Diffusions of Innovation

 In today's Media Law and Literacy Blog Post, we will be discussing the diffusions of innovation and its related theory. 

What is Diffusions of Innovation?

Media Law and Literacy Chart in Relation to DoI-(HPU/Smith)

According to Wikipedia and [Everett] Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations "is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread" (Rogers,Wiki). Rogers believes that the diffusion itself "is communicated over time among the participants in a social system." (Rogers,Wiki) Overall, he proposed that there are five main elements that influence the spread of a new idea; "the innovation itself, adopters, communication channels, time and a social system." 

How do the ideas spread; My opinion

Overall, ideas spread from person to person. It is kind of like playing the social and team building game telephone. In the game, main ideas are passed from the starting point to those all the way down the line of people all the way back to the start. By that time, the reaction and overall topic has been spread to many different people, socially. This allows for people to become early adopters of a new invention. This falls under the experimental and pioneer areas while moving into the early adopter. Once the early adopters begin to spread their opinions about the new technology, the critical mass and majority/late adopters begin to get involved and pump up the popularity and user friendly ability of a new technology. 

How this connects to my EOTO presentation

Photo Credit (en.wikipedia.org)

Facebook is a company that follows this chart almost to perfection. A few Harvard students created thefacebook.com which was originally meant for college students to have a community and discuss their experiences. This social media site went from the pioneers to early adopters, and jumped all the way to the critical mass in which made Facebook one of the most popular social media sites if not the most popular in a matter of 3-4 years. 

EOTO Presentation Rection

 In today's Media Law and Literacy blog post, we will be discussing the EOTO Communication Technology Timeline Presentations that took place on November 10th, 2022. 

Twitter in Connection to Technology Timeline

In the world of Communication and Technology, many different things have changed how we as people have communicated. From smoke signals to twitter, humans have always found a way to upgrade the ways that we communicate. 

Photo Credit (apps.microsoft.com)

Twitter has changed the way that many people, especially now, communicate. They communicate with one caveat, that being their messages and posts are limited to 280 characters (the previous number used to be 140 characters allowed but was upped to 280 in 2017). On twitter, a user can type out a message and include a picture/video or another attachment like a .gif or a poll for other users to vote on. Another piece of twitter is the "hashtag." Users use hashtags to put their tweets into categories within the service. As an example, if one was to say #Ravens within a tweet, another user can click on #Ravens and see all of the tweets users and news media organizations sent out regarding the hashtag. 

Another piece of twitter is the connection between Organizations and Users that follow them. As an example, the Buffalo Bills (an NFL team) have a massive social team which creates content daily for their fans as well as fans across the league. These fans take to Twitter to view and react to the posts which those previously mentioned engagements lead to more followers and more fans of the team. 

The Progressive Era

 In today's Media Law and Literacy blog post, we will dive deep into the inter-workings of the progressive era and discuss current events that are intertwined with the former. 

My Reaction

After exploring the websites directed, those being antiwar.com as well as The American Conservative, it became quite shocking on how censored and topic based large and prominent media is in our country and around the world. An example of this is within articles about the Ruso/Ukraine war (Special Military Operation in Russian terms), and our (not so) beloved American way of sticking our nose in every conflict.  This article describes distention in the ranks among the American National Security Council (NSC) within the topic of peace talks in the ongoing conflict. Current Chairman of the Joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley is calling for peace talks while others, including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken do not align their ideals with talks as they majorly side with US President Biden and his policies toward the conflict.

Photo Credit (i24news.com)

While the pentagon, the military headquarters of the United States believes that winter could bring a "chance for a political settlement while [US senior military officials] believe Ukraine cannot achieve it's war aims. (Fun fact: these same officials predicted the country would fall in 72 hours, they were wrong, so take this with a grain of salt) The Ukrainian military still continues to defy the odds and win battles and pushes Russia back daily. Honestly, it seems as if the US, or the US official quoted in the article wants to throw away the good work of the nations warfighters just for Russia to regroup and hit Ukraine again under the guise of peace talks saying "Why not start talking about [peace talks] before you throw another 100,000 lives into the abyss?"

All in all, Antiwar readings and websites are so hard to discover because it is not what production and news companies want you to hear. It all goes back to the process of media, if there are more clicks and more viewers on a story or a newscast, those who view are far more likely to come back at a later time to watch other stories. In connection with this, companies like Sinclair broadcasting can spin a message that all of their contracted news stations have to discuss. (view the hyperlink for an example of the former.)

Extra/Added Piece: What Do I Believe and Where do I see the News from Ruso/Ukraine

Photo Credit: (youtube.com/speakthetruth) 

As a person highly interested in the conflict in Ukraine, I have steered away from typical news media sources for updates regarding the war/special military operation/whatever you want to call this conflict. Daily, I watch updates on YouTube from a former American special operations sniper who has sources on the ground in Ukraine and publishes true and unfiltered updates of what is going on in the conflict. Speak The Truth is hosted by Robert Terkla and within the show, he and his team show mapping of the ongoing conflict, he predicts what is going to take place over a 24-48-72 hour timeline, shows videos from the ground (all except videos with blood, gore, weapons etc, due to YouTube T.O.S.), leaked Russian soldier phone conversations with their loved ones, and what may be the most comical piece of the conflict, Russian state media clips where there are constant stories and topic being made up by the Russian media to act as if the Russian military is winning the conflict in a landslide, or once they realized they were losing handily, start preaching outlandish ways to get back in the driver seat of the conflict. Some of those ways being the use of Chemical weapons like Napalm, White phosphorus munitions and others with the most severe being a nuclear strike.  

Key Post: EOTO- Facebook

 In today's Media Law and Literacy key post, we are going to discuss the creation, history and impact of the social media company, Facebook. 

The History

The social media site Facebook (Originally called thefacebook.com) was created in 2004 by a group of Harvard University students who took their idea created in a dorm room to the largest and most popular social media website/application in the world. 

Photo Credit (en.wikipedia.org)

The original founders include Mark Zuckerburg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Facebook was once a webpage that was shut down by Harvard University administrators in 2003. At the same time thefacebook.com was a place where 250,000 students at 34 different universities came together and built an online community. At the end of the 2004 calendar year, Facebook had a community of users that totaled over 1 million.  A piece of facebook from the beginning of the company, is that all of the users of the website or application have to be transparent about their identity and users are not allowed to to have false profiles or false identities. A famous time where this rule was broken was the Manti Te'o fake girlfriend controversy which caused Te'o's draft selection to slip in the NFL draft.  Facebook's policy is that "transparency is necessary for forming personal relationships, sharing ideas and information and building up society as a whole. " (Britannica, 2022) The company's policy also promotes "peer-to-peer connectivity among Facebook users make it easier for businesses to connect their products with consumers. In 2006, Facebook opened its membership beyond students to anyone over the age of 13. Two years later, Facebook surpassed MySpace as the most visited social media application/website. Finally, after 8 years as a privately owned business, Zuckerburg and Facebook went public.  Initially raising $16 billion dollars but giving it a market value of $102.4 billion. Later, in 2021, Facebook announced it was changing its name to Meta Platforms in an attempt to sell users and consumers on virtual reality environments, also known as the Metaverse.

The Impact

Facebook is a company in which that is free to access and use. It has brought users together by "creating profiles, uploading photos, joining a preexisting group or starting a new group. " (Britannica, 2022) In addition to the previous functions, users can also can post messages on the Status board as well as the News feed which explains to users of their friends profile updates and posts. Another piece of this is the private messaging functions and the liking of posts which also appears, more commonly on almost every social media webpage/app in 2022. 

Photo Credit(en.wikipedia.org)

Another one of the major impacts that Facebook has had is the political movements that have taken place within its platform. An example is the 2008 US presidential election. Within the run up to that election, there were more than a thousand facebook groups to support of either democratic candidate, who happened to be Barrack Obama against the late and great John McCain. All the way until today, Facebook has also been working with third party companies to generate business while using Facebook as an advertising area. For a 2004 founded company, by 2009, Facebook's contracted third parties had earned an estimated $500 million in revenue. All in all, Facebook has been the biggest success in the technology and communications world by adding multiple dimensions for users to communicate, share, find new opportunities, and consume both information and products. 

Key Post: Values of Free Expression

In today's Media Law and Literacy Blog Key Post, we will be discussing the Eight Values of Free Expression. 

Which Resonates with Me most?

I personally believe that number eight, Protect Dissent, is the value that resonates with me most. All in all, Protect Dissent describes that the first amendment protects everyone's views, with popularity being a non factor. The first amendment also describes your right to disagree with the government, or whoever else you want to as well. According to protecting dissent, it is your patriotic duty to critique the government. 

Photo Credit (USAToday)

As an example of this, is the protests against Former President Donald J. Trump back in 2016. The protests came to a head when Portland police had to employ tear gas and flash-bang grenades. In a USA Today article, the news agency mentions five "big cities that had protests the same night that did not become violent while Portland Police sent a tweet describing the protest as it is happening. "Many in crowd trying to get anarchist groups to stop destroying property, anarchists refusing. Others encouraged to leave area." (Portland Police, 2016) These protests sent a message. One that said that a piece of our population and community of Americans was not happy with the election of Trump. Others were ecstatic to see a different kind of President, one that was not a politician, one that ran the country like a business. Even the New York times, one that was extremely critical of Trump, before, during and after his presidency, was somewhat positive on the topic of Trump. The article states that "it was a decisive demonstration of power by a largely overlooked coalition of mostly blue-collar, white and working class voters who felt that the promise of the United States had slipped their grasp amid decades of globalization and multiculturalism. " After accepting candidate Clinton's conciliation, Trump called for unity by saying "Now it's time for America to bind the wounds of division, It is time for us to come together as united people." (New York Times, 2016)

Which Values are Most Important?

Out of all of the eight values. I personally believe that Marketplace of Ideas, Check on Governmental Power and Promote innovation. To start off, Marketplace of ideas resonates with me because it allows the people to perceive what is true and what is not and it demonstrates First Amendment freedoms to a T.  

Photo Credit (Share.america.gov)

Another value that is important is the Check on Governmental Power. This value is important because the people have an opportunity to question and ultimately hold government accountable when it comes to the governments power.  A few good examples of this are the Watergate, Iran contra, and Clinton scandals in which the American people were upset about and demanded action which they received with a varying amount of success. Finally, the next important value is Promoting Innovation. In this value, a group within a community is more likely to come together, create and find more ways to be inclusive as well as promoting diversity and diversity of thought. 

What is Happening Today?

Overall, the value that is happening more today is Promoting Tolerance. One of the major issues within our country is the issue of free speech. 

Photo Credit (firstamendmentwatch.com)

People are using language that is defamatory to others every day and it goes un-checked because of the claim of the use of the First Amendment. The promoting tolerance piece of the first amendment fight is teaching us as Americans to be more tolerant in not only this aspect of life but the other aspects as well. While the freedom of speech may be somewhat counterintuitive, it teaches us how to learn the norms of acceptable conduct.