Storify

So this was my first time using the social medial application Storify as I did not even know that an application like this existed.  After playing around with the application it was quite easy to figure out how it worked.

Animal Rights is a very controversial topic that is up for debate among many people.  Some agree that animals deserve rights and some believe that they do not.  However whether you agree of disagree with the rights that animals should be obligated to have, we have to make a conscious decision and think about what is ethical versus unethical.  Today animals are used in numerous ways that are unethical and they are put through pain, torture and even death.   Animals are used for testing cosmetics, making clothes, food, producing a profit, and even for entertainment.  However despite all of these horrible things that are occurring around the world there are various organizations that are working towards animal rights.

 For my Storify I chose the topic of organizations that are working towards giving animals rights.  Everyday animals suffer directly because of a human hand, however there are people out there that are trying to make a difference.  I chose to focus on the organization PETA.  PETA is a non-profit organization that focuses their attention on the ethical and fair treatment of animals.  They try and spread the word of fair and ethical treatment of animals by getting themselves out there by posting on various social media networks.  Also to really grab people’s attention they have many celebrities or people of importance help them with advertising animal rights. 

In my Storify application I included a variety of social media outlets along with pictures, videos, and web news.  All elements of the Storify were directly from PETA thus showing how they are trying to create change.  I included two advertisements produced by PETA working with celebrities like Pamela Anderson as well as Daver Nevaro, with both pictures showing its viewer that animals deserve rights.  Also I included two Facebook comments from Facebook users opinions, thoughts, and participation that they have with the PETA organization.  Another element that I included to my Storify was a video commercial produced by PETA showing that animal testing does take place and that it is unethical and that we should discontinue doing so because animals do not deserve to be tortured or even killed because of products we want to purchase.  The last two elements that I included in my Storify were two web news broadcasts straight from USA Today and PETA.  One of the articles was on Obama vegetarianism and love for broccoli and the other was on Nicki Minaj and her rejection to wearing fur.  What I noticed about the organization was that in order to persuade an audience to take the topic of animal rights seriously they used celebrities to reach their target audience.

Link To PETA Storify

Podcast: Banning Puppy and Kitty Mills

Module 4: Short Web Video

Hi everyone this is my first video that I've ever posted on YouTube so bear with me.  I've posted a video about animal testing showing a slide show of some animals and a few videos that I have remixed together to create my own video.  Enjoy!

Animal Rights YouTube Video-Click Here

Module 4 Summative Blog Post

What I found interesting about this week’s readings were the issues surrounding copyright and YouTube online productions.  Any person has access to a YouTube account and they are not restricted or limited to the content that they post as long as it is appropriate.  This brings up this issue of having movie, TV, news, and music copyright issues.  Like Hilderbrand’s article said it inst uncommon for access to a YouTube clip becoming denied over night because of copyright issues.  However this does not seem to stop users from continuing to provide this denied content to its views.  Hilderbrand suggests that this notion is caused because users have developed a sense of entitlement over access to media (Hilderbrand, 50).  SO even if a song, movie clip, TV show or news broadcast is taken off YouTube there will be a hundred people in line to upload that same clip to get a substantial amount of “hit” on there page, providing access to the world. 

I can relate to having suffered problems dealing with YouTube copyright restrictions.  I myself do not upload videos that get taken down, however I have had numerous occasions where I can access a song one day and the next day it is gone due to copyright restrictions.  I even find it odd that you can find entire movies uploaded to YouTube.  However in terms of songs copyright restrictions are an iffy subject seeing as many people who upload their videos or sometimes even songs are remixing.  Remixing take something that is already existing and change it and turn it into something new.  So for artists that are sampling their music via YouTube may have a difficult time “making it” because they are unfortunately breaking copyright laws.    

Reference

Hilderbrand, L. (2007). Youtube: Where Cultural Memory and Copyright Converge. Film Quarterly. Vol. 61, No. 1,  48-57.

Module 4 Initial Blog Post: Social media and Online Production

The rise of technology brings a new media age where people are able to consume as well as produce media through various media outlets.  People are able to access information, entertainment, political and cultural media through various outlets known as social media.  Social media applications are conveniently accessible through our smart phones, computers, and tablets and with this in mind we have now moved from an era of media to social media (Menovich, 1).  I found this statement to be interesting, seeing as the change that took place over the course of a couple year was almost unnoticeable.  Many people used to obtain their information and media content from media sources like the radio, news broadcasting channels, and the newspapers.  However we are now seeing a large divide between old media and new media, mostly being social media and social networking.  The most interesting shift taking place between these two types of media are the producers.  With online social media platforms available to the public we are now seeing more “non-professional” media producers oppose to “professional” paid media producers (Menovich, 1).  However even though there are numerous media platforms online available to the public at no cost, very few people take part in online media production.  In Menovich’s article he claims that in the year 2007 only 0.5-1.5% of online users were producing online content (Menovich, 2).  I found this number to be extremely low even for the time.  However I now have to take into consideration that we are in the year 2013 and that online media production is probably much higher seeing as the popularity of many social media sites have sky rocked, and so many people feel the need to publish every single thing they do to the internet. 

A website that I found to be extremely focused on online media production is YouTube.  YouTube is a social media website that allows people to publish their own or others content and upload it to their page where they can share their videos with the world.  What I found interesting in the Hilderbrand article was that he believes YouTube’s success to be because of social memory.  YouTube is a social media website that allows us to access our social memories that we can relate to and remember otherwise forgotten memories.  These memories  can be from a Super bowl halftime, news broadcast, a funny clip of a kitten dancing, or even from our favorite TV show that you are able to re-watch over and over again online (Hilderbrand, 50).  Also what was interesting in his article was that he mentioned that people spend more time watching a video on YouTube oppose to watching the actual event where it took place.  I could not help myself but to think of every viral video that is available on the internet.  If the MTV music award are on and something dramatic happens, suddenly everyone wants to watch the clip and the first place you go to find the clip is YouTube.

Social media websites like YouTube however have a difficult time publishing content due to copyright laws.  In order for social media websites to face copyright laws they need to start having corporations like Disney, and Time Warner or CNN to join YouTube and set up accounts where they put the clips that people want to see from their movies, TV shows or news broadcasts.  This would get rid of copyright infringement laws because they own the content.  I believe this is what many artists have done by creating their own page and uploading their latest videos for fans to sample music as well as create playlists.  

Even though the tools to create online media content are right very accessible I do not find myself taking the time to produce online content, however I am more of a consumer.  I follow numerous blogs on various topics, I watch viral videos on YouTube along with my favorite YouTube star Jenna Marbles and I appreciate their online media production however that is not something that I would be interested in doing.

References

 Manovich, l. (2008) The Practice of Everyday (Media) Life: From Mass Consumption to Mass Cultural Production?Critical Inquiry. Vol. 35, No. 2 (Winter 2009), pp. 319-331.

Hilderbrand, L. (2007). Youtube: Where Cultural Memory and Copyright Converge. Film Quarterly. Vol. 61, No. 1,  48-57.

Summative Blog Post:Social Media and Citizen Journalism

Thank you for responding back and adding your personal insight and opinions on the subject of social media transforming citizen journalism.  I thought that citizen journalism through social media was an interesting topic because it is something that goes unnoticed in everyday life for many people.  We are so accustomed to participating in social media that we don’t even realize that we are contributing to “citizen journalism” by posting a simple tweet, blog or Facebook status.  Stephanie mentioned that many people do not have time to sit down and watch the sic o’clock news and social media allows a more realistic approach to being informed about current events. This is very true, I believe that social media offers more information than the news does about events that are happening and we have much easier access at a time that is convenient for us through cell phones or on a computer.  I also agree with the fact that social media websites are a more interesting and more informative way of engaging with current event than traditional forms of media.  Like Stephanie said, there is no filter on what is said on social media pages so people are able to provide information that news sources may not be able to release to the public.  This allows current events to be discussed with a wide range of opinions, insights, and views rather than having a right winged news station presenting information to the public, and the viewer not having another other information to be presented to them.

 Also As09em brought up a good point that not only does social media create social activism, but it also increases the amount of political activism.  I believe that with social media being present in our lives it allows information to be so easily obtained especially in terms of politics.  Some people that could not be bothered with being informed about politics, sometimes have no choice but to be informed because people they follow will tweet, blog, or post facebook status’ about political issues and events.  I definitely believe that social media in terms of politics is allowing the youth to become more involved.  For example the gay rights movement that is happening in the United States.  Social media has been a huge contributor to spreading awareness and news about the political issue.  Many people including celebrities have spread the word by posting a picture with the equal symbol  on instagram, facebook and twitter and twitter had numerous hastags like #equalrights trending.  Ultimately I believe that social media is a great tool for social as well as political activism because it gets the world out to the most amount of people not only within one nation but also worldwide.

Initial Blog Post: Citizen Journalism

The internet has gained much popularity in the last decade among its users for is reliability for providing fast information, entertainment, and for various communication purposes (Bruns, 1).  With the rise of the internet people were now able to access whatever information they desired at the click of a button.  With more and more people beginning to use the internet, users formed online communities where they would share information, media sources, videos, pictures and create conversations and these web pages are known as social media.  What is interesting about social media web sites is that they have become a platform for “citizen journalism”.  I thought that the concept of citizen journalism was interesting and I’ve never thought of people who are using social media outlets as “journalists”.  Bruns claims in his article that a “citizen journalist” is any person who uses a social media platform to take part in journalist activities, either on a Blog, Twitter or Facebook page and is not a paid professional (Bruns, 4). 

I believe that social media web pages are only increasing the amount that people take part in social activism.  We are now able to share, publish and access information at a faster pace than ever before.  Unlike old media sources like newspapers, and news stations airing on television, social media allows its users to be constantly updated in real time.  People now do not have to wait for the 6 o’clock news, or wait for the next day for the newspaper company to write an article about the event, we are now able to open our social media applications and be informed instantaneously.  Also unlike traditional forms of media, social media leads us to other sources and media outlets that offer various insights and information about the subject through links, hashtags, and even blogs (Friedman, 56).  What is positive about social activism through social media is that the media often times does not provide the public with a sufficient amount of information; people are constantly craving to know more.  What social media does is gives the public that information. 

I think the perfect demonstration of social activism through social media was witnessed when the Kony 2012 campaign came out in the spring of last year.  All forms of social media were used in order to spread the word about the campaign and it started with a Youtube Video that ended up trending on twitter, where everyone was hashtagging #Kong2012 in their status’, and later Facebook groups were formed and many Blogs were written.  This showed how powerful social is today because everywhere you went you were hearing about Kony2012, and they only way you knew about it was through social media.

References

Bruns, A. & T. Highfield. (2012). Blogs, Twitter, and breaking news: The produsage of citizen journalism. pre-publication draft on personal site [Snurb.info]. Published in: Lind, R. A. ed. (2012). Produsing Theory in a Digital World: The Intersection of Audiences and Production. New York: Peter Lang. p15-32.

Friedman, S. M. (2011). Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima: An analysis of traditional and new media coverage of nuclear accidents and radiation. Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists, 67(5), 55-65.