New Media Communication Class - Essay Example

New Media Communication Class Question 1 The sunlight foundation technology is based on the assumption that openness and transparency, coupled with technology leads to better democracy and governance. This assumption is well known worldwide. Sunlight hopes that people will embrace their technology driven openness and transparency thus view the organization as the best disinfectant. The technology empowers citizens by giving them access to information about government activities. An organization is in fact, a citizens group. It also provides tools for them to use to put the information in appropriate ways. The foundation has achieved this through the elimination of the barriers to communication between the political leaders and the general public. The primary aim of the technology is to strengthen the relationship between citizens and the policy makers to bring about a trust in the congress. Technology and the internet are the two crucial pillars of the project. Sunlight transparency ensures that citizens can demand change from the government. It also makes sure that corruption is eliminated from public offices. Civic action plan under the sunlight foundation is carried out through transparency action plan (TAP) summit. It is a City Camp inspired camp that focuses on discussing significant best practices in transparency, creation of workgroups that foresee the achievement of set goals. The sunlight foundation is launching a new software/hardware platform IFTTT that users can use to connect their accounts to multiple services to allow actions to one service initiate certain actions to another service. They help citizens perform powerful actions. The channel was launched with two initiators i.e. the president signs the bill, and a bill is scheduled for a vote. If the president signs a bill citizens can send text messages or if a bill is scheduled for voting the citizens can add it to Google calendars. This helps citizens know more about what is happening in the political arena[Car14]. It also helps them Participate more in the daily activities of their government hence enhance civic participation and better citizenship. References Car14: , (Carbaugh, 2014), Question 2 This is a blogger mainly concerned about the manner in which parents indulge in very dangerous expeditions, exposing their little kids to eminent problems. In her essay, the blogger is so concerned about the manner in which it has become very hard to maintain anonymity, hence, posing a security threat. She starts off by mentioning how well the digital world, such as the use of the social media platforms may enhance connection with various people. Her arguments are that, inasmuch as the different platforms may feel magnificent, more so at documenting events and everyday life of an individual, there are challenges that come with it. Besides, they may help in the connection of a person’s life between the real world and the natural world; which is a challenge too. She uses the post previously made by Facebook, which asserts that it can merge the information gathered from the various algorithms to give feedback. Throughout the post, the main concern of the blogger is the risk of exposure that comes with involving in the digital world. In fact, she even mentions that the exposure could at some point present itself as an embarrassment to the victim. Besides, she indicates the group of hackers that built an application that had the ability of scanning faces and recognizing them. In her opinion, she suggests avoiding the creation of the digital content for kids as the first step to preventing the challenge of overexposure. She surely does not entirely discourage the use of the social platforms. However, she outlines the best way to avoid exposure as not posting photos or even videos. She mentions how they went about to get to register her newborn‘s URL. Before choosing a name for her, they searched the various sites to see to it that their choice of the name was valid. Then, they used a series of security details to register her with all the sites such as Twitter, Instagram, but with all linked to a single email account. She then mentions the use of a password management system to help keep all login information for her child. The various techniques endorsed by the blogger on how to go about establishing a proper privacy solution for the digital world may be very useful. However, the main challenge that may come with them is the affordance of the particular methods. They tend to be quite expensive, for instance, as posted by Boyd (3), the use of password management system will require subscriptions that are quite expensive. She may seem to be getting too cautious; however, the precautions may be very relevant and necessary. After all, why should one save at the expense of risking personal privacy, which is regarded by all? Besides, there is not a person that may manage away from the social scene with the advancement of the digital world. Therefore, we may opt to stay, but take the relevant precautions. Reference Boyd . It’s Complicated, Ch. 2; class discussions on privacy issues; technological affordances; privacy solutions. 2012. Print. Question 3 The site talks about Google inspiring young people around the world not only to use technology but create it. In order to achieve its objectives, the company offers the following. Technical Internships and Summer Programs The company offers a number of computer science students from various backgrounds an opportunity to experience how to technology is being used. For, students graduating from high school the company offers CSSI (Computer Science Summer Institute) while, for University students, the company offers internships. According to Anil Kokaram, a soft engineer with the business students learn a variety of things. For example, Jeanette Miranda, who is an engineering practicum intern, leant mathematics, statistics, and she also has group access to all Google infrastructure, hierarchies and Google build. It is, therefore, clear that Google Company is trying to reach the community. Scholarship and Grants The company offers scholarship and grants to bright students who are having the ambitions of becoming computer scientists. The scholarships are aimed at graduate or undergraduate students and also high school seniors who are willing to go for further education in Canada or US. Getting girls to code According to the company, the World is composed of various elements that work together in a unified manner. It is with this in mind that the Company noted that the majority of girls do not study Computer Science; therefore, the whole voice is missing. Therefore, getting girls to talk is an initiative that is meant to empower girls who would like to pursue their dreams through Computer Science. Building momentum for CS education in the UK The company through UK government has managed to put computing on the secondary and primary schools which began in September, 2014. The company has also partnered with Code Club so as to train about 22,500 primary school teachers to enable them promote Computer Science. According to George who is 14 years, coding has various applications. For example. Therefore, he decided to create his application. In addition, he has also realized that coding he can meet different people. Dallas, who is a TV presenter, agrees with this to he believes that coding is not only vital but also fun. Therefore, he believes that everyone should get involved in coding. Reference Google. Inspiring the next generation of tech innovators. Web. 5 December, 2014 http://www.google.com/diversity/for-the-future.html Question 4 The case scenario here is of a multiplayer game that is played on the online platform, hence needing access to very strong network. Besides, the game also entails the use of VoIP, a product bit that demands very secure network connection, hence, increased bandwidth as well. Taken into consideration, the designed game will require very high level of network neutrality; otherwise the regulations that may come with it would significantly undermine the ability of the players to take part actively in the game. With the regulations put forth about the structural separation that presents itself. This is grounded on the fact that IP may never favor applications that run on data due to its lack of quality of service (QoS). This implies that inability of it to have control over the data that gets to a place at time. As put across by Wu (2003), it applies that “best-effort” approach. In this system, the implication is for the packets to be delivered as fast as possible. A challenge that arises in the case of the game is a regulation under which what people do with their network is put under check. This relates to the Communications Act of 1934, of the use of telephone. This closely links to the ban on the use of residential internet for commercial purposes. For the application developed, the various players will be sucking onto the bandwidth of a broadband connection. The same applies to the restrictions on the Home Networks and Wireless Networks (Wi-Fi). The main challenge that may present itself with the marketing of the game comes in a situation whereby the various internet suppliers decide to block certain applications that they deem consume too much bandwidth. As such, the broadband users should be allowed to utilize such networks entirely. The blocking of some applications by the various operators should be fully stamped out, after all, the actual users may be willing to pay about the bandwidth. They, therefore, are the ones who should decide whether to participate in the game or not. Therefore, the very first step that could assist is the application of the open access rule. This alone may not be very efficient; hence, there is a need also to set up an antidiscrimination rule, which sees to it that all the applications are allowed access to the internet. Reference Wu, “Network neutrality, broadband discrimination”; Tufekci, “What happens to #Ferguson”; McAskill & Dance, “NSA files decoded.”or neutrality. 2003. Read More