Information Cornucopia

Making an online portfolio or personal home page or participating on a site like Facebook requires you to divulge information about yourself online. This information then becomes visible to anyone on the Web, including your family, your (future) employers, your friends, your boyfriend or girlfriend, and your exes. Due to the blatant indiscretion to privacy, one must decide what is suitable personal information to disclose on the web. To decide, one must consider how one will appear in pictures as well as how one will come across when they join groups on Facebook, or post comments on both Facebook or Myspace. Not surprisingly, there are potential problems of posting specific personal information about oneself for all Web users to see. First off, the ease of access allows anyone, as mentioned before, including those that would potentially stalk another person, to see exactly who you talk to, where you go, what exactly you like, and what you look like in your dorm room, at the club, in the bar, on trips, with the family, etc.,etc., etc., ad nauseum. Not only are stalkers a problem, but jealous exes, and future employers can see who, what, and where you consume alcohol or marijuana. This makes hiring much easier or harder for employers that could use these sites to 'review' prospective employees. As far as these employers basing hiring or firing decisions on these sites, I believe as long as you put yourself out there, taking and posting pictures of yourself smoking bongs or offensive content about your life, work, or those around you, it's all fair game for employers to check up on you. Absolutely.
As far as confided or guarded information being uncovered using a Web search, that again seems to be fair game. As long as you put yourself out there on the Web, a public domain connecting people by common interests or popular websites, any information you disclose on said public forum can and will be accessed by someone you probably don't want to see it. To me, that seems like the risk nearly all college students, and the myriad of other users, take everyday when they log on, upload, and sift through the mass of meaningless likes and dislikes found on sites like Facebook and Myspace. If you don't want people to know you, what you're doing, what you look like, and who and what you like, then delete these sites from your mind and hard drive. It's all meaningless details in the end, yet people persist and wonder why the creepy guy in their class knows their name and shoe size.

**Disclaimer**

I uphold my opinions about said websites, but I must admit I am a member and user of the aforementioned sites. Despite the glaring hypocrisies, I must offer a defense. I am a resident assistant at Niagara University, and use Facebook to remember the names of the hundreds of people I see everyday. As far as Myspace is concerned, I have just about 100 friends and half of them are bands. The other half are just some of my best friends from home and others that found me on their own. Myspace offers incredibly easy and organized access to bands, highlighted with merch deals, pictures, and even updated and extensive touring schedules. I attend about 10-15 hardcore concerts a year, so Myspace becomes valuable in a pinch. Now that I have defended myself, take from this what you will.

Technological Bombardment

When considering the present and future state of journalism, there are many technologies changing the way news is presented, communicated and received. Last week, I touched upon the same issues of technology dictating the direction of a certain industry, and media as an industry, as well as communication, are experiencing this technology boom firsthand. The Web 2.0 movement is ushering in a whole new dimension to the way we communicate on all fronts of life: personal, social, work-related, business, and even the need for daily, timely news. Blackberries and cell phones with Internet capabilities hasten this transition into the new realm of technology and media convergence. Now people can log onto their blog from the train station and during their commute to the office, share with a world of Web users their thoughts on anything and everything. During that same commute, one can trade stocks, buy a car, instant message the daughter at college, or get directions to the next destination. This instant publishing allows anyone with the technology, which is getting cheaper and cheaper due to mass production, to have a voice and make it heard. The Web 2.0 explosion has also seen a stark increase in user participation in creating, editing, and contributing content through things like blogs and wikis. This now allows many users across any distance to collaborate on one published piece of content, like what wikipedia does; bringing together the knowledge of many to make it one extensive, comprehensive item. This is significant for journalism because the technology is changing the way the industry has a whole operates and how its users access the content. Print versions of publications are now taking a back seat to the online versions of the same name. People are more concerned about how their Web contributions look and feel, so attention to other issues, internal and external, has lessened. The face of journalism as generations prior knew it is now beginning to change. For the better or for the worse, only the future knows what is in store for journalism, print publications, and media/communication technology convergence.

Dead-Tree Dangerous

In [1]" Newspapers Should Really Worry," Adam L. Penenberg says:
The Post experience merely mirrors the results of a September study by the Online Publishers Association, which found that 18- to 34-year-olds are far more apt to log on to the internet (46 percent) than watch TV (35 percent), read a book (7 percent), turn on a radio (3 percent), read a newspaper (also 3 percent) or flip through a magazine (less than 1 percent).

Seeing as that I am currently in that demographic, commenting on the relevance of this study definitely is within my grasp. As far as my media consumption is concerned, the study gives no credit to those that pick up books and magazines, which I do much more frequently than turn on the radio, read a newspaper, or even watch TV. For me, books and magazines provided concrete, printed stories at your disposal forever. Only fire can destroy our printed materials; one virus or electrical surge/outage, and online, television, and radio sources would be no more. The radio is nice once in awhile, I tend to listen to one radio station, 91.1 JazzToronto, and I can only get it when I'm up at school. The Internet is a valuable resource in my life, covering all aspects of my life: school, hobbies, communication, curiosity, etc. Thus, there are many differences between my habits, and the projected habits of my demographic from the study mentioned. To rank the categories with my media habits in mind, it would resemble this:
1) Internet
2) Books
3) Magazines
4) Watch TV
5) Turn on a radio
6) Read a newspaper

Because I enjoy print forms more than television, I'm actually the minority in the demographic, and most likely amongst my peers.
As far as news is concerned, I really don't trust the popular news sources on television, in newspapers, on even on the Internet. I tend to read news that I may have the chance being active around. Therefore, I limit my news consumption, and usually my Internet consumption for that matter, to sites and sources like IndyMedia, DemocracyNOW, Alternet, DefCon, or even ACLU newsletters. It's not worth my attention if I can't do something about it. I don't trust the media as a whole, so television news isn't my forte either.
When considering the existence and popularity of print forms in the future "when the dead-tree readers [...] die off," I believe magazines have achieve more of a cult, and therefore popular resemblance in my generation and in our culture than newspapers ever could. Zines like Rolling Stone, GQ, Playboy, and Penthouse (sadly) are emblazoned in our pop culture, but are starting to lose their foothold in regards to the various cornucopia of sites on the Internet. So, for my peers, I think print versions will take back seat at to the online editions of news and print. With wireless and fiber-optic technologies expanding, the emergence of all sorts of handless, wireless technologies are on the horizon. Cell phones, mp3 players, navigational systems, and hand-held computers will soon be available on one device and in nearly everyone's pocket. Our consumption will be, and always has been, dependent on the technology brought forth and unto the media industry. Therefore, I believe any major shifts in readership of newspapers and magazines will have a lot to do with the technology of the time, which in turn dictates media consumption, news consumption, and the people's interests. Technologies, combined with the media industry, leads to nearly instant profit turnaround for all companies involved. This convergence will change the way future generations get their news and experience media.

URLs in this post:[1] Newspapers Should Really Worry: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65813,00.html

Experiences Abound

Since this is my first blog, my experiences surrounding web writing are few and far between. I am an avid Web browser, but the blog is my first experience writing for the Web. My use of profile sites like Myspace and Facebook may be considered Web writing, but it is limited since they are used more for correspondence and profiling oneself, rather than to publish serious works or opinion pieces. Also, I have had some experience posting comments and replies on sports-related message boards through online hockey communities and fan sites.
As far as writing for the Web in my career/future, I hope that someday I can write for an online magazine, as my ultimate career goal is to become a successful writer on several different fronts of the profession. I think communication, and writing, via the Web is a growing and influential piece of the puzzle that makes up mass communication and media. I myself am the member of several online politically-oriented flashgroups. Grassroots movements have sprung up on both ends of the political spectrum, so there is a wealth of opportunity for our generation and the next to become influential, based solely on the work one does via the Web. So, hopefully someday I can write for an influential online magazine that provides users with information and insight based on cultural events/interests.