Privacy Issues in a Digital World

The internet impacts privacy, the New York Times says, "If a stranger came up to you on the street, would you give him your name, Social Security number and email address. Probably not. Yet people often dole out all kinds of personal information on the Internet that allows such identifying data to be deduced. Services like Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr are oceans of personal minutiae -- birthday greetings sent and received, school and work gossip, photos of family vacations, and movies watched."Italy's prosecution of Google was not fair, in that while Google may have made a profit off of the video being posted, it brought significant awareness to the issue at hand within the video and got people to see what was really going on. The line between protecting privacy and promoting free exchange of information can be drawn on whether or not the issue at hand has awareness brought to it. It people are seeing something happen for the first time, then it should be considered fair for them to post it without punishment. The same applies for censorship as it does for privacy and free exchange.Facebook and Twitter are examples of companies that are trying to get information from people. They want they information so that they can "help you to network" but in reality it helps them broadcast your information to other companies. You can stop them from getting your information by typing in incorrect information or changing your privacy settings on your accounts. Future employers can learn a lot about you from your facebook account by looking at your photos, your wall, your updates, and your friends.

Google gives you the choice of looking into Google Dashboard which slows information that is connected to Google accounts and lets you change your options and privacy settings.
I think that many of the people that are growing up today don't think that privacy is really an issue. The younger and younger children that get on the internet and using social networking sites, the more and more information they are giving out because they don't seem to know any different.

These privacy issues relate to the Long Tail and the internet as a democratizing tool because it opens the internet up to more people and more people become involved within it, but, it does hurt people to not realize the effects of privacy on the internet.

For more information, please visit The New York Times, articles one and two, Forbes and Business Week.

The Future of Television

The internet changes the current network model of television by offering up shows on demand, online, all the time. The New York Times wrote an article called "Web-TV Divide is Back in Focus with NBC Sale" which says, "For 60 years, TV could be watched only one way: through the television set. Now, though, millions watch shows like 'Grey's Anatomy' on demand and online on network Web sites like Ms. Sweeney's ABC.com and on the Internet's most popular streaming hub, Hulu.com."
NBC, Fox, CBS, and ABC (through their parent companies) control everything that is being watched on TV, however, with the shows now being on the internet, it challenges the control that the companies have. It no longer has control of when and where someone can watch their television program.

An independent producer could produce and distribute their program nationwide through YouTube and ignore the networks as long as they do not violate any of the copyrights on the program being distributed. YouTube says, "The YouTube website makes it easy to watch and share your favorite YouTube videos with the whole family."

The "5 C's of the Post-Network Era" are choice, control, convenience, customization and community; all of the 5 C's relate to the future of television. Choice; the future of television is full of choice, television being on the internet gives one a huge choice in when they want to watch something and what they want to watch. Control; the future of television gives people the opportunity to control what they want to watch and sometimes control the types or amount of commercials they want to see. Convenience; the future of television gives people the opportunity to watch their favorite television show when they want, where they want, and at whatever time they want to. Customization; the future of television gives people an opportunity to customize what they want to watch or the order they want to watch them in. Community; the future of television gives people an opportunity to form communities and write in forums that connect them with other fans of their favorite shows.


Broadband TV relates to the issues in the Long Tail, the internet as a democratizing tool, and Creative Commons because it allows people to explore more into the internet and which keeps the Long Tail of the internet going, it allows people to look more into the internet and watch things that help it to become a democratizing tool, and it allows people to utilize the Creative Commons by posting things to YouTube.

In ten years, I think that TV will be more focused on the internet. I think that not only will people be allowed to watch things on their computer after it airs, but people will be able to watch streaming shows on their laptop, computer, and phone.

For more information please visit, these three articles on the New York Times; One, Two, Three and YouTube.

Journalism, Blogging & New Media

Citizen Journalism is "the concept of members of the public 'playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information.'"

Consumers, news organizations, corporations, non-profits and others are adapting to the change of digital media by creating a sort of guideline book or manual of sorts. Reuters has created a handbook that states, "We are committed to aggressive journalism in all its forms, including in the field of computer-assisted reporting, but we draw the line at illegal behavior. Internet reporting is nothing more than applying the principles of sound journalism to the sometimes unusual situations thrown up in the virtual world. The same standards of sourcing, identification and verification apply. Apply the same precautions online that you would use in other forms of news-gathering and do not use anything from the internet that is not sourced in such a way that you can verify where it came from."

New forms of TV news and newspapers that are appearing on the internet are the ways that newspapers and TV news are seen on the internet. The newspaper that has become completely digital and has more options on it than sections of a regular newspaper. You can also see video clips on TV news sites or clips of reporters on newspaper sites.

Above: A traditional Detroit Free Press paper.
Below: A screen shot of an online Detroit Free Press Paper.

The shift away from TV news and toward the internet is changing journalism for better and worse, according to different critics. The Atlantic says, "In a poll of prominent members of the national news media, nearly two-thirds say the internet is hurting journalism more than it is helping. The poll, conducted by The Atlantic and National Journal, asked 43 media insiders whether, on balance, journalism has been helped more or hurt more by the rise of news consumption online. Sixty-five percent said journalism has been hurt more, while 34 percent said it has been helped more." The Atlantic continues by saying, "Those who say that news consumption on the internet is, on balance, hurting journalism note the way the online experience is changing reader habits. The 'hurt more' group also says that while the Internet offers benefits, the cost to traditional media and news-gathering is too high."

However, Reuters begs to differ with The Atlantic stating, "First, journalism is not synonymous with newspapers and today the discussion has focused too much on newspapers alone. Second, journalism will do more than survive the Internet Age, it will thrive. It will thrive as creators and publishers embrace the collaborative power of new technologies, retool production and distribution strategies and we stop trying to do everything ourselves."

The issues of the Long Tail, Creative Commons and the internet as a democratizing tool relate to the issue of journalism, blogging, and new media because it shows us that the internet is really taking over. There are so many newspapers that are going out of business and downsizing their staff and company as a whole because not many people want to buy and old fashioned newspaper any more when they can just pull up a web page and get their news and information updated to the minute.


I think that the future of journalism as a whole will be a complete down turn from where we are now. It may be because of the crappy economy that we have right now being the cause of so many newspapers collapsing, but it is not entirely based on the economy, many people just do not purchase hard copies of newspapers anymore. I hope that in the next ten years, this will change, other wise many of the online sites will start to charge people to log in when they want they online news fix. I hope that the next ten years will change journalism and newspapers for the better, and if it doesn't, then I think that we will have more and more pop up ad's on our news websites, charges being initiated for using the sites, and less actual newspapers still standing.

For more information, please visit: The Atlantic, Rueters, J-Learning, The Future of Journalism, and the Detroit Free Press.