Blog Post #6

During the EOTO presentations various forms of technology was introduced. 

One of my favorite ones that I learned about was the cinema. I've always loved movies and films so seeing that one up there I was really excited to learn more about it. The presenter talked about the start of movies and and it first came about and got really popular around the 1930s-1940s due to the golden age of Hollywood.

One fun fact that I know is, while Walt Disney had his start in newspaper comics, Disney's art did not get popular until he started doing short films at the introduction of movies. His first was Oswald the Lucky rabbit, which was shortly followed by Steamboat Willie both produced in 1928. 

A lot of cinemas popularity is thanked to the Golden Age of Hollywood. But if you look back films first got sound in 1927, which followed right after that comes the skyrocket of films popularity. We can thank Hollywood for producing the movies but we can thank sound for giving movies the ability to become as popular.

I did however, think it was interesting that the presenter thought the only downside to the cinema was how much it hurt live performance shows. However, I have to disagree, I think the cinema also brought forth a new set of values that could be violated by just what was being shown on the screen. However, that is if you take into consideration how sensitive society is now. While I personally do not have an issue with it I know with the cancel culture and extremely sensitive society we live in that plenty of people do have issues with it. 

Blog Post #5

     After looking at the sites given the writers/authors of the articles are very opinionated and strong voices. It is very clear on their points and they get it across really well due to the strength behind their speech. 

    These are the kinds of opinions you don’t hear in mainstream news due to their opinions. The whole being against war opinion and stance is extremely looked down upon in not only the states but many other countries as well. While it is not as bad here in the states as it is in other countries it is not something you are going to hear about on the 5 o'clock news. It is a topic that you would discuss with family, and even that at times can be pushing it depending on where you come from. 

    Personally, for me being from the south, you don’t speak religion, politics, or sports with anyone other than family. Because down here thats how you get yourself in trouble. 

    War is meant to be seen as something strong and powerful, it is something that people are suppose to be respected for. But in reality it is cruel, and unnecessary most all of the time it occurs. And with the country we live in, it is something that our government uses excuses for. The government uses it to do ungodly and cruel things they want to just sweep under the rug to hide from the citizens. This is why for us to even hear about anti war let alone strong stances on it we have to go to these obscure websites. 

Blog Post #4

 Photography EOTO project 

History

Photography was invented in 1826 with the first photograph being made by a French inventor, Joseph Niépce. He did this by taking the camera obscura and placing a plate coating in bitumen and leaving it in the obscura for several hours in the sun. The light from the sun and the bitumen created a chemical reaction and allowing the image to be shown in a shadow like form. 

                          

                                     The first Photograph made. 1826 by Joseph Niépce. 

Before this photograph was made all people had was the camera obscura, which is a box with a small pin hole that allows light in. When the light enter the box it depicts whatever is outside the box upside down and backwards. People would go in the box and put up canvases and paper and draw what they saw. The camera obscura dates back to 400 BC when it was first documented to exist. 

When the first photograph was invented there were people all around the world who were attempting to create the first permanent form of a photo that did not involve painting or drawing it. Once word got out that the first one had been invented. The game changed, it was now a race on who could make the best, clearest form of permanent photography out there. 

Many different forms of photography was created but the one that was invented that had the biggest influence on our society was the Kodak No. 1 camera invented in 1889 by George Eastman. This was the first camera that could be used by ordinary people. It looked almost like a miniature version of the camera obscura and the photographs came out round. 

Kodak No.1 Camera by George Eastman

This camera became the bases for the camera and photography system we know today. Following this almost 90 years later the digital camera and photography system was invented by Kodak engineer, Steven Sasson in 1975. This is the system we use today for photos. 

Impact

Having actual photographs of places, events, and people rather than paintings and drawing changed the world drastically. Once photography was invented, it was the first time people saw how brutal war actually was compared to how it was just depicted in words. It was the first time lower classes had photographs of family, the first time people actually saw what the places they dreamed of traveling to actually looked like. Photography also gave us another form of communication, while it is argued to be a form of art many beg to differ unless the photo is changed in some way. This is because for those who are illiterate, photographs allowed for a new way for them to receive news compared to just hearing it by tongue. This was something new as commissions for paintings and drawings were too high for news medias to get. 

But just like all great inventions, photography came with its own issues. Photography exposed people to some things that should never be seen, while it was needed and it is great to have for historical purposes. Photography opened the world up to a whole new form of issues, people focus more on taking the photos than they do at what is currently happening around them. It also caused issues of morals, people are dumb and don’t always realize when to stop. This has lead to cruel and brutal photos of crashes and photos of peoples loved ones being exposed to the world. It also created the issue of the exposing culture we have now, with just about everyone knowing someone who has sent pornographic pictures and then only for those people to have those photos be exposed to social media. 

Photography helped the world grow a tremendous amount. However, there is a time and place for it. While the human race has yet to realize the issues that it has caused it will still always be around forever. Hopefully one day everyone can see the issues it has caused and instead of getting rid of it people just develop more common sense as to when to use it and when to not. 

Citations

All-About-Photo.com. “How the Art of Photography Has Influenced the World.” All about Photo: Photo Contests, Photography Exhibitions, Galleries, Schools, Books and Venues., 23 Mar. 2021, https://www.all-about-photo.com/photo-articles/photo-article/953/how-the-art-of-photography-has-influenced-the-world. 

“History of Photography.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/technology/photography. 

“History of Photography.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/eastman-history-photography/. 

“Milestones in Photography -- National Geographic.” Photography, National Geographic, 3 May 2021, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/milestones-photography#:~:text=Unauthorized%20use%20is%20prohibited.&text=World's%20First%20Photograph-,Centuries%20of%20advances%20in%20chemistry%20and%20optics%2C%20including%20the%20invention,at%20his%20family's%20country%20home. 

Team, Adobe Communications. “The Impact of Technology on Photography: Adobe.” Adobe Blog, https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2021/12/01/the-impact-of-technology-on-photography.

Blog Post #3

 Between the eight values of free expression, I have a hard time deciding which is most important in general and in todays world. Obviously the Marketplace of Ideas is the standard of free speech; if someone is speaking the truth against a falsehood, the truth will come out and it is the discussion/speech of the truth verse the falsehood that makes the truth that much more important. However, Stable Change is just as important but also (in my opinion) the one that not being fulfilled in a sense. Stable Change states that if a person or group has the ability to voice their concerns and issues, then they will be less likely to act on violent or dangerous behaviors because they will feel that they are at least being listened to in some way. However, we are now in a world where everyone can talk about whatever they like in a very public manner and it not exactly for the best.

Social Media has been important to the change of how people express them because of the globalization of it all. Before social media, you would really only be able to have discussions to those that were in the same area as you or you would read papers from towns and city that were in close proximity to you. But the idea that I can message someone in Italy and have a discussion about politics or societal issues just goes to show how far technology allows us to reach. Now I know that having internet discussions usually end up with the truth coming out in someway but it just feels like more and more people get hateful and mean when someone tries to show them the truth in their argument. It has come to the point where Facebook and Twitter have had to implement fact checkers on their sites just to insure that the truth is actually being spread around because of all of the fake new and trash that is actually being shared. But we have learned in class that this is also thanks to the U.S. government trying to censor what information we get and when.

A paper for the Journal of Economic Perspectives written by Hunt Allcott and Mathew Gentzkow state that “62 percent of US adults get news on social media … many people who see fake news stories report to believe them” (Allcott, Gentzkow 212). 62% of voting age adults who’s ages range from 18 to older are getting their news from a place where anyone can post anything. I know that the younger population obviously would getting their news from a source that they know but the number of baby boomers that are using Facebook and Twitter now are increasing.
My grandmother, for instance, literally believes anything that is posted on Facebook. I received a message from her about how Facebook Messenger is going to kidnap your children and family. Which is the complete opposite of the truth. 

Social media is great in its way to connect the world together but it can’t control who is going to post what and share what. Hunt’s paper goes on to say that a post from July 2016 where wtoe5news.com stated that Pope Francis was going to endorse Trump’s candidacy. This post was shared more than a million times and yet if those who were sharing would have looked at the WTOE5 “About” page, it would have stated “Most articles on wtoe5news.com are satire or pure fantasy”. (Hunt, Gentzkow 214). This shows that over a million individuals shared this either due to the fact that they believed that it was true or they believed it was funny enough to share but yet a million people is a crazy number. People are spending hours discussing who did what in their political career or what their opinions are on the second amendment and yet the truth is struggling to be found within those discussions just as the Marketplace of Ideas states that it would. You can barely scroll through any social media without some sort of fake news or a lost winded argument coming up during your time spent on it.

But it doesn’t stop there. If you look at all of the fake news coming from people venting their ideas and concerns about how the government can use those to pay attention to groups they may be worried about, it’s not working. It is clear that the U.S. government uses social media to feed us as consumers information and they use it to watch what is being said about them and issues concerning them. Even doing all of this the government can’t keep up with how much is being posted in today’s world. Some times they can't completely censor everything they want to but they sure as hell do a good job of it. Instead they could be using it to prevent tragic events from happening. For example, there was a school shooting I believe within the past 2 years where the kid posted photos of the guns on social media and had posted disturbing messages. The government, or even the social media platform should of seen this coming and could of potentially prevented it. Instead the government uses social media as a resource to sensor the information that the world should know about. 

https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/fakenews.pdf

https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage-worldwide/

Blog Post #2

 The Supreme Court is that it is the highest court in the country. This being said it also has the most power. With this power the Supreme Court has the ability to all actions made by the legislative branch and the executive branch. Without John Marshall the Supreme Court would not have the power to review and rule towards laws made by Congress. However, I did not know that the Supreme Court only started out with six justices. I always was taught that the number was nine justices and I had wrongfully assumed that it had always been nine. 

The Supreme Court does more for the country than what people give it credit for and more than what people realize. 

Without the Supreme Court things like Civil Rights, First Amendment issues, Law enforcement issues, Presidential rights and issues, Women’s rights, and Lgbtq+ rights, would not be the same that we have today. While some of these have hurt us as a country a majority of the have helped us more than what we realize.

Blog Post #1

My top 5 sources for News and Information

Growing up I did not like the news much, I always found it too political, sad, and depressing. While this might still be the case as I've gotten older I have realized that it is information that I need to know because everyday it affects my future. I complied a list of my favorite sources and why below. 

https://www.foxnews.com/

https://www.cnn.com/

CNN and Fox News while they are politically driven by a certain parties, I do enjoy that they are a constant updating source like many others. I use these source and often compare the two as they both have very different stand points. This allows me to get my own political understanding of the news and/or issue at the time. This way it allows me to differentiate between what is political opinion and what is actual news. I do however, still take the time to compare what I read on these sources to others. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html

Daily Mail while they do post not all completely true things and others yes. I like Daily Mail as a source because you can get actual news out of it while at the same time getting interesting news from the drama of every day famous peoples lives. I think at times this can help to make the news that we tend to hear a little less depressive. 

https://www.instagram.com/?fbclid=IwAR32j3uQPw9tl6n75AUaJOf0RIJwMptE6XXpub0lqQMgLyUYdLBcy8fGopc

Instagram, while we need to be careful about what we hear on Social Media, it can be one of the quickest ways of getting news updates and everything else. People are constantly posting 24/7, I know during the BLM protests and everything instagram was one of the easiest places to get the clearest understanding of what was happening. It was easy to find local protests this way and made it easy to keep it clear of the political aspects at times, not always. It was also great to hear peoples opinions and things on each issue and new news as it constantly comes out. 

https://www.taylorsvilletimes.com/

The Taylorsville Times, this is my local news paper. Growing up I wanted to read it just for the comics but now it is a goof source of news for me to find out what is happening in my small community. That is of course if everyone doesn’t already know. 

https://www.youtube.com/

Youtube, while I use youtube for entertainment, I also use it more of for information and news more than I think I do. Just yesterday I was watching BBC's live updates on the late Queen Elizabeth. This was provided to me by the live BBC channel on youtube since I do not have a subscription with them. But youtube is also used just for information on basic general understandings of things that might be happening but might be hard to understand. For example, when it came time for me to vote in my first presidential election, I did not know that I would have to be voting on more than just the president. But youtube taught me what to expect before going in for my first time.