#critical thinking 1

[sophiakim-blog1]

Critical Thinking #1: broad cast yourself...but be cautious!

Google is an American multinational technology company specializing in internet-related services and products. Some of those include online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing and software. A lot of Google’s profits come from an online advertising service, AdWords, that place advertising near the list of search results. Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University, it began as a research project. Search engines use to rank results by counting the times the search terms appeared on the page, from there both Page and Brin analyzed a better relationship between websites. They called the new technology PageRank, which determined a websites relevance by the number of pages and the importance of those pages that linked back to the original site. At first they called the search engine BackRub, since the system checked the backlinks to estimate the importance of a site. Eventually they renamed it to Google, originating from a misspelling of the word googol. From there on   Together they own about 14% of its shares and control 56 percent of the stockholder voting power through super voting stock. A little bit more about the history of Google, it was incorporated as a private held company on September 4th, 1998. A public offering took place on August 19th, 2004 and they moved to their new headquarters in Mountain View, California, nicknamed the Googleplex. In August 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its interest as a holding company called Alphabet Inc. Later on in October 2nd, 2015 google became Alphabet’s leading subsidiary, and a parent for Googles internet interests.

Since then Google has grown progressively by creating lots of various outlets beyond Googles core search engine. They have even partnered up with the development of Android mobile operating system. Another big investment Google made was when they acquired Keyhole Inc. which developed Earth Viewer, which gave three-dimensional view of the Earth. Later on it renamed the service to Google Earth in 2005. Not only that but they have also outlet to various partnerships biggest one was when they acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock on October 2006 and finalized on November 13th, 2006. From there on Google has not stopped investing in what they believe what will benefit them the most, companies like AOL, MySpace, investing into renewable energy, Android and so many more. One of the biggest and more successful investments that we will talk about is YouTube.

  Google obviously likes to work in a horizontal integration, allowing them to advertise through YouTube. YouTube is on its own platform but everything does go through Google, even if the customers do not see that happening. This was a brilliant investment on Googles part because YouTube is a fast expanding company that not only allows you to share videos but also allows you to watch movies, shows, listen to music videos and so much more. YouTube helps Google fill in many gaps with its versatile and easy to use network and allows them strengthen Google’s advertisement edge. Buying YouTube gives Google a stronger competitive advantage over online advertising. Obviously, with Google and YouTube partnership, they are strong media force; Google on its own is already one of the strongest search engines out there, compared to Bing. However, in order to stay a head of the game owning YouTube puts Google at the top. Like mentioned before YouTube is expanding every day and for Google to in charge of that, it will really benefit them in the end.

On the question of why Google bought YouTube, I kept finding answers on why YouTube even agreed. It would make sense for Google to try to own YouTube since it is such a big and successful company. Nevertheless, YouTube did not have to agree and they themselves have even mentioned that they wanted to stay as an independent company. With Google, they are still able to do that, keep their original identity and even stay at their headquarters. The co-founder himself said he does not know of a better company to work with. Googles chief executive believes the two companies are natural partners; YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. YouTube is looking at it as, "By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners." From there on Google has worked a lot with YouTube to help it expand its business further than just sharing videos online. Google shaped up the company to be the second biggest search engine in the world, besides Google itself. Google and YouTube have also managed to create bigger communities for themselves. One is a small online community, where if you have a Google email (Gmail) than you will be able to comment in the comment section of videos on YouTube. Not only will the creators of those videos see your feedback but other subscribers and fans can see it too and perhaps like your comment or maybe just even respond to you. This creates a fandom for those YouTube creators, which allows them to expand their channel even more.

This not only benefits the YouTubers to grow but as well as YouTube in general. The other community that has expanded more and more over the years is the physical aspect of that community known as VidCon.  VidCon is multi-genre online video conference, held annually in Southern California since 2010. This is the largest of its kind in the world, gathering thousands of online video viewers, creators and industry representatives worldwide. This event alone shows how well YouTube has been able to do only a few years after Google stepped in. Even if in the beginning, everyone thought that Google was making a mistake by investing into YouTube everyone thought it would die down. Google believed the popular-video sharing site would provide an increasingly lucrative hub as people migrate from television to the internet. These growing communities allow for Google, YouTube to keep growing, and expanding for the years to come. From the looks of it, Google will be able to keep being the number one search engine for a while with YouTube alongside of it. The only thing they need to focus on in order to really make themselves a stronger corporation is providing better privacy for their users. They have been known for selling peoples information to companies, Google really needs to think ahead and realize that is not smart on their part. Eventually in the years to come another search engine with a better moral compass will have the opportunity to steal all of Googles consumers.

(I don't know why two of my photos look kind of blurry but even when I tried to reload it, it kept coming out of focus. Hopefully it was okay for me to add in that GIF at the end :)  

[ayitsmolly-blog]

NewsCorp & HarperCollins: Gateway to Great Books

During the year 1931, Rupert Murdoch was born in Melbourne Australia. He inherited his father's love for media. Murdoch quickly made a name for himself in the media industry in Australia and proceeded to go bigger by heading to the United Kingdom. Once in the UK, Murdoch decided it was time for him to acquire assets in the United States, specifically New York. In the year 1979, News Corporation was created as a holding company for News Limited but quickly became its own entity. NewsCorp purchased half of the film studio 20th Century Fox in 1981 and three years later the company bought the other half. A few years after that Murdoch became a US citizen in order to fulfill the legal requirement of only citizens being able to own American television stations.

As the years continued on, NewsCorp was able to acquire two publishing companies, 26 Australia newspapers, over 20 US newspapers one of the most notable being The Wall Street Journal under the Dow Jones & Company as well as The New York Post over 20 Australian magazines, over 20 studios most being under Fox, over 10 broadcasting stations, over 30 cable tv channels, and over 20 internet websites, also a few other holdings they had. It is also very important to note that in the year 2013 NewsCorp was split into two separate companies. One being 21st Century Fox which holds most of the television, film, and new media holdings. The other side being News Corp which holds the publishing and Australian broadcasting holdings. Both entities still chaired by Rupert Murdoch.

One controversy that stands out for NewsCorp is the phone hacking scandal of 2011. The scandal began back in the year 2005 when royal officials complained to police that a possible voicemail hacking could have occurred. Arrests were made in 2007 of News of the World editor Clive Goodman. NoW was a weekly published newspaper in the UK, was owned by NewsCorp. In 2011 NoW announces an apology for hacking voicemails between the years 2004-2006, a compensation system was set up to pay the victims. That same year, Rupert Murdoch apologizes on behalf of NewsCorp and the newspaper issued its last edition on July 10, 2011.

It would be safe to say that NewsCorp uses both vertical and horizontal integration. They are able to use what is known as cross promotion of products. For example, they can advertise a book HarperCollins published on Fox news. It could also work vice versa, a book HarperCollins published could possibly include a quote by Fox news, typically on the back cover. This is a smart move by NewsCorp since they can basically advertise their own products or works on their own tv stations. Having these companies under the same name of NewsCorp definitely makes advertising much less stressful and less expensive for the corporation.

The acquisition of HarperCollins Publishing by NewCorp was one of their smartest moves. It was first obtained by NewsCorp in 1987 as Harper & Brothers. Later it become HarperCollins after the corporation also acquired a British publisher by the name of William Collins & Sons in 1990. Around seven years later, the publishing company was beginning to take a toll on NewsCorp. The problems ended up causing the loss of 420 jobs and a charge of $270 million in order to restructure the publishing unit. Now, it is important to take into account that the entire book industry was struggling at this point but the majority of HarperCollins problems could have been much smaller. It was also said that NewsCorp itself could have helped and prevented the massive losses. The problems were too big for NewsCorp to handle at one point and talk of selling the publishing unit was taking place. In the end, NewsCorp decided to not sell the unit. All the rumours and talk of selling the publishing unit caused paranoia in the employees and made authors hesitant to have their books published by HarperCollins. Another issue that occurred during all of this was the questionable accounting practices of HarperCollins. Their write offs of author advances were not handled well. When a book they had published failed or simply did not sell as well as they had anticipated, HarperCollins were reluctant to acknowledge the fact that a book basically failed. This caused major problems in their accounting books and major losses in money. Eventually, it was decided that a full 360 degree turnaround was needed and it began to take place. Goals were set to reach a 10% profit margin for the year after which was 1998. They were also set to focus on more of a variety of genres which included children’s, spiritual, and business books. Another goal was for the unit to publish at least 1,000 books in the US alone. All in all, HarperCollins was able to be saved from being let go by NewsCorp.

Today HarperCollins Publishing is the second largest consumer book publisher in the world. One book series that HarperCollins published that is well known, mostly by young adults, is the Divergent trilogy. The publishing company sold 3.5 million copies within the first quarter of the fiscal year in 2014. The series has been one of their most successful sellers. I personally enjoyed this trilogy and has gone down in the reading notebook as one of my favorites. I loved the way the books were published due to the fact that the author Veronica Roth was completely in charge and did not have to be constricted creative wise. As an avid reader myself I look closely at the way a book was written but also how it was published and the relationship the author had with the publishing company. That relationship can make or break the way the audience receives books. The audience I am talking about here are those who love reading and that would include myself. Of course I cannot speak for this audience but I think giving in my opinion here can possibly bring some insight into this subject. It would be safe to say that the acquisition of HarperCollins Publishing by NewsCorp definitely benefits the audience and public interest.

[ipbyrne-blog]

MCST 2010 Critical Thinking #1

Google, it started as a name of a company and eventually was added to the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb in 2006. Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were studying to obtain their Ph. Ds at Stanford University on September 4th, 1998. It started as a private company but was later IPO’d on August 19, 2004. Although the company is public and Jeff and Sergey only control 14% of the shares, they still maintain 56% of the stockholder voting power. Then on August 10th, 2015, Google created a Holding Company called Alphabet, which is now the official owner of Google. So Alphabet owns Google along with many other businesses, and Google owns the Google Search Engine, the AdWords & AdSense platforms, Google Maps, YouTube, Android, and the Google Play store.

The structure of Alphabet’s holding is without a doubt horizontal integration. They own a variety of different businesses in a lot of different industries and sectors which allow them to extend their reach as a company. The horizontal integration does not stop there. Google, which is one piece of Alphabets horizontal integration, is also integrated horizontally with all of its holdings. Instead of vertically integrating like Disney where they would control every aspect of their product from end to end, Google’s holdings are all in different types of businesses where they only control one thing in each of these sectors, their product. They don’t control the platforms their product is used on in most cases, where people are using their products, how they are getting the products and things like this.

By integrating horizontally Google is able to create a variety of products and platforms that are all in different industries allowing them to really spread their reach as a company. In addition, Google makes really great products that often become the industry leader for each sector they are in. Their map service is by far the best map service available, same with their search engine, their ad platforms and their video platform. Not only is their reach greatly expanded because they are horizontally integrated but it is really blown up because they are often the best product available in every sector they are in. And in the case of video platforms,  YouTube by far completely dominates this industry.

YouTube was originally created in 2005 by 3 former PayPal employees. Only a year after it was created, Google saw the potential of the platform and purchased it for the sum of $1.65 billion dollars(3). The reason Google purchased YouTube is because it compliments their main product, their search engine, extremely well. Many people think of YouTube as a place to be entertained but that’s not why Google bought it at all. Sure, YouTube is full of entertaining content, but why Google snatched it up is because they saw the potential it had as a search engine. And as of now YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Is this a coincidence? No. Google saw this coming and they were ahead of the curve like they are with nearly every product they release.

So why does Google care so much about search engines that they were willing to buy YouTube for such a high price? Is it some unethical reason to dominate the internet and steal all of our information? No. Two words. Ad Revenue. Google makes 90% of their revenues from their advertising platform and there is no better place to have an ad appear than as a search result from someone typing in a very specific query. You literally can not have a more targeted ad. And with YouTube being the number one place people go to see product reviews and tutorials, it makes perfect sense that they would want to be in control of this platform that is perfect for advertisers as this is where Google makes all of their money.

In terms of media concentration, this does give Google nearly complete control over the search engine market. By owning the two largest search engines in the world, they are able to capture well over 70% of all the searches that occur on planet earth. This gives them the ability to have massive control over what people are going to see when looking for things on the internet. And unfortunately, Google has been found to skew the search results in favor of their products in order to boost their revenue. From a consumer’s perspective, I can see how this looks bad or unethical. But from a business perspective, I don’t think it is. Google is not a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing people the most relevant information in the world. They are a business and as a business, it is their duty to maximize their revenues on behalf of their shareholders. In fact, Google could actually get in legal trouble if they weren’t doing this.

Overall, this media concentration does provide the public more good than bad. Information is more accessible than ever before in the history of the universe and this gives people tremendous power. Now people can literally learn about anything they can think of thanks to Google and their search engines. You can find products you would have never known existed, and find people you would have never been able to connect with before by simply typing in a few keywords. You can literally find anything that a college, university, or book would teach you via a Google search for free. Google’s search engines give people more access to information they would have otherwise never been able to reach and this makes mankind as a whole so much better. To argue that this is a bad thing would be like arguing the introduction of books or writing was a bad thing because it gave people information they previously could not access.

So in conclusion, Google purchasing YouTube does provide Google with immense control over the search engine marketplace but at the end of the day, this has without a doubt benefited the public interest at large. People who argue against this would likely be the same kind of people who were saying books and writing would be the downfall of human civilization. Knowledge is power, and thanks to Google people all over the world have more access to power than any other time in human history.

[bchopp72-blog]

Free AJ Staff

Peter Greste, a Latvian-Australian, has worked as a journalist and correspondent for Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, and other major media outlets. Greste was born in Sydney, Australia, where he attended both high school and college. Greste had graduated with a degree in journalism studies at Queensland University of Technology. In his early career he had started off working with both BBC and CNN, which can be included that he had based out in London for quite some time during the early stages of his career.  He has worked in throughout Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Southern Africa.

Prior to his arrestment Greste was hired on to be a correspondent with Al Jazeera English in Africa. He would later be asked to do some work out in Cairo, Egypt during the Christmas holiday. Although it has been known for Egypt to be known as one of the most dangerous environments for a journalist, Greste still went forward with the task of working within the hostile environment.  

Al Jazeera has been highly criticized by Egyptian authorities as a link to terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood. In July 2013 quite a few of Al Jazeera journalists resigned due to biased coverage. The Washington Times had even quoted Al Jazeera correspondent Haggag Salama who accused “the station of ‘airing lies and misleading views.’”

Leading up to the events of the arrestment of three Al Jazeera journalists the Qatar news source was under an immense amount of scrutiny by many, including its former employees. A former anchor for the news source had also been quoted in the same Washington Times article, “[He had] felt that there were errors in the way the coverage was done, especially that now in Egypt we are going through a critical phase that requires a lot of auditing in terms of what gets broadcasted,” he told Al Arabiya. “My colleagues have also resigned for the same reason.”

Although the news source was being highly criticized some correspondents and journalists decided to stay a part of the Al Jazeera team, despite all of the accusations of airing lies through its media channels.

Later that year in December 2013 Egyptian forces arrested the Al Jazeera journalists and correspondents Baher Mohamed,  Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, alongside Peter Greste.. The three journalist had been accused of working alongside Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, a movement that had recently been  declared a terrorist group by Egypt’s military-backed interim government.

The men believed that it would have only been a few hours to where they have been detained, questioned, and released. It wasn't until January 29, 2014 when Greste and the others were set to see a criminal court. The men were accused of lies and slander through the interest of the Muslim Brotherhood. Baher Mohamed was transferred to another prison to be detained and further questioned, while Fahmy and Greste had been further detained.

A broadcaster for Al Jazeera had said on air “Al Jazeera demands that its staff to be released immediately,” during the broadcast below:

Finally in June of 2014, after 11 mistrials the verdict was in Greste was sentenced to 7 years in prison. The imprisonment of the journalist created a domino affect throughout the world of journalism. Al Jazeera had created the campaign #FreeAJStaff, that led to many journalist across the world to partake in.

Later in September 2014 Prime Minister Tony Abbot  met with the Egyptian President al-Sisi to discuss the imprisonment and release of Peter Greste during the United Nations General Assembly. According to ABC even President Barack Obama had discussed with President al-Sisi regarding the arrestment and detainment of Greste and fellow journalist.

It wasn’t until January 1 of 2015 that the Egyptian government had ordered a retrial. During the retrial the court dismissed the accusations and convictions of the Al Jazeera journalists, but it wasn't until 400 days of his imprisonment was Greste released on February 1st. Although he was able to go home Greste’s retrial was still pending in Cairo.

Later that year the jury came to a decision and Greste was sentenced to three years in jail for supporting the terrorist group, the Muslim Brother. A month after the retrial al-Sisi announced a pardon for both Fahmy and Mohamed, but Greste’s name was not on the list to be pardoned.

The trials of Greste and his fellow colleagues had left a lasting impression on the world of journalism and free press, as many had placed tape over their mouths during the #FreeAJStaff campaign. The tape was to signify being censored and silenced by worldly governments. The job as a journalist is to accurately give information to the public, which to them is seen as a social responsibility and justice, and when that was taken away from Greste, Fahmy, and Mohamed, that essentially showed many that their right of free press can be taken away at any given moment, do to accusation and speculation.

Works Cited:

H. (2014, September 25). Abbott raises Greste jailing with Egyptian president. Retrieved September 2016, from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-26/abbott-urges-egyptian-pm-to-consider-greste-jailing/5770646

Al Jazeera demands release of detained journalists in Egypt. (2013, December 31). Retrieved September 2016, from https://youtu.be/TRDYQhcmxoE

Chasmar, J. (2013, July 9). 'We aired lies': Al-Jazeera staff quit over biased Egypt coverage. Retrieved September, 2016, from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/9/we-aired-lies-al-jazeera-staff-quit-over-biased-eg/

Egypt declares Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group. (2013, December 25). Retrieved September 18, 2016, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/25/egypt-declares-muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-group

Fahim, K. (2015, September 23). Egypt Pardons Al Jazeera Journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed. Retrieved September 18, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/world/middleeast/al-jazeera-journalists-mohamed-fahmy-baher-mohamed-egypt-pardon.html?_r=1

[mediachronicle]

MCST 4010: Critical Thinking #1 Due 9/18 @ 12pm MT

Topic: World Press Freedom

This assignment should perform a well-researched and well-written case study of a non-U.S. journalist (for print, television, radio, or online -- including social media) who has been arrested and imprisoned and/or executed for their work. You will need to identify and research the journalist who will be the topic of your essay (you have to start from scratch and find them). I suggest starting with Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International, but Google is helpful, too. In a narrative (not a list), you must do the following:

Thoroughly introduce the journalist, their media, outlet, and what they were covering where

Explain why they were arrested/imprisoned the social and political climate in the nation that persecuted them

Tell of any local and/or international efforts to free them

Explain how their case ended or where it stands and why

Provide analysis of the impact of the journalists’ work and persecution: What is the lasting influence of their work and their arrest/imprisonment/death? What influence did the idea of the importance of a free press and the social responsibility of the press have in this case?

Posts should be at least 750 words with a minimum of three hyperlinked popular press sources, one academic source, and two embedded images or videos that substantively illustrate a concept or person you are discussing (no logos or clip art) or provide additional information or data that extends your conversation. Images that are just there to be there are not acceptable . Per our syllabus, academic sources should use APA style (see the hyperlink) for in-text citations and be listed as works cited (also APA style) at the end of your post. Plan ahead and make appointments to use the Writing Center for help with your work.

Per our syllabus, all academic sources (book chapters, journal articles) must be cited using APA style, which you can find a good guide for at Purdue OWL. The librarians can help you with your academic research (remember, two of them are embedded in our course on ULearn). If you need help with APA or your writing in general, please make an appointment with the Writing Center. Popular press sources can and should be hyperlinked into your text (as I have hyperlinked “Purdue OWL” above). 

This assignment is due on your Tumblr Sunday, 9/18 @ 12pm MT and is 10% of your total grade.  Remember to tag your post with “mcst 4010,” “Global Media” and your last name.

[katywrite]

Fight to the End: The Battle of Aaron Swartz

             The documentary The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, written and directed by Brian Knappenberger, makes a very powerful impression on one’s emotions and intellect. I never realized how much I didn’t know about a technology that I use every day. I was and still am, unaware of the complete capabilities of this wonder we know as the world wide web. The internet is still being developed and changed as technologies change and become more capable. I also did not contemplate who was advocating for my right to free and full access to resources on the web, how much work and research was put into passing bills that guarantee this right.

              The film documents the life of Aaron Swartz, known for his prodigal programming skills and for his advocacy of free access to the internet. Aaron started his life’s passion as a young kid, using the computer with skills far above the other two year olds of his day. This passion only grew as he aged, leading to projects such as co-founding Reddit and shaping the internet protocol RSS. Aaron founded the online group that ran the campaign to stop online piracy, Demand Progress. In January of 2011, Aaron was arrested for an array of charges including: wire fraud, computer fraud, breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony, and grand larceny among others. This started the two-year legal battle that ultimately ended with Aaron taking his own life two days after denying a plea deal.

              While this documentary’s ultimate purpose was to chronicle the life of Aaron Swartz, it succeeded in bringing to the viewer’s attention the work that lead to Aaron’s tragic death. Open Access, this is what Aaron so desperately fought for. With the amount of internet access we have in the free world, it is almost unimaginable that there might still be things out of our, the common peoples, reach. Aaron sought to give the people of the world access to all of the scientific and research documents that had been funded by the Federal Government and tax payer’s dollars. He felt that locking these documents away and only allowing access with payment was wrong, knowledge is for the people, not only for the paying. This idea lead to Aaron downloading millions of pages of academic journals from the database JSTOR. He was then arrested for violating the Computer Fraud Act of 1986, an act that was passed to give the government the ability to prosecute hackers. Aaron stood by his actions and plead not guilty to all charges.

              The larger conversation brought up by this documentary is why do private corporations have the right lock away all of these academic documents and require payment in order to gain access to them. The journals and research documents that Aaron had downloaded from JSTOR were the result of federally funded research projects. They were paid for by the people but not accessible by the same, instead the people were forced to pay in order to just read the documents, with very few containing downloadable content. Those who attended prestigious schools had access to the documents for the duration of their enrollment, included in the ridiculous cost to attend said school. At the time of the download Aaron was a research fellow, this gave him access to all of the documents, but he felt that all people deserved the knowledge to be gained. This problem extends far past the incident with JSTOR. How, in 2016, does the government have the ability to keep documents from the people? How in the world wide web, do we not have access to research and studies that could change the world? This is what Aaron Swartz was so passionately fighting for.

              This film really hit me hard. The emotional tones in every interview had me in tears at some points. Interviewing those closest to Aaron such as his parents and siblings, rather than just co-workers and research buddies,  really gave the audience a sense of who Aaron Swartz the person was. Allowing the audience a glimpse of his childhood, showing how early on his passion began, showing the sincerity in his work, and showing how long he had been working to change the internet and make it accessible to all, helped me understand that his actions were in no way malicious contrary to the prosecutions views of his actions concerning JSTOR.

              I did feel that the film left out the other side of the fight completely. The film did state that an attempt was made to procure interviews from those involved in the case against Aaron. While I side with Aaron and his cohort’s ideals that the internet in its entirety should be free to the people, I would like to have heard the reasoning and ideals of those in opposition to open access. The film highlighted interviews of everyone that agreed with Aaron’s actions, reaching as far as the creator of the web as we know it, Tim Berners-Lee. I was left wanting to know why exactly the government was pushing for such harsh and extreme punishment for crimes of charges that had been dropped by affected parties. What was the motive behind trying to make an example of Aaron?

              The passion and dedication that Aaron had for the right to free and open access ultimately lead to the tragedy of him taking his own life. The fight does not stop with Aaron. We need to continue the trend of activism that he was leading. Take a look at his “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto”, and from it, realize that Aaron’s ideas are not his alone, but should be the ideas of everyone. “There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture”. Think about this, why should a handful of private organizations have complete control and access of our future, our research, our medical journals, or our ability to potentially change the world?

[mediachronicle]

New Media Critical Thinking #1: Film Critique due 4/1 @ 6pm

Watch one of the films from the list below:

The Fifth Estate (2013) The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (2014) Jobs (2013) Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine (2015) Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999) Downloaded (2013) Revolution OS (2001) Steal this Film Part 1&2 (2006-07) TPB AFK (2014) Unfriended (2014) Hackers Wanted (2008) We Are Legion: The Story of Hacktivists (2012) Print the Legend (2014) CodeGirl (2015) #chicagoGirl (2013) Something Ventured (2011) Cyber Seniors (2014) Video Games: The Movie (2014) Atari: Game Over (2014) Great Unsung Women of Computing: The Computers, The Coders and The Future Makers (2016)

In 750-1000 words with a minimum of two images and three hyperlinked or embedded outside sources, complete a film critique that follows the examples in the Week 3 readings on ULearn and uses this structure (you can mix it up a bit as you need to): 

Paragraph 1:  Offer your overall impression of the film while mentioning the movie's title, director, and key actors. [Note: this info can be found at www.imdb.com]

Paragraph 2:  Briefly summarize the plot of the film

Paragraphs 3:  Explain the new media/new media issue presented/examined by the film. Give some context to the larger new media landscape into this issue fits.

Paragraph 4: Explain the role this film seeks to play film in the larger conversation about new media and, more specifically, the part of new media it examines. Paragraph 5: Positive things you thought about the film, what did you like? Why? Use descriptive words to discuss the plot, setting, techniques and effects used, music, etc.

Paragraph 6: Negative things you thought about the film, what didn’t you like? Why? Comment on the same type of things that you mentioned in paragraph 5.

Paragraph 7: Ending paragraph--your last opportunity to guide the reader. Summarize and strongly restate your opinions. Remember to tag your posts with our course number and your last name and to make sure they are properly posted on your external blog URL.

Critiques are due via Tumblr on Friday, 4/1 at 6pm MT.