My ICM Weblog

What if we all walked around with personalized J Crew shirts?

Is personalization of the Internet a good thing? Will it entice us to learn more about our favorite topics, so long as we can avoid those we don’t care to learn about? By isolating only stories of our interest, we miss out on everything else going on in the world. I think the concept is a wonderful idea, though like anything else, has its flaws. By customizing myyahoo.com or any web page for that matter, I am able to read what I am interested in. So that would be sports, celebrity news, movies, latest news, local weather and news. By leaving out business, science news and discoveries, autos, personals, etc., I miss a lot.

When the anniversary of 9/11 rolls around each, I hate being home, or in the car….basically anywhere with a TV, radio and/or Internet. I was there (not onsite or anything, just mean lived through it) and I don’t need to be reminded every single year. It was an extremely depressing time for everyone in our nation and frankly, I don’t want to be depressed every time that day rolls around. Sorry if this comes off harsh or anything, but its true, its like the media forces us to relive this tragic event every year and I’d rather not. Remembering is another thing.

9/11

This past 9/11, I went to the gym, because it fell on a Monday and I work Mondays. I knew it would be packed and surely it was, more so than any other Monday. By seeing this, I know most others agree with me. By working out, you focus on yourself and not on the events of the anniversary. We had our TVs set on sports stations and our own music videos; none were set up on the usual CNN or other news channels.

By ostracizing certain sections of media, do we inhibit ourselves? Sure. When I choose not to learn about certain areas. I limit myself; I hurt myself. Knowledge is power, so why would someone purposely block off entire sections of power? It is, however, understandable to subscribe onto areas of interest. I am an artist and personal trainer. By signing up for newsletters/articles on these areas, I grow in my fields. I better myself so I can be better for myself and provide more for clients and customers.

“Did you change that filter?”

By filtering resources, we limit knowledge. When people make small talk, it’s usually about the previous night’s game or other current events. Imagine a woman was drinking her morning coffee and was flipping through her ‘personalized news source.’ She goes out to catch a train and a strapping young man chats her up, ‘did you catch last night’s Yankee game?’ By her excluding the scores in her news source, she has no idea what happened at the game. She may have missed her chance to engage in conversation with the handsome fellow and a chance at love! Unfortunately, the Yanks succumbed last night to the Indians so maybe its best she left it out of her reading/viewing!

Cass R. Sunstein writes about personalization in his article, “Democracy and Filtering.” “These developments make life much more convenient and in some ways much better; we all seek to reduce our exposure to uninvited noise, and many of us like to read opinions we find congenial.” (Sunstein, 58) By choosing to read only the pleasant things in life, we miss the rest of life going on. Fine, enjoy walking around peachy keen, if that’s the way you want to live…but it’s not that easy. Accidents happen, so one could argue that these negatives prepare us for bad times. If I had never had any exposure to negatives, say a car accident, and then I get in one, I will be affected greatly afterward. I would be constantly paranoid, become negative in my thought patterns, probably have post-traumatic stress syndrome; I’d be a head case. By having exposure to these types of incidents on the news, I view them as educational, as opposed to completely negative. I know what a car accident may look like, what it involves, what may or may not happen to me as the victim. By watching this on the news or reading about it, I educate myself. Education is the best prevention.

“If they want to isolate themselves and speak only with like-minded others, that is feasible too.” (Sunstein, 58) He speaks of this while referring to groups, such as vegetarians, church members, political groups, etc. I am a vegetarian (except chicken, which is poultry, I could argue this all day, but I won’t) so by me joining discussion boards with other vegetarians, we may use it to exchange recipe ideas and for support on how to get through family dinners without being lectured about our meat-eating decisions. While this statement has its positives, it has its negatives. KKK groups, Al Qaida groups….see where I’m headed with this? By these groups allying together, they become stronger in their hatred and their mission. It helps those with common ‘good’ goals or hobbies grow in their field of interest…while at the same time strengthening the ‘bad.’

That cloud looks like a bunny!

Walter Bender’s “Daily Me” touches on many of the same points as Sunstein’s. “Providing context through a shared information source is important because without it, people lack a common reference point with which to engage in discussion.” (Bender, 24) By subscribing to this “daily me” idea, we limit our interactions. We speak with only ‘our kind’ and not anyone else, from a different background, different frame of mind, different ideas. I always say I’d never date an artist, because I am one. I know how we function; I know we’re all a little crazy inside. Imagine if we all did date/interact within that own circle. By dating another artist, I’d always be ‘on.’ Discussions of the way billboard signs look, what we can make out of cloud shapes, the colors, oh the colors!, etc. If scientists were around each other all the time, they might become overly competitive, or just so worn out from always speaking the language. By interacting with others from different genres, we learn more, participate in more, discover more; it broadens us as human beings. Once again, coming back to the point of knowledge being power. By having more knowledge of things to speak about, we are able to communicate to more audiences. In turn, we are open beings, and able to be like sponges; absorbing new informations. I’d also say this makes us a more likeable person. By being more worldly and being able to discuss more topics, makes for more interesting conversations with different types of people.

Bender ends the article with: “We are more deeply engaged in learning, more in tune with our priorities, and ever expanding our scope. The process has begun, and it is indeed the paradigm shift: the consumer is becoming a creator.” (Bender, 29) With this personalization movement, who better to write about it than experts themselves? So rather than a regular news journalist writing about pumpkins (there’s one sitting in front of me, its what I went with), we turn to the experts: the pumpkin growers themselves! After all, who better to write about it! By using experts, we learn more precise information more directly. Specialists can come together to share experiences and facts. This sharing of information betters us as community. Participating invites all to learn all. Will this end the war? Hey, it’s a start. By people cooperating in just this small way allows more knowledge to pass, creating common bonds and breaking barriers once held.

Wiki-wha?

The Wikinews article by Axel Bruns converses about the differences in broadcast news versus alternative online news. Before news is released on TV or in print, it must “filter, then publish,” where as the online news is just the opposite. Authors publish, then others filter through their words and add, delete or edit the text in some way. I really feel the same way about this article as I do with the previous two: there is good, there is bad. Mis-editing information, for example, is a bad. Adding knowledge where a gap was open is good. Perhaps because of this reason, Wikinews has not open that contributing end. I suppose the problem may also lie in a lack of contributors or overall information. As of now, Wikinews is nowhere near ready to be considered a valid news source. For writing a paper or doing research, its best to stick with more solid sources. It is good for those looking to get into publishing their ideas or sharing their information, also for interacting with others in related fields of interest. Like Wikipedia, it has room to grow. This trend of publishing our own knowledge is growing and catching on in popularity. Bruns makes a statement that proves very true to this site: “…this suggests that users would come to Wikinews for the input and output states, but go elsewhere if they want to participate in the response stage – but as a result of this approach, it seems evident that contributors stay away from Wikinews altogether and participate on these other sites that all three stages of the news process.” (Bruns, 6) Why bother with a site that will only do half the job, when there are others out there that will accomplish more? Keep at it, wiki.

See! The reason mom told us to share our toys in kindergarten proved valid years and years later!

Refs:
Bender, W. (2002). Twenty years of personalization: All about the “Daily Me.” Educause Review, 37(5), 21-29.
Sunstein, C. (2004). Democracy and filtering. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), 57-59.
Bruns, A. (2006) Wikinews: The next generation of alternative online news? Scan: Journal of Media Arts and Culture, 3(1).