On Blogs...

This is the first blog I have had the joy of writing and watching grow. It was very enjoyable and useful. Most class assignments require you to be formal and not totally expressive of your ideas. With this blog I was able to put out ideas that I needed feedback on. The comments component of blogs was also very useful. It gave people that read my posts a chance to say whether or not they agree and why. When I had to write the papers, this ended up being very useful. Furthermore, with blogs you are not restricted by the structure. Anything goes as long as it gets the message across. This certainly is not the case with most class essays. Combined with this lack of structure, the ability to embed videos, photos, and links within the text makes for a very immersive reading experience. I don't see myself blogging much in the near future, but I certainly see it as a medium that I could potentially use. The problem is, while not as specialized, one gets more feedback on sites like Facebook.

Logical Fallacies

You can't even open your computer without encountering a logical fallacy. Last week I started up my computer and this message for some antivirus software popped up:

This is a prime example of false dichotomy.  We are presented with two options, but at the end of the day they either reinforce only one option, or in this case end up being the same option. When the user tries to get rid of this message, the only option is to activate. What user does have control over is when it is activated, but that is worthless if the program is not wanted. As per definition in the Writing 140 course book; false dichotomy " coercively restricts the range of potential responses" making it a threat to our ability to explore other choices.

Examples of Digital Activism

In 2011 demonstrations and revolution struck Egypt. Digital media was credited for the success of the demonstrations and many considered sites such as Facebook and twitter the way of the future. One Egyptian activist even stated"We us Facebook to schedule the protest, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world".This with the addition of Google executive Wael Ghonim's statement:

left everyone in awe of the power of the internet for situations like this. However, this was far from the truth. In the months after the movement it became apparent the popularity of Facebook and twitter in the revolution was a fabrication of the west as it was the primary medium through which they received information from Egypt. Arguments against the theory that the internet played a major role include facts like; very few people in the middle east use social networking sites, these sites are too public to evade authorities, and few people trust these sites for dependable news. More news can be found on the matter here.


If you clicked on the link above you may have noticed that it directed you to Wikipedia. This site has also played a role in internet activism. Late in 2011 when the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (read more about SOPA )came out Wikipedia, Google, and a couple other sites decided to black out for a day. Anyone used the internet that day probably saw a blank page for Google, or this:

for Wikipedia. As expected this outraged many users and brought about action. As a result the stopping of the SOPA bill was extremely successful, and the internet played a large role in activism. The success of this can be traced back to the audience of the movement. People that used the internet were reached through the internet and therefore got the message and were motivated to cause a disturbance. This is ties back to Egypt, and why it couldn't have been Facebook and Twitter that caused the revolution.


Another example of internet activism is that of KONY 2012. This movement took the world by surprise and in two days everyone you knew had either seen or hear of the video.

With the excellent camera work and the clever editing, the video got very popular over the course of a week. Eventually people began to realize that the motives of the video weren't exactly what was expected and the Ugandan government even clarified that Kony wasn't even the biggest issue that the country faced. Within a couple of days the movement lost pretty much all popularity and fell off the radar in a very pathetic manner. In this instance the internet and digital media failed at activism. The biggest flaw was the amount of bias that could be placed on a subject through the internet and the lack of credibility that any piece of digital media ends up having.


The recurring problem for the movements that failed was the audience. They were trying to reach the wrong people on the internet and as a result failed. The only one that succeeded did so because it managed to reach its target audience. The other flaw was the complacency of "supporters" of the movements. In most instances people felt they had done enough for the movements when they shared the Kony video or like the protesting in Egypt page. The internet may be great for telling people what kind of activist movements are going on, but it is terrible in effectively attaining followers.

Internet Activism

Despite how easy it is to be a part of social activism on the internet, I have never participated. One reason is that, in general if you actually care about the cause, then clicking like or donating 5 dollars isn't going to cut it. Furthermore, when you join activist movements, often times you don't get the full story and you could end up agreeing to something that doesn't represent your values at all. An excellent example of this is kony 2012 and how quickly it went of the radar. Even in the I will take part in any sort of digital or internet activism.

My Take On Wiki

Wikipedia has always been at the top of my list when trying to get information quickly. After my discovery of the discussion and talk tabs on the site, I have seen how the information gets to the web pages I use. The conversations on these discussion pages are comforting because you see how much work goes towards the final product that is presented to the users. It isn't really useful to get information quickly from these discussion pages, but it will be useful when I have free time to roam wikipedia. Hence my use won't really change. I may consider joining the discussions if I feel like I have expertise in a subject that is not well represented, however, that wont occur for a while.

Knowledge Acquisition through Authoritative vs. Communal

Having knowledge is commonly associated with being "correct". However, some people are more knowledgeable or "correct" than others. This is where tension arises in the realm of knowledge acquisition. Before the internet authoritative knowledge was the only source and therefore the best. The movement known as web 2.0 changed that as people had new mediums with which to communicate. As a result this left people in search of knowledge with a choice.

In my own experiences, I have certainly witnessed tensions between authoritative and communal knowledge. None of my teachers in high school approved of the use of Wikipedia at all, not even as an encyclopedia with which to begin research. They presented Wikipedia in a poor light that made me suspicious of the site as well. However, it was difficult to not use Wikipedia given its convenience. The information on communal sites such as Wikipedia is constantly being renewed and improved, something that is difficult for an authoritative source to do because it would imply that they were wrong in the first place. Furthermore, the way Wikipedia is set up, promotes learning even more as you end up going in tangents you might not have thanks to hyperlinks within the text. It is difficult to claim one source as more useful than the other, because each has its merits, but in terms of convenience, communal sources and Wikipedia specifically win hands down.

Tiger's Apology

Given the situation in which Tiger Woods found himself, an apology would have had a positive effect. A sincere  apology made to both his wife/family and fans/business partners would certainly give him the foundation to begin the recovery process. Tiger did end up making a public apology. His goals in this apology were to not only show sincerity to his family, but also explain to his fans what was going on. Despite the potential good that could be done by the apology, what Woods did wasn't entirely successful. In his apology he not only flattered himself, but also demanded that the media stop poking for more information. While his public apology didn't hurt him, had he left some comments out, it would have been an effective at fixing the problems he faced.