Andrew Keen

1. Keen believes that democratized media is destroying our culture. He says "democratization, despite its lofty idealization, is undermining truth, sourcing civic discourse, and belittling expertise, experience and talent." He thinks that an amateur should not be allowed to express their opinion like the "experts." He has issues with websites like www.wikipedia.com where anyone can write anything about a certain issue. He used Anna Nicole Smith's death as an example. People on wikipedia kept changing the cause of her death. He also has problems with www.youtube.com, where people made fun of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" by replacing people with penguins. I think Keen is making a big deal out of nothing with the "An Inconvenient Truth" parody. Althought the video was made by a conservative political group, I don't think that satire is something that can destroy our culture.

2. Keen views technology and democratized media as a problem while Rushkoff views them as neither good or bad, just powerful. Keen doesn't think the average person should be allowed to write whatever the want and only "experts" should be allowed to express themselves. Rushkoff tries to see both the negative and positive effects of technology and democratized media. He says "I love the possibilities of a digital life; I love being able to experience the world through other people’s eyes; I love being able to broadcast a story from home, in my underpants; I love being able to imagine almost any possible future and to do so with other people, millions of them right alongside me." I think Rushkoff speaks to my own experiences more than Keen because Rushkoff understands that the internet is a great way to stay connected to other people and express ourselves, but he also realizes that the internet is not perfect. I think that you can't believe everything you read on the internet but I don't think everything we see online is a lie like Keen does.

Whither the Individual

Daniel Hunter

Professor Jacobsen

Media Literacy

October 5th 2010

Digital Nation

The social networking site Facebook, has become a major part of our lives. There are currently over 500 million people on Facebook. People all over the world, both young and old, use Facebook everyday. I think that when we join social networks like Facebook, we are extending and expanding our identities. With all of the features it has like viewing photos, posting a status, and having “friends” Facebook becomes a significant tool for expanding our identities.

Facebook is all about extending our identities for everyone to see. With Facebook, people can view information like, our genders, birthdays, relationship status, sexual orientation, religious views and other personal information that shows our identities. Our way of life is put online for the world to see. There’s also a “likes” section in Facebook where friends can see what a person likes. This can include, music artists, televisions shows, sports teams, hobbies and much more. A user’s photos show us their lifestyle. Viewing photos usually tells us how someone dresses, places they’ve been and who their friends are.

Photos and personal information aren’t the only ways Facebook expands our identities. A feature as simple as posting a status tells us a lot about someone’s identity. When someone posts their status it tells us how they feel, what they are doing and what’s on their mind. Facebook users can also share videos or photos with others through their status. Each time someone changes their status on Facebook, they show everyone a little something about themselves. Since users can see all of their friends’ statuses, they are always on top of what’s going on in their social life.

Friends are another way that Facebook expands our identity. Most Facebook users want to share their profiles with as many people as they can. Each user’s Facebook page shows who their friends are and how many friends they have. If the user has a lot of friends, it probably means that person is popular. I’ve noticed that people sometimes make judgments about others based on their number of Facebook friends. I’m sure that most people who use Facebook have people on their friends list that they don’t even speak to. I feel like Facebook encourages people to choose their friends based on popularity and social status. While Facebook helps us to share ourselves with other users, it also changes how we value friendship. A person’s quantity of Facebook friends is more important than the quality of Facebook friends. A user’s need to have lots of friends shows their desire to spread their identity to as many people as they can.

I don’t think the loss of “personal space” is the surrender of someone’s ego. People who use Facebook for popularity and status simply want to be a larger part of the online “collective organism”. I’ve noticed that people will post a status when they do something as trivial as leaving the house or walking their dog. They feel the need to put every single detail of their life for everyone to see. Certain Facebook users will even share very personal information about their love life or their family for everyone to see. Personal space doesn’t seem to bother these people, otherwise they wouldn’t have shared it with the world.

The creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, recently announced a new application called “Facebook Stories”. “Facebook Stories” allows users to share how Facebook has impacted their lives. Ben Saylor is a 17-year-old high school student. He used Facebook to restore the Pioneer Playhouse, the oldest outdoor theater in Kentucky. Holly Rose, a mother in Phoenix, checked herself for breast cancer after reading a friends status. She found a growth and she was diagnosed in time to stop the disease. The Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, even went jogging with 100 of his Facebook fans.

It’s no secret that Facebook has had a strong impact on society. It allows us to share our identities with friends, family, and the rest of the world. Facebook users can share almost anything about themselves at anytime. We can share information with others in ways we couldn’t have a couple years ago. Just think, if a social networking site like Facebook was powerful enough to save a life, what’s in store for us in the future?

Sources

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=409753352130

www.facebook.com