Here’s a link to my Storify.. as the title says, Gay and Proud.. My topic from the start of this blog has been LGBTQ equality. This Storify has a lot of different elements in it, looking at the positive sides and the ground the LGBTQ equality has made for the better .. but unfortunately there’s still a long way that our society has to come reach better forms of LGBTQ equality so I’ve included some ways in which certain parts of the world have taken steps back and tried to eliminate equality for LGBTQ people. This is a topic I feel so strongly about, not only because I myself am gay .. but I’m seen the negative sides to so many LGBTQ people who have grown up being bullied, harassed, beaten up , discriminated against, their rights stolen and even people kicked out of their homes and disowned by their families all because of something as small as their sexual orientation. Someone’s sexual orientation doesn’t affect anyone other then themselves, so leave there sexual orientation out of the equation and treat them like any other heterosexual human being is treated. I know that I’m only one person and the things I write and say can’t change everything, but if I raised some questions to the heteor-normative way of thinking and had people reconsider their views on LGBTQ, then I’m happy.. any step forward is better than a step back!
Thanks for all the love and support!
MarMAr xo
the link below will take you to my storify!
Enjoy!
Final Summation : Online Journalism
Can’t believe the end has come, I feel like such a tech-saavy “produser” now because of this class!
I’ll start off this summation based off some of the comments I received off my initial post. One of the main points I had talked about was how everything’s moved online, especially in terms of voting and how in my eyes older generation’s don’t have access like the younger people do. I based my justification off my own experiences and how my mother doesn’t even know how to turn a computer on, let alone try to use one. Though Kathy (http://koooch12.blogspot.ca) explained how she thought that I was wrong, and that the older generation does infact use online resources, and how her mother has gone out and ensured that she can get up to speed with online technology and mastering the WWW. Based off our different experiences, I think that it’s hard to come up with an exact answer as to if moving everything online is good or bad for the population, regardless of age.
In terms of online journalism and what the WWW has done for it, people agree with the fact that online journalism can be detrimental. “The impact of social media on the definition of authority is not just affecting the profession of journalism, but also the fields of academic knowledge and medicine (Hermida, 2012, p.559)”. I think that this point is absolutely true, with the amount of bogus stuff that surfaces the internet now a days it’s hard to validate what’s true an what’s not. It’s all about money, and what people will do, say, create in order to get hits on their pages and to make more money from the advertisements they post on their pages. For example for my podcast I did it on how Russia started this new lawing banning Gay Propaganda, some journalist could have easily made this post, or could have had multiple different sites, and posted variations of the article he created so it would look as though there’s more than one source. I do not believe that this is the actual case, but it very could be. I dont know the author personally, I can’t call him up, and I don’t know anyone in Russia to hear if it’s actually as bad as the articles say it is.
Even within another article the author explains that “we are likely to sleep through the transition from freedom into control (Jenkins & Thorburn, 2003, p.4)”. This meaning that there are rules and restrictions set on cyberspace, some of which we don’t even know exist, but they do, the whole point of these constraints is to try to limit what people can say on the internet and who they can interact with. So many people posting things think that they have complete freedom to do and say whatever they want, to whoever and whenever, but many court cases will show that someone’s always watching and always reading, and just because you’re under anonymity doesn’t mean you’ll get away with falsified articles and threatening emails. More and more people are finally beginning to get caught, and their faces are in the public eye.. Maybe the fact that these people are becoming criminalized and their acts are being broadcasted, that people will start to smarten up and keep the journalism for the professionals.
Take Care Everyone,
MarMar xo
References
Jenkins, H. & D. Thorburn. Introduction: The Digital Revolution, the Informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy. in Jenkins, H. & D. Thorburn eds. (2003). Democracy and New Media. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. p1-17. NOTE: this link takes you to the entire book (online). You only need to read the introduction.
Hermida, A. (2012). TWEETS AND TRUTH: Journalism as a discipline of collaborative verification. Journalism Practice. 6:5-6, p659-668.
Welcome to the Realm of Online Journalism
Hello my little Minions!
If you’ve never watch despicable Me then disregard the Minions part! Cannot believe this is the last initial blog I’ll be writing!!! So close to the end, who would have ever thought I actually liked to blogged! Definitely have learned a lot through this course, more than I ever thought I would have! Though I cannot wait for my summer to FINALLY begin :D!
Before the big ol World Wide Web came to be, to we were limited to the way that we could spread the word and get our voices heard and the facts known. We had the word of mouth, the papers, the magazines, we could mail things to get what we wanted further, but all of that took time. To individual send out mail with your article in it, or to have to out and go to publishing companies to try to get your articles published, but over the past several years things have drastically for the people in the Journalism field, for me I see it as positive changes and has made their jobs easier, though I’m sure there’s some journalists out there who think that the WWW has ruined what Journalism is all about.
Within the first part of Henry Jenkins and David Thorburns article The Digital Revolution, the informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy he talks about the United States and how many states had been moving their candidacies and voting to online polls and websites early in 2000. By moving the candidacies online, the candidates were able to post much more than they ever could before about their campaigns and other information, most of it being the stuff the public never had access to such as government documents. To me it sounds all fine and dandy, maybe if it was in today’s day and age.. but 13 years ago I don’t think it was a good idea. Although it was said that “the emergence of home computers…might strengthen democratic culture, enabling citizens and grassroots organization to circulate their ideas more widely than ever before (Jenkins & Thorburn, 2013 p. 5)”, which is absolutely true and its what has happened now.. But politics has always generalized more to the older population, the tax payers and the retired people who follow the debates and have been around long enough to know what’s good for the country & economy and what’s not. But it’s the older people who don’t have access or aren’t up to speed on the growing speed of the WWW, Jenkins and Thorbun went on to say that “fifty percent of Internet users under the age of thirty said the Net had affected their vote, a finding that suggests a generational shift in political culture (Jenkins & Thorburn, 2013 p. 1)”. Moving politics online definitely has it’s positives and benefits, I think in today’s society it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to make online voting possible, with the chaotic lives that many people live, getting to a voting station isn’t always possible, but with technology available in the palm of someone’s hand, and the accessibility to just click a couple of buttons, type in some info and be able to vote, than maybe there would be an influx of people voting. Though I don’t think right now, that all politics should be moved online .. There are still a lot the “baby boomers” and older generation still kicking around, following politics the “old fashion” way by following whats put on TV and what’s distributed in the good ol daily paper and the political magazines. I know for example, my mother has no idea how to even turn on a computer let alone surf the WWW and try to find credible information, and she has no desire to try to start learning now at her age, it’s just too advanced and she’s perfectly content with following the news and everything else without the use of WWW, and that’s the same mentality for a lot of the older generation.
Now including the topic of politics and all else that has moved to the WWW, the biggest problem for me is finding information that is credible, that is true and that has sources to back it up. There’s plenty of news articles that have an author and have a date and location of where it was published, and often times even has the author’s email attached, but who’s to say that holds any value? I could change my name to the name of a credible author, and make up some bogus email, and this really interesting article full of lies, and have millions of people believe it within a couple of hours of being released on the web! Even the politicians believe what they read on the WWW, during a political debate between Rick Lazio and Hillary Clinton “both candidates strongly opposed pending legislation that would tax e-mail to provide financial support for the federal postal service (Jenkins & Thorburn, 2013 p.3), only to later find out that the “so-called bill” was nothing but a hoax released on the WWW, yet both politicians had believed it to be true. Now with all the different forms of social media such as things like Twitter and Facebook, factual information is much harder to come by. Journalism and journalists have always held their profession to “determine the truth, accuracy or validity of news events, establishing jurisdiction over the ability to objectively parse reality to claim a special kind of authority and status (Hermida, 2012 p.659)”. And now with these social media sites, news is upload and spread like wildfire all within a couple short sentences and a click of a button, no real factual information is needed for the majority of people to believe whatever is being written, of course there are some who will further look into what is being said, for example if someone were to post an update on Facebook about lets say Brock University Students having to pay double their tuition this year if the student is gay, I wouldn’t believe it first hand, I’d look into it further to find out where the source came from and whether or not there’s more information on it. But so many of us are caught up in the hustle and bustle of social media sites, that they’ll read something, believe it first hand, and re-post and then it takes off from there. I feel bad for the people who have or are going to school for journalism, their career is slowly being taken over by the public, now rather “the journalists today are just some of the many voices in public communication (Hermida, 2012 p. 666)”.
In conclusion , there are some positive to the online realm of journalism, the fact that news can travel faster than ever before, and journalists don’t need to wait months to try to get their article published into their favourite journal or magazine to try to get recognized, all they need is a good handle on social media and publishing things that the online readers want and like to read! Unfortunately most of what people re-post and like to read, is falsified information to try to get people attracted to the articles and to try to get as many readers as possible. I’m always in this love-hate relationship with the WWW when it comes to any form of news or finding valuable, credible information anymore.
HAPPY BLOGGING!,
MarMar ❤ xo
References
Jenkins, H. & D. Thorburn. Introduction: The Digital Revolution, the Informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy. in Jenkins, H. & D. Thorburn eds. (2003). Democracy and New Media. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. p1-17. NOTE: this link takes you to the entire book (online). You only need to read the introduction.
Hermida, A. (2012). TWEETS AND TRUTH: Journalism as a discipline of collaborative verification. Journalism Practice. 6:5-6, p659-668.
Summary – Copyright or copywrong?
Hello again !
Here is my blog summarizing my prior copyright law post! I got some great comments, and read some awesome blogs; all those made my mind spin and see things from a different perspective!
Where to start, well what recollects in my mind first, was how I had made the suggestion that maybe if there was a site that gave you a deal like $30 dollars a month for 100 songs, $20 for 50 and then Kathy replied relating that to an all you can eat buffet. Which is a great theory, about how you go to an all you can eat buffet, sometimes you get your money’s worth, and sometimes you do not! So then I was thinking while reading Tainted Love’s blog, she mentioned how sites have come out to help pirating when it comes to movies, which is Netflix, which I forgot about! However, that is such a great idea, how or why hasn’t a site been created where for a low price you have access to cds, and artists music! What is so different about Netflix doing it for movies and a site starting up the same idea but for music! Netflix is doing pretty well, and is a great idea and for the low price that it offers, it’s cheaper then any buffet I’d go to, I think you’d be guaranteed to get your money worth, especially by having it available on the TV, you could turn on your albums while your cleaning your house. Hmm, just an idea sparked by some fellow bloggers!
Now according to an interesting article A&G Analysis of Napster, the main issue as to why Napster got in so much trouble, was because “the use of the music is not “transformative,” and the users of Napster stood to gain a “commercial” benefit (Crew, 2011 p.5). This article really helped to further some terminology and further my knowledge of what copyright is and how it is broken. And from all the sources I’ve been reading, it’s perfectly okay to remix material from artists, but to take the song in full without paying for it is seen as illegal. At first, I was kind of against remixing, because I saw remixing and taking music to be more or less the same thing, but through the readings, I see it a bit differently. Through Lessig’s discussion he talks about “the RW (right-write) and RO (read only), and how our world’s been created with the RW notion, and if songs weren’t remixed and material not remixed, then where would the evolution of new things come from (Lessig, 2007)”. Which made me think without transformation, in this case music, then how can music really evolve if we couldn’t feed off what’s around us, we need inspiration, and I suppose you can only use yourself for inspiration for so long until you run out of ideas!
In addition, within Lessig’s talk he talks about how the “older generation does the consuming and the youth do the producing (Lessig, 2007)”. But the problem still holds is that if these copyright laws do become strict, and monitored more with the amount of remixing and producing off of other sources still be okay? When is it considered to be using too much of someone else’s material for remixing, that is the main question I am stumped on. OR is it as long as you consider the work to be remixed or transformed then you’re “safe”. Then there is the main issue of copyright is okay as long as it is for “personal use and not commercial use (Crew, 2011 p.4)”. But now with sites like YouTube which is generally considered fair game to material, people could post a remixed video then it go viral, and the producer end up making money off of the views it generated, so again how is that not considered copyright, yes it was “personal” use and material in it was transformed/remixed but then there’s profit made so which outweighs the other?
Overall, people are going to continue to use free media and illegally download because in the end, it is free and people like free whatever it may be. Even within the article Cultures of Music Piracy, a study had been conducted looking at how online free music downloading affecting record sales “to their surprise they found that downloads had an effect on record sales that ‘indistinguishable from zero’ (Condry, 2004, p 349)”. Maybe the fact being that if people really like their music or artist they’ll still chose to support them because they don’t want to see their favourite band/artist disappear! In addition, especially for now the older generation is not always as up to date on illegal and free download systems, and resort to buying cds to get their favourite song. An example is my mother has no idea how to turn on a computer, let alone figure out how to get music free, so when she hears a good song on the radio or likes the artist she will go buy their cd! I may download online for free, but I do give back, I’m an avid concert goer and when I’m at my favourite artists shows/concert I’m always buying their merchandise and just buying the tickets alone are expensive enough, and that’s where artists make so much of their money by performing! The only thing I could see that would stop illegal downloading would be that the punishment/law become strictly enforced, otherwise it is still going to continue to happen.
Happy blogging,
only 2 blogs left L
xo marmar!
References
Condry, Ian. (2004). Cultures of Music Piracy: An Ethnographic Comparison of the US and Japan. International Journal of Cultural Studies. 7 (3), pg. 343-363
Crews, K. (2001). Case summary: A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.: implications for the digital music library . Retrieved 17 Jun 2013 from http:/www.dml.indiana.edu/pdf/AnalysisOfNapsterDecision.pdf/
Lessig, L. Laws that choke creativity. TED Talks (2007). Filmed March 2007, posted November 2007 on http://youtu.be/7Q25-S7jzgs
Additional Resources : Students Blogs who helped to generate my summation
http://yknwt.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/on-pirates-and-ptsd/
http://koooch12.blogspot.ca/2013/06/piracy-and-gender-identity.html
http://jw10fq.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/are-you-a-pirate-a-blog-about-music-piracy/
Revisiting Copyright Culture
Hello Again, only 2 modules left for this blogging adventure!
This post deals with the topic of copyright laws and how we as users consume content, as well as some produce it. This post will look at the different perspectives about copyright laws, and whether or not their good for our growing culture, or even way to kind of change copyright laws to make content more available under certain conditions.
Within the short youtube video on a conference of Larry Lessig, he shed some great light on the ups and downs of what copyright does for our culture. Lessig (2007) started off by talking about how in the earlier 20th century, they were worried about the “read-write” culture would be turned into this “read-only” culture, where as consumers would stop producing and just consume what they see. This was a fear 100 years ago, and I think it’s even more of a fear now, well even an actual problem that is occurring. There are so many of us out there (including myself) with the use of social media sites, so much media is consumed and reposted for others to watch, and share but very seldom to we produce. Until this class I would have never consider myself a producer of any kind, but with the creation of this blog and the video I made, I guess I’m helping to bring back the “read-write” culture. But even so, what I have produced, wasn’t completely my own, some was and some of it was remixed from other sources. Even though the sources I used were from YouTube, which many of the videos on their are free to be remixed, but everything is taken from somewhere else, how do I know where the material I used originated from, or if the material I used was someone who had taken the materially illegally from someone else? I think it is necessary in order for our culture to grow and expand by using and recreating other sources in order to generate different views and perspectives as well as display our creativity via online distribution. One of the things that stops our culture from growing is copyright laws.
Lessig raises some good ideas to possible change the copyright laws from being so scrict, and to help encourage producing and the remixing of material. Lessig pointed out 2 ideas that could help, the main one being “1) that the artist and creator have their work be available for free for non-commerical use (amateur use) (Lessing, 2007)”. Which I think is a great idea, but I don’t think it’d actually happen, due to the fact that artists are money hungry, and if they start allowing people to reuse their material.. they could be losing out on money. Also by the artists potentially allowing other to use their work for other to remix, even if it’s by an “amateur”, if the amateur’s work gets lots of hits on YouTube, then they in fact could be making money. Though I do know that people have become famous just off of their YouTube videos going viral, and they have found a way to own the rigths to their YouTube content, so when anyone uses any of their material in a remixed video, or re-posts it, only the original producer can make profits off of the views of the video.
Though within the article When creators, corporations and consumers collide: Napster and the development of on-line music distribution, they bring up the point that “the Internet is an arena of free exchange in which everyone wins (McCourt & Burkart, 2003, Pg. 334)”. Although the word free is in that sentence, some things may come with a price, an idea was brought up that if sites such as Napster (at the time) were to create a subscription price, then everyone could benefit. The article talks about the “Big Five” which are the 5 major label companies that could make a lot of profit from their media being accessed online, which are “EMI, Universal, Song, Time Warner and BMG (McCourt & Burkart, 2003 pg. 334). I think that if there was a site which had a subscription price to access media from the Big Five, that it would be a good idea, instead of having a pay-per song method like Itunes does. Even is the subscription site had a price point for the amount of material being used an example of say download up to 50 songs for $20 a month, or 100 songs for $30, etc that may be a good way to have people use and access media, with it being legal.
In conclusion, there are many ways in which people have generated ideas to overcome or work with copyright laws, to still make material accessible to consumers online. Though through reading these articles, they’ve been dated several years ago, and yet I’ve really seen no changes occur. I suppose Itunes is a way in which some of these ideas talked about in the post have been addressed, I know many people who use Itunes to purchase their songs instead of hacking and stealing material. But on the opposite end of the spectrum, there are many ways to gain access and download music for free if you’re tech saavy enough or simply just search Google, and as fast as those sites get caught and shut down, new ones are constantly becoming available. I think what needs to be addressed is a way of cracking down and giving fines to the sites the give out media for free, or completely break the copyright laws… but is this even possible, is there a way of cracking down on everything made available via the internet? I for one unfortunately am one of those users who are searching the web to find free media content… If I knew that I could easily be fined for it, or even worse, then I would probably give in and begin purchasing media from sites such as Itunes, but if there’s a free/cheaper way to purchase/use anything, I’ll probably find it… Remember I am a student here 😉 And money isn’t always to find.
Just some thing’s to think about!
Happy Blogging,
MarMar
References
Larry Lessig: Laws that choke creativity. TED Talks (2007).http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs&feature=player_embedded Filmed March 2007, posted November 2007.
McCourt, T., P. Burkart. (2003). When Creators, Corporations and Consumers Collide: Napster and the Development of On-line Music Distribution. Media, Culture & Society. 25 (3), pg. 333-350
copyright (Photo credit: A. Diez Herrero)
Web-Video – Born Gay
Here’s a video I created/remixed, all about different views on being Gay and to make heteorsexual people question some of their throughts based off of the stereotyping of what being Gay is. This is a mix of YouTube videos that I myself created and also videos that I did not create, but took material from for the use of making this video! ENJOY! Link below is to the video, sadly I couldn’t embed it 😦
NOTE: For best results, watch the video in Mozilla Firefox Browser, and give it time to fully load !
http://popcorn.webmadecontent.org/150b
Here’s a link to the videos I used to remix this video! The other half was me recording my own stuff :)!
When Did you Chose to be Straight? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJtjqLUHYoY
We Will Marry Your Boyfriends http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0Be8LnuG3U
Ellen DeGeneres on 15-year-old boy, Larry King, killed for being Gay http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeM9w3L4H6I
Robertson: Gays can be Changed as God can Change Murderers, Rapists http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE244EzoWrY
PICTURES:
Ecard- Looking Forward To another Lesbain Wedding: Retrieved from: http://www.someecards.com/wedding-cards/im-looking-forward-to-your-lesbian-wedding
PFLAG Mom Picture : http://wakingupwithher.blogspot.ca/2012/03/making-strides-and-staying-positive.html
Homophobia : Retrieved from Image promoting the end of homophobia found at http://fridabyron.org/2011/07/19/omofobia_a_scuola/no-homophobia/
Morgan Freeman’s View on Homophobia: Retrieved from http://theobamacrat.com/2012/08/23/say-it-with-pictures/morgan-freeman-on-homophobia/
Summary: What’s Copyright and what’s not?
This is a summary from my following blog on “This Masterpiece is Copyright”.
While reading over my follow group members blogs, I’ve looked at things from a different perspective on some aspects as well as I’ve begun to think of many unanswered questions.
Many people agreed that YouTube can in fact be highly informative, and helps everyone look up information on certain subjects, a lot of members also said that youtube had some great videos on their blog topics. I too agree with them, there’s tonnes of videos out there on LGBTQ equality, and I know I use them quite a bit, and will even re-post the odd one to my social media site, in this case Facebook, to try and shed some light onto other people through the use of these videos. Though, some of them are clips from TV shows, is them being re-posted considered to be copyright? One of my group members explained about how some YouTube videos get taken down if they contain certain material and don’t explain to the users that they don’t own any of the material. Again, I personally think that if credit is being given to the original source where the material was taken, and made accessible to everyone who comes across the video, then it shouldn’t be considered copyright.
In a lot of ways, I’ve considered copyright and plagiarism to be kind of the same thing in certain ways, though for some reason plagiarism is much more heavily watched and “punishments” exist in a much more serious manner.. but maybe that has to do because 1) I’m a university student and copy the work of other people’s writing is a huge NO 2) many profs outside of media classes aren’t well educated in copyright laws. Even after reading these countless numbers of blogs, and doing the readings, everyone has put together this notion, that we indeed need the works of other people to work off of, and inspire our own creation, but we need to be careful to use “just enough” and nothing more, but what’s considered too much in terms of copyright laws? Why is there no policing of copyright laws?
I also never really touched on the whole producer-consumer aspect from the readings, it was brought up that many people consume what’s on the internet, but not many of those consumers are also producers. Which I think is very accurate, I know for myself, I do consume media and especially videos from YouTube, I find it highly useful for being able to watch videos of my Wrestling competitors, that I couldn’t find anywhere else. But I myself do not post videos to YouTube, I don’t produce any real kind of media, I just consume it or re-post other people’s videos. Though after this week and the creation of the video for this class, I guess I will finally be considered a producer for once! So far it’s been fun remixing and re-working other people’s material and tying in my own material, though I still am not sure with what I’m doing if I’m breaking any copyright laws? Hmmm..
In conclusion, I think that if people want to keep their material their own, and keep it from being remixed or reworked than the owner of that material needs to do something to keep it their own, or keep it from being embedded or even keep it off youtube and keep it on a pay per use site. I know that if someone posts certain TV series on Youtube, within hours of them posting it, it is taken down and a message then comes up saying the material was copyright. So my guess is that certain companies might pay youtube to ensure the safety of their material, which makes sense, when so much money can go into making a video, whats a few more dollars to ensure it remains untouched?
Happy Blogging,
And Good Luck on the Video Creations 🙂
MarMar
This Masterpiece is Copyrighted
Hello Everyone,
This paper will look at how everything that’s produced is in one way copied from someone else, and also look at the way that YouTube give people so much freedom in being able to illegally use other people’s properties, but often times never giving credit to the “original” creator. Through watching Kirby Ferguson’s 4 part series on issues dealing with copyright and remixing, one of the main points he continued to bring up was that “nobody starts out as original, we need copying to build the foundation of knowledge and understanding, and after that things can get interesting” (Ferguson, 2010). And that’s exactly what has happened over the past half a century, things have really gotten interesting, or more so messy.
Through the 4 part remixing videos, I’ve learned so much about many different things that I never even knew or thought about! The fact that so many computer’s were just recreations of similar things, but the people who actually invented the basic concepts were never the ones who were given credit or made famous for example how Apple just took the ideas from Xerox’s 2 “computers” and just combined them into a super form of that, and in turn took majority of the credit and fame for becoming famous, and starting the Apple company to soar. In turn the fact is, that we all copy, whether it’s consciously or subconsciously it happens, it’s what keeps the constant creation of things occurring. For example for the creating a video for our assignment this week, I have full intentions of incorporating clips from YouTube videos that raise some interesting points and perspectives on LGBTQ points of view, and also try to challenge the minds of hetero-normative thinking. But with the freedom of creating on YouTube, there’s really nothing stopping me from just taking the time and re-creating the same clips of videos, and claiming that I came up with the thinking behind it, and take the credit. The chances of the “original” creator finding out I copied it, would probably be so slim, since there are millions upon millions of videos on YouTube, and unless your video goes viral, you’re probably safe. Though, I intend to give credit to the videos I use with proper citing, to give my viewers the option to look at where the real source “creation” came from. Even though, everything’s inevitably been copied by someone else down the line.
My problem is, how do we challenge this? With the internet giving so much freedom to create whatever people want, or use the work of other people, often times can be done under a fake profile or in complete anonymity giving people the to do or recreate whatever they wish. Even though there’s so many copyright laws and patents laws, so much copying still exists which leaves the actual creator not creating any profit, whereas the copiers make the money by not having to pay for start up fees and other fees that the initial creator must have to fork out,I never really thought about it that way. Copyright laws were created because it “allows rights owners the right of publication and, in exchange for offering cultural works for public consumption of profiting from such publication (Hilderbrand, 2007)”. Hilderbrand 2007 also went on to talk about how YouTube actually isn’t a bad thing (like I thought it was), it is able to give access to certain media that we may have never been able to access to via the internet. are now available because of people uploading older media. Though my only problem is with that many users still don’t give credit to the original sources of where they found it. Just like when we have to write a paper, and we need to constantly give credit to the sources we use, anytime of media especially YouTube users should have to give credit/sources from where they got their ideas or videos from.
I won’t even lie, but I’m always looking for the cheaper version of initial product. I use EBay and deal sites to look for items I want, because I hate spending a lot of money for something. But now I realize when I can find a brand name product for less than the actual retailer or authorized dealer, that it’s probably a company that is creating copies of the product and not the actual creation. I feel as though I should try and buy the real thing, especially after realizing that the actual inventor is the one probably in debt for spending years upon years coming up with the models and inventions, and here I am supporting someone who just was able to take someone’s idea and re-create it and exempt themselves from all the time of inventing it, and all the initial start up costs. Even though I’m aware of it now.. will I stop buying copies of the “real” thing.. probably not, because in truth, I’m a student, majority of the time I’m broke, and the “real” brand name items I want, I cant afford, and if I can find something that does the same thing as the actual product/version for cheaper, then I’ll buy that because it fits my budget. Though that being said, there are a few things that I wouldn’t take copies of, most of them being electronics. for example I’m currently looking at buying a Lifeproof Iphone case, there’s plenty of “knockoff” or “replicas” of the same item, but it’s not under the patent of the actual Lifeproof company. I know that if I buck up and pay the price of the real brand case, that I’ll be insured.. and since Iphones are so pricey, I don’t want to save 50 bucks on a case by buying a replica and it being defective, and then damaging my Iphone all because I didn’t want to spend the extra $50 on the real thing.
We live in a society now, where everyone is out to make money, and if copying or “stealing” can generate profit then companies will do just that, by finding loop-holes in the laws and re-creating other people’s ideas for a bigger profit.
Happy Blogging,
Good luck on everyone video creations!
MarMar
http://www.flickr.com/photos/observatoryleak/291632798/ Retrieved June 5, 2013.
Ferguson, K. (2010) Everything is a Remix: Part 3. http://http://vimeo.com/kirbyferguson/everythingisaremix3
Retrieved on June 4, 2013.
Hilderbrand, L. (2007). Youtube: Where Cultural Memory and Copyright Converge.
Film Quarterly. Vol. 61, No. 1, 48-57.
Op-Ed on Reclaiming Queer
Reclaiming Queer, for the Better.
Over the last couple of years there has been an ongoing debate in the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Trans (gender/sexual) on whether or not the term Queer should be included/added onto the existing LGBT therefore forming LGBTQ. Although I would have figured there to be a discussion about it on the LGBT Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:LGBT
The majority of the discussion was instead on the talk page of the Queer Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Queer
I will be looking at the Queer page for the basis of the Op-Ed piece, the LGBT page was just looked at to see if there was a further discussion that ventured off of the Wikipedia page.
Looking on the Wikipedia page titled “Queer” there are many open ended questions and debates about what Queer is, and if it’s good for the LGBT grouping. It must be noted that this page lacks a lot of sources as to where the information has came from, though from my knowledge on the term Queer the majority of it sounds correct. I have spent hours trying to find journals or a credible site that gives a real true definition of what Queer is. Through using 2 different articles the main concept/definition of what Queer is, is simply not being categorized into any distinct LGBT category, but rather being identified or simply seen as something other than “straight” or “heterosexual” (Allen, 2011)( Jagose, 2009).
What I find interesting is how some people don’t think the Queer should be used/added to the LGBT acronym, yet don’t hold any real credible information backing up what they’re saying, they’re using their opinions alone to determine what’s right and what’s wrong. This is a pure example of a bias being held and posted on Wikipedia. As outlined in Jensen’s article about the constant pushing of POV Point of View, which is considered vandalism to the Wikipedia pages because the things that are being posted are just opinions or biases as towards how someone feels on a particular topic (Jensen, 2012).
Throughout the Wikipedia talk page for Queer, there seems to be one constant editor, when a point gets raised by someone else, this editor for the most part not only gives his POV but finds sources to help back up what he’s saying. Many of the people in the talk section have logged into their account, although there are several comments made from people with anonymity, saying things for the sake of saying them, knowing that nothing will come back on him/her. The main editors get annoyed with this happens, these people just seem to make one comment then never reply or try to further what they’re saying. This is just another way that although there may be editors on each topic, it’s the people who try to raise controversy or change things to vandalize the pages in complete anonymity. If I was an editor, if it was a continuing thing it’d be hard for me to want to continue trying to constantly update and fix things, knowing very well the next day it could be all be changed. Also note that when I further looked into the editor, their account had been blocked and this user is no longer allowed to access Wikipedia for evidently having multiple accounts, which is against Wikipedia policy. I’m sure this happens quite frequently, which makes it even harder to have real discussions through Wikipedia talk pages, personally if I wanted to discuss or talk about things relating to being Queer, I’d look for a forum vs trying to voice my questions or opinions on Wikipedia.
According to the Queer Canada website, the defition gave by them was Queer is:
“ as members of the gender and sexually diverse populations, include but are not limited to 2-spirited, agender, ambigender, androgyne, asexual, bigender, bisexual, cross-dresser, drag queen, drag king, fluid, gay, gender fluid, genderqueer, intergender, intersex, intrasex, kink, lesbian, non-gendered, omnisexual, pangender, pansexual, polysexual, transgender, transsexual, and transvestite, individuals”. (Mule, 2010)
In other words Queer is just an umbrella term for a further expansion of the LGBT acronym. In my opinion adding the Q to LGBT should be installed, it allows more freedom to every individual to be who they are free of a specific grouping or title. For a lot of people who don’t just fall under the basic Lesbian, Gay or Bi-Sexual identification, it may be hard to come out to people and say right away exactly who they are. A lot of these terms falling under Queer are sometimes hard for heterosexual people to completely understand what they mean or more importantly how someone could fall under that heading, which causes a lot of discrimination right from the start. So instead of someone coming out right away and saying “Hi my name’s Sally, I used to be a male but now I’m female, nice to you meet you” it could simply be “Hi my name’s Sally, I’m queer, nice to meet you”. It gives that individual the option of how much they feel comfortable with disclosing, but also allows them to still be themselves without full disclosure. They still want to let others know that they don’t fall under the kind of specifications of the “heteor-norm”, queer gives the ability for people to do that without being completely out. To me Queer identification can help protect people falling under these certain “groupings” of gender and sexuality.
I for example feel much more comfortable identifying with either being gay or being queer, this is personal preference as I know many other LGBTQ who like to be indentified by something else. For me there’s a lot of degrading ideas that come with the word lesbian. The way that the media generally portrays lesbians are generally in 2 groups the “lipstick” lesbians, who are generally the more “eroticized” and feminine type in the media, because it attracts many viewers, mainly men. Then there’s the “butch/dyke” lesbians, who are generally portrayed in a very negative stereotypical way of being “manly” or “non-feminine” simply because they don’t conform to the feminine ideals that society puts on women. I don’t like being “grouped” into a specific grouping, therefore just be able to indentify myself as gay or queer, just simply puts it that I’m not a heterosexual, and that’s all I really care for people to know.
Unfortunately this Queer Wikipedia page fails to cover a lot of the important information on what Queer is, or how it’s beneficial for LGBT communities. It may make sense as to why this is “coverage for items that were current, deemed important, or held power measure by country size or company wealth produced more hits and thus were covered more frequently on the web” ((Royal & Kapila, 2009)). Which could indicate that since the topic of Queer isn’t highly publicized and covers such a small population, that the edits are never constant and that the effort isn’t there to update it with valuable information because of the small amount of visitors on the page. And without a lot of visitors on the page it because a lot harder for Wikipedia to really be seen as resourceful since the information being posted is from the visitors and editors. I found it interesting that in the article Encylopedias go head to head, they mention Britannica as a kind of compeditor for Wikipedia, though Britannica was supposed to be the better and more credible site (Giles, 2005), but when I looked up Queer on Britannica the search was inconclusive and held no real resources on Queer Theory or anything.
In conclusion, I think that there’s such hesitation to incorporate Q-Queer into the LGBT acronym, simply because a lot of people are misinformed of the real definition and proper use of what queer is. Wikipedia does a poor job in giving a real definition of what the term Queer is, and how it’s used in the LGBT community, it covers the bare minimum. If I had no clue on what being Queer means, Wikipedia would not help to further my knowledge in that topic. In Allen’s article he talked about the word Queer used to be used in a negative way to discriminate against lesbian and gay’s in the mid 1900’s, although since then the word has been well on it’s way of being “reclaimed” (Allen, 2011). More discussion should occur and knowledge needs to be spread on the topic of what being Queer means, and the positives that come with it. With the positive reclaiming of the word Queer, and as more knowledge becomes available and spreads and with growing equality for the LGBT community in society, I think that in the future the current LGBT acronym will expand to ensure that everyone’s included within the community.
Peace, Love & Rainbows
Marissa
Toronto Gay Pride 2012
Other Students Blogs
http://agirlthatfoundlove.wordpress.com
References
Allen, L. (2011). BENDING THE RULES: ATTEMPTING QUEER RESEARCH ON SEXUALITY IN SCHOOLS. Gay & Lesbian Issues & Psychology Review, 7(2), 155-167.
Giles, J. (2005). Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature, 438(7070), 900-901
Jagose, A. (2009). Feminism’s Queer Theory. Feminism & Psychology, 19(2), 157-174.
Jensen, R. (2012). Military History on the Electronic Frontier: Wikipedia Fights the War of 1812. Journal Of Military History, 76(4), 1165-1182.
Mule, N. (2010). Queer in Name. http://queerontario.org/about-us/foundational-ideas/queer-in-name/. Retrieved May 27,2013.
Royal, C., & Kapila, D. (2009). What’s on Wikipedia, and what’s not…? Assessing completeness of information. Social Science Computer Review, 27(1), 138-148.
Still Not Wikipedia’s #1 Fan – Follow Up
Hello Everyone,
I would first like to start off by thanking everyone for commenting on my last blog, makes these summative blogs much easier to write, along with getting to read everyone’s different perspectives.
First I will bring up some common things I learned from reading my other blog groups member outlooks/perspectives on the readings. One of the common thing held between 3 of the blogs I read was that they held agreement that Wikipedia is a good source to use as a starting point for an assignment, to kind of get the ball rolling. I gave some thought into it, at first I was against that notion, but the more time I took to think about it I could see where they were coming from. Though my reply to those points were that, yes it could be a good place to start because you know there will be a Wikipedia page on almost any topic, so the information is right there. Though for my personal opinion, I think that Wikipedia should really only be used as a starting point if you have no real knowledge at all on the topic. If you already have common knowledge than Wikipedia shouldn’t be too useful. The reason I think it could be helpful if you have no prior knowledge would be to help get your mind rolling, and help to maybe formulate different words or themes to look up in your future hunt for research.
Another point that held a common theme between my blog and the others was that Wikipedia should never be the ONLY source being used to formulate your research. I personally would never use Wikipedia as a source, but other’s addressed that IF you were to use it, ensure using multiple different searching tools to find better and more credible sources to continually back up your information. One of the main problems being though is that maybe many people don’t have a lot of access to material like we as Brock Students do, I know a lot of online periodicals and scholarly articles become available at a price, which I’m sure many students don’t necessarily have the funds for.
Another point that I was able to bring to light for some readers was the idea of bias within the articles, and how so many of the editors have become younger males which can really holy a bias as to what’s posted. An example of this in relevance to my topic on LGBTQ equality would be for instance if your on the Lesbian page of Wikipedia, a heterosexual male writing information on there VS a lesbian writing information would more than likely be very different. The male could very well base information based off of the way lesbians are portrayed in the media, very stereotypical way of thinking. Whereas a lesbian would potentially hold a completely different perspective because she’s been immersed in it first hand and is more than just a stereotype. The thing is even between lesbians there could be so much variation between their perspectives on things, and so on. So it’s going to be inevitable that there’s no bias’s held within pages and that the pages just pure resource and backed up factual information with no opinions expressed.
Though in conclusion, we all agreed that since Wikipedia is ran by amateurs and volunteers, that vandalism and false information is so easy to occur and really monitoring everyone’s posts on a site which holds millions of articles becomes almost impossible to keep the information current and valid. And IF Wikipedia is being used as source, it should really only ever be a starting point to get your mind spinning to generate better ideas and further your research.
Can’t wait for what Module 4 will bring!
Happy Blogging,
MarMar
Live in Equality 