[Kan Yen Li] Discussion 4 Response

Once again, we hit the much heated debate on the reliability and authenticity of information on the internet. Really, who can blame us for doubting whether they are trustworthy or not. The internet has been available to all of society with internet access, including blogging services and also creating websites. It is easy to spread news and information, and even easier to fabricate them to create commotion and gain attention. And for the sake of fame and fortune, people would risk anything including defying laws and regulations. I, as a fairly experienced internet user, think that it is acceptable to believe news and stories on the internet, judging by the website's dependability. Sites such as cnn.com and many other international news portals have highly dependable source of news and reports, thus making them verified as believable and dependable. There are however, troll sites created solely for the entertainment of netizens trying to make fun of newbies. As long as users are smart in differentiating fact from fiction, the internet can still qualify as a dependable news source.

[Kan Yen Li] Discussion 2 Response

Not all bloggers are journalists, and not all journalists are bloggers. Living in a postmodernist world, the lines between many traditionally decided subjects are blurred and it is getting more and more difficult to differentiate between pioneering, innovation and creation. Journalism has existed as early as the 1600s, and has evolved into an extremely vast and versatile universe of writing, photography, documentary and many more. A not-so-recent paradigm shift of the internet began with the invention of blogging, a portmanteau of 'web' and 'logging'. This online trend served the society in many ways, benefiting the producers as well as the receivers with an impact relatively akin to journalism. That is, however, not the complete picture. Let us begin by comparing the definitive context of these two terms.

Journalism - the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the citizenry. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and business, journalism also covers cultural aspects of society such as arts and entertainment. - Wikipedia.org

Blogging -  a type of website or part of a website usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. - Wikipedia.org

As you can see, what journalism consists of include facts and anything that is thought to be facts. Blogging, on the other hand, could be about the happenings of our society, current issues and generic details of a persona, and still could be anything of interest, general blabbering, advertising purposes and many more. Therefore, if you ask me, not all bloggers are journalists. 

[Kan Yen Li] Discussion 2 Response

The world we live in now is, to put it subtly, obsessed with stereotypes. Every person, living or dead, can be labelled judgmentally without giving much thought about it. Though frustrating, we sometimes might find ourselves doing so unconsciously as well, and that is the saddest part of all. Stereotyping people is an unfair excuse for society to avoid thinking too much. Categorizing people and labeling them is easy to do when they never bother to find out more about them, just so one can claim to understand how society and the "system" works and not be intimidated by subjects they deem foreign and unfamiliar. A more common way of doing so is the ever gratifying media stereotyping. Media stereotypes encompass a wide range of human society and studies, from religions to countries to present cultures to age and also gender.

The best example i can give is the perpetually popular African American stereotypes, also known as 'Blacks' and sometimes, more vulgar terms inappropriate for general readers. Despite having leagues of successful, well known, highly achieved icons in the African American society and a status and citizenship equal to any other Americans, people of black ancestry still suffer to the cause of racism and stereotyping. In the eyes of the demeaning, if you are black, chances are you come from a family plagued with social strife often involving illegal and harmful activities (drug trafficking and bank robbing, to name a few). Also, pop culture often define black people to display certain characteristics such as a fondness for Kentucky Fried Chicken, watermelons and Kool-Aid. These statements are apparently untrue, but one may wonder where it originated from. For reference, i have done some research on black culture and also movies concerning it. The best example of stereotyping blacks is 'Undercover Brother', a 2002 comedy film in America.

[Kan Yen Li] Discussion 1 Response

The phenomenon of Social Media is an enormous and significant one. Of the 6.9 billion people in the world, almost 90% of them has had exposure to social media, be it the internet, the television or the papers. Simply put, it has an impact on humans a scale so large, we would never have thought possible. Going back to the root of this social phenomenon, the creation of paper enabled the speedy recording of human activities and happenings so that everyone from the current to future generation can know what has happened. Spreading of news and information was further assisted by the availability of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg. The social media culture flourished; people were educated and sophisticated despite their difference in class, gender and age. Following suit was the invention of the television, from black to colour and now, high definition. News could be easily spread within minutes as long as you owned a television set.

The next important evolution of social media happened because the internet was made available to the mass in the 1990s. It made a great impact on our lives, culturally and financially. At first it was simply work and educational tools, but then social networking surfaced, turning the tables. The whole world is connected by a virtual platform, and everyone had a voice. Lost friends are found again, strangers meeting and ending up together, news spreading like wild fire within a matter of seconds, new trends starting up here and there... the list is endless.

That all may sound incredible and fascinating to one's ear, but to some, it could also mean disaster. Privacy has become a much questioned factor in lessening the use of the Internet and television, but users throughout the world relentlessly advocate the development of these technology for a better future. Other than that, news spread easily regardless of their authenticity and reliability. This shortcoming provides evil speakers of the Internet with the upper hand, taking advantage of the weak and misunderstood. As the world continue to rely on the internet for almost every aspect of their life, wrongdoers are gaining more advantage whenever they wish to strike and create massive chaos throughout the globe.

Overall, the impact social media has brought and still is bringing to us is colossal, regardless of its benefits and disadvantages. Like the Taijitu, in the dark there is a light, in the wrong there is some right. We as humans have the ultimate control of ourselves, the world and everything that are in it are what we make of it.