Blog Post Eleven

 EOTO Project 2: What I Learned About Mainstream Media

 

  I found that the most interesting concept theory talked about during presentations was mainstream media. Not only did I find it interesting, but I found it to be relatable to my topic of the illusory truth effect. I also enjoy learning more about something so broad to expand my knowledge when getting into the specifics.

    I was able to expand my knowledge of the positive and negative effects of mainstream media, what it is, in educational terms, as well as how it has affected our world today. Per Haley's presentation, I learned that mainstream media is a classification in the world of journalism to group together the main broadcasting and publishing media outlets that reach the general public. Mainstream media has drastically expanded since just a few years ago. Some of the big examples of mainstream media networks consist of NBC, CNN, BBC, FOX News, CBS News, ABC, NPR, and MSNBC.

    As mentioned previously, I obtained knowledge of the positive and negative effects of mainstream media. The positives consisted of the information mainstream media allows current generations to understand their rights and make them better educated on current events. With this being said, another positive about mainstream media is how far the news gets out, for example, some of these channels have maintained a global audience that educates all kinds of people from all over the world. 

    However, the negatives become an issue, as they do with all theories. For example, media sources are so often embedded with bias. One thing that I was able to compare to my studies on the illusory truth effect was how often people watch one certain mainstream media because of the way that they skew the information to get a certain group of people to watch. For example,  FOX News usually sides with the Republican party as well as CNN usually sides with the Democratic party which allows people to pick a choose what mainstream media channel they want to watch making them brainwashed. 

    As for how it has affected our world, I believe that the positives and negatives speak for themselves. However, positive or negative, our world can not live without mainstream media. It has become inseparable throughout communities across the globe.  We do not just see news and current events in mainstream media. We see trends, interviews, cooking and more.         

 

    

Blog Post Eight

 Privacy Online

    As I watched the TED Talks videos provided to us, I can't help but explain that as someone on multiple social media accounts, it is scary to think about how many different aspects of online privacy are just not private. With this being said, I was able to analyze these videos and understand better what goes into these websites and applications that so many people across the world take part in, but also better understand how to get away from it.

    In the first video with Juan Enriquez, he touches on the theory of online tattoos, which at first was a little confusing. He explained that like tattoos, they are forever, and so is your life online.  He alludes to the fact that there are so many applications on social media that can identify someone's face before actually tagging anyone in the photo. For example, there was a website called Face.com that held about 18 million different faces in the application itself. To no one's surprise, this company was sold to Facebook in 2012 to help others tag their friends in their posts. 

    In the second video, Catherine Krump explains how police departments have been capturing vast quantities of surveillance on people that is sensitive information. For example, locations on cars are being tracked which, as she explains can be sensitive due to one's whereabouts. She uses the example of one going to an alcoholic's anonymous meeting which is something that someone may not want others to know. The government then uses this information to profile you and guess on what kind of person you are; which could be very far from the truth.

    In the third video, we are presented with information from Christopher Soghoian on avoiding surveillance on you, especially when your phone is in your pocket. He explains that for many years, our phones caught so much information and surveillance on us. However, it has become easier since technology has advanced. The first thing that telephone companies do to make our precious cell phones, wires them for surveillance. Any party, like the government, other governments, hackers, and more can get into our personal phone calls and text messages with the wiring that companies do to their phones. 

    In the fourth and final video, Darieth Chilsom enlightens watchers and listeners on the revenge porn industry and how it has turned lives upside down. She had once been a victim of revenge porn where her private parts were revealed on a website that her ex-husband had been told to go and look at by her ex-boyfriend. She explains that 1 in 30 women have been affected by revenge porn. However, there are absolutely no laws to criminalize revenge porn. She also explains that the trouble that one may get in for revenge porn could be as simple as a fine. Women have to go through battles with mental illness and are potentially losing their jobs for their nude pictures being online. The issue arises to be the fact that the third party internet websites are what is the most complicated part because they are not compliant nor responsive to take the photos or videos or really any type of content down.     

    In conclusion, there are many steps we can take to be more protective of ourselves online and off. However, there is already so much of our information in huge databases that we can't do anything about. These topics being discussed are so relevant today due to all the use of electronics like cell phones, and on these cellphones, social media applications. The government obviously needs to reevaluate the information and the access they have to their personal lives, but let's be honest, this may not change for many years due to how much they love knowing information about their citizens. 
  

Blog Post Nine

 EOTO Project 2: Illusory Truth Effect

    I had the honor of researching and studying the illusory truth effect. This effect has many moving parts because of the research that has been done on
repeated information and how it is often perceived as more truthful than new information.

    The illusory truth effect is when an individual repeats something enough that others surrounding that person start to believe it. The illusory truth effect then creates an echo chamber which is when you begin to surround yourself with people who believe in what you believe in so you are only affected by the illusory truth effect by the people you choose to be around. Many people take part in an echo chamber to avoid a chilling effect which is when you are surrounded by people who don’t believe in the same thing as you do so you silence yourself in fear of speaking out and disagreeing with others. 

    As I mentioned before, the illusory truth effect has many moving parts and uses other things we have learned in class that go hand in hand with the statement of the illusory truth effect. However, these other vocabulary words allow for us to understand the positives and negatives of the effect itself. The positives of the illusory truth effect are that it causes less of a chance of an altercation between those of different beliefs because those around them are the people that believe the same due to the theory of echo chambers. The negatives, however, are that it causes more people to silence themselves around those that share the repetitional beliefs due to the chilling effect.

    The effects of the illusory truth effect include people viewing repetition as true information rather than correct information, as I mentioned while introducing the effect. This is the main effect and the most obvious due to repetition being the main aspect of the illusory truth effect to really work. Repetition increases processing influence, hence why the illusory truth effect is so effective on others. The processing influence is a valid effect because people are more likely to process the information they here the more often they hear it. People tend to perceive claims as truer if they have been exposed to them before. A negative effect would be that not everything we believe is true, whether this is the information we have taught ourselves or what others around us believe. In saying this, if we repeat it enough to get others to believe us even if it is not true. It raises so much concern in our world on misinformation and fake news. As an example, we see this with the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Finally, some examples of effects are, as we mentioned, COVID-19. People began to believe that symptoms came from radiation on 5G cell phones because enough people talked about it and brought it to the mainstream media. Following this, political parties. People watch certain news channels that correlate with which way they lean politically to only hear the side they believe. For example, those who watch the news channel, FOX are most likely to be in the Republican Party. On the other hand, on the news channel, CNN, the people who watch most

likely side with the Democratic Party.

In conclusion, our results suggest that the more often information is repeated, the more likely it is to be believed. This becomes an issue because the information we hear could be invalid and incorrect. Even though the illusory truth effect can't be stopped, because that would be silencing those and taking away their first amendment rights, we can find comfort in those who surround themselves with others that believe the same in hopes for less altercations.

  

Blog Post Seven

 Diffusion Theory

        The Diffusion Theory is a concept that was created to understand how technology gains momentum over time and through different populations. The theory is visualized as a bell curve (see above) to separate each population and how it is presented to the following population. 

    

    The bell curve begins with the innovators or pioneers. This community of people allows for conversation about the innovation of the idea to initiate conversation. Hence, they are people who take risks on ideas and begin the experimenting process. Following the innovators, is the early adopters' population who enjoy technology and trying new things. They get the momentum of trying these new things with the innovators' research and studies. Following the early innovators, we move into introducing the early majority who are people that begin to see trends and try technological products that influence the majority of society to also use the product. Next, the late majority allows for those who take after the early majority and follow the trends that everyone else around them is using. They are described to be "people skeptical of change, and will only adopt an innovation after it has been tried by the majority." The last and final part of this bell curve and theory for the innovations of our world are the laggards. These types of people resist the trends but are cautious with decisions and do extensive research before purchasing said innovation. 

    The innovation that I can rely on the theory to briefly explain is social media applications, TikTok for example. TikTok is a social media application that allows one to see short videos that influencers and friends may post. Because of the negative connotation around TikTok and how the government may be following out on every move around TikTok, people have become hesitant.

    TikTok was once called Music.ly and this application was bought by ByteDance Ltd to make TikTok. That company would be the innovator of TikTok by trying the application and making it to be something new. Since then, the early adopters allowed for releases of information about the boom of TikTok and how they can see the success that TikTok will soon convey. Since then, the early adopters made TikTok popular, there are now over 2 billion mobile downloads. The early adopters then influenced the late adopters, and we see this in older generations who are not as used to the success of social media applications. And finally, the smart people, the laggards who do their research see all the negatives about TikTok which is more than one may think so they continue to be without the application.