The Finale: The Evolution of Television and Privacy Online

This is it. This is the last (scheduled) entry for this blog. Now I could've done a post for the last two assignments, but because they're so important I decided "what the hell, I'll combine them into one post." And so here we are, the big megapost to end all posts here. It will get pretty long, but stay with me and we'll see what we can see on one last journey into cyberspace.

First up, the evolution of television. As discussed on previous posts, television is undergoing a rapid change. Do you all remember the days when there were only 3 networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), and everything on TV was pretty much controlled by them? Neither do I! Now television is expanding, people in the US of A have a choice of the original 3 networks as well as other now-familiar faces like FOX, PBS, and even some foreign channels like BBC.

Let's return for a moment to the bygone era of TV. Back then the big 3 (networks) controlled what you watched and when. VCR's existed in prototypes and no one had heard of DVD's or even Laserdiscs! Your TV Guide was your best friend in these days, telling you what programs were on at what time for that particular week, so you could plan your life accordingly.
Now TV Guide has been rendered all but obsolete thanks to TiVo. TiVo hasn't been around very long, but it has become very popular with the American people
(I should know, my family has NI NE!). TiVo works similar to a VCR in that it records a program for later viewing, but instead of recording it to a magnetic tape it records it digitally to a hard drive. The latest series of TiVo DVR's (Digital Video Recorders) now allow you to "burn" recorded programs t o a writable DVD. TiVo also has a feature that is similar to TV Guide's function: it receives data from the networks about what shows are on which channels and when, also providing any special information that is necessary (e.g a guest host, an extended program and so on). The user can ask TiVo to record this one instance of the program, or get a "season pass" which will automatically record all episodes of the program that will air this season.

But with the evolution of media, TiVo now has been integrated with the internet. The latest TiVo's can now connect to a local area network, and download media from the internet. For example, the popular video site YouTube has a page that instructs you on how to watch YouTube videos on your TiVo. The page also tells you how to watch YouTube videos on other devices, like the Nintendo Wii. In previous posts we talked about how Television was expanding outwards to the internet, and now the opposite is happening here: the internet is coming to television. This makes the line that divides "television" and "the internet" very blurry, and I suspect that it will soon disappear altogether. If the current trend continues as is, I predict in about 10 years or so that TV's will be fully integrated with computers. You wouldn't need to buy separate machines anymore, you could watch your favorite show and then using your remote (and/or perhaps a QWERTY keyboard that could be plugged in via USB) you could go online to a blog, like this one, and make a post about what you just saw.

Now in a way, this is already happening. As stated above the Nintendo Wii along with Sony's Playstation 3 can now watch videos on the internet, and similar softwa re is coming soon for the Xbox 360. However there are already some TV channels that can be watched online, and vice versa.

Let me tell you a personal story about this: when I was a kid my dream was to be an Astronaut, and that desire still has not changed. So while other kids my age were watching Barney or Big Bird on PBS, or the shows on Nickelodeon (the good ones, not the drivel they have on now), I was watching the NASA channel. Yes, such a channel exists. The NASA channel is what it sounds like, it airs live coverage of space missions (usually the Space Shuttle and ISS) as well as programs pertaining to spaceflight, aerospace, engineering, and so on. I used to watch this channel every day until the evil empire Comcast removed it from it's lineup. Fortunately NASA broadcasts its channel online, where you and I and everyone can view it 24/7. They have a programming schedule as well so you know what's comin g up next. You can also watch the NASA channel on your PC's media center if you have one.

In The Television will be Revolutionized, Lotz lists something called "Th e 5 C's of the Post-Network era." Theses are: Choice, Control, Convenience, Customization, and Community. To end this part of the blog let's see how they play out in a n era of TV merging with the internet.

• Choice: Gone are the days of network tyranny and dominance, now you are free to watch what you want, when you want. Be it from watching episodes of the hottest TV shows on YouTube or Hulu, or letting TiVo do it's thing.
• Control: Playing into the above statement, viewers have more control over their entertainment than ever before. You have hundreds of channels to choose from, not to mention the content available on the web.
• Convenience: DVR's let you watch TV shows that you've recorded, and you can even use the internet to tell your DVR to record a show while you're away from home. With YouTube and Hulu and iTunes you can watch your favorite shows on your iPods or laptop PC's.
• Customization: TiVo allows you to pick which shows to watch, and even suggests shows for you based on your recording history (though this can result in hilariously awkward situations) and with the internet content available on YouTube, etc. you no longer are limited to what the networks insist on showing you.
• Community: The best part of this who endeavor: you can connect with people from around the world who enjoy the shows that you do! ABC, FOX, NBC, and CBS have web sites set up for their biggest shows (such as Survivor, V, and 24) which feature message boards for fans of the show to commune. You can also watch clips of episodes and even full episodes on those sites.

Okay, let's take a short break from this. While you're digesting all this in, have 100 quotes from Seinfeld!

Moving right along now. One of the many features (and dangers) of the internet is the lack of privacy. As this video so aptly states you can find out virtually anything about anyone online. One of my favorite things to do online is Google the screennames of my friends, and report any particularly hilarious results (try doing a Google search for heliosphoenix sometime, I dare you). Unfortunately if I can find this information about you, so can everyone else. Forget the CIA or MI5, or hell even terrorists, Joe Six Pack can now find out a lot of things about you, and should this information fall into the wrong hands...could be trouble.

Now part of this is because we all willingly post information about ourselves online. Take a look at this screenshot of my Facebook profile As you can see, I've filled out quite a bit about myself here. Some of the details have been blurred out for privacy reasons (ironically), but this gives you an example of what information can be easily accessed by anyone with a basic understanding of the internet. We are asked for our age, sex, family members, home address, even our phone number! Now we don't feel too concerned by putting all this info, I mean Facebook is supposed to be a safe site right? Well, maybe it's not. Either way, that information is out there, and it's available to everyone.

Remember Second Life? The folks at Linden Lab also require personal information about you in order for you to access some of the mature-rated areas. This is a screenshot of their age verification page.

It's not surprising that this age verification method has gotten a lot of negative reception from the Second Life community. You already need to provide a cell phone and credit card number just to join. Here they ask you for your name, address, city, state, country, and either your Social Security number, or the last 4 letters of your drivers license. The information must be true and accurate or the verification will fail. As you can imagine, not everyone is comfortable with such sensitive information being in the hands of anyone who isn't working for the government, and there has been a lot of outcry against this system. Fortunately there are ways around age verification (which I cannot go into here), but this isn't all jokes and policies. In September of 2006, Second Life's customer database server was hacked. While the pay ment info (such as credit card numbers) was encrypted, personal information (such as real names and addresses) was not. This is just one example of many of the dangers of giving out sensitive information.

Now the odds of you getting hacked aren't as high as you would think, provided you know what you are doing online (no responding to Nigerian princes!) but sometimes people can get your personal information, and this can cause problems. Enter Encyclopedia Dramatica (WARNING! NSFW!) the toxic waste dump of the internet. A wiki run by the people who are typically found on the /b/ board of 4chan, this is a site that humiliates and degenerates everyone and everything for the sake of getting a laugh. Targets include celebrities (like Miley Cyrus and Justin Beiber), but most of the pages are dedicated to harassing and mocking ordinary people. Hundreds upon thousands of typical internet users like you have a page dedicated to them, hell I even have a page about me on that site! These pages as a whole m ock and deride and make fun of the person in question, as well as post info like any websites they may have, or private conversations between them and someone else, and sometimes their personal info. With these pages internet troublemakers can harass and torment you with ease. Now I haven't gotten my share of said morons, but others have, and being slandered on the internet is a devastating thing indeed.

Now the new trend in business is to use sites like Facebook to judge potential employees, or even their current ones. Again, everyone can see what you put on there. Recently though the internet has been used for legal means. My favorite example is a case involving Troy Judge Michael Martone, and some Michigan State Students. The short version of the story is this: these girls were caught drinking at their High School prom, and were charged with MiP's with Martone giving the sentencing, including a direct order to stay away from alcohol. The girls then went to MSU, and during a dorm party one night (where they were served alcohol) they took pictures of themselves and posted them on a website they created, with the title "F U Martone." Martone was not amused, and the girls were sla pped with a jail sentence.

Now with all those to take in, it certainly feels like Big Brother is watching us, and indeed they are in a way. Google Maps now have "Street View" which allow users to panoramic images of streets that were taken by cars equipped with special cameras. Google's ultimate goal is to get a view of every street in the world, so it's unsurprising that a fair amount of privacy concerns have come up. The US Military and Department of Defense has asked that Google not take pictures in the vicinity of military bases, and that any existing photos of bases be removed, a request Google complied with. In the UK there were supposedly photos taken of a man leaving a sex shop, another man being arrested, and even another m an vomiting. 200 people also claimed that they could identify themselves in the images (despite Google's pledge to blur out the faces of people in photos) and the village of Broughton actually formed a human wall to stop the car from taking pictures. It's also believed that Google may not be able to take pictures in European Union countries due to privacy concerns.

So it seems that cyberspace is not as safe as we think, but this should not dissuade you from experiencing it! These blogs have examined many aspects of a world that is increasingly being integrated and fused with cyberspace, with beneficial results for all. Today people around the world can connect with each other like never before, and share ideas, thoughts, information, and media. Artists can reach a wider audience than they would in a world without the internet, and can rake in immense profits. Google is now the universal to ol for answering our questions, whatever they be, and with technology like the iPod, we can remain connected to the world even as we travel around it. This uniting of the global community is a monumental achievement, but it's still not finished yet. Sure there's some things that can be done better, and there's some dangers involved, but this really is a glorious new beginning for the people of the world, who are no longer divided by petty barriers like race or ideology.

Since these issues are becoming more and more critical to how our daliy lives work, there is a lot of ground to cover, and in fact I hope to continue this blog with postings about such issues as they evolve and change, and any new ones that may arise. For now though we shall have to content ourselves with these entries.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this blog as much as I enjoyed making it. I know these entries got pretty long, but I hope I was able to entertain, inspire, and educate you all. For anyone who wishes to discuss these issues with me or just say hi, I can be reached at my regular email: orionjoseph@hotmail.com or my gmail: heliosphoenix@gmail.com. My Twitter account is HeliosPhoenix, and my Second Life account is Helios Eusebio.

(Note that I get a lot of messages every day, and while I can't respond to all of them, I do read all of them).

Again, I hope you all enjoyed the writing on the Wall, and I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors. I hope that as the world turns, the internet will become an even better place and our world will truly be united. And from what I have seen, I truly believe that such a day is close at hand.

For now, this is Joseph "Helios" Niemiec, signing off.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiVo

http://www.youtube.com/youtubeonyourtv

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_TV

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

Lotz, Amanda D.. The Television will be Revolutionized. New York City: NYU Press academic, 2007.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoUJvAQg7KI

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor/

http://abc.go.com/shows/v/index#

http://fox.com/24

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKsUlf20DF0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PlofmoUu8s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT322GiT5lw&feature=related

http://techcrunch.com/2006/09/08/metaverse-breached-second-life-customer-database-hacked/

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Main_Page

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1014205&referrerid=93883

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=&layer=c&cbll=40.758437,-73.985164&cbp=11,42.04,,0,-6.66&ie=UTF8&om=1&panoid=s_TY766yv4kWDddHKN8OVQ&t=h&ll=40.75844,-73.985195&spn=0.042649,0.174923&z=13&utm_campaign=en&utm_medium=ha&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-bk-svn&utm_term={keyword}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View_privacy_concerns

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1167211/ROBERT-HARDMAN-A-English-revolt-sees-Googles-spies.html

Journalism in the Digital age

This is usually the part where I begin with a long introduction, but instead I'll let Edward R. Murrow do the talking.

In this journal, we shall discuss how journalism is evolving with the advent of digital media, and the positive and negative effects it has on the world.

One of the great advantages of being a journalist in this country is the freedom of the press that is guaranteed by the first amendment. In fact journalists are technically not bound by law in terms of press coverage, only the ethics of journalism. At it's core journalism ethics mainly dictate that stories be presented accurately, and without any bias or "spin" for one side of the argument. Libel and Slander (the spread of false information with the intent to damage the reputation and/or credibility of someone) are also looked down upon harshly.

The reason why journalism ethics are supposed to be followed to the letter is to avoid "yellow journalism." Yellow journalism is where stories have details exaggerated and/or falsified entirely for the sake of selling newspapers. William Randolph Hearst is the most notable example, with his seemingly blatant disregard for journalism ethics (for the sake of destroying his rival Joseph Pulitzer) actually leading the United States into a war with Spain. Hearst is (not surprisingly) the basis for the character of Charles Foster Kane in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (Hearst was so enraged by the obvious parody of him that he actually attempted to bribe MGM into destroying the film print).


But hey, it's 2010. Hasn't journalism progressed beyond that? Well in a way, no. The newscasters on the major networks have at times held more sway over popular opinion than the government. Walter Cronkite was able to almost completely eliminate support for the Vietnam war in just a single broadcast. More people know the names of the local NBC and FOX stations than the members of the Detroit city council (the ones that haven't fucked up that is). Despite the almost constant exposure of these personalities to the general public, journalism ethics continue to be subverted. It doesn't happen much on the local stations because they're exposure is rather limited, and they give most attention to local stories, but on the 24 hour cable news networks it becomes more apparent. The most infamous example is FOX News, with it's center-right bias, and MSNBC and CNN have recently developed a left-wing bias that is equal to (if not greater than) FOX.

Why is there so much bias in journalism? It's mainly an unintended side-effect that is often exploited when a news agency is deliberately trying to broadcast a specific agenda. A friend of mine, Greg Bowman, is an anchorman for WWJ, a local radio affiliate of CBS (who's famous eye is at the right of your screen, staring into your soul). In an interview that I conducted for my journalism class in 11th grade, Bowman stressed that being truly objective was impossible, because everyone has their own history and opinions about a story. For this reason interviews done by the local stations are usually short, in order to keep some objectivity in their broadcasts.

Okay enough exposition, let's talk about journalism in the new age. The advent of the internet has now allowed the news networks to increase their audience to virtually the whole world. The major networks have YouTube channels, as well as some international agencies like the BBC, one of the most trusted broadcasting services in the world. But in addition to the growing presence of the networks, we have a new type of journalism: citizen journalism.

Citizen journalism is what it sounds like. Citizens the world over can now be journalists without the need of a network or a nice haircut. They don't have to cover world events, just something simple like a local city hall meeting, or a high school football game. They would write an article about it and post it on a blog not altogether different from this one. If covering the news isn't their thing, they can fact-check articles from other agencies, pointing out errors or evidence of bias. Sometimes people are citizen journalists without even knowing it, especially when a major event is going down. On 9/11 countless people took images of that horrible day, and those were broadcast around the globe by the networks. In 2004 when Sri Lanka was devastated by a tsunami, footage shot by the citizens of the island was also broadcast. In 2009 when Iran went into a virtual media lockdown over protests relating to it's elections, Twitter was used by many to give details about what was happening inside the country.

One of the most unique examples of internet journalism is the Drudge Report, run by Matt Drudge and Andrew Breitbart. Drudge Report (perhaps best known for being the first to break the Monica Lewinsky scandal) is unique in the sense that it does very little reporting, and any reports it does make are based off tips from inside sources. Instead, Drudge links to news articles on other websites, which report on a variety of subjects from politics to sports to entertainment. Drudge Report has a pretty obvious right-wing bias, and it sometimes edits its headlines in a manner similar to yellow journalism, however this is done to make the headlines more noticeable, and not for the sake of misleading.

While this may or may not fit into this category, I believe that it deserves an honorable mention anyway. WikiLeaks can be described as something of an aggressive take on journalism in that it's goal is to publish leaked documents from governments while preserving the anonymity of those involved. The purpose is to allow journalists and to expose unethical and/or illegal practices used by various governments around the world. Since 2007 WikiLeaks has over 1.2 million documents that have been said to be leaked. Some of the more notable ones are the human rights violations at Gitmo, the members list of the far-right British National Party, over 600 internal UN reports, the "climategate" emails, a 32 page DoD intelligence report (which ironically was about WikiLeaks) and most recently, classified video of a 2007 US airstrike in Baghdad that killed 12 people, including two members of the news staff for Reuters.

Murrow began this blog by saying our history will be what we make it. As technology continues to evolve, I predict that journalism will as well. Citizen journalism will become the new norm, which would give a new meaning to "man on the street." The future of journalism ethics is up in the air, especially if there are more networks that are owned by major corporations, like General Electric (MSNBC) and News Corp (FOX News). More sites like WikiLeaks will appear, especially in areas where the government controls the media, and therefore the news. The freedom of the press is both a benefit and a threat, in that our reporters can give us the real story about what is happening in the world, but at the same time a single broadcast can topple a government.

William Randolph Hearst once said "You provide the pictures, I'll provide the war." Today anyone can provide the pictures and the war, what matters now is how we use the pictures to present the war to the world. The press can serve either the interests of the governments, the interests of the people, or the interests of itself. No matter which option it chooses though, there will be hell to pay for the losers.

Good Night, and Good Luck.


References

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cfwsfGqgPM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-greatest-story-ever-told-sixty-years-of-citizen-kane-682857.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Journalism

http://www.drudgereport.com/

http://wikileaks.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks

All pictures licensed through creative commons.