Academic blog Mk Two: the mis-information highway

It's that item again for the second in the new installment of blogs and this time I've decided to have a look at the credibility of of online sources of information (in relation to the reading on trust and trasperancy). This topic has always been an issue for me, especially when trying to get the latest news on films and TV Shows one can see the pure amount of bull spread by supposed "inside sources". Sure entertainment news is already a muddy mess of mis-information without the aid of the Internet, take the British tabloids for one. The internet is full of these kind of rumors though, whether it be that some celebrity has died or what a new episode of a TV show will feature. Another blogger on Helium.com suggests that these rumors come about through a few different ways but only one of those really pertains to the Internet. Todd Pheifer (the blogger in question) says that the questionable standards of fact checking on the net are to blame. Though while this is true some of the information that is pure fiction reported on the web is not always verifiable.

The one example that keeps coming to my mind is from when "Terminator: Salvation" was in pre-production and a rumor was reported about the film's apparent ending. While at the time the "spoiler" was largely rejected at being so ludicrous it just could not be true. That no sane film maker could possible use this proposed ending. However the rumor was actually true and it was only the bad reaction from the leak that got the producers to scrap this part of the script.

I guess what I'm trying to get at in this is though there is that even with trust earned from news sources there will always be times where secrets are leaked and not only because there is too much information available and if every piece of news from an unnamed source was not published well...let's just say we'd have a pretty terrible terminator film on our hands (though some would say it's terrible anyway).

Well that's all I've got to say on that matter for now, oh and for those coming here for the film reviews I promise I'll get one up soon.

Academic Blog Mk One: The anti-social media.

Basically for those who do tune in regularly, there will be one new segment placed on this blog due to it being a requirement for a Media subject. Simply, instead of making a new blog for my academic scrawlings I thought it would be much easier to host them on here. So expect a weekly installment....

To kick things off I thought I'd address a little statement that really interested me last Monday in class. When a correlation was made between the current habits of consuming food and consuming media. That both, which were a perhaps a family event (especially things like dinner) have become a more individualised or isolated activity. I can say that I rarely sit down and eat dinner together with my family...or any meal for that matter at home. In the same regard we also consume our media separately in different parts of the house. I never watch television in the living room, I do it on my own in my study.

What made intrigued by this is the issue of which was the byproduct of which. Was I in here because I didn't like eating with my family or because I didn't like the television they watched. Then something sprung to mind from a few years back when iPods where all the rage in the schoolyard. A Current Affair (or Today Tonight, I don't rightly remember which) ran a story about child psychologists suggesting that the new technology was causing anti-social behavior. That children during lunch time where just plugging in the headphones and not having any social interaction. I then initially blew it off as technophobia (which I still believe it is) but now I can see that it does have some validity. Well at least the concept that the consumption of media is become more isolated.

Now...I do believe that if I had no computer and only one television in the house I'd probably be watching it at dinner time. However I don't think being isolated in my study is such a bad thing. My family hasn't broken down, I'm fairly close to them and spend more time doing more meaningful things with them than watching Television.

So...I guess my point here is that while ACA might say that technology will cause us all to be anti-social I believe the opposite and that it can actually create more social interaction. providing we do actually get out of the study at some point.

So that's it first in this series...and stay tuned for my next non-academic blog on "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World".