http://www.lostremote.com/2010/03/29/embracing-a-new-media-paradigm/

Who Writes Wikis!?

On MSNBC.com I found an article that talks about who writes Wikipedia articles. I found this interesting because for our New Media class has us make our own Wikipedias. Wikipedias can be altered by anybody that would like to add their own knowledge on a certain topic. Researchers have found that there are many different types of people that post to the Wikis. They found that usually a person that posts to one Wiki, will then post to others, but they will not play the same "role" in both articles. The researchers found that there were six types of contributors. They were categorized by their level of contribution. "Entries largely built by "all-round editors," who are active in all angles of writing, editing and linking, garnered the most top-quality ratings." This means that articles that have been edited numerous times by those who have contributed to many articles have more credibility. One point that they researchers want to make is that just because an article only has editors that are one-time editors, doesn't mean that they are not worthy. They stress that in order to make Wikipedia more credible, there must be more contributors. I think that by having different types of people in our groups in class we are all making our Wikipedia more credible by editing it multiple times with different types of opinions.

Government Tweets

White house and administration officials are increasingly communicating through the social networking site Twitter. Twitter is operating as a Web-based clearinghouse for public statements on weighty subjects and the mundane. Twitter is similar to a bulletin board where anyone can post short notes and you can choose to see other people's notes by choosing to "follow" their account. White house pres secretary Robert Gibbs and his deputy Bill Burton are both now sharing news in Twitter messages. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice tweets about diplomacy, Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela tweets about the Western Hemisphere and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke tweets about trade. Twitter has proved to be a powerful tool for mobilizing causes and protest movements by allowing people to use common phrases to link subjects by theme. In Washington, that translates into hashtags — key words preceded by the symbol for a pound sign — such as (pound sign)whitehouse or (pound sign)gop that users key in to find connected nuggets.
This Twitter craze is just another example of how the Obama Administration has used the internet during their campaign and first years in the office. I think that Obama was smart to start using social networking sites to deliver news. I personally follow President Obama on Twitter and on Facebook. By using social networking sites Obama is able to reach the younger crowd. I never seem to find the time to read the newspaper but when I am on the computer and a message pops up from President Obama that is explaining what is going on in the White House I feel that it is more relative to my life. By using the media (social networking sites) Obama has been able to reach out to those who may not usually follow the news (well he got me at least.)

Free Internet

Globescan performed a recent study that asked 27,000 adults if they believe that they have the right to free internet. Of the 1,035 Americans that were polled, 51% strongly agreed that they have the right to free internet, and 25% somewhat agreed that they should have free internet. The study also asked respondents if the Internet should be subject to regulation "by any level of government anywhere." In the U.S., 32 percent of respondents strongly agreed and 25 percent somewhat agreed that it should not be regulated.
The report found that Americans are more likely than others to say that the Internet has given them greater freedom (85% of Americans rather than 78% worldwide). Internet users in the U.S. are more likely to express this freedom through speech. The only concerns that Americans have expressed are fraud and loss of privacy.
If the internet was free, more people would be able to access the knowledge that is on the internet. The internet is truly an advantage to those who want to continue to learn. The right to knowledge should not have a price, so neither should the internet. In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission is expected to deliver a plan for nationwide broadband access to Congress later this month.

Computer Knowledge

Something that really got my attention in class was when the professor was talking about knowledge and the computer. Each computer has a specific architecture. The architecture of a computer is it's software and hardware. The computer only contains so much knowledge but it is knowledge that the user wants it to contain. There are three computer-human interactions. The first one is the model of "you". The second interaction is the model of the computer and "your" model of it. And the third interaction is the computer's model of "you're" model of it's model of "you". These interactions are important because they are what make up the knowledge of the computer and that the computer possesses. These interactions are implicit knowledge because it is knowledge that is already known. The computer holds the knowledge that you want it to and so it is ultimately a model of you. One funny comic strip that I found shows the knowledge of a student and how the computer comes to help.