Law & Literacy

Everybody's relationship with technology is different. Some depend on it, some just see it as a means of communication, some only use it for entertainment, and some even despise it. However, technology usage has significantly increased in the past century.  The rate at which we are creating new technology or applications has also significantly risen. For example , the first computers were made in 1950, and in 2000, just 50 years later, we created the smartphone. In an even shorter time, humans began the creation of Artificial Intelligence, which is well on its way to becoming Human level or beyond.  It has become one of humanity's most outstanding achievements and possibly downfalls.  Cell phones, social media, and AI have allowed us to access a plethora of information in seconds. They help us communicate with others easily, build community, and even research things that aren't easily accessible. But with the rise of social media, there has also been a rise in phone/ soci...

The documentary I watched, called In The Age of AI contained a lot of interesting and thought-provoking information. This video went in-depth on how there are both positive and negative aspects to the rapid growth of technology, especially AI. It's important to be aware of the issues that arise with the progression of technology since the world we live in is now dependent on most of it.  In the documentary, I learned about a program called DeepMind  created by Google. It essentially teaches itself whatever it's fed and mimics human brain waves to learn more about the subject. DeepMind also has the ability to create its own unique actions through whatever it was instructed to learn. This was seen in Google's experiment with AlphaGo . The experiment involved giving the AlphaGo program, created by DeepMind tech information about the board game, Go. Their program was put up against Fan Hui , Lee Sedol , and Ke Jie , all professional or champion Go players. The program beat all...

The presentations about Terms & Concepts proved to be very interesting and well-informed. I really like the information the Mediasphere group was able to put together. One of the topics that interested me the most was Online Influencers. I'm young and follow many influencers online, so I was eager to learn more about their impact on the media and the general public. An online influencer  is a person who has become well-known through the use of social media and can garner interest in a consumer product. This definition is often associated with many young social media influencers on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. It can also be associated with celebrities like actors, actresses, pop, and sports stars. Some names they may be familiar with are Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Charli d'Amelio, and James Charles.  The other definition, that the presenter gave us was that an online influencer inspires or guides the actions of others. They state online influencers can sometimes have t...

War is a horrible thing that damages everything it touches. This is why people usually want to end war at any chance they get. But voices that seem to call for no war aren't usually seen in the news. Many people, including me, have been wondering why antiwar messages aren't as widely spread throughout mainstream media.  Even in the past during WWI , antiwar voices were quickly silenced and thrown in jail. Now, protesters are faced with similar treatment. There are many reasons as to why this has and still is happening to people with strong opinions concerning the government.  One reason could just be that war is a horrible subject and many news sources don't want to face the horrible reality and choose not to cover antiwar voices. This is because antiwar voices tend to try and expose all the horrors of war to eventually bring it to a stop. The media becomes depressing and ends up turning more people away from the news. So more exciting stories end up getting the most atte...

  There are theories in the world that are in place that explain how society views things.  Agenda Setting is a communication theory that states that the media has the power to influence people and what they think/believe by picking and choosing what topics to receive attention. This theory actually goes hand in hand with another theory called Gatekeeping . Gatekeeping is also a communication theory concerning the selection and filtering of media.  The theory of Agenda Setting was initially researched and developed by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Lewis Shaw . Their study, "The Chappel Hill Study" showed the connection between Chapel Hill resident's thoughts on the election versus what the local news reported to be the most important. Through this study, McCombs came up with three models of agenda setting. The first is awareness, which states that if the media doesn't report on a topic, an individual is more likely to not think of it. The second is priorities, and it d...

Diffusion of Innovations  is, "a theory that seeks to explain how, why and, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread." Numerous technologies have followed this same pattern. To better understand the why and what, it would be beneficial to focus on one technology or app. My example with be TikTok. TikTok originally merged with Musical.ly which was an app dedicated to short videos with music. These videos would typically be of people doing short dances to parts of a song. In this case, the innovators were influencers who came from Musical.ly to TikTok to continue making content.  Early adopters of TikTok were most likely these influencer's audience. They came over to TikTok to watch their favorite's new content and they slowly began to create their own content. That is dance videos or other forms of entertainment like short gameplays, news, animations, vlogs, or comedy. These people most likely became early adopters due to their interest in the original creat...