EOTO 1 Review

 A presentation that I thoroughly enjoyed was Jake Drew’s on Netflix! Not only did I learn deeply about the history of Netflix, but of its huge effect. Netflix was born after Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph were about to be laid off. Together, they dreamed of creating, as Drew puts it, the next Amazon. Funny enough they chose to start at personalized dog food. Even stuff that shampoo, surfing equipment and baseball bats made it to their virtual shelves. After they switched over to selling and VHS tapes and found the issues of transporting them due to their fragile nature, they sought to capitalize on the growing DVD market. As such, Netflix was created. After going public, and amassing huge success, Netflix has created ripples that turned into waves in our lives today. One such is what Jake Drew discussed as the “‘Netflix Effect’, where people sit down and lose track of time watching too much Netflix”( https://jakedrew.blogspot.com/). Netflix competes in a tough market. Along with many other streaming platforms. What set Netflix apart is its widely successful original movies and shows. The fact that I can watch the brand-new Netflix original reboots of He-Man and their She-Ra spin, make me addicted. I’m not one for sitting down and staying glued to screen for longer than I have to, as an avid gamer. But the day that Netflix add Jurassic Park 1, I will be bed ridden for days. My father and I watched it so many times on VHS that it was burned into our old Panasonic Roadshow. Having shows at my fingertips is incredible.

Privacy

 Firstly, electronic tattoos is mind blowing. A fascinating message, especially the message about being threatened. First, I love the counter of; can you threaten something other than death? It has a lot to be said. Rather, getting back on topic, and how the first threat was to threaten someone with immortality is very true of todays world. People last forever. Not only do the important ones get remember but now that I think about it everyone with online access will last forever. “go down in history”, like Rudolph, for what makes them interesting to data companies. The second one is clearly direct impact to us personally. As it doesn’t matter what level of good citizen you think you are, it turns out that any time your location can be taken it will be, “just in case”. Christopher Soghoian poses the hardest question in How to Avoid Surveillance (Hyperlink). On one hand, surveillance can be useful in times of need, or for important groups such as the police. However, the addition of that back door has proven to be weak in many cases. As Soghoian reference multiple times where these services were compromised. While Soghoian would argue that it is better to live in total protection, no back doors, and no surveillance. He counters his own statement by admitting the damage that would do to groups like the police. Sadly, there are consequences on both sides. Darieth Chisolm shares a horrific and personal story of cyber harassment. The takeaway from her talk and story is that there needs to be more protection, and more directly there needs to be stricter and stronger laws that allowed for action to be taken. These issues are in our household, and in our communities, especially the online community you find yourself in.

                

Progressive Era

 On the contrary Professor Smith! https://www.antiwar.com/ is actually a favorite of mine. So to counter your question, this obscure website fuels one of the fibers of my being. I am and individual who is fueled by my passions, and if you knew me, fighting is one of them. Every form of combat is a fascination for me, and war is no different. Not that I support war, but I am aware of its sad necessity in this world. We as humans are too far from ever existing without it. I have always been shaped as a character and person by a conversation when a student once asked Bruce Lee "You teach me fighting, but you talk about peace. How do you reconcile the two?" Bruce Lee replied: "It's better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in a war".  

No matter where you stand on war, the facts never lie. War is hell, any soldier and civilian will agree. War drains money, lives, and hope from everything it touches. War is never the solution, but often times is the answer given. I believe it is on is and the people around us a community to come together and be prepared to handle any situation. I will never be ashamed to be able to handle myself in any life threating situation. But before I get away from myself, the second source we looked at was theamericanconservative.com/web-categories/realism-restraint/, and I wish I had known it sooner. Its true that websites like these are never easy to find, mostly because of what they are. Large media doesn't intend to share the story at face value, or include all the facts. I can say this because the news seeks to build a case to gain its audiences favor and repeated viewership. See, reality and facts are messy. Their is no clean story to tell, but the news does what it can to clean it up. These website show how messy true news would look.

Diffusion of Innovation

                While I was going discuss this theory as I applies to Homing Pigeons, that would be a challenge. Not impossible, but my information and data are limited, and I want to thoroughly explain this with a better example. So instead, I decided that I would apply this theory looking at Tesla. Tesla has amassed huge success. Founded in 2003, Tesla rose to by the most valuable automotive brand by 2021. It was also counted among the “leading fifteen most valuable brands actor all industries worldwide.” In 2021, the Model 3, their electric Sedan, reached over 1 million global sales. By comparing tesla to the model, we see that the innovators and early adopter category doesn’t fit as well as it could. While it can be applied to the growth of their cars, as a data company their true starters were the investors and supports of their goal. These functions well because tesla was an R&D company for a long time before they really took off. Elon Musk was so successful because he took the time to craft a business that would succeed. The Early Majority would represent the timing when the company began really flourish under the electric car hype. Coupled with gas price increases and encouraging a greener world, tesla was perfect. The late majority to me is when people started to realize just how truly functional and plausible using an electric car can be. As Tesla improved the free charging station. I truly believe the stragglers will at a serious loss. Tesla can truly pave a wave the future. Beyond being an electric car company I serious think we should invest in tesla.

                Yes, they are a powerhouse already and Elon Musk is practically unstoppable, he has unlimited money at this point. But tesla isn’t a car company, it’s a data company. Every mile driven is recorded and can be used to make the next mile safer. So don’t be a lagger
, and start thinking about what commuting would be like with Tesla.

EOTO 2

 Gatekeeping and Agenda Setting, two very hand- in-hand theories. Firstly, Agenda Setting can be taking quiet literally. It is when the media attempts to direct viewers to thinking or believing a certain narrative, unbeknownst to them. There two levels of Agenda Setting, the first level is when the media attempts to grab your attention. This is done by playing towards emotions and personal feelings, where they will provide material in a way that draws you in. Then, the second level is once they have your attention, they will tell you, or guide you, on how this impacts you and how you should feel about. We can see this in the headline used in politics. Rarely is the headline a simple explanation of what is happening, but rather it plays at the drama associated with politics. This may come off as clearly biased, but that is the point. If they draw you in with bias, you will begin to agree and believe whatever narrative is being pushed. This is explained for the two ways that agenda setting works. The first is that the media controls reality. Meaning that whatever a news group chooses to show to its viewers is how the viewers will view the world. The second is that the media directly affect a topics importance; more coverage equals more thought which means more care from viewers. This can be seen when looking at Ukraine and Russia. When the media was heavily focused on the invasion and growing scene, social media began to focus on war, and it felt like war was coming. But barely weeks later, with the invasion raging on into a nasty and heinous state, the news has died down and the big talks are many other things. Like Johnny Deep and Amber Heard, or Elon Musk buying twitter. These are our front pages. Another quick example is how it might seem that covid is gone, as it is rarely in the news now, but covid is still a threat if you look hard enough.

                Gatekeeping goes right with this. It is when an individual or group controls access to goods and services but particularly to information and people with power. Like Agenda Setting, this takes a lot of forms in the media, and often in the same places. A lot of news sources have been accused and targeting certain media to one side of politics or denying certain information to be shared on their network. This means that their viewers may never see two sides of a story. Gatekeeping is especially dangerous when it comes to false information, or a heavily biased narrative. This means that a news group give a significant amount of its viewers a skewed and biased mindset as well. 

EOTO 1

 I did my first EOTO on carrier pigeons! carrier pigeons are actually super interesting and cool. Though they may have been more important thousands of years ago, we can track just how much of an impact they had to today! Now a quick distinction to make, “Carrier Pigeons” were historically used as messengers’ bird, however “Homing Pigeons” do not come from the same line, as eventually the carrier pigeon lost its homing ability. So, in reality the Homing pigeon is the messenger bird after these lines split. We believe that homing pigeons became used for postal services back in 300 BC by the Egyptians. We know this because of some very old Egyptian stamp used for the Pigeon-Gram. The functionality of homing pigeons is quite impressive. People began to notice that pigeons would always return to where their coup was, which allowed for them to become domestic animals. Furthermore, they could find their coup no matter where them flew too, they would always come back. We know today that this is because these birds were about to sense the magnetic pull of the earth and the way atmospheric light is reaching them, all so they could determine where they were and where they needed to go. These birds were then selectively bred and trained to be homed in on certain flight paths, allowing for a two connection between posts. In later centuries, two forms of Pigeons have derived from the original Homing Pigeon. Carrier Pigeons, as talked about before, lost their homing ability as they grew in popularity as pets. Earning them the nickname “fancy pigeon”. The second grouping is the “Racing Pigeon”. Flying messenger pigeons quickly became a sport, soon after a distinctly bred line of pigeon emerged. They were much more A-B with speed fliers than homing pigeons, earning them a separate name. Pigeon races are still active to this day, but a viewed as animal exploitation, in junction with their usage to smuggle narcotics across borders. Whereas the fancy pigeon has become a stable nuisance in large cities for their troubles.

                In a more positive light, breeding and caring for pigeons has become more than a sport today. In the New York Skyline, you can witness communities that have made a hobby out of practicing their unique care it takes to work with homing pigeons. Their effect during their usage is huge. Homing Pigeons allowed from communication lines to be established between places that had never talked to each other before. Islands in Oceania now had a quick and reliable form of communication, and this reign true for many other places on earth. Their true flourishing moment was during war. Where Homing Pigeons could go unnoticed across the field of battle, let alone very hard to stop if you were the enemy watching it fly buy. They allowed for quick communication on the field of battle. The brits even invented a large-scale pigeon carriage that would act as a mobile post for Homing Pigeons. Later on, some Homing Pigeons were known to fly directly to tanks and other vehicles that had been modified to receive and house them. Homing Pigeons played a major role in the Invasion of Normandy, as radios were too risky to use due to compromised lines. But a Homing Pigeons will never turncoat! Homing Pigeons have quiet literally connected islands, people, and nations. So, to have the won wars and saved lives. A truly amazing animal, that to this day is still relied on in many parts of the world.

EOTO 2 Review

                 Another EOTO, and another lovely presentation by Jake Drew. Drew taught us about the workings and the effects the Echo Chamber Theory. An echo chamber it when you surround yourself with media that agrees or that, in the spirit of echo, resonates with you. A prime example of this is social media. Due to social media algorithms, the post and content that you like and/or share will be collected and similar types of media. This means that you won’t be absorbing any other sides, or rather angles, of media. If the media is divided over an issue, you will be shown given information that you already agree with. This means you won’t be able to learn about the greater story. This effect will lead to you not understanding issues and news fully. It’s a scary effect because it can be annoying when it feels like someone’s side of the story isn’t being heard, let alone it makes you look disconnected with you don’t listen or search for all sources of news.

Final Post

    How is technology connected to us? In way we fail to think about, and in ways that are right in front of us. In so many ways we have forgotten what all technology allows us to do, and not do. Technology and the media have quite literally created a separate world then the reality.

                Last year, the news was flooded with climate change, just a month ago the talk was all Russia and Ukraine. Today’s news is all about Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. Often people think this means that the other stuff just isn’t happening anymore. But this is so wrong, and hard proof of how gatekeeping news, and echo-chambers have created our world in the news.

                Climate change activist haven’t slowed down, just a few days ago, Wynn Bruce set himself on fire outside of the supreme court in a support of climate grief. he never once cried out in pain or moved until police put the fire out for him. He later died from his injuries. He dedicated his actions to a fellow Buddhist scholar, who passed away in January.

                In case you were wondering if this was a freak case, it’s not. “There have been previous instances of public self-immolation in Washington. Arnav Gupta burned himself in front of the White House in 2019 and later died of his injuries. A motive in that case was never determined. Mohamed Alanssi, a Yemeni-born F.B.I. informant, set himself on fire outside the White House in 2004 in protest of his treatment by the government, but he survived. Norman R. Morrison, a Quaker man, burned himself to death outside the Pentagon in 1965 in protest of the Vietnam War” (NYT) 

                In other news, and one that I’ll bet you haven’t heard of, Texas is literally on fire. In 2022 alone, 133,000 acres of Texas has been burned due to wildfires. Wildfires are much more dangerous then just their red blaze. Years after they have been put out, the soil erosion and damage caused will send shocks through the ecosystem.  The wildfire in Texas is quite literally changing the earth forever, and impacting are ecosystem permanently. However, this news went shocking under the radar.

                Not to say that the covered event aren’t important, but that we as users need to dive deeper, and figure out the other happenings in this world. Its on us to fight back on censorship of important information. As a key theory of free expression, we should seek to live in a marketplace of ideas, and a marketplace of media. Rather than the news and media deciding how we should feel about issues, are what events we will be shown, we should be able to, and have access to everything. Then we can preach and encourage people to be complex thinkers and have a strong theory of mind.