Discussion Questions 10/27/14

http://mkopas.net/files/talks/UVic2013Talk-WhatAreGamesGoodFor.pdf

1. What makes Video Games such a perfect medium? Why do we choose this medium over blogs, articles, videos, etc?

2. Do you think that video games have the potential to be used much more beneficially and if so how?

3. Are there severe negative effects with these video games on a wide scale use?

4. Is this process making issues too simple and systematic?

5. Can this be used to get important information across? Does this show the proper issuers of that lifestyle?

Digital Media Social Action Project Overview

Our Digital Media Social Action Project is addressing the issue of cyber bullying. Most people do not take this as seriously as it should be taken. This issue rings home to me as there was a very severe instance resulting in a stabbing at my high school a couple years ago when one student was bullied both in person and over the internet. Eventually he took matters into his own hands and attempted to stab and kill the bully. Although he did indeed stab the bully, the bully survived the incident and clearly shows how serious of an issue this can be. Now this is different from the typical issue. Usually cyber bullying results in suicide which is extremely devastating that someone would take their own life because of the words of their peers. The frightening thing that is on average well over 50% of teens and kids have experienced some form of cyber bullying in their lives. What is even worse is only one in every ten of these kids will ever report to their parents that this is going on. For the majority of the instances it is kept secret and the parents have no idea what is going on. With one in every three kids receiving threats of some kind online clearly this is becoming a serious issue as we move to a culture and world based more and more on the internet and technology. Through social media, our group plans on getting these facts out to the campus at JCU as a start. Our goal is to raise awareness on this issue and hopefully will cause others to stand up and defend those who face these problems. We will be using the social media forums of Twitter, Instagram, and Yik Yak to get this information out to the students on campus. We will be displaying these account information across campus encouraging students to take a look at the accounts and hopefully gain their interest on the matter. It is time to take a stand for cyber bullying now. 

"Cyber Bullying Statistics." - Bullying Statistics. National Crime Prevention Council, 2013. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.

http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/cyber-bullying-statistics.html

Invasion of Privacy and Social Media

       Through much of the class discussion we have talked about the concept of Big Brother and Government poking their nose where they ought not to. Even corporations and businesses use social media to find better information about a potential employee. We hear stories about this all the time. Usually it can be an aid to law enforcement to find criminals who post pictures or videos of their acts and are ignorant enough to post it onto social media. However, when is too far? How far is the law enforcement allowed to go with searching through our lives looking for even the slightest hint of wrongful action. There is a fine line between exposing criminals and invasion of privacy not on the basis of wrongful action but on suspicion of fraudulent activity.

The article in particular talks about several sets of people around the world who were mistreated and faced serious consequences due to social media. Law enforcement in Canada charged and arrested a woman for being in a bar fight and she was not even in the bar that night. In fact she was at an art gallery and had proof that she was not at the bar. However the police overlooked this because there was a Facebook photo taken near the bar that matched a woman with the same hair style. Although her lawyer had the charges dismissed, she is still required to pay all of the fees associated with the wrongful conviction and has not received even an apology from the police. 

Similarly there was a man who was arrested for posting racial comments directed towards an athlete and was charged and jailed. Many speculate how this is a clear violation of freedom of speech regardless of what was said on the social media. Even in the United States a boy was expelled from his high school after posting a tweet using the “F” word. Regardless of how the school feels about his vulgar language, how are they going to expel a student on those grounds? Clearly in these circumstances some people have overstepped their bounds and used social media to such extremes to penalize people for what they are posting or doing. 

After looking at all of this it is kind of scary to think of how much our social media can actually be used against us. We must be careful of what we put out there as a lot of times this outlet can be used against us. In certain circumstances, like catching a criminal in the act, these methods prove to be very helpful to law enforcement and other agencies. But where is the line at? At what point does the government and other bodies go too far in analyzing our medias and give wrongful or extreme consequences for things that are not that serious. Clearly in several of the examples above the line has been obviously crossed. It is very scary to think of how powerful social media really is and the overlooked consequences that it could have.

Warmington, Joe. "Social (media) Injustice." : Prime Time : SunNews Video Gallery. Sun News, 04 Apr. 2012. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/1547642366001

Proposal

As we have been talking in class about this project and the endless possibilities, an idea popped into my mind. How do we link the e-waste, which has been a huge part of our class, to the ideas of protests and informative discussion? I propose this: We take a campus wide survey to both students and faculty and ask them what phones they have, what phones they had two years ago, and how often they replace their phones. It is very typical to find that the average person will replace their phones every two years if not sooner due to damage or other factors. It seems we are always looking for the latest and greatest things. As the new iPhone 6 has released, many people who have either just gotten a new phone or have a relatively new one are already buying another so that they can the latest and greatest.

     After doing this survey we can research and see what harmful chemicals and other pollutants can be involved in the particular device and how it affects the environment. We can fully incorporate this into the e-waste discussions that we have been having during class. Then we can set up a teach-in on campus. We can have speakers such as Dr. Shutkins and other qualified people come in and give the statistics and global impact just from our students on campus. From there we can inform people of the true impact they are having and what we can do as a campus to limit our global impact on e-waste.

Class Discussion 10/6/2014

http://www.wired.com/2011/02/ff_joelinchina/all/1

Article Discussion Questions:

What are the major causes for the suicides in Foxconn? Are they all related to the living conditions?

Why are other companies not providing better conditions such as Terry Gou did with his company?

Do we have a direct responsibility for the deaths of the workers because of our constant need for the latest technology?

Is the solution to these suicides regulation on work availability (safety protocols) or should moves be made to completely revamp the working conditions?

Is the standard of living we envision in the United States possible in locations such as China for these workers?

Women in the Military

The presence of women in the military has always been an issue and as women are fighting for more and more equality this has come to the forefront of some of the issues. This specifically has caused much controversy particularly in the Marines. Women who have the desire to serve feel that the standards that are being asked of them are outrageous and setting them up to fail. Now clearly there are two sides to this argument. It is hard to find a middle ground to this argument as either you are for women serving or against it.

The marines, along with the stamina requirements, only requires women to do three pull ups to meet this standard. Now clearly for some women this may be a struggle as they struggle to pull their weight along with the gear that the Marines are required to use. This has lead to a lot of problems with women advocates arguing that theses standards should be reduced for women. To me that is quite preposterous. Women already have a lower set of physical standards and times that they must meet compared to men. To lower these any more just because women cannot meet these standards is ridiculous.

Now do not get me wrong, I am all for women serving. If a woman feels that it is her patriotic duty to serve for our nation I fully agree that she should have that opportunity to do so. However, putting an unqualified woman into the field who cannot meet the basic necessities is like giving a weapon to a child. Those standards are for a reason. They are there so that in the heat of battle a person is physically able to undergo any issues that should arise. To lower these standards would be putting others in harms way as they cannot rely on the person next to them to have their back.

The reason that the Marines have been brought into the spotlight is that they have the hardest physical standards for a basic infantry unit to get in. In fact there are a very small amount of women that have ever become Marines let alone Marine officers. Women do have every opportunity to join these elite positions. It is not that they are being excluded from them but rather there are very few who can meet the requirements necessary to perform the given tasks.



Knickerbocker, Brad. "Just Three Pull-ups: Too Many for Women in the Marine Corps?" The Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor, 4 Jan. 2014. Web. 03 Oct. 2014.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2014/0104/Just-three-pull-ups-Too-many-for-women-in-the-Marine-Corps