Media, Technology & Society
Posts concerning the impacts of media and technology on our society.
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No names, just rants and raves
The Charlotte Observer’s social media columnist Eric Frazier wrote a feature on Charlotte-based startup Fastnote.com, published on December 28, 2010. Below are excerpts from the article: Richard Shaffner hardly fits the hip young social media CEO stereotype. He’s a 55-year-old father of six, a former banker who’s still finding his way around the new world…
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What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (Gee, 2007)
What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (Gee, 2007) James Paul Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy is less about video games and more about a theoretical approach to education, says Kristen Odell. The concept behind the book is a discussion about learning, arguing that…
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A Month with @Mashable
When I decided to immerse myself in Twitter in early 2009, my goal was to learn the means whereby a business might effectively tweet. I chose Pete Cashmore of Mashable (then named “Mashup”) as a guide for my learning and performed a content analysis of his 747 tweets in the month of May 2009. The…
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What’s Mine is Yours (Botsman & Rogers, 2010)
What’s Mine is Yours: The rise of collaborative consumption by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers (2010) “Unbeknownst to me, this was a book I was meant to read,” says Amy Martin. The need and market for trading, sharing, and reusing stuff is growing. Landfill space and space for storage is outpacing our growth as a…
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Teaching (and learning) with Twitter
Can Twitter impact students’ perceptions of their teachers? Even though these findings may come as no surprise to educators who already use Twitter, our study (described below) suggests that students who are active on Twitter alongside their instructors may actually perceive their instructors to be more approachable and interactive than they would otherwise. Thus, the…
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Non Ministrari, Sed Ministrare
Communicating Honor: Civility, Technology, and a Digital Society I was both humbled and honored to give the keynote address at Queens University of Charlotte’s Sed Ministrare Ceremony, the official induction of incoming students into the Queens community. My speech, entitled Communicating Honor: Civility, Technology, and a Digital Society, encompassed remarks on the history of communication…
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Mean girls, pseudo-celebrities and social media rockstars
Today’s ideal model of success might be well-stated in the lyrics of Travie McCoy – “I wanna be a billionaire so frickin’ bad.” We choose to believe that success is wrapped in dollar signs, square footage, and images of ourselves in shining lights. We get excited about the possibility of quick fame and celebrity status.…
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Global Village
Technology changes society. The ways we send and receive information fundamentally alters our interactions. Marshall McLuhan chronicled the creation of tools that shaped communication and society. Our shift from the tribal epoch to the written epoch occurred with the invention of written alphabets that could transcribe oral histories. The shift from the literate epoch to…
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Social Media in the Classroom
Educators and technologists often grapple with decisions about employing the latest technologies in the service of education. Some believe that the newest technology needs to be used in classrooms so that students never fall behind. Others suggest that education is not about the technology, but rather the content. My own thoughts reflect that technology can…
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Social Media for a Healthier Charlotte
Can social media work toward social change? On April 22, 2010, Fusion South and its founder Bobby DeMuro tweeted a random idea: a challenge for followers to give up carbonated beverages for one month. NoFizzCLT was born. Several hundred people (including me) took the challenge and tried to stay away from soda with varied success.…
J.A.McArthur 