Tag Archives: Process Post

Essay – False News in the 2016 US Presidential Election

In a survey conducted by the PEW Institute, Facebook was shown to be the leading social media site for adults in the US to obtain news, with 31% of participants regularly getting their information from the site. This figure is not much of a surprise, since Facebook has a certain reputation for being propagators of reactionary information and false news. The aforementioned study also stated that the percentage has been steadily going down in the past few years, which I postulate is likely because of an aging main demographic and the rise of newer social media apps.

My primary issue with Facebook as a possible source for news (and every other social media site, for that matter) is the ability for people to rapidly spread misinformation and a general lack of critical thinking when it comes to such news. A prime example of this phenomena was on full display around the 2016 US presidential election, where disinformation and conspiracy theories ran rampant on Facebook. Of course, this kind of false news has existed forever, but the rise in prominence was especially apparent in the aftermath of such an influential event.

In “Misinformation with Fake News”, Mircea Botei (2017) described this as a turning point, where the public suddenly became more concerned about social media’s possible influence on democracy. Botei further expresses false news as “[an attempt] to appear truthful and thus to be accepted and transmitted further. It is news that tells what the audience wants to hear.”(p. 138) I have to agree with this sentiment, as reactionary headlines are a common sign of an untrustworthy source.

Political campaigns have taken advantage of current media trends to further their reach for decades, using whichever method was most popular at the time. Kathleen Jamieson (1996) mentions the widespread use of radios and television in the 1900s, with her book Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising sourcing the ridiculous advertisements political candidates were able to make about their opponents as an example. Still, the massive coverage of the 2016 US election in particular highlighted this mass move from television to the internet.

Fortunately, some good has come of this tragic spike in false news; many social media sites (including Facebook) were pressured to provide transparency reports over political ad campaigns hosted on their sites, according to Efe Sevin (2021) in “New Data Sources and Presidential Campaigns”. Following the 2016 election, Facebook joined companies like Google and Snapchat in revealing their advertising archives to the greater public (Sevin, 2017). However, we should not underestimate the intentional role that social media companies play in these spaces. Many social media sites are anything but guiltless for the rise of false news and influence of political proceedings; some are just better at hiding their involvement than others. 

In the article “Social media ethics in the data economy: Issues of social responsibility for using Facebook for public relations “ Candace White explains how Facebook uses aggregated data from users to target those who are most vulnerable. This fact directly relates to the presidential election, as Cambridge Analytica—a company hired for Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign—was revealed to have stolen user data from over 50 million people through a data breach of Facebook. I have been suspicious of the content and news circulated on Facebook since I first made an account, with this mistrust only growing as I learned more about their unethical business practices. 

All this is to say that there is a distinct need to modify the existing structures that facilitate the spread of false news. Diogo Andrade introduces such an idea in “Paving the way for regulation: how the case against Facebook stacked up”, which lays out a few different strategies that the US was discussing at the time. The most viable and comprehensive solution in my opinion is ending the monopoly Facebook holds as the top company in its field. Andrade mentions dividing up the website (and its acquired companies) into competing forces, creating laws to restrict website’s abilities to harvest private data from users, and “limiting and eroding Silicon Valley’s power” (2019, p. 125).

Although Facebook has only gotten more powerful since the previous articles’ publication in 2019, I still hold onto the hope that future US elections won’t be at the mercy of malicious advertisers and complacent social media giants.

☆.

Reference List

BOTEI, M. (2017). Misinformation with Fake News. Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov. Series VII: Social Sciences. Law, 10 (59)(2), 133–140.

Jamieson, K. H. (1996). Packaging the Presidency: A history and criticism of presidential campaign advertising. Oxford University Press, Incorporated.

Queiroz Andrade, D. (2019). Paving the way for regulation: how the case against Facebook stacked up. Observatorio (OBS*), 13(3), 113–128. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/10.15847/obsobs13320191388

Sevin, E. (2021). New Data Sources and Presidential Campaigns. American Behavioral Scientist, 1. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/10.1177/00027642211021634

“Social Media and News Fact Sheet” Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (September. 20, 2022) https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet.

White, C. L., & Boatwright, B. (2020). Social Media Ethics in the Data Economy: Issues of social responsibility for using Facebook for public relations. Public Relations Review, 46(5), 101980. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2020.101980

Why AI should not be banned from classroom?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ongoing talk of the town, AI has made rapid progress in recent years, which has also led to growing concern amongst academics and professionals about its impact on society. (Luckin & Cukurova, 2019). As AI is advancing and becoming readily available for the public to use. Some students are starting to adapt to it and integrate AI products like ChatGPT and Dall-E in their learning but there is still resistance from most academics (Duckworth & Ungar, 2023). In this essay, we will explore the pros and cons of Chat GPT and why AI should not be banned but rather integrated into learning for the future. 

AI has the ability to revolutionize the way we learn and interact with data. As described in the previous ChatGPT essay, AI language models can help with personalized learning, research, information collecting, collaborative learning, and peer-to-peer support. Yet, there are possible hazards and concerns linked with AI in education, such as the potential for bias perpetuation and lessening the necessity of human teachers.

After trying ChatGPT for the first time, I was impressed by its efficiency, but after using it more and researching I was able to conclude that ChatGPT isn’t reliable enough to blindly trust, not only does it provide common and mainstream ideas but also sometimes incorrectly answer the question given, which defeats the whole purpose of using it as it isn’t able to correctly perform it’s a major function. (Kim, 2023) Although it should be noted that the functionality of AI will only improve in the coming future, AI isn’t and will never be as creative and accurate as a human mind. “Cheating With ChatGPT: Can OpenAI’s Chatbot Pass AP Lit? | WSJ” is a very appropriate example for the same, in this video, the host could only get a C with help of AI in AP literature, which is far less than other students in the class.

As a student, I have seen a lot of my peers using ChatGPT to write assignments, and some even use them for online examinations. It is robbing students of motivation to write and think for themselves (Baron, 2023). These students who are relying on ChatGPT are not acquiring the essential skills needed to succeed in academics or in other professions in the future, It can be argued that in the future as AI improves, the workforce would have adopted its use in their work. However, core skills and skills to evaluate, edit, and improve the product of AI are still going to be necessary to stay ahead in the industry. 

The usage of AI has also resulted in growing concern regarding plagiarism as ChatGPT uses data from other sources without citing them accurately, this ethical implication has led to huge discouragement in the use of AI in academia. We should consider how we have been already using tech tools for academic writing for a long time, for instance, SFU Library offers as well as promotes a citation generator for citing academic sources, back in the day, citations were typed out without the help of these generators. Technology is not going to stop growing and humankind should advance with it rather than resist it. AI is another such technology, and the more we are resistant to it slower we will advance and grow with it. 

Given these concerns, it is critical that we use AI in our daily lives in a responsible and ethical manner. Rather than flatly prohibiting AI, we should investigate methods to best utilize the capabilities it provides while limiting its potential risks and limitations. This includes investing in ethical AI research and development, developing norms and standards for AI use in diverse industries, and promoting public education and understanding of the potential benefits and risks of AI.

There are always going to be concerns emerging with anything new that arises, soon AI will be the handy tool everyone uses, and efficient use of AI will become a required skill for employment in certain sectors. It is the job of the university to make the students equipped with the skills they are going to need in the future. For effective learning, universities should promote stricter policies and usage of creative novel ideas AI can’t generate and promote discussions and group work over individual assignments. 

References

  Baron, N. S. (2023). How ChatGPT robs students of motivation to write and think for themselves. The Conversation : Education.

Kim, B. (2023). LET’S STOP PRETENDING- CHATGPT ISN’T THAT SMART. Barron’s, 103(7), 19–20.

Luckin, R., & Cukurova, M. (2019). Designing educational technologies in the age of AI: A Learning sciences-driven approach. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(6), 2824-2838. doi:10.1111/bjet.12861

Angela Duckworth, Lyle Ungar. (January 19, 2023 Thursday). Chatbots belong in our classrooms; Banning ChatGPT is like keeping students from using Wikipedia or calculators. Los Angeles Times. https://advance-lexis-com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:67BT-XC31-DXXV-34X6-00000-00&context=1516831.

Process Post #8 – Copyright

I’d like to spend this post talking about the world of intellectual property, and the growing dialogue over how to include Indigenous works in copyright law. This is a current topic which includes many people who know much more than I do, but I wanted to use this platform, however small, to raise public perception of such an important concern.

So much of Indigenous knowledge is relayed orally, yet we are offered little to no legal protection over this vital medium. Of course, we still ask for permission to perform drum songs or retell an individual’s story, for example, but we are often not given that same level of respect back.

In Traditional Knowledge Exists; Intellectual Property is Invented or Created, Gregory Younging discusses traditional knowledge. Traditional knowledge is a term for traditions such as agricultural techniques or astronavigation, which are based on experiences passed down through communities and generations.

Many First Nations communities have their own customary laws, which state how a piece of traditional knowledge may be used, whether it be kept to a certain group of people, used in a specific setting, with the guidance of a trusted individual, etcetera.

Despite the longevity of these systems, they are not officially recognized in western law for a variety of reasons:

  1. First Nations people most commonly communicate teachings through spoken word, which means that our knowledge is typically not recorded in written form.
  1. A vast majority of traditional knowledge is reliant on the land it was conceived on, so it may not even be relevant to those outside the community.
  1. Traditional knowledge specifically denotes techniques that have been used for so long that they would automatically be placed in the public domain anyways.
  1. Furthermore, there isn’t always a specific person to which legal rights could be granted to.
  1. These systems can also interplay with eachother in many different ways, which makes it even more difficult to pin them down legally.

One of the biggest concerns with how traditional knowledge isn’t properly covered under western law includes the appropriation of closed practices by people who are okay with encroaching on our intellectual property, provided it is technically legal to do so.

There has subsequently been a push for Indigenous communities to adapt their customary laws into the systems of intellectual property. Unfortunately, many factors including those above make it hard to reconcile these two forms of copyright.

It would be a shame for the preservation of traditional knowledge to be undermined by intellectual property laws that were created and forced upon us, while also not recognizing our complex systems that had worked perfectly fine for thousands of years. 

I hope that eventually traditional knowledge will be held to the same standard as western copyright law, and that we may be protected against appropriation and plagiarism of our work without needing to fundamentally alter our entire systems in order to do so.

☆.

Why Women Kill!!

Tv show called why women kill it has three pictures of women

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across someone on Tik Tok, and they were talking about this show, and I watched about three of their Tik Toks, and I was hooked! I quickly found that Prime had this series and binged watch the whole season in two days. At first, I was confused because it kept going back and forth between three different eras. My favorite period would be the 60s with Beth Ann and her husband, Rob Stanton. I love her relationship with her neighbor Sheila; those two were my favorite. I cannot believe that Beth Ann became friends with Robert’s mistress and lives a double life for awhile while being a housewife, and when her husband is at work, Beth is out roaming with the mistress. Near the end of the series, I was so upset when Robert knew what happened to his daughter but still blamed his wife for the death of their child. Along, Robert knew that his mistress left the gate open, which is why his daughter could leave their yard. With all of Robert’s lies unfolding, she knew there was only one thing to do, which was to murder her husband “by accident.”

I also enjoyed the period when it was Simone and Karl. Everybody loved Simone and Karl until they found out that Karl was gay; everybody thought they could catch a disease when being in the presence of Karl. I found it hard to watch because I can’t believe that’s how they treated Gay men back in the day. Karl had his best friend, Simone, and even though he put her in a tricky situation by coming out as gay, Simone stood by his side the whole time.

Overall, I think this is a fantastic show, and if you haven’t watched it, you should check it out.

The post Why Women Kill!! appeared first on Kayla's Blog.

What in the world! -Process Post

While reading an article by Bridle, James, “Something is Wrong on the Internet,” Bridle says, “I’ve also been aware for some time of the increasingly symbiotic relationship between younger children and YouTube J.Bridle (2017).” I agree that this generation of children does spend an alarming amount of time on their devices. When I was younger, things were very different compared to nowadays. Although my parents limited my screen time while I was growing up, they preferred I play outside with my friends instead of sitting in front of a TV or computer screen. However, my mom allowed screen time when I was done with my chores, cleaned my room, and completed all my homework; once it was finished, I could surf the web for two hours until I had to start getting ready for bed. My parents were mainly concerned that we would lose our childhood to a phone and laptop screen.

As I started high school, my parents allowed me to have my phone in case an emergency arose. Although there were still some rules to having a phone, she would only pay for talk and text and turned the Wi-Fi off at 9:00 PM to ensure I slept enough for school. Now that I am an adult with my children, I understand why she had those rules. Nowadays, some horrific things are on YouTube, and I monitor what my daughter watches. Before I had any children, I remember YouTube kids were in the hot seat because some harmful content was being put on a kid’s app. This YouTube video details what was being put out on YouTube kids’ (99) YouTube Kids app and disturbing content – YouTube. Now that my daughter is two years old, I heavily monitor what she watches on YouTube. Even though I was vigilant about what she watched, she sat beside my spouse one day and started crying. As she passed her iPad to me, I looked at the video she was watching, and it was about a man finding a kitten on the side of the road inside a box. He grabbed the box with the kitten and placed it in the bank of his truck. The kitten ended up falling out of the box and was looking over the tailgate to look around, and the man went over a speed bump, which caused the kitten to fall out. Right behind the truck was another car driving behind him, and the car didn’t have enough time to stop, so it ran over the kitten, and the kitten died. This is a personal example, but it relates to “Something is wrong on the internet.”

The post What in the world! -Process Post appeared first on Kayla's Blog.

Peer Review 2: Traveling to Planet Vannesa

Planet Vanessa Landing Page

Today it is my great pleasure to introduce Vanessa Nipp, the webmaster, creative director and content creator, over at Planet Vanessa. Join me as I review her cyberinfrastructure with particular attention to design processes and how her design choices emphasize the cultivation of her digital self. I will also dig into her code via “inspect mode” (F12) to better understand what’s going on.  http://planetvanessa.com/

If you’ve never been to space before, I recommend packing a light snack because Planet Vanessa orbits a far-out system of Groove-ulon 6.

Lift-Off & Landing Page

It’s cold and lonely out in space. Away from our tiny blue marble, the vast recesses of nothingness overwhelm and stretch into the infinite. Soon the mind begins to play tricks on us. 

Are those far-off stars repeating themselves? As a matter of fact, yes! Looking closely at Planet Vanessa’s landing page, we see that the background image is tiled. 

The image of space she utilizes is 564 px wide and 1002 px tall. The tiling will vary depending on the screen’s resolution and whether visitors use desktops, laptops or mobile devices. 

 
Planet Vanessa Mobile Landing

As you can see on my phone, we get one iteration of the tile.

On my desktop at 1920 x 1080, her background image iterates  ≈ 4 times horizontally. 

Repeating a background image is very pragmatic because it reduces load times. The computer only needs to interpret one much smaller image and duplicates it. 

Had she chosen a large HD image (1920×1080), this would have potentially increased her load times—potentially slowing down the user experience. I think that was a good decision on Vanessa’s part. Yet, there could be more attention to detail in choosing the perfect tile. A perfect tile gives the illusion of seamlessness. The trick is to obfuscate that line where one tile ends and another begins. This means we have to be conscious of the details of the picture. 

As we can see from this tile, a few places break the fantasy of deep endless space. We can see some prominent splashes of purple and blue to signify nebulae and a few gold stars. However, these nebulae don’t match up when placed side-by-side, and the stars are so unique compared to the other elements of the picture it creates multiple seams that the eye naturally follows. The result is that the background image perhaps stands out more than it should—a minor detail, to be sure, but something that stood out for me. 

Display Font & Logo. 


Vanessa’s logo is fun and playful. A line drawing of a Saturn-like planet upon a backdrop of stars. A black background and the name of her site are written above, transformed with a curve. 

Planet Vanessa Logo

Looking closely, we see that the planet and star’s fill is white, while their stroke is blue-black. This stroke stands out against the black background of her logo, making me wonder about Vanessa’s thought process for this decision. It would be interesting to see the stroke match the background, creating a transparent effect in the intersecting lines of the rings and the planet. 

The font choice for her logo was interesting; she had chosen a display font from the comic family. This font features varying widths throughout the anatomy of the font, and fat rounded serifs give an overall bubbly feeling. She has chosen a transparent (or) black fill and a blue stroke. I like Vanessa’s type choice because it captures the mood she is expressing with her digital identity; however, the choice to make the fill transparent severely reduces the legibility of the text. 

The Golden rule of typography is that it must be legible. As it stands, there isn’t great enough contrast between the blue and the black; in addition, the stroke is too thin to stand out from its background. I recommend Vanessa play around with the typography and discover alternative design choices to increase the contrast between the type and its background. 

Planet Vanessa, featuring Planet Vannesa


The anatomy of her landing page is as follows: A <Header> containing Logo, <H1> text, a divider line, and her <Nav>. Following this is the <Body>, featuring some fun text on a curved baseline above an image of Saturn. Finally, the <Footer> is signified by another division line, the logo aligned to the left, and a shout-out to WordPress aligned right.

It would be interesting if the planet logo and image had more similarities. For example, in the picture, we’re looking at the planet from a different perspective which gives depth to the image, whereas we see the logo planet head-on, without a sense of depth. If they shared a sense of perspective, it would build cohesion between the different elements of your page. In addition, it would also be interesting to see how Vanessa could utilize the principle of similarity in her typography. 

I love the curved baseline of “Welcome to Vanessa Planet,” I love it even more that it’s a piece of CSS, not an image. But the dissimilarity between the four different fonts being utilized feels disharmonious. On the one hand, the logo paints a picture of something kinda fun and out-there, whereas the ‘welcome to’ and the <H1> text don’t seem to share that feeling. I think this could be easily fixed by choosing two fonts, maybe three, if she were very set on her logo typography. 

The easiest solution I would experiment with is eliminating the <H1> in the <header> altogether. I think this would be a strong move because the name of the site, “Planet Vanessa,” is well captured throughout the landing page, and since the <h1> is a completely different font from the logo, nav and welcome, removing this <H1> text would do several things. It would increase the cohesion of the typographic choices by limiting the amount used, eliminating redundant information, and making Vanessa’s <nav> more prominent, no longer having to share the line with the <H1> text.

Let’s look at the content.

Planet Vanessa Content example

Vanessa utilizes a similar layout for her posts as I do on Burrito reProduction. It’s a single-column, aligned center. It’s simple, sweet—100% endorsement from my non-bias position! Planet Vanessa utilizes plenty of header tags to break her content into digestible pieces, which also increases the accessibility of the website. She also employs lots of photographs that raise the engagement in her content.

The content design on Planet Vanessa is very cohesive with one another, and it matches the landing page and about page. As my page layout is very similar, an observation that is as much for Vanessa as it is for myself, we find dynamic ways to utilize all the white space we leave on our pages. Since Vanessa’s site appears to be built with mobile phones in mind, this isn’t as much of an issue for her as it is for me. 

Final Thoughts.

Planet Vanessa has a strong sense of identity. It stands out from the run-of-the-mill blog spaces because of its design choices, giving the reader the impression that they have been invited into the depths of space to a planet unlike ours. A place that does not follow the standard conventions of simplistic, clean, or minimal design choices. It unapologetically expresses Vanessa Nipp through its space theme and bold typographic decisions, and the original logo all contribute to conveying the digital persona that Vanessa has cultivated.

Excellent work, Vanessa Nipp; I look forward to seeing what you do next with your site!

Process Post 7 (More about Design)

I had already devoted a great deal of my last process post to design. Still, I felt I didn’t capture the assignment to share some examples of websites that got my approval. In addition, I was supposed to talk about marketability next week! It seems I thoroughly confused myself! So I will take a step back and add a bit more about design and share some websites that I find pleasing, as well as show some that I do not care for. 

My love-hate relationship with minimalism

On the one hand, it is undeniable that minimalism deserves its place as a design aesthetic that continues to inspire all aspects of creative works. Websites, architecture, print and digital media, fashion, decor, music, fine arts, pretty much everything. And there are lots of good reasons to prefer a minimalist approach. For example, some people relish a ‘blank page’ approach to organizing their home, which can be important in a world overloaded with clutter, advertisements, people, cars, etc.

We can also make a moral argument that minimalist practices are good and ought to be pursued. Considering we live in a world of overconsumption, rife with gluttonous beliefs that express personal identity through material possession, it shouldn’t be difficult to thread the needle that minimalism offers a method of escape from our accelerated death drive of hoarding clutter.

So what’s the deal? What’s to hate? 

It’s because I think that most forms of minimalism are similar to the practice of ‘greenwashing.’ Greenwashing is usually a form of advertising or marketing spin to persuade the public that the organization’s products, aims and policies are environmentally friendly. But I am using it slightly differently. Instead of being limited to a process used by businesses, minimalism presents itself as a solution to real-world material problems without actually addressing the root of their problems. It’s a band-aid, addressing the symptom rather than the cause.

Too poor to own a house? Try living in a shipping container! I hate that minimalism is so often poverty in cosplay.


Furthermore, since minimalism is also a design trend, plenty of businesses have jumped on board with their website design, yet the outcome often creates cognitive dissonance. Why?

Minimalism is perceived as clean, lightweight, only what is needed, free from clutter, and utilitarian, but rarely does the ethos and philosophy of business correspond to these principles on any meaningful level. They believe in minimalism as a marketing strategy to maximize the consumption of their respective products. 

Let’s look at medium.com

Image of medium.com landing page.

What does this website tell us? It’s no bells, no whistles approach is ‘sleek,’ and its visual hierarchies are clearer for the audience to navigate without any hassle towards its product, which is its news stories.  Little nuggets of information in a world governed by the mantra that information is knowledge, and knowledge is power. For Medium, like all content mills, information is also currency—a worshipped and coveted form of power. 

Sure, it presents those nuggets in a minimalist manner, but then you realize there is an infinite amount of them, and to be sure, it doesn’t want you to take responsible little bites of its product. It wants you to consume its content voraciously. So there we go; we’re back to my objection. We choose minimalism as a function to maximize consumption—an inversion of the ethos of minimalism. And this is my major skepticism towards its popularity.

Yet, just because minimalism functions to obfuscate our relationship with consumption, does that justify an abandonment or wholesale rejection of minimalism? Should it be different?

O-V-E-R-L-O-A-D

My short answer is no. A sense of hierarchy is lost if a website is overloaded with visual elements. The eye feverishly darts from corner to corner in a vain attempt to make sense of the information, the structure, and the thesis. There is a physio-psychological limitation to our cognition, and we can’t make proper sense of overloaded, unorganized things. Therefore, some form of minimalism is not only preferred but necessary.

Case in point: This site.

image of landing page for arngren.com a danish website

UX/UI

I wish I knew more about these topics. It’s obvious that the difference between a good and bad form of minimalism is a matter of how we interact with it rather than what philosophy it proposes.

image of landing page for benjamin-nespoulous.com

I love this website because of its playful interactivity. The elements all have a bit of life to them. They move, expand, contract, become inverse in colouration, etc. It feels alive! Yet the site as a whole is so simple without being boring or cliche. It has a philosophy and functionality that incorporates minimalism without being minimalist. 


Let’s circle back.

Burrito Reproduction utilizes some notion of minimalism, so I couldn’t be so hypocritical as to condemn it completely. Part of the reason is that this course demonstrated that I’m woefully underskilled in coding. I thought I wasn’t so bad, but this whole WordPress experiment has shown me how far I have to travel. Nonetheless, I like the aesthetics of my site. I want to capture that same observation I made with NSPS. That being, it’s functionally minimal but unapologetic and individualistic about the typical conventions found in minimalism.

Moving forward, I will continue to remember the lessons learned from “How to Survive the Digital Apocalypse.” The old normative formats of repeated templates, uninspired content, and failure to express our unique subjectivity as designers, educators, and writers will ensure that narrow AIs will outsource us. We will survive by leaning into our subjectivity, which is exactly what I intend to do. 

Process Post 6 – Getting serious about Analytics

So for this week, I’ve been trying to brush up on my analytics and better understand how to generate more traffic for my site. Admittedly there is a lot to learn!

Of course, I have Site Kit, and of course, I’ve connected that to Google Analytics, but I wanted to take it a step further than that. I want to understand SEO better to make the most out of the data I’m collecting, which means learning a ton of new terminology-all with their strategies.

Social media

I hate social media, for the record. I’ve spent years and years disavowing it. Staying clear entirely. But now it seems like those days are done. I decided social media was the best way to start getting my link out there. But I need a reason to have, say, a Youtube account. Then it hit me. Why not migrate my recent video onto Youtube? Then I can just embed it onto my site! That is a win-win-win situation! First, I don’t have to take up the valuable space on this site hosting a video. Second is that I now have content for youtube, and the third is I have a network to cross-promote.

Okay, so I did it! Here’s the link to my new youtube channel!

I also did a Twitter thing… why in the name of God did I do that?? Recently, I was mentioned on Twitter for my talk at a journal conference, and I felt a bit of FOMO not being able to reply to thank them for the shout-out. Keeping in line with my goal to get serious about my promotions, I bit my tongue and signed up. Now I can promote new pages and at least squeeze a bit of analytics out of it.

So here I am on Twitter.

That’s it for Social media.

SEO

Another step I’m taking is to hone in on some SEO research. Last week, I decided I wouldn’t mind a side hustle as a copy or content writer. In addition, how cool would it be to generate money from this little publishing experiment? BurritoReProductions isn’t meant to be a content mill. Still, at the same time, it would be kinda cool to build a subdomain to showcase some content and copywriting to give me future opportunities. This week I’ll analyze the data and see which keywords and topics are naturally coming up as a launch point. I also plan to look at more trending topics and see if I can write a few samples in the vein of those topics.  We’ll see how it goes!

I also want to start cross-posting… I wonder who among my classmates would be interested in some cross-posting mutually beneficial marketing.

Design

I’m still struggling to find my own in the design side of things. I don’t know what I want it all to look like. I’ve tried many variations but keep returning to this green page. It’s my fallback! I’m trying to stay positive, though. I know that perfectionism kills progress. It may not be what I want, but it gives me a platform to work from. I will keep playing around, and hopefully, something will become of it. But I’m no longer as concerned about the design as earlier this semester.

I enjoyed reading the article “Design Machines: How To Survive the Digital Apocalypse.” Not only is it fantastically written, but its design is also exquisite. There was so much that I had intuitively felt was true but had not quite found the words to express for myself. That we exist in a copycat culture or that so much content online is crap—crap selling crap. Or something not necessarily addressed but of the same vein, that AI templates are quickly becoming the norm for content, only adding to the tensions raised in the article.

I’m unsure how to employ best what I learned from the article. I think it’s just food for thought. I’m tempted to say we need to act more authentic in our publishing spheres because if we become too complacent with that cookie-cutter style of content creation, we will be outsourced by automation. The one thing we have to offer that our machines can not is our humanity, warts and all.

Process Post 11: Alan’s Radio Station

For this week’s post we will be looking at a plan to incorporate more transmedia into my online publication.  Transmedia is basically other forms of media that can integrate into your current online publications. For example, the “Pokemon as transmedia storytelling” says it the best, where you can “watch… it on TV, playing the games on your Gameboy Color, collecting hundreds of trading cards, and decorating your room with Pokemon toys and bedspreads” (Kevinbrittenylauren, 2013). Basically, transmedia refers to multiple different types of mediums, such as being able to exist on both the radio and television. 

For me personally, if I were to ever do blogging as something I would take seriously, I would explore integrating transmedia in the form of a podcast. The reason why I would choose a podcast is because I think my content best translates to this form of media. It also does not compromise the integrity or ideas of my posts in any way.

One more thing of note is that I personally enjoy talking, so I think I am able to tell captivating stories that are better than reading text on a screen.

Podcasts can be then uploaded to various digital platforms, such as Spotify or the Podcasts app on all Apple devices. This increases the reach of my content as I can spread it to platforms other than my website. Furthermore, podcasts are very low intensity, and allow me to create engaging content without too much additional work.

It also has other benefits, such as engaging all audiences, whether they can read my content or not. For example, if you can read and see, you would be able to listen to my podcast and get my perspective with all my expressions, something that cannot be easily expressed through text. However, if you cannot see, then you can hear what the writer intended, as it is coming straight from them. Basically, while it provides an accessibility component, it can also be used for adding another layer even for audiences that can read and comprehend the blogs.

All in all, podcasts are a very convenient way to increase my reach, while adding another dimension to all readers while keeping the integrity of the content that I originally posted. 

References:

Kevinbrittenylauren.wordpress.com. 2013. “Pokemon as transmedia storytelling“

My Final Post

[Original Post Date: 12/6/22]

Well, this will be my final post of the semester. So I wanted to take this time and reflect on how much I’ve grown as a person over the last couple of months.

I originally set out when making this blog site to become more confident when sharing my art pieces out to the public, outside of my immediate circle of friends or family. Looking back now, I never really understood why I was so scared to share my art pieces in the first place. Maybe the process was something unfamiliar to me. Maybe I was afraid that people would judge too harshly. Or maybe it was simply that I didn’t want to. Whatever the case may be, making this blog site and posting my art pieces was definitely something out of my comfort zone and has helped me grown as a person and as an artist. And, miracoulsly, made me realize that sharing my art wasn’t as scary as I intially thought it would be.

So I wanted to give a huge shout out to Suzanne Norman and Lauren Jeanneau, the teaching team behind this course. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone and explore something entirely new to me. I’ve always been meaning to share my art pieces out into the world but I’ve been hesitant for unknown reasons. Thinking back at the start of the semester, it’s kinda silly to me that I was so hesitant and unwilling to share my art. But it’s also quite incredible how much I’ve grown in confidence within the span of a couple of months. The people that conducted a peer review on my blog site commented on how all of the art pieces were all really well done. Those small comments gave me a huge confidence boost in my abilities as an artist.

To everyone reading this post, thank you. Even if you stopped by just to view one post, that small act means a lot to me. If I ever make it as a successful illustrator (let’s be honest, probably not. But maybe? Unless?), I will remember this as being a huge stepping stone for me. Perhaps I will continue to post here throughout the coming months. Or perhaps I will just look at this site to remind myself how much I’ve grown during these couple of months, or how much I’ve grown by the time I’m revisitng this site.

And so, a new chapter begins for everyone. And I wish you all good luck on your next ventures, whatever they may be.

Thank you to everyone. Exist in peace.

Goodbye. Now, leave.

Establishing Community Guidelines

[Original Post Date: 11/29/22]

I believe community guidelines are important to establish what type of content is or is not allowed on a site. An example of community guidelines that I have taken inspiration from is YouTube’s set. (link: https://www.youtube.com/intl/ALL_ca/howyoutubeworks/policies/community-guidelines/).

I took inspiration from this site as it had a similar type of content and the main source of interaction between the creator and the viewer was through the commenting system. I took a look through the different sets of community guidelines that YouTube has currently in place. There are three umbrella terms that I would consider adding to my own set of community guidelines; posts that include violent or dangerous content, sensitive topics, and spam.

To me, spam is more likely to occur than comments that contain sensitive topics or violent content as my blog site has not amassed a big enough audience that would lead to someone posting comments. Therefore targeting spam with my own set of community guidelines would make the most sense. I would tackle this by installing plugins that stop bots from commenting on spam in my posts. I would consider using the ‘Block Spam WordPress’ plugin

In terms of tackling comments that include sensitive or violent topics, I would consider the following. If there were to be one or two comments that have been made that include violent and/or sensitive topics, I would manually remove these comments. In the case of there being multiple comments being made throughout multiple posts, I would just disable my comment system.

Transmedia Integration

[Original Post Date: 11/22/22]

Transmedia: where elements of fiction are told through different forms of media (i.e., T.V. shows, movies, books, microsites).

Transmedia can be seen in multiple types of established IPs. Take “The Dark Knight” for example. The Dark Knight utilized transmedia during its marketing schemes leading up to the release of the film. Microsites, which are smaller websites dedicated to advertising a specific product, were created to clue in on key story elements of the film. One of the microsites created was for an electoral campaign for one of the characters within the film named “Harvey Dent” who was running for the position of DA. The microsite showcased a poster with the text “HARVEY DENT FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY – I BELIEVE IN HARVEY DENT”. This campaign poster was showcased throughout the first act of the film.

HARVEY DENT FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY. I BELIEVE IN HARVEY DENT
I believe in Harvey Dent Campaign Poster

As the release date of the film was drawing closer, the microsite updated the poster to include a more vandalized version. The left half of Harvey Dent’s face was scribbled with a red marker. A black marker was used to form a crude ‘x’ over Harvey Dent’s left eye, symbolizing that he was half-dead.

This poster foreshadowed what would happen to Harvey Dent and who would cause the harm to turn him into the infamous villain. Two-Face.

"I BELIEVE IN HARVEY DENT" The only sensible way to live in this worl is without rules. FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Paid for by friends of Harvey Dent
Vandalized Version of I believe in Harvey Dent Campaign Poster

How I plan to incorporate transmedia into my blog site is simple. One of the main reasons I created this blog site (outside of the fact that it was required of me to make one for a PUB course) was that it was to be used in a way where I would be comfortable sharing my art pieces with people I don’t really know. Now, I have become a lot more comfortable showcasing my art to the public. Therefore, in the near future, I would create a dedicated account on social media platforms such as Instagram, ArtStation, and Twitter to place all of my art pieces. On these social media pages, I would post pieces that are either ‘work-in-progress’ or fully finished. Within these posts, I would place a link to my blog which would then detail more so of my process for each piece for those that are interested. On my about page on my blog site, I would place links to each of these accounts. I plan to also host exclusive content that would only be available on this blog site in order to incentivize visitors to come to visit.

The Deep Web vs. The Dark Web

[Original Post Date: 11/22/22]

The Deep Web vs the Dark Web. I never really knew that there was a difference between the two. All I knew about them was that they were a part of the internet that cannot be surfaced by regular search engines like Google or Bing. You would have to download a specialized browser that allows you to browse the dark or deep web anonymously.

In the article titled “Clearing Up Confusion – Deep Web vs. Dark Web“, the stated difference between the two different types of the web is that the dark web is a smaller portion of the deep web. The dark web is intentionally hidden due to it containing illicit content that ranges from strange to outright disturbing.

I think what really piqued my interest in the concept of the dark and deep web was from a video game titled “Welcome To The Game” parts one and two. I first heard of this game when one of my favorite YouTubers, Markiplier, did a playthrough of the game. The game revolves around you taking control of your character who is a detective tasked with discovering the location of a woman who has been kidnapped. The goal of the game is to collect these keys that are hidden throughout different websites within the dark web. Welcome to the Game has been described as a very challenging game due to how it mimics realistic scenarios. Your character must ensure that they hide their identity when using the dark web as others can track your location and kill you; game over.

Now, that’s not to say that I would go around snooping the dark web. While I understand that utilizing a specialized browser would help mask my identity and information thus making it relatively safe, if I am not careful, malicious people can track my location or find information about me easily which may lead to dangerous consequences.

Data Trails

[Original Post Date: 11/15/22]

Ever since installing Google Analytics for my blog site, it has been a handy tool to gauge and build my audience. The analytics tool has allowed me to know exactly how each visitor of my site behaves, what time is the most active, and what posts they view the most and I can use all of this information to cater to my content. All of this is possible because of the vast amount of data that users leave behind. Which has got me thinking about how much data I leave behind whenever I visit other websites because I know that it’s collecting a lot of data from me.

Leaving behind pieces of data about you on websites is known as a ‘Data Trail’ or ‘Digital Breadcrumbs’. As described by Dr. Elisa Oregilain in the article “Digital breadcrumbs: the data trail we leave behind us“, digital breadcrumbs are a trace you leave behind where information about you can be stored and dispersed through the internet.

It can be worrisome or stressful for some knowing that their data is being collected wherever they visit parts of the internet.

To be entirely honest, data trails were not something I usually think about on a daily basis as I know all types of data about me are being collected. It’s so ingrained with the process of using any service on the internet that I’d come to just accept it.

I know that whatever service I willingly opt into, there are always going to be some condition within the terms and conditions that states that it would be collecting data to sell it off to some third-party marketing company but since I never bother to read the document, I accept the fact that it’s taking data from me and move on.

So after learning more about data trails, would I be more careful with how I disseminate my data on websites? Probably not. I would probably be warier but I wouldn’t really change how I behave when willingly opt into service on the internet because there’s nothing I can really do to get around corporations stealing my data.

Process Post: User Navigation

When figuring out the layout of my pages, in regards to content I kept in mind the f reading pattern. In keeping with the pattern, I made sure to have a strong horizontal menu and limited the amount of body text on the home page. This allows to user to clearly understand the navigation of the website, as well as the aesthetic, without being bombarded with content. Another navigation decision I made was to unify content through landing pages for the broader page categories, for example the PUB 101 page has links through titles and images to the child pages (Process Posts, Mini Assignments, and Peer Reviews). This interlinked nature of content creates easier navigation for the user, while also drawing their attention to other published content. The concept of Kafe Corrective is the idea of stress baking and ranting. Although these categories are within their own respective pages, I included links to the recipes on each corresponding rant to create a connection between the two pages and allow for easier user exploration. To further reinforce user flow between content, each post also has a section at the bottom that recommends other content that have been marked with the same category.

Process Post: Intellectual Property

Copyright enables intellectual property to remain and retain publication rights to its originator. In our current digital media age, content is continuously shared and repurposed in new ways. Through platforms like TikTok, short audio clips are paired with either still images or videos to create a new meaning or interpretation of the original content. Because of this remixing of mediums and content, it is often hard to locate the originator of the actual content used within these trends. The remixing and sharing of content results in the question, who should get the credit? Although an individual might have a copyright to a specific piece of content, remixing content arguably creates new content that goes beyond the original. Digital media also allows for instantaneous publication. As seen on social media platforms, posting content is pretty much immediate, and is typically not regulated unless flagged by a different user. Due to the scope of content being posted, reposted, and remixed, it is easy for copyrighted content to be published and remain published for a few days without immediate repercussions. The user on these platforms is also the publisher, meaning there is less of a screening process for how and where content is published to. Digital media continues to blur the line of what should count as intellectual property and for who? The anonymity of social media paired with the ability to self-publish results in more and more publication of remixed media.

Process Post: False News

The game telephone is notorious for showing the contortion of information as it gets passed from one person to the next. I believe that social media is our current telephone. As younger demographics tend to watch TV or read the news less, our main outlet to current events is through their publication on social media platforms. Although this is an efficient way in the spread on information, the verification of the spread information is severely lacking. Just as certain news corporations have affiliations and align themselves with a political standing, social media users and profiles do the same, but I believe due to the anonymity of social media, the publishers political affiliations are often forgotten. As experienced immensely during peak pandemic era, the sharing of infographics that contained tips and statistics with how to avoid catching COVID was everywhere. The issue with these infographics that get reposted, is that the credibility of their information is not verified and therefore leads to the spread of misinformation. As misinformation riddled content gains traction, this content becomes more of a societal truth than an actual fact. It is accepted as true because of it’s scope and mass publication, rather than the credibility of the information within the content. As users we must become more vigilant in becoming our own fact-checkers, rather than be reliant on the fact-checking done my social media corporations.

Process Post: Editing

As I now have an established intended audience, it has made it easier to try and find my tone of voice for writing my content. As my ideal intended audience are fellow university students who also stress bake, I am able to retain my natural way of speaking for the most part. Keeping an overlap in relatability and slight professionalism, is the type of tone that I am trying to keep my content to maintain. Luckily editing my writing to conform to this type of tone is easier as it is my natural way of speaking. The other element of Kafe Corrective, the recipes, is purely professionalism and coherent communication of the recipes. For this while writing out recipes, and editing the instructions I wrote for them, I used other recipe websites as a frame of reference to clearly convey the instructions as much as possible. Recipe writing is not completely devoid of tone, but it is reliant on using clear adjectives for the addition and incorporation of ingredients. Similarly, while editing and refining Kafe Corrective visually I found it useful to take an approach of asking other people for their critiques or perceptions of the website’s aesthetic. Since the first peer review I found it tremendously helpful to get a fresh pair of eyes examining website, as they have a more objective point of view and it also gives insight into how users feel upon first seeing the site. Overall, editing allowed for the fine tuning and modification of Kafe Corrective’s aesthetic and overall tone. Through the multiple iterations of editing, it was easier to account and try to appeal to my target audience through the refinement of published content.

Process Post: Analytics

Analytics do provide valuable insight into my target versus actual audience and lets me base my decisions based on previous performance of content and response from my audience. As a content creator analytics enables me to think about things such as when I should post, what form of content is more popular, and what audience it has popularity with. Comparatively, as a user it is worrisome to know that my data is being tracked by each website I go to, and that data is then able to be sold to other companies by my provider. Online user privacy is something that I miss being oblivious to. Prior to a few years ago, I never intensely noticed the correlation between my search history or text conversations to advertisements, but now it is almost to obvious to ignore. The issue is the power hierarchy surrounding data buying and user data usage. For smaller or individually created websites, like Kafe Corrective, the specificities of the data do not go much beyond time, location and entered information of the user. Larger technology companies, like Google, Facebook, or Twitter, are able to retain a much more detailed and personal account of user information due to the terms and conditions that typically go unread by users. The fact that anything published on the internet can never really be erased has always been slightly terrifying to me. This tracked data and immense accountability has ultimately resulted in a “cancel culture” type era, where there is the debate of if individuals should be held accountable for their past actions that have been chronicled online. Growing up in a time where elementary students use social media, it is terrifying to think that anything and everything posted exists in the online space permanently.

Process Post: Community Guidelines

Kafe Corrective would have Community Guidelines that restrict the type of content being posted on behalf of the user’s comments. These Community Guidelines would include an intolerance to any form of racist, sexist or any other form discriminatory behavior. They also include an intolerance towards any excessive vulgar language, which will be reviewed and screened by the admin. Kafe Corrective does also not condone the use or spreading of spam or scam content, spreading of misinformation, or the commenting of external links due to the increased possibility of incurring viruses. Kafe Corrective strives to be an open and accepting community that encourages open communication, and encourages its members to treat themselves and others with kindness. Currently, these Community Guidelines are being enforced by each comment having to be publicly approved to be released onto the website. This means as admin I have full authority over the comments that are published on my pages or in response to the posts of Kafe Corrective. If I have more time for implementing the Community Guidelines, I would also add any derogatory or deemed unfit words to a flag list, that automatically flags the comment. For now the process of me having to manually release each comment allows me to have full screening control over what gets published on Kafe Corrective in order to make sure it fits within the Community Guidelines.

Process Post: Community Guidelines

#1 Be Respectful

I know this sounds cliché, but I think this is a big deal to have. My site is all about trying to be optimistic and remaining motivated in a fitness journey while being busy with school, and my posts are mostly just reflections of my experiences during this time. So readers should be respectful of me and my content, as well as anyone else who is going through the same thing I am.

#2 No Hate Speech

Although very similar to the first guideline, this one dives into more specificity in what people should not be commenting on my posts. Any harmful comments are not only hurtful to me, but to anyone who visits my site and is looking for something to motivate them in improving their well-being.

#3 No Spamming

Spamming is annoying, and it disrupts readers from the content they are meant to see on my site. 

#4 No Illegal Content or Promotion

Pretty self-explanatory—no one should comment or post anything that promotes any illegal activities. 

Why These Guidelines?

My site is meant to serve as a safe space for anyone who is struggling on their fitness journey and wants to find a means to stay motivated. I believe these guidelines enable my site to be a safe space.

Consequences

Anyone who violates these guidelines will be flagged immediately and will be blocked from the site.