I first came up with the idea for this project while I was at home for a weekend, watching cable television instead of my usual online bootlegged shows. I began to notice the force of the messages in commercials for iPads, computers, smartphones, and other technological devices. These products are all relatively new, and yet the commercials were painting them as entirely essential. I wanted to explore how those in advertising managed to do so, as well as why they were using old media to advertise for devices that mainly utilize digital media. Ultimately I narrowed my focus down to smartphones, as I thought it would be easier from a comparative perspective to look at the same type of device.

My initial instinct was to work with iMovie, since I thought it would be easy to insert the commercial clips into the film, but I quickly realized that this would make for a long and boring digital essay. The whole movie would have ended up lasting 20 minutes, with blocks of text interrupting semi-entertaining video clips. After going over my options within the group workshop, I decided on Prezi, which allows for the combination of pictures, video clips, and texts, and is still able to provide a linear narrative.

Prezi proved to be the optimal choice for this type of presentation, since the viewer of the digital essay can choose to either follow my train of thought sequentially, or jump around, watching only the ads they have time for or are interested in. It also gave me freedom in a visual sense, since I was able to include my comments on a video within the same frame as the video clip itself. Prezi also allowed me to spatially group together the intro, body, and conclusion of the essay, providing a literal framework for the progression of the story. It allowed me to be somewhat formulaic with regards to the analyses of the advertisements, using the same shapes and overarching themes for each brand. This consistency made my readers more able to draw comparisons and know what to expect. With regards to sizing, I could emphasize more important markers or points by making them larger.

While Prezi proved successful for this type of multimedia presentation, it isn’t the type of presentation that is conducive to paragraph-long blocks of texts. Often I had to break up ideas into multiple boxes of text, or make lists of bullet points, since a paragraph would be confusing from a visual perspective. Additionally, there were parts of the essay that didn’t necessarily need to follow a particular sequence (such as the order of the ads), but I was forced to make choices on which commercials the viewers would see first, and in what order. This might have created an impression regarding importance or effectiveness that I didn’t want to make. On a more technical note, frames always had to be the same shapes, so at times it was difficult to get the exact right shape and focus on a specific idea.

While I used the first workshop to determine the right sort of formatting, the second workshop was really useful in terms of content. Before the workshop my digital essay didn’t follow a very clear sequence. My analysis of the ads was the most solid part, but my classmates didn’t really know what point I was trying to make. They suggested to me that I come up with a stronger introduction and a clearer conclusion, which utilized the same voice present in the ad analyses. These would guide the reader to come up with their own ideas about why the ads matter, and give them something to think about after seeing the ads. Ultimately I decided to look at the size of the industry and why companies are still focusing on TV advertising in my concluding statements. I also inserted more pictures, to keep the presentation visually interesting even after the TV commercials stopped screening.

I liked this article because it tackled the egotistical assumption that data tracking was a threat against individuals, and argued that data tracking was more valuable to corporations in the aggregate. Starting out with a great quote by Jonathan Sittrain that said, “If what you are getting online is for free, you are not the customer, you are the product,” Furnas explained how we who benefit from internet services contribute to databanks used by private corporations. Free internet services have to be paid for by something: think about the ostensibly “free” service of Facebook. The company’s IPO is set to be released in may for an enormous sum; the fact they just bought Instragram today for $1 billion shows how much the company is worth. Facebook makes money off targeted advertising, which mines user data and collects the important aggregate facts to sell to companies who want to tailor their advertising.

Furnas argues that the problem isn’t what companies can access about us as individuals; it’s about the scale of the data sets they have on whole populations that grants them power over others. The data these firms collect is kept private, and made to be sold for profit. While analyses of human behavior could forward academic fields and other innovations, those with the funding for information are more interested in using the data to make a profit. This results in a market asymmetry, in which those collecting data know more about the users than the users know about themselves.

A recent notable post of his was Heartbreak Hotel, in which Jonathan discussed and compared the pain he felt about Duke’s first round loss in the tournament and the Rocket’s loss to the Lakers in the second round of playoffs in the 2008-2009 season. He said:

“Duke was a #2 seed, while Lehigh was a #15 seed. In terms of expectations, Duke was supposed to steamroll Lehigh without batting an eye. It was like David beating Goliath, except David was armed with a feather pillow and Goliath had a machine gun. For the Rockets, they were never seeded highly for any of their playoff run. The Rockets had Yao Ming and Ron Artest, so people thought they had a chance to progress in the playoffs. But no one ever expected them to win, especially against the powerhouse Lakers.”

            His love and passion for both teams really comes through, all while adopting a humorous tone. The David and Goliath comment in particular made me laugh out loud, by taking a somewhat cliche parable and adding his own humorous touch to it. By making comments like these, Jonathan consistently illustrated his own feelings about the team while still providing clear explanations as to what was actually going on in the regular season.

For very different reasons, I was also really impressed by Sophie’s blog, “Novel Terrain”. I thought she chose a really unique blog topic, and consistently wrote very thoughtful posts with a format that was both helpful and easy to follow. Sophie is particularly good at describing the mood and setting the scene for the different books she talked about. She illustrates her points without giving too much away, and is very reflective on what type of purpose the books serve. I’d also be lying if I didn’t admit I like reading her posts because you can tell by her wording that she’s British- who doesn’t love reading things in an accent?

One post, A Room with a View (of romance), stood out to me because I’ve seen the movie version a few times, but have yet to pick up the book. In this post she writes:

Forster draws us in with his brilliant imagery.  The day Lucy and George kiss, the morning is singing, the air is fresh, and the sunlight is beating down on Lucy’s white dress…the reader’s stomach drops….something epic is about to happen.  Then Lucy walks onto the field where George is.  Lucy’s pale skin is set against a troop of violets dancing in the warm wind. George grabs Lucy in an embrace that is so real we cringe to be privy to such a private, intimate moment.  But at the same time, we put the book down and smile.  We know George and Lucy work.  Their love is “true.” Not just anyone gets a first kiss in the sun-drenched violet-sploged fields of Firenze.  

Sophie did a great job of setting the scene here, and sharing her own delight as a reader. By reading this description I know what to expect from the book, but still want to read it to find out what happens. Sophie is really great at discussing her book choices in a vivid way, with words like the “sun-drenched violet-sploged fields of Firenze.” I’ll have to pick up this book in the summer!

▪ Format: I want to use iMovie to make a video, as I feel this is the easiest way to incorporate stillframes with moving frames and text in a linear fashion that tells a story. Because so much of the essay will be visual and incorporate commercials, I hope that the iMovie format will allow the text to support the images and videos instead of vice versa.

▪  Materials: My essay will be based primarily on the commercials themselves, which I hope to be able to take from Youtube or company sites. I will also be using my own opinion, opinions of friends, news articles that discuss the issues at hand, and company press releases and websites.

▪ Questions: I’m still deciding between this project and the Portuguese program one. I think this one would be the easiest to make from a logistical standpoint, but I don’t know what type of rights I would need to use the commercials in my digital essay. I also may need richer materials to make the research truly probing, and would appreciate any guidance in that respect.

Format: For the essay, I want to use iMovie to make a video, as I feel this is the easiest way to interweave still frames, moving frames, text in a linear fashion that tells a story. iMovie is probably one of the easiest ways to incorporate video interviews as more than just something to click on. Because so much of the essay will be visual, I hope that the iMovie format will allow the text to support the images and videos instead of vice versa.

 Materials: My essay will be based on my own personal experience, interviews with classmates and students in the program now, news articles on the importance of Brazil and the language, and official advertisements and commercials for the Olympics and World Cup that will be held in Rio de Janeiro. I’ve also requested permission from Magda to film a class session, as well as a “Bate-Papo Brazil” meeting, which is the unofficial club she holds every week.

Questions: I still need to put a little more thought into how I’m going to tie in all the subjects together. Any recommendations would be appreciated!

While people can indeed upload, the web does not arm every citizen with the means to be read and heard. Just as the establishment of big media served as the “experts in taste” for selecting who would be published or broadcasted over the radio waves, the web itself has its own establishment of reputable sources, such as famous music blogs and popular forums. Moreover, the actual act of publishing personal content is by no means an outrage against big media; in fact most users probably hope to get connected to the big studios, labels, and publishing houses by using the Web 2.0.

If the purpose of the media and entertainment industries is to “discover, nurture, and reward talent,” then the web is the perfect filter for them, serving as an extra employee who seeks out talent. Who’s to say that all the talent was captured in the pre-internet era? Maybe there was another Bono out there, but his demo tape got accidentally thrown into the trash. In the web age, if an artist is especially good, his or her music is shared via social media so much so that they cannot be missed. Perhaps Keen is afraid that the new Web 2.0 will render him irrelevant as an author, and his poorly thought out critique with various academic terms was an act of insecurity.

Of course, the article missed a few key points while exalting alternative news sources like the Huffington Post. Candidates don’t need an online presence solely for campaign websites, fundraising, and social networking with voters; they need them to combat the inevitable mudslinging and thousands of online sources discrediting the candidates. In fact, the explosion of the internet has taken control away from campaign managers in elections. Those average citizens with the most fervent opinions on either side have the power to dig up dirt, make accusations, and divulge them throughout the internet. I’ve always found televised campaign commercials to be nasty and detrimental towards the democratic process, but with the internet, similar messages can be conveyed without a candidate having to announce their sponsorship of the commercial. I consider myself a moderate on the political spectrum, but have a hard time finding moderate news sources in an age where the extremes on both ends get the most attention.

Additionally, a lot of the articles in this section of Digital Divide mentioned that people of my generation are unaware that what we are putting on Facebook is available for people to see and track. A few years after these articles were published, this is no longer the case. Many of us now have privacy protections on our social media (although most of us also feel certain that there are ways for companies can get around this). I’d be curious to see how this changes elections 10-15 years down the road, when people of my generation find that they have digital histories that cannot be erased. Sure, George W. Bush and Barack Obama admitted to trying cocaine, and Bill Clinton smoked but “didn’t inhale” marijuana, but there is a huge difference between hearing these facts in speeches or reading them in biographies, and seeing messages, wall posts, and pictures of the young candidates in action. Will future candidates have to have a cleaner record? Will people intelligent enough to be president still be stupid enough to run?

In terms of the process of voting itself, I wonder whether the US will ever move to more advanced technological systems of voting that don’t require physical voting sites. As a Minnesotan, my absentee ballot still has to be sent my snail mail and requested months in advance. Despite advancements in registration and voting technology, the whole process of going to the polls and waiting in line seems strangely outdated in the digital age. I’m not arguing against the traditional, as online voting could potentially pose a huge security and falsification threat to our country, but I find it interesting that everything else regarding campaigns has changed so drastically, while voting itself has not.

I was really impressed by the combination of drawing and writing to emphasize main points and express ideas. One of my favorite illustrations was the one that explained how divergent thinking not the same as creativity. Beyond the interesting message it conveys, I thought the digital aspect of the video was particularly effective. The art form is called “video-scribing” and its use of speaking, drawing and writing as a story-telling process as opposed to a final product was what struck me the most. I’d be interested in doing something like this for my own digital essay, although I don’t know if my artistic skills are quite up to par.

I would like to preface the argument I’m about to make by asserting that I began using a computer around the same time I began reading chapter books. While I acknowledge that my reading brain functions differently from those of the older generations, I don’t believe it is in any way endangered. If children today read a word or concept they don’t understand, they can google it to learn the definition, along with its contexts in our society that they might not find through their own mental devices or the classic dictionary volume. This is the digital way of “going beyond the decoded text to think new thoughts of our own.” After all, isn’t the use of a search engine the byproduct of a new thought one has on one’s own? Children today may miss out on deep reading in the sense that they spend less time reflecting and more time interacting, but I would argue that they’ll be better equipped to draw connections between terms and themes than past generations, due to the vast amount of information accessible to them. Their cognitive abilities will be different, but not necessarily inferior.

In the same vein, who says that children analyze and react more to printed text than what they read on the internet? Just because the text is typically less complicated, what about that implies that their responses are less sophisticated? Children from my own public school district have begun receiving iPads as they enter high school, to be better equipped for the digital world. This did not necessitate the simplification of the content of the curriculum in the process; high schoolers will still “deeply read” and discuss The Great Gatsby as they always have. In fact, now that technology is formally present in the classroom, teachers may better acknowledge the widespread use of sites like Sparknotes and push students to go beyond the analysis everyone has read on the internet, or use it to spur discussion.

I am a product of the digital age: I think its both funny and endearing that my mom still usually addresses me “Dear Liz,” and signs off “Love, Mom,” when she texts me, even though both statements are implied before I open the text. It doesn’t make me sharper or her more literate, it just makes our communication stylea different. I’d be curious to hear what the rest of the class thinks about the difference in communication styles between digital natives and immigrants.

I would like to preface the argument I’m about to make by asserting that I began using a computer around the same time I began reading chapter books. While I acknowledge that my reading brain functions differently from those of the older generations, I don’t believe it is in any way endangered. While the vast amount of information on the web doesn’t equate to knowledge, isn’t the use of a search engine the byproduct of a new thought one has on one’s own? Children today can read a word they don’t understand, and then google it to learn the definition, along with varied uses in our society that they might not find through their own mental devices. Children today may miss out on deep reading in the sense that they spend less time reflecting and more time interacting, but I would argue that they will be more easily able than past gnereations to draw connections between terms and themes due to the vast amount of information accessible to them. Their cognitive abilities will be different, but not necessarily inferior.

In the same vein, who says that children analyze and react more to printed text than what they read on the internet? Just because the text is typically less complicated, what about that implies that their responses are less sophisticated? Children from my own public school district have begun receiving iPads as they enter high school, to be better equipped for the digital world. This did not necessitate the simplification of the content of the curriculum in the process; high schoolers will still “deeply read” and discuss The Great Gatsby as they always have. In fact, now that technology is formally present in the classroom, teachers may better acknowledge the widespread use of sites like Sparknotes and push students to go beyond the analysis everyone has read on the internet, or use it to spur discussion.

I am a product of the digital age: I think its both funny and endearing that my mom still usually addresses me “Dear Liz,” and signs off “Love, Mom,” when she texts me, even though both statements are implied before I open the text. It doesn’t make me sharper or her more literate, it just makes my communication style different. I’d be curious to hear what the rest of the class thinks about the difference in communication styles between digital natives and immigrants.