Wikipedia, Is It Reliable?

I would like to spend this blog discussing the views that Scott Jaschik has on Wikipedia in his essay "A Stand Against Wikipedia." In this article he discusses weather Wikipedia is a valuable source for college students.

He states that as the online encyclopedia has become more popular, more and more college professors are getting concerned with its accuracy. Middlebury College plans to take their concern to the next level by forbidding students to cite it as a source in essays and other academic work.

The department plans to explain to their students that while the source is convenient, it is not always trustworthy and reliable. They do, however, recognize that it is a good place to go to lead you to good sources, but is not a good source itself.

Middlebury College came to this conclusion after seeing students cite incorrect information on essays and tests from Wikipedia. Although they are enforcing a policy not to cite Wikipedia, they are not outright banning the use of it because you can get good information on the website.                                              

Wikipedia officials even agree that "There is no guarantee an article is 100% correct," (Jaschik, 45). This is in a large part because anybody can write their own or edit someone else's article.

Middlebury College believes that Wikipedia is an inappropriate source for two reasons. One. the accuracy is not guaranteed and there is an issue with whether it is a reliable source. Two, encyclopedias themselves are not appropriate sources for college students because at this level of learning a student is expected to cite primary sources or strong secondary sources.

What you should take out of this blog is the recognition that although Wikipedia is convenient, it is not a reliable source. In this article they discuss what goes in to making Wikipedia articles, and how the types of people who contribute greatly reflect the quality of the article.

Inequality in Blogging

According to Dustin Harp and Mark Tremayne in their essay "The Gendered Blogosphere: Examining Inequality Using Network and Feminist Theory" men dominate the blog scene online. They say that the blogs receiving the most links are disproportionately male. When a blog has more links it gets more attention on higher levels, such as more attention from mainstream media and political elites. However, the percentages of male to female blog authors are not far apart (57% men 43% female). The argument that far less women are online is also not true because 61% of women and 66% of men use the internet, fairly close.

They suggest that the blogosphere is not unlike the social interactions that have shaped cultures elsewhere. It is also important to point out that negative social and political aspects of the real world will continue in the virtual world as well. This is because the internet will become a place for the powerful to flourish and the powerless to have little voice.

It is true that the internet offers an arena for feminists to express their beliefs, but we must also be aware of its limitations. The internet has limitations because women are still seen as part of a private life of home, private relations, and having a family while men are seen as having a responsibility to the public through government and commercial establishments. Limitations are also seen by studies that show that women are less likely to express political opinions and have a less authoritative style in their conversations.

On the contrary, sites like http://feministblogs.org give women the opportunity to blog openly in a "malestream" media. Through the observations I have made I would like you to be aware of the inequality on the web, instead of viewing it as totally free speech.

How Paul Levinson Categorizes New New Media

For this blog post I plan to discuss how Paul Levinson author of "New New Media" defines and categorizes new new media. Levinson says that "'New New Media' is about the advent and impact of media newer than 'new' media- as different from the classic new media of email and websites as those new media are different from old media such as newspapers and television" (Levinson 1). His current roster of new media includes blogging, YouTube, Wikipedia, Digg, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Second Life and Podcasts.

One of the ways he discusses new new media in the first chapter is to categorize it. I believe this is helpful to know because how could Wikipedia and Facebook be described under the same category of new new media when they are so different.

The first Category is "Print, Audio, Audio-Visual, Photographic". This category applies to YouTube because Audio-Visual media in the form of videos characterize it. This also, in a completely different light, applies to Second Life because you are moving virtual avatars through which users can speak. This category also obviously applies to podcasting (audio), video casting (audio-visual), and Flickr/ Photobucket (Photography).

The next Category is "News" which strictly describes "the purpose, not the media form, of the new new medium" (Levinson 5). Wikipedia and Digg would fall under this category because their chief purpose is to inform. YouTube can also be under this category because it contains many news worthy videos. Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter also contain news.

Another Category he uses is "Social Media" which describes all new new media because all new new media is inherently social. Levinson gives social examples of commenting on blogs or videos, but the main forms of social new new media are, of course, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.

Levinson also has "General vs. Specific" as a category which describes blogging, podcasting, vidcasting, and social media as general new new media applications, and YouTube, Wikipedia, and Digg as specific.  A general application can and do exist on live online sites devoted to many applications such as podcasting, blogging, social media, and other new new media opportunities. While specific systems are primarily devoted to just one application ex: YouTube (videos).

"Politics and Entertainment" have a category because given the democratization of New New Media production, you can find almost anything on any topic on a blog or a social network. This category gives the example of how Barack Obama used many new new media forums to aid him with his campaign, which caused him, among other things, to receive popularity from college voters.

"New New Media and Government Control" also have a category because it tells us how new new media has also run in to problems with government control just as new media and old media have. In this article Iran's government shut down Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and cell phones in an attempt to lessen the riots after the election.

The next category is "Microblogging and Blogging". This category describes the difference between short twitter posts and Facebook and MySpace status updates with the normal length blogs found on sites like Blogger. The short posts make for a more personal communication because with new new media today the shorter the better.

The final category I will discuss today is "Hardware vs. Software -iPhone, BlackBerry, Laptop". Levinson has this as a category because he wants to stress the importance of how we consider the hardware that brings new new media to us.  Are we searching Wikipedia on a lap top or tweeting on our iPhone? With mobile media you can tweet or update your status at a moments notice.

As I end this blog I wish to apologize for it's excessive length for new new media, as stressed in the "blogging/ microblogging" category is meant to be more brief. However, I found that it was important to look at the categories of new new media so we can better understand what is actually considered new new media.

Growing Up Online

In my last post I addressed the issue of whether Facebook is good, and to help supplement my argument I'm going to spend this blog talking about the video "Growing Up Online". This video talked about the dangers of social networking when it comes to predators, privacy, cyber bullying, and creating an online personality different from your own. In the video they interviewed teens and parents about their views on how dangerous social networks are.

When it comes to social networking parents have been taught to be most concerned about online predators. With how much information kids expose on the internet it is a worthwhile concern. However, in the movie they state that really the only time that teens have problems with a predator are when they go out of their way to meet up. You should instead consider your teen to be a participant and not only a victim. It is always best to keep your information about where you live private, and do not post it on the internet.

A large section of the film was donated to the harsh realities of cyber-bullying. In the movie, they say that cyber-bullying is so popular and extra harsh because people say things that they wouldn't be able to say to someone's face. Girls at Chatham High School in New Jersey were having online battles over posts that escalated into a full fledged fight in school. In one case,a kid was being cyber bullied so badly that he committed suicide. What's even more chilling is that it was from the internet that he researched ways to do it, and got encouragement from an online "friend".  

Another common social networking practice is to create an online personality or character. Usually teens do this because they are unsatisfied with their "real life" socially and so they create a different person online. In the movie, Autumn Edows was a character created by a teenage girl who was bullied in high school. She created this new person because she was popular online and got a lot of attention. As it turns out, her school found out about her profile and deemed it inappropriate and even pornographic. Even if you decide to create a new personality you can still get caught and you still need to be careful about what your posting on the internet.