Year In Review

Year In Review

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This class has taught me a lot about how the media effects people within society. From learning about different theories, to court cases, to privacy laws, I learned a lot more from this class than I had expected. 

I found it really interesting to follow the history of influential American court cases because being from Canada I really had never heard of many. While I didn't expect the amount of history that was taught in this class, I really did end up enjoying it. 

It has also significantly helped with my writing abilities. Although it was just a weekly blog post, I often wrote extra after being inspired by something in the media or in my social life. That is something that I loved about the blog... some weeks I would be writing about things we learned in class, and the next I would be writing about what my team was up to that week. 

I found that writing about class work often felt more factual than colorful, but it was interesting to see how my writing style changed between the two types of blogs. It seemed to flow easier when I wrote about things like Movember, the Amphitheater run, or the Maymester. I assume this is because I enjoy creative writing a lot more than making news articles, but It taught me a lot about where I may want to take my talents in the real world and what type of industry I may want to end up in.

I think a lot of what I learned in this class is easily transferable to the real world. Knowing the immense amount of power that private companies have in regards to our personal information online is something that should scare most, and is something that I didn't really understand before.

This class has definitely made me more aware of my online footprint. Meaning that I am now a lot more careful about what I post online. Your online information is just as permanent as a tattoo.

Overall this class taught me a lot about American history, how the history affects us today, and about how easily we give people access to our personal information. I really enjoyed the class and look forward to taking classes with Dr. Smith moving forward.

Privacy, Online & Off

Privacy, Online & Off

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Your online footprint is something that is very permanent. Therefore, you must be very careful what you put online. What most people do not realize is what goes online stays there forever. Throughout the many different Ted Talks that I watched for this blog it made it even more apparent just how careful you must be.

In the first Ted Talk, by Juan Enriquez, he compares your online footprint to tattoos. This is because what you post online is just as permanent as getting a tattoo. The only difference is that when you die, your tattoo dies with you, but your “online tattoo” does not. This is a scary thing to think about. From someone who loves tattoos, and I have many myself, I realize how important the decision-making process is when deciding what to put on your body. I take years to decide what tattoos I want but have never took the time to decide what I put online. Although I have been very careful not to put anything too bad online, you can still find some slightly inappropriate pictures of me. Maybe I need to think a little more carefully about what I post going forward.

Catherine Crump’s Ted Talk talked primarily about the power that police stations and government agencies have. They are using license plate readers and cell towers to uncover locations and tendencies of all citizens. They may claim this is for their citizens protection, and that it may one day become useful, but really it us just them constantly spying on us. Yes, it is important to find the locations of wanted criminals, but to do so for innocent civilians is simply wrong. Why should the government be allowed this power? They should not, but there is little that we can do about it now.

In Cristopher Soghoian Ted Talk is about telecommunication companies recording all our calls and texts. He explains that these companies have done this for our protection, but it has simply gone too far. There are benefits of this like spying on terrorists and other national security threats, but there are also negatives. Hackers can easily gain access to this information as well. So, while they may be protecting us from threats to our safety, it is our privacy that is being attacked. He claims, and I agree, that the negatives of this power outweigh the positives.

The most important things to take from these Ted Talks is to be careful what you put online, and to understand that you are always being watched. Today the government has a lot of power and is constantly able to spy on its citizens. There is not much we can do about it but being more cognizant of what we do online can help protect us moving forward.  

Juan Enriquez

Catherine Crump

Christopher Soghoian