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.