg, Betty J. "Enhancing adolescent literacy achievement through integration of technology in the classroom." ProQuest. Web. .
Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid? - The Atlantic (July/August 2008).” 26 Sep 2009.
Thompson, Clive. “The New Literacy” 24 Aug, 2009.
Hedges, Chris. “America the Illiterate.” 26 Sep 2009.

As we progress into the digital age, we are seeing changes in the multimedia use. Music, movies, and literature are all noticeably different compared to before when we didn’t have the magical wonders of the internet. But how is technology affecting all of this? Better yet, how is the internet affecting literature in America? Is the internet a place where our next generation can find good articles and pieces to read? Maybe the internet is making it easier for us to easily write simple blog entries and some serious papers. Or perhaps the internet is actually causing younger generation to have a shorter attention span to what they read and on top of that, ruining the proficiency of the writing skills of young America.
Princeton’s definition of literacy is the ability to read and write. Dictionary.com states that literacy is the quality or state of being literate, esp. the ability to read and write. What do these really mean though? In “America the Illiterate” Chris Hedges believes that being literate means that you should be able to read a mortgage document and understand ever nick and crack inside of this (to me this makes absolutely no sense because I believe if you gave this task to a majority of Americans, many would fail in fully comprehending it). I believe that literacy is the ability for people to be able to comprehend what they read and write in a professional tone of voice. When it comes to reading, I believe that America’s youth should easily be able to read the New York Times or CNN comprehend what the article is saying and should be able to put back some input. Writing on the other hand is a different story. Literacy in writing should be the ability to compose documents such as an email, short blog, or even an article that would be pertinent to many people. I do believe that it is important for the youth of America to be literate in today’s world. But does the internet affect our youth’s literacy?
Many people believe that the internet is causing our youth to become illiterate compared to previous decades. In the Princeton review of presidential election speeches, the grade level of the speeches decreased as the years grew closer and closer to present day. Chris Hedges explains that this is because the internet has caused us to become illiterate. In “Is Google Making Us Stupid” Nicholas Carr states the facts that Google has made us lose the ability to read and comprehend long articles online. I do believe however, that these articles are slightly biased and do not take other things into effect. When Chris states that the presidential speeches deteriorate in grade level, he fails to mention that this is long before the start of the internet. These speeches probably dropped in grade level because it would make more sense to appeal to more people (in the sense that more people could understand the speech). The reasoning behind why people do not understand longer articles could possibly be simply the fact that the reader has no interest in the article.
If the internet is not hindering America’s literacy rate, what is it doing? I do believe that the internet is actually improving our youth’s literacy rates in many different ways. With high speed internet being easily accessible to everyone, it is much easier to be constantly reading any article. My parents always said “the more you read the smarter you’ll be” and I never understood why they said this until recently. I believe they said this because reading improves how fast and how well you interpret text. That being said since there is so much out there for students to read, their ability to interpret different text should be a lot better than those who don’t read a lot online.
Not only is the internet a place for us to read, but also a place where we can write. With the simple use of the internet anyone can publish anything they want to the web with a few simple clicks. Before the use of the internet, only the rich or those good enough could publish their writings for the general people. This would mean that more people would have less of an incentive to write those small articles that would only be read by a few people. Now, however since it is so easy to publish online, many people will take a few extra minutes to post up what they want to say. People like me are examples of this. I write this article with the knowledge that I will be able to spread this to readers like you. Writing more in our daily lives is beneficial in the sense that we will be much better versed in what to say and how we want to express our selves. Had it not been for the internet many of us would only be able to write personal narratives about ourselves or perhaps a research paper instead of good articles full of opinions and argument.
I do believe that we should integrate technology much more into younger generations to improve literacy rates. Today’s forms of writing seem very useless in daily practice. How are students really going to apply a letter to the reviewer in their future or even a research paper? Sure there will be some that will apply these pieces to their daily lives, but I would say only twenty percent at most would find it applicable to daily life. I believe that it would be much more important to teach the youth how to write a formal letter with the use of very eloquent words, or maybe even how to take good notes. Integration of the internet into studies can be done with many different activities. Teachers could force more communication between the students through email, have students write blogs, or even have them write short articles in response to certain events.
Not only could the internet benefit students in their writing proficiencies but also in their reading proficiencies. With the speed of computers and the internet, when we get online our screen is full of different browsers and tabs, all simultaneously up with different information and text. In Bronwyn T.Williams article we see that the young technology frenzied generations is accustomed to having multiple things going on which teaches multitasking skills. Throughout the week these students will read more words in one week online than in the class. Since students are already reading so much online why not have them write about what they read online? Incorporating technology into student life could never be so much easier.
There are many people that do oppose the integration of technology with school. Betty J. Sternberg brings up the concern that students will begin using text terms (Ex; C U L8ER) instead of formal way and also that incorporating emails into student activity opens them up to internet predators. However, what people that shares the same opinion as Betty Sternberg is that if teachers emphasize the fact that written text should be done in a formal manner, text language would not prevail. As for internet predators as long as the teacher made clear that emailing outside of the school was strictly prohibited problems would not arise. Many of the problems that people see can easily be fixed by constantly emphasizing to the students what should be expected from them and what they can and can’t do.
I believe that with the progression in technology and internet younger generations will be much more literate than compared to those before. The technology based generation is now reading much more every day, even more than in classes. Online readings not only keep their minds interpreting harder and harder text but it also keeps them up to date with current events. Writing is also much easier and much more relevant to everyday use. All these are great reasons for our society to incorporate internet and technology into our school systems. And if you don’t agree than you’re a communist.

Over the time of blogging

Over the past few weeks I have been writing on this blog for this class’s purposes. After reading articles dealing with different topics coming from different sides of the argument you sometimes just want to argue against those articles and say how much you dislike the writer. Blogging has been my way of channeling out my feelings for these things. It simply surprises me how easy it is for me to blog out all of my feelings in a sitting without having to think too much. At the beginning of this assignment, I thought that 250 words would take a little bit of time to come up with. But after going through blogs I realized that it really isn’t that hard to write 250 words and that really 250 words can only get your basic ideas down. Had there would have been a 250 word limit, I believe that this assignment would have been much much harder just because we would have to condense all of our feelings to a short paragraph.
One thing that I would regrettably like to share is that my writing and reading habits haven’t changed dramatically over the period of this assignment (however this should be a given for the short amount of time we have done this). My internet readings are still mainly focused on entertainment and social things, and when I do read articles on CNN and the New York Time I still pick and choose what I want to read. Though what I read hasn’t really changed, I do have a greater appreciation for longer written out articles. Instead of simply skimming these I now try to read the entire thing getting the entire picture. I would like to also add that I do believe my style of writing has changed a slight bit. I say this because I feel like my writing is now a little bit more aggressive. To readers of my blogs, you all might not agree. However, I personally believe that I now can express my feelings a lot better. One thing I would have wished for is for more interaction from readers with our blogs. Getting small comments is nice but it would have been better if there was more of a conversational based response to the blogs.
Either way I believe that this blogging assignment has been a lot of fun and very good for me. I just wish that I would be able to remember the fact that these blogs are due at 11 am…. a day before the actual class.

YAY our generation doesn't suck at writing

Upon reading Clive Thompsons article on the revival on literacy, I feel much better about how technology is affecting my generation’s style of writing and reading. From other articles we can see that many people have the opinion that the internet and texting has cause us to lose a sense of formality and that we no longer have any want to write. However, we can see that this is completely opposite by Stanford’s study on college writing. Through this study professor Lunsford noticed that we actually were writing a great deal more compared to before. The reason for this is because of how we socialize online and the fact that we now no longer have to wait to write a letter every three weeks. Another thing that was pointed out in the article that I find quite surprising is the fact that there is not a lot of texting speak in academic papers. Though her study might conclude this, I would argue that this is very biased in the sense that if you looked at a regular person’s writing (not college academic papers) then you might find a lot more text speak. Either way the fact that my generation is writing more than before is still a triumphant win for technology and my generation.

It only goes downhill from here

Over the past few years, our society’s outlook on the news has significantly changed. This is apparent through the sale drops of many leading news sources such as USA today, San Francisco Chronicles, and Miami Herald. But what has caused a downfall to these companies that used to rack in millions of dollars? Could it be our recession or maybe that many of us want to go eco and stop cutting trees down? Or could it be the possibility that we simply don’t care about the news anymore.
The average American spends forty five reading the New York Times. However, when reading the New York Times online the average reader spends only a mere seven minutes. Seven minutes is barely anytime at all when it comes to reading. I do believe that this shows how our society views news. We view news as if it is something that we pick and choose to read, not getting the full thing but instead getting only either the headlines or sports. But does this really have a significant role in the downfall of the news industry?
The news industry has fallen because our apathy towards real news, such as what is going on in other countries or towards the articles that make we as readers think further and past the print. Our society wants blips of news here and there and we want our entertainment. We now no longer have any desire to read long dragged out articles on healthcare but instead we want the abridged version. With this attitude, much of our news will turn to rubbish (in my opinion).
The worst part about all of this is probably how it has affected journalist around the world. Since our news is being controlled by the corporations that only care to make money (nothing wrong with being a company like this I’m just stating the fact), we no longer get news that might not be so popular but still very important (an example of this would be how there has been no publicity of water powered cars). Either way our view on the news drastically affects many people.

Hey! Americans aren't stupid take that back.

Are we as American a literate country or are we a country full of illiterate unintelligent stupid Americans? Literacy is very important in our world and is also very important that a majority of a country is literate. But what is the definition of literacy? The definition from Princeton of literacy is “the ability to read and write”. I myself find this very true; however, Chris Hedges seems to have a very different view of what literacy is. Chris’s view on literacy seems to me to be more of a how many books do you read? I myself highly disagree with this argument. Why do I say that? I say this because I myself have not read a book in probably a year, but does this make me illiterate?
Chris seems to judge a person on whether he or she is literate based on if they make good or bad decisions. Bashing people for getting into mortgage trouble, voting based on how charismatic a person is, and on whether we eat fast food or not. I have a hard time trying to wrap my mind around what Chris is trying to say right now. Is it that the reason why so many Americans get themselves into financial problems because they’re illiterate? Is the fast food industry largest consumer the illiterate? I believe that Chris is over exaggerating the fact that America is illiterate. Yes there are people that get into trouble with credit cards and mortgages because they don’t read the fine print, but is that because they’re illiterate or is this because they simply don’t read it. What I would like to ask Chris is where he got all of his data concerning America with we are literate or how many books we have purchased. All of his information seems like it came from a highly unreliable source. To give Chris credit I do believe our presidents are dumbing themselves down for the elections but at the same time it would make more sense someone campaigning to do this. The attention span of many has dropped and we as Americans can no longer pay attention (Carr would also agree with this) and with this who would want to listen to someone who explains how he’s going to do something. Instead Americans want answers and only answers.
Though I highly disagree with many of Chris’s opinions I do see some truth in it. We as Americans seem to be living in the fast paced world and now instead of having an elaborate story, we want the cut and dry part. In my opinion aside from the fact that we have a short attention span I can’t see anyone that would have any opinions that would agree with Chris.

Internet = Stupidity?

Is the internet really making us stupid? There’s simply no way that the internet is making us stupid, I mean think about it with all the information at our fingertip that statement would be completely absurd. That’s what I thought before reading this article. However, Nicholas Carr has somehow convinced me that the internet is truly dumbing me down.
Nicholas shows us a very good observation in his article. The fact that a majority of us (readers) are finding it a lot harder to read papers online that are longer than three pages already shows that we have a short attention span and that we either can’t focus on the paper or mainly that we don’t want to translate what we are reading. As Nicholas has said “We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand. And the media or other technologies we use in learning and practicing the craft of reading play an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains” (3) this shows that reading does not come naturally (in the sense that it doesn’t take work) but reading actually racks our brain to work. With reading information on the internet we want just the bits and pieces that go to our answer, not the long drawn out paragraph. By wanting this we are not exercising our brains anymore and now can no longer easily translate long papers and essays. We can see that we are reading shorter and shorter things through a majority of the sites that we most commonly visit. Some of these examples include CNN, Google, and other various sites. When we visit these sites we are generally reading headings, or 3 paragraph articles, basically everything that is very short. By doing so, I feel like our brains our no longer making new brain connections, which in turn is causing us to be dumb.
Not only are we affected by what we read, but also by how we read. This is said in the sense that we now no longer have a strong desire to remember what we have read. Before writing on paper or on the internet was large, people had to remember everything that was told to them (stories and information). Now, however, we have the luxury of simply saying “let me look that up real fast”. When we say stuff like that we may have some desire to remember what we have read but not a strong enough one that puts it deep into our mind.
Saying that the internet makes us stupid may seem like an overstatement but it really is true. If we do not change our reading habits and how we use the internet I believe that our brains will deteriorate even further into nothing. Reading longer articles may seem pointless compared to reading key points, but without all of the fillers we would lose a lot of the details that we deem “unimportant”.

What difference?

In the Works of Joseph Harris we can clearly see a major distinction between his styles of writing, compared to Andrew Sullivan’s. We can see that there are several similarities and differences between the two. Luckily one of the main things that I noticed in Harris’s book is that he wants writing to be as easy as daily sport or conversation and is something that is simply done with a breeze. Since blogging is already really easy, Harris wants us to be able to write more formal pieces at ease so in that way it is part of our daily lives. Though writing papers should be done a lot more there would be a difference in how it would be done. When writing a paper the audience doesn’t directly respond to you but instead to the teachers and the classmates. However, we see that this is not the same with blogging. In blogging there are obviously immediate responses to the piece and with these responses the reader can be influenced and swayed. Harris on the other hand doesn’t want us to be swayed by the writer and instead keep to our own thoughts. Through this I notice that blogging and writing, writers are both slightly influenced by the readers. For papers there is influence by the readers in the sense that the writer will go out and get a general idea of what everyone thinks of the writer’s paper as is slowly progresses. Blogging on the other hand may change day after day as the writer reads the comments that are left by his readers. My take on blogging is that is still a lot more relaxed compared to other styles of writing, even though there are many similarities. The reason why I say this is because its just blogging and its still completely different.

The never ending need for information

When you look at a demographic of which age group surfs the web the most, you most likely will see students that are in their late teens early 20’s online the most. It seems like our generation has been sucked into the need to constantly have information on anything. Some older people ask “What do you waste all your time online doing?” The number one answer to that question probably would be “Checking Facebook Out”, by this we are finding what all our other friends are doing, how they feel, and catching up with all our older friends. After looking through some logs of online activities you will notice that Facebook is generally the first thing to be looked at while online or the one site that almost everyone visits. It seems to me that our generation has been sucked into keeping in contact with our old friends by taking one second out of our time to click “LIKE” instead of legitimately catching up with them and talking to them. Though this is good for keeping in contact with a large number of old friends, I feel like for some of us that Facebook is the ONLY way of keeping in touch with old friends.
One thing that I noticed about our internet activities is that many of us also have a source of news that we have to always have. For many, CNN and ESPN are sites where we can get out daily news but we could correlate this to people reading the newspaper and magazines. Informational websites that tell us what is going on in the world IS the new way of getting information on the world. Before it used to be reading the newspaper or a magazine, then it turned to the TV, but now with the internet at the tip of our hands we constantly read our news at our leisure wherever and whenever we want to.
Though many of us have our addictions for the internet, there are still a wide variety on how we are addicted. I say this in the sense that though we have the same need for information, many of us has a need for different type of information. An example of this can be seen by comparing my internet log to any other persons. My log would mainly consist of sites like spikedhumor and youtube, while other students mainly are on sites such as CNN and Newyorktimes. The difference in this is in the fact that we all have different interest in types of news. For me I prefer random videos that show average day people around the world showing off amazing videos of any findings. Comparatively, many other students prefer to get their news from professional writers or filmers. There is absolutely nothing wrong with how we surf the web, there simply is a noticeable difference in what type of information we crave for.
As you can see there are similarities and differences in our web surfing. However, general consensus is that a majority of us are addicted to the internet.

My Log

Saturday Sept 5
4:26 Pm Logged onto Facebook
Read friend’s statuses and posted comments
4:38 Spikedhumor.com
Read random humorous and serious news articles that don’t hit the main pages
4:43 Wikipidia
Searched how a rail gun worked because there spiked had something on it
4:50 CNN
Read up on current events mainly in the technology section
5:14 Facebook
Read more comments and wrote on friends walls
5:22 Spikedhumor
Watched daily videos.

Sunday Sept 6
8:34 Facebook
Checked friends status and chatted with friends
8:46 Spikedhumor
Watched videos and read all the news articles
9:27 Ebay
Looked for everything I wanted…..
10:46 Facebook
Got back online to figure out if there were fun things going on that night
10:54 FML
Had about 10 minutes to kill before I had to leave so I wasted some time here

Monday
4:35 Addictinggames
I got really bored so I decided to play some games to kill time.
5:12 Spikedhumor
The games don’t seem to hold my interest so I decide to watch some videos.
5:35 CNN
I missed reading out on CNN the day before, so I decided to catch up.
5:40 Hulu
News got really boring really fast, so I decided to go watch some T.V online.
7:15 Mitsubishi
Looked on an online forum to see what was wrong with my car.
7:24 Amazon
Checked to see how much certain books cost.

Tuesday
6:35 Mozio
I got online to check if my important documents were still being stored online.
6:53 Pandora
Added some stations and browsed around.
7:00 Spikedhumor
Wanted to see if there was any weird news

Blogging, what's the point?

Why does Andrew Sullivan blog? Why do even regular people like you and me blog? People blog because blogging has its own unique different style and form when compared to other forms of writing. Though many people think that blogging is a lot easier compared to journalistic pre-thought forms of writing, it really isn’t. Blogging opens the writer to immediate scrutiny the second the post goes online. In journalism, the writer will submit their writing to the editor, from where the editor will be the main audience and judge of the paper. However, as Andrew Sullivan has said, if the readers are lost then the blog will stop and die thus the readers must be semi-pleased. From this you see that there is a necessity to please a wide range of readers, compared to journalism where their papers can be aimed towards a certain group of people, not only pleasing readers but also interesting them and hopefully getting them to challenge the writer. Andrew Sullivan has also noted that he likes blogging because it gives you a true insight to their opinion before it changes after obtaining more information. Other forms of writing takes time to be published and even before published the writing will go through many revisions as information on a subject is learned. However, for blogging, post must be submitted now and not later which in turn takes away time for the writer to change his opinion on something. In a sense blogging is like a diary. It allows a writer to freely open up to the world about how they feel about a certain subject. Finally I believe certain people blog so that they can see how they have changed over time. Like I previously said, blogs are the true colors of the blogger. Thus over time a blogger can read all their old blog postings and see how their opinions of something have changed over time. Blogging for some is a profession that they go into, while for others (perhaps you and I) is just something we do to put out our thoughts to the world.

What's going on?

I never really understood why so many people blogged until recently. Blogging simply isn’t a difficult thing to do. All you have to do is sit down, have the desire to write about something, get online and begin typing. Though I say blogging is easy, I personally believe that it comes a lot more naturally to others. As I sit at my desk I’m finding it very difficult to convey all my thoughts to words and not in the sense of “I don’t know what to write about” but mainly I have too many things going on inside of my head. Nevertheless I really do love blogging and I miss the days when blogging was big. I say this hoping that someone remembers the days of xanga and livejournal. I remember back in the 7th and 8th grade when all of my friends blogged every day. Now all of it went away because of Facebook (and a little help from Myspace). To me, these sites aren’t really a blogging space but more of a place to get online and say what’s up or hey to. Sure there’s the little place where you can put your status and say how you feel but that’s more of a snidbit of a blog condensed into one little line. I don’t know, I guess we all lost the time to sit down and actually talk about what’s going on in our lives or maybe we just don’t want to sit down and rack our minds trying to find something to write. Either way the more I write this the more I get irate about people not using blogs as much.