Author: Ranker Jason J
From: Research in the teaching of English
Date: 20075
Volume: 41
Issue: 4
ISSN: 0034-527X
Pages: 402-434
The Internet is a threat to traditional news organizations, which no longer have the advantage of being the first to report breaking news online, according to a Harvard University study released Thursday.
Researchers at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics & Public Policy found that nontraditional media Web sites, including aggregators, bloggers, search engines and service providers, were growing faster than Web sites connected to traditional news media outlets, such as newspapers. The researchers studied the traffic of 160 news sites for one year, from April 2006 to April 2007.
The Web sites of Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and AOL LLC, as well as MSN and smaller sites such as topix.net, digg.com and reddit.com experienced large increases in traffic.
"Between April 2006 and April 2007, Digg's unique monthly visitors grew from under 2 million to more than 15 million," the study said, adding that Reddit and Topix grew from less than 50,000 visitors a month to more than 700,000.
However, news organizations can still prosper on the Web if they can adapt, the study said.
"Local news organizations are 'brand names' within their communities, which can be used to their advantage," according to the study. "Their offline reach can also be used to drive traffic to their sites. Most important, they have a product -- the news -- that people want. Ironically, some news organizations do not feature the day's news prominently on their Web sites, forgoing their natural advantage."
While traffic to the Web sites of nationally known newspapers grew by 10 percent, traffic to the Web sites of lesser-known newspapers decreased by varying percentages, according to the study.
]]>UC Santa Barbara cultural studies professor Constance Penley, counter that when it comes to literacy among youth, there's entirely too much hand-wringing going on.
"They're reading; they're writing," she said, "just not in the ways we think of it."
According to Penley, we need to see video images and text messages as an evolution rather than a devolution of literacy.
Penley's colleague Alan Liu, an English professor, agreed: "Our kids are reading and writing like crazy," he said.
In 2005, Liu launched a UC-wide project, Transliteracies project, which has scholars studying the evolving definition of literacy in the digital age.
Among the things that make online reading unusual is that it adds a social dimension to literacy, Liu said. "We're researching what reading and writing is becoming if you redefine it to include this whole, thick social zone."
"We need to learn from them (teens)," Penley said. "Transliteracy is not starting from, It's bad,' but, What is reading in the digital era?'"
]]>I will be asking you to post your assignment responses, vlogs, and anything you wish to talk about on this blog. In lieu of using a WebCT type site, I will be posting relevant readings and my own material, including vlog tutorials, on this site. I will also be asking you to comment on each other's posts.
]]>More Teens and 'Tweens Are Creating Content and Connecting Online
for Educational Benefits, Offering Schools New Opportunities to Use Technology
Reports New National School Boards Association Study
Alexandria, VA – August 14 - A new study released today by the National School Boards Association and Grunwald Associates LLC exploring the online behaviors of U.S. teens and ‘tweens shows that 96 percent of students with online access use social networking technologies, such as chatting, text messaging, blogging, and visiting online communities such as Facebook, MySpace, and Webkinz. Further, students report that one of the most common topics of conversation on the social networking scene is education.
Nearly 60 percent of online students report discussing education-related topics such as college or college planning, learning outside of school, and careers. And 50 percent of online students say they talk specifically about schoolwork.
“There is no doubt that these online teen hangouts are having a huge influence on how kids today are creatively thinking and behaving,� said Anne L. Bryant, executive director of the National School Boards Association. “The challenge for school boards and educators is that they have to keep pace with how students are using these tools in positive ways and consider how they might incorporate this technology into the school setting.�
Students report they are engaging in highly creative activities on social networking internet sites including writing, art, and contributing to collaborative online projects whether or not these activities are related to schoolwork. Almost half of students (49 percent) say that they have uploaded pictures they have made or photos they have taken, and more than one in five students (22 percent) report that they have uploaded video they have created.
]]>Online Video: 57% of internet users have watched videos online and most of them share what they find with others
7/25/2007 | MemoReport | Mary Madden
The growing adoption of broadband combined with a dramatic push by content providers to promote online video has helped to pave the way for mainstream audiences to embrace online video viewing. Fifty-seven percent of online adults have used the internet to watch or download video, and 19% do so on a typical day. Three-quarters of broadband users (74%) who enjoy high-speed connections at both home and work watch or download video online.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project's first major report on online video also shows how many video viewers have contributed to the viral and social nature of online video. More than half of online video viewers (57%) share links to the video they find with others, and three in four (75%) say they receive links to watch video that others have sent to them.
Video viewers who actively exploit the participatory features of online video, such as rating content, posting feedback or uploading video, make up the motivated minority of the online video audience. Young adults are the most active participants in this realm.
]]>New Global Study From MTV, Nickelodeon and Microsoft Challenges Assumptions About Relationship Between Kids, Youth & Digital Technology
LARGEST-EVER STUDY SURVEYED 18,000 KIDS AND YOUTH FROM 16 COUNTRIESREPORT HIGHLIGHTS DIFFERENCES IN HOW TECHNOLOGY IS USED ACROSS CULTURES
July 24, 2007: 12:23 PM EST
NEW YORK and LONDON, July 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The average Chinese young person has 37 online friends he or she has never met, Indian youth are most likely to see mobile phones as a status symbol, while one in three UK and US teenagers say they can't live without their games console.
Globally, the average young person connected to digital technology has 94 phone numbers in his or her mobile phone, 78 people on a messenger buddy list and 86 people in his or her social networking community. Yet despite their technological immersion, digi-kids are not geeks -- 59% of 8-14 year-old kids still prefer their TV to their PCs and only 20% of 14-24 year-old young people globally admitted to being "interested" in technology. They are, however, expert multi-taskers and able to filter different channels of information.
These are just some of the findings from the largest-ever global study undertaken by MTV and Nickelodeon, in association with Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, into how kids and young people interact with digital technology. The Circuits of Cool/Digital Playground technology and lifestyle study challenges traditional assumptions about their relationships with digital technology, and examines the impact of culture, age and gender on technology use.
]]>Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
danah boyd
June 24, 2007
Citation: boyd, danah. 2007. "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace ." Apophenia Blog Essay. June 24 . http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.htm
Over the last six months, I've noticed an increasing number of press articles about how high school teens are leaving MySpace for Facebook. That's only partially true. There is indeed a change taking place, but it's not a shift so much as a fragmentation. Until recently, American teenagers were flocking to MySpace. The picture is now being blurred. Some teens are flocking to MySpace. And some teens are flocking to Facebook. Who goes where gets kinda sticky... probably because it seems to primarily have to do with socio-economic class.
]]>hrough a program offered by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), at least 470 middle and high school newspapers now host all, or part, of the content they publish online.
Program organizers say the online repository (www.myhighschooljournalism.org) is meant to help aspiring journalists showcase their work and compare their efforts to those of students in other schools. Schools can register for the site by filling out an application and paying a $50 sign-up fee; beyond that, the organization says, there are no additional charges.
As part of the effort, the ASNE selects the articles it deems among the best from participating schools and features them as part of its National Edition, a compilation of articles from student journalists nationwide.
A companion site--www.highschooljournalism.org--also has lesson plans for teaching journalism, as well as resources for students who are considering journalism as a career.
]]>MOVE OVER, MYSPACE. STEP ASIDE, FACEBOOK. These two technologies may have been pioneers in the world of social software, but nowadays, colleges and universities across the country are embracing better and more targeted forms of technology, to enable their campus users to interact. Today, the world of social software includes traditional venues and formats: blogs, wikis, and podcasts. It also features fresh spins on these old standards, as well as newer, more robust technologies designed to facilitate collaboration for students and administrators alike (see “For Gators Only,� page 42 in our magazine).
Naturally, at schools such as Saint Mary’s College (CA), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Washington University in St. Louis (MO), these collaboration tools enhance the learning environment. Still, the rise of social software on campus raises many questions: How can these tools be leveraged to improve communications and enhance instruction? What d'es the technology imply for the campus IT department? Finally, is social software a significant change in communications? The answers may be more obvious than you think.
Social Software 101
Different people have differing definitions of social software. Generally speaking, however, the technology allows individuals to interact around shared interests and so form niche communities, operate as collectives, and facilitate interpersonal exchange. The software used may be a single communication tool or a combination of tools. Either way, it includes an accessible, inclusive platform with protocols for use. All in all, this platform facilitates back-and-forth discourse; it is not a medium for one-way distribution of ideas.
In today’s academic environment, social software exists in a wide range of forms and flavors. It can be as simple as a student exchanging instant messages (IM) or e-mails with a friend, or as complex as online deliberative democracy (a method of arriving at reality through group input). A one-to-many tool such as a wiki (a type of website that allows visitors to add, remove, and edit available content, sometimes without the need for registration) also could be part of the picture, as long as the overall structure leaves the option for return communication from those among the “many,� possibly even via a secondary software tool.
]]>For this idea, I drew on Henry Jenkins presentation to the National Media Education conference, What Wikipedia Can Teach Us About The New Media Literacies (Part One) http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/06/what_wikipedia_can_teach_us_ab.html#more
and Part Two http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/06/what_wikipedia_can_teach_us_ab_1.html#more
Jenkins notes that through grappling with issues of genre definition (What is Wikipedia?), audience, verifiability, validity, editorial review, etc., students are learning to address and acquire information literacies. For example, in studying changes made in an entry, students can note how supporting evidence for a claim was added to enhance the validity of that claim.
]]> Students can also reflect on challenges involved in collaborative wiki writing related to Wikipedia. One of hte major challenges has to do with editorial oversight: who decides on what material should or should not be included, the validity of information included, or the appropriateness of certain revisions.Students could also examine the issue of verifiability: whether and how statements in Wikipedia are supported in terms of evidence or quotes. Wikipedia states that “Verifiability says that attribution is required for direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. Any material that is challenged and for which no source is provided may be removed by any editor.�
And, they could examine instances of editors’ constant monitoring of entries. In an article by Jonathan Dee "All the News That’s Fit to Print Out� in The New York Times Magazine: Dee notes that a large number of young people serve as editors ready to quickly review and remove misinformation--something that he finds to go contrary to life in the media age of subjectivity: “But the Wikipedians, most of them born in the information age, have tasked themselves with weeding that subjectivity not just out of one another’s discourse but also out of their own. They may not be able to do any actual reporting from their bedrooms or dorm rooms or hotel rooms, but they can police bias, and they do it with a passion that’s no less impressive for its occasional excess of piety. Who taught them this? It’s a mystery; but they are teaching it to one another." Students could discuss how and why these young people really care about editing the entries so that they will be accurate.
And, students could contrast Wikipedia to other rivals: Citizendium, that involves no anonymous editing and whose editors are specialists in particular subjects, orScholarpedia, in which articles are written by experts who act as curators and which includes anonymous peer review. They could also study
Conservapedia in which topics such as “Evolution� are defined in ways consistent with a conservative ideology:
“Creationist scientists believe that mutations, natural selection, and genetic drift would not cause macroevolution.[14][15][16][17][18]. Furthermore, creationist scientists assert that the life sciences as a whole support the creation model and do not support the evolutionary model.�