HW 13: Blogs will change your buisness

"Companies over the past few centuries have gotten used to shaping their message. Now they're losing control of it." (Green, 224) In recent years, according to Heather Green, most Companies, or businesses have been 'losing control' of the blogs about their business. The quote above states that in previous years businesses have had no problem getting their ideas out there in a form of blogging that people agree with. But, now blogs are more politically harsh and controversial, which makes it hard for the businesses to ever get their blogs back to normal. I feel that the influence of blogging and communication is more important than that of the influence of blogging and business. I feel this way because, for one, blogging is a form of communication through the internet, and two because blogging yes, puts out information about businesses but, that should not be their way of promoting their product.

HW 11: Making global voices heard

I chose to look at Iaasc Mao's blog at Isaacmao.com/meta. The blog, is in English from what i can see, yet there is some Chinese. Which is what Mackinnon said in the interview, that he is the only blogger that blogs in both English and Chinese. The blogs are mostly about Internet related problems, it says "trouble logging in" or "Gmail accounts" as the titles. But there are also political related blogs and information about china, almost as if they want Americans to look at it and read it, due to that it is in English. Mackinnon states that Chinese blogosphere is very interesting, but very censored. Going off of what mackinnon says about the Chinese blogosphere, I believe that what she says is true, that the Chinese have to be careful about what they say due to the tight security floating in the Internet, many people have gone to jail for their opinions in china. Of course, many will probably disagree with this assertion that the Chinese have it rough trying to speak their mind, but it's true, they do not have the freedom of speech that we have here in America.

HW 9: A weblog saved my life last night

After reading Waldman's piece A weblog saved my life last night I both agreed and disagreed with many points he made throughout the interview. By focusing on the fact that women can 'outsmart' the men by going to blogs that men would not normally go to, Waldman overlooks the deeper problem which is that men can now outsmart the women by going to those blogs anyways. I feel as though men can most definitely go to these blogs that are more aimed towards women, and interact with the women, without them knowing it is in fact a male. This is also why the Internet is so dangerous and misleading. Although I do disagree with this point he makes here, I do agree with his overall thought that 'overwriting' or better known as writing everything, in depth and making every single word count and sound intelligent, it sometimes erases what you really wanted your real point to be. His overall points in this interview all made sense, even though there were times I did disagree with some of them.

HW 7: My so-called blog

In my opinion, being as I was a middle-school child not so long ago, I feel as though kids should be able to write online without a parent monitoring everything that they write. As long as the kids are appropriate and don't get themselves into trouble online, then definitely they should be allowed to express themselves just as equally as adults are able to. According to Emily Nussbaum, she describes a teenage boy who apparently blogs an online journal:

"Then he returns to his own journal to compose his entries: sometimes confessional, more often dry private jokes or koanlike observations on life." (Kline and Burstein 350)

Guardians, or parents, shouldn't have to read what their children are writing in a blog, they can and have access to read them, because it's a blog and it's posted online, but they don't have to. Parents are allowed to write their own online blogs and their children don't necessarily have to read them either, it goes both ways in my personal opinion of this matter. Especially since the children aren't doing anything inappropriate or harmful to themselves by blogging their journals it's not necessary for their parents to observe everything they are writing. This quote shows that this specific example child, is not writing terrible things, or talking to someone that he shouldnt be speaking with.

HW 6: Interest Statement

When looking at my options for my semester long project, for the ways to communicate online I found myself to be interested in Instant messaging, Podcasting, and Socail Networking, in otherwords, facebook. If I were to chose which marginalized groups I was interested in, I would have to say that i would like to learn more about ocercoming sexism because, sexism is mostly directed towards women and the equality they have or dont have, also I would be interested in Overcoming rasism because due to the same reasons, that it has to do with the equality of african american's in contrast to whites, in education, and the civil rights movement. And overcoming homophobia, I personally dont understand why someone could be homophobic, and would like to learn more about why, and how that could happen. And for where in the world i would concentrate these aspects, I chose the United States, and the Europe. Europe to show the differences of united states policies to their policies.

HW 5b: I blog therefore I am

In the reading "I blog therefore I am" Kline makes a point to tell the reader that blogging is the most important form of media today. He then writes that blogs are simply a continuation of a phenomenon (Kline, 246). I would argue that blogging is not, the biggest form of media today. I insist that television, the news and even the radio, are all far more important forms of media in today's society. Blogging on the Internet is indeed a huge part of the media, and a way of getting information out to the world, yet, I quote "Though for the most part not professional writers.." (Kline, 249), this makes me disagree with the fact that 'blogging' is the best way, or the most wide spread form of communication and controversial areas. I question the way that information is portrayed in blogs, due to the fact that the writers, are not necessarily professional.

HW 4: Special K

I went back to my room, and looked for a brand name that would somehow hold a promise, or a guarantee even. With the example of fritos in class, I went straight to looking at food, I found a box of special K in my room and looked at it. Special K is designed for women to lose weight, it's healthy and promises that you will lose weight in 2 weeks. I went to the website which happens to be http://www.specialk.com/ and looked for any quotes that would promote the promise that it holds when i look at the box itself. Quotes like "Dropping a jean size, just got easier" and "Find the perfect jeans to fit the new you" were all over the site. This definitely tells women thats they can lose weight in a short amount of time, and fit into their skinny jeans once again. Every female wants to hear that by eating this food, they can lose weight. It's promoting weight loss is also very misleading in a way, they dont tell you how the special K diet works exactly unless you search deep enough to find the information needed. The promise that it holds indeed does work, and in my experience works well, but the way that it shows the promise, is commonly mistaken and sometimes misleading.

HW 3: Toward a more Participatory Democracy

As I was reading, in the first pages of David Klines chapter on politics and blogging, Kline quoted Frank Barnako of CBS.MarketWatch.com saying, "No one reads blogs". This was the first thing that caught my eye in this book. What? No one reads blogs? Blogs are becoming the most well read and listened to ideas and opinions in the technology world today. Political blogs have become a very important part of the news; Americans tend to read blogs rather than watching television and reading the newspapers about politics. Being able to trust the media became hard after they gave them many reasons not to, so people were dying to hear some honest opinions and blogs were a source that gave that honesty to them. Kline agrues that being able to trust the media became very hard after they gave them many reasons not to, and I agree because blog readers were dying to hear some honest opinions and blogs were a great source to give that honesty to them. I never would have even thought of blogs being that big of a reference that it could change the way that people react with elections, politics and much much more.


9-6-07-- I added work using a template from the book They say I say. (underlined)

HW 2: Blog! The 12 key ideas. How do I connect?

Writing is a way for me to get my thoughts and feelings out. I can not and have never been able to get my feelings out verbally; I am a very introverted person most of the time. I keep a journal, and every so often I write how I’m feeling that particular day or if something exciting had happened to me. With writing, it allows me to get everything I cannot get out to anyone. I have learned in my past English and writing classes that you need to find your 'voice', and that everyone has a 'voice' in writing. I think that it's hard to find your voice most of the time, but when you do, you realize, you can write.
Blogging is a way for people to write, electronically. My journal for me is my form of 'blogging' I suppose. I consider blogging to be a way of releasing feelings, attitudes, and certain thoughts that you just want to share, or about a specific topic. This is my blog, my thoughts. In Dan Bursteins book Blog! How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture, burstein writes about 12 key ideas that he feels sums up the world of blogging. I feel that I can somewhat relate to the second key idea. Blogs are particularly interesting because they marry so much personality and attitude with this complex mix of software technologies.