Blog Post 5

Do Jarvis' and Sullivan's theories on the news and blogging, respectively, agree? Of course! They are almost entirely the same. Jarvis claims that the news is different from "back then" (though he fails to give us a tangible era). Now, news is all around us in many sources, ones when can respond to, creating new stories, ad infinitum. This is a clone of Sullivan's theory on blogging: blogs are posted and then commented on, spurring new blog posts. Sullivan describes how people share information on blogs through links. Jarvis claims people are "distributors" of the news article because of this very same reason. Both authors would agree on this new process of writing and distribution. But are their theories completely uniform? It depends on how one interprets Jarvis' article. Does he dislike the new process or love it? Many of my fellow classmates have felt that Jarvis feels animosity to the new process; however, Jarvis is actually (and obviously) a proponent of it. Why is this obvious? For one, he never says a bad thing about the process; he just points out the differences. Secondly, he refers to the "old process" as everything being filtered through the press, which has a negative connotation to it, whereas the "new process" has unfiltered, raw news, ripe for the reading. Finally, he owns a blog—a piece in the puzzle he likes to call the "Me Sphere." With all of these obvious clues as to whether or not he is a fan of the "new news process," how can one not know his point of view? This shows that Sullivan's theories are almost a complete match of Jarvis'. The theories are so similar, it is almost as if Sullivan's article was rewritten to apply to news in general, or vice versa.

Blog Post 4

I am going to come straight out and say it. This article was extremely difficult to understand. Jarvis, it seems, has great difficulty putting this concept into words, and even then, he still resorts to drawing unclear, plain charts to accompany the article. I had to read the article twice, once completely aloud. There is a particular sentence that I could not decipher, the meaning of which still alludes me: "This is replaced today by a press-sphere in which any of many sources can, thanks to links, add up a story and to fulfilling the need or desire for news and information." I have read this sentence aloud multiple times, each with a different emphasis and inflection, yet I still cannot reap the tiniest morsel of meaning from it. Jarvis also uses pronouns in ways that make what he is trying to say unclear. Perhaps he did not go back and read what he wrote after he finished writing.

Though some of it is almost completely baffling, the parts that do make sense hit the subject on the nose. There is, in fact, a new way the news process works and a modern news ecosystem. Thanks to the Internet, news does not have to come from the press anymore; it can even be found as it is happening, such as a radical new policy posted on a company's website. In terms of the new process, I had never really considered it before; however, the news in today's society is not a one-time deal like before the Internet came into fruition. It truly is ongoing (though there will eventually come a point where the story loses a large amount of interest and is not talked about much anymore). Jarvis' concept that readers are now distributors is also novel, but also completely true. How many people email news stories to their friends or post it on Facebook?

Blog Post 3

Reading the New York Times has been surprisingly educational (I know, that sounds odd). It was surprisingly educational because I learned things I did not know would even be in the newspaper. For example, I learned that medical marijuana is legal in California, but a large amount of dispensaries have opened and are turning a profit, becoming a real problem (though, if no one is getting hurt, I fail to see the problem). A six-year-old Cub Scout in Delaware was suspended from his elementary school because he brought a camping utensil set with which to eat his lunch. Why? Because it had a small two inch knife to cut food. I learned that a particle accelerator in Switzerland may be potentially sabotaging itself from the future because the particles it would create are so abhorred by nature. If a human decreases the amount of calories his body requires in a day by 25%, his body temperature drops, arteries clear, and years are added to his life. All of these little tidbits and more have jumped into my mind, some of which are so intriguing that reading them almost surpasses the time that I learned that antimatter is real and has been created in a laboratory and that everything may be made up by waves. Sadly, I have been skipping out on those more "pertinent" articles—the ones dealing with the Middle East, or the government, or the economy. All in all, I feel my decisions are largely better now, because I have had insight on some of them, and I generally feel more educated.

The Paris Blog

I am following The Paris Blog, a blog dealing with the thoughts and experiences of expats in Paris.

Author: A large variety of "Anglophone expats in Paris."

Purpose: Publish the voices of the authors, detailing their thoughts and experiences.

Audience: People interested in Paris from the viewpoint of an English-speaking person. It is especially helpful for those planning on moving to Paris.

Blog Post 2

Comparing everyone's news sources had a surprisingly strange effect on me. It made me realize that I am not alone when it comes to my lack of news sources. Many of us stated that we were lacking in any major source, and I did not feel like an outsider like I felt I would. I would love to be informed when it came to the news, but it just takes time that I do not have. True, I do spend an abnormally large amount of time on Facebook, but at the same time, I am also doing other stuff on the Internet, such as looking up random things on Wikipedia or shopping. Many of us also relied on others to gather what is going on in the world. Reflecting on this is actually a bit frightening—many of us are either missing huge events that are going on in the world, or if we hear something about it, it is not necessarily accurate or the full story, and almost certainly not unbiased. We're the future of our country, and if we do not know everything that is going on, then our country is in very dangerous hands indeed. There were a few of us, however, that did watch a news source (though I was expecting many more). I was disappointed by those that watch FOX news, though. The station resorts to scare tactics and is infamous for its super-conservative mindset and take on news stories. It is quite similar to what Hedges talks about in his article, where people use the Internet to read news that only catered to his or her interests.

Blogs

http://theparisblog.com/
This is the blog that I chose on my own. I chose it because it was written by an expatriat living in Paris, which is one of my future goals.

http://dailykos.com/
I chose this blog from the list because it's liberal, as am I.

Blog Post 2.1:

Where do I get my news?  Upon first thoughts, my mind drew a blank. I guess that is not a good sign. But then, I delved into the inner workings of my brain and analyzed the last few months and discovered where I really do get my news.  On occasion, I watch the local news or a national news broadcast, but I usually obtain my news from the Internet. About a week ago I was lucky enough to find and download an application for my iPod from the New York Times (which is really neat, and everyone should get it if they have an iPhone or iPod Touch—it is free!), and it has vastly increased the rate at which I acquire news.  Before this wondrous invention, I mainly got my news from, well, Facebook—but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Think about it—Facebook is a great place for news to spread! Statuses, links, photos, videos, and more, all flow by the hundreds, if not thousands, by a user on a daily basis. It would be strange if news did not travel rapidly through Facebook. Of course, I also got news from the obligatory news websites, such as CNN and BBC, through RSS feeds on my browser. The only thing I did not like about these sources was that most of the news was about events in Iraq, which in my opinion, is the same stuff repeated time and time again. My second main source is my peers; they provide both factual information on events that I might have overlooked, but they also add new insight on events of which I had prior knowledge.  Overall, one thing is clear. I need to find more news sources as soon as possible.


Sorry this was late! I slept all day because I think I'm coming down with something.

2nd draft (Again)

Well, I tried to post it last night, but it apparently didn't work. Yay for technology!
2nd Draft