Hi all, 

When researching the concept of "produsage" this week, it occurred to me that if one intends to contribute in an ethical manner, then that carries with it certain responsibilities to ensure that what you contribute is grounded in truth and contextual integrity. A good example of this would be the relatively new phenomenon of the citizen journalist. In recent years we have all become familiar with the term "fake news." This term has been applied to both well-established news organizations that have wide distribution as well as individuals with limited reach and whose only platform is social media. Unlike news organizations that are businesses at heart, and thus accountable to shareholders and the public (hence the use of retractions for false or mistaken content) citizen journalists have few accountability mechanisms. For example, when reposting a story, added commentary can sometimes be mistaken for verifiable facts. Make no mistake, commentary facilitates discourse; it is part of our right as citizens and should be encouraged, but commentary that ignores opposing viewpoints or important parts of the narrative can be misleading. On the other hand, one could argue that it is a person's own responsibility to research issues that are important to them and placing unquestioning trust into a singular source (especially one where credibility and reputation are dubious) may be unhelpful. There does not appear to any easy solution to this issue. Ultimately, in the media environment we have, as consumers maybe all we can do is be extra-careful to question what we read or hear from any news source. From the perspective of a produser, I would hope that adhering to some type of ethical standard would be observed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

 One of the distinct advantages of Web 2.0 is that it has helped not only in democratizing art but also facilitating its creation. As a (former) musician, I adore that people now have the technology to create music irrespective of temporospatial boundaries and without onerous financial investments. Musicians can now live in disparate parts of the country or world and still make music together thanks to file-sharing and reasonably-priced software. Another outgrowth of this phenomenon is the culture of mash-ups. To give a brief bit of background, mash-ups are essentially additions to or the manipulation of previously recorded material.  One of the earliest and most notable examples of mash-ups was known as 'The Grey Album," which was released by an artist named Dangermouse in 2004. The Grey Album combined previously recorded music by the Beatles and Jay-Z. Predictably, EMI, the owner of the Beatles recording copyrights balked and distributors of the Grey Album were sent Cease an...
Read more
So, when thinking about networked knowledge activities and the tools used to facilitate them, I can't help but think back to my Master's program (which was completely online) and the amount of team work we were required to do. Obviously, in a situation where each member may be located in different parts of the country, if not the world, we had to find a way to collaborate with each other taking into account each person's schedule, time zone, etc. I was fortunate to be in groups with individuals that had advanced knowledge of different communication systems and platforms that were extremely helpful to us as a group in overcoming what we initially felt would be onerous logistical difficulties. First, with regard to communication, we set up a Google Hangouts account which allowed each member to stay updated on pertinent communication if they had to miss our scheduled weekly meetings. A group email could have potentially served the same purpose, but by activating the notificati...
Read more
Reflecting on the article "Assessing the Effects of Interactive Blogging on Student Attitudes towards Peer Interaction, Learning Motivation, and Academic Achievements" by Yang and Chang, I was struck and honestly, both surprised and not surprised by the findings. According to the authors, use of blog commenting was associated with both positive attitudes towards peer interaction and subject matter achievement. I was unsurprised given my experience over the course of this semester with blogging. I do feel like it gives me the chance to articulate thoughts on weekly topics in a way that I may feel inhibited from doing in a strictly lecture-based environment. What was surprising were the results in light of the fact that the sample was comprised of a 5:1 male to female ratio in STEM courses. I feel this really goes against the traditional belief that males, particularly those who are technologically or mathematically inclined prefer less interaction or participation in learning ...
Read more