May 25 - Wikipedia

Today's class was interesting because the accuracy of Wikipedia is a highly debated topic. When I first heard of the idea about four years ago, I scoffed at how unreliable it seemed. An encyclopedia that is publicly edited? Today's class shed some light on the inner workings of Wikipedia. I'm still wary about its use but I agreed wholeheartedly with the Professor and many other students that, in fact, Wikipedia is a great place to find sources and begin one's search. Even if a have a question regarding history or a hot button issue, Wikipedia is great for a short, bare-bones type of answer. I was definitely surprised to find that Encyclopedia Britannica is only slightly more accurate than Wikipedia. I was also surprised to find how highly regulated the site is, and that it's not in fact a "free for all" type of forum. However, bias does exist, not matter how small and the question that continues to be contested is - Is Wikipedia an academic source? I agree with most of our professors that it is unacceptable to site. Can one call a piece academic if the person writing it will not reveal his identity or expertise? Of course not. As we have learned - academic sources need to be back by a name and institution. But all in all, Wikipedia provides a good start.

May 12 - Journalism & Internet

Last Tuesday's class questioned the future existence of newspapers in a world backed by the internet. Newspapers, however, are timeless and classic. I find it very hard to believe that the internet will replace print media because there is something very tangible about it that one does not receive from online publications. Some of my fondest memories have been visiting my grandfather and finding stacks and stacks of various newspapers, magazines, leaflets laying on his coffee table. From The Oregonian, to the Economist and The Jerusalem Report, it was always fun to flip through the pages and see where my grandfather was getting all his indispensable knowledge from. My mother, also, after living in the States for over ten years and getting all her news from tv news stations and the internet suddenly decided she had to have a subscription to the New York Times weekend edition. Now she sits, every morning with the paper in one hand and coffee in the other. I think it is this tangible aspect mentioned before that really drew her into it. On a personal level, I have not made a full transition to the internet. Yes, my homepage is Ynet and I have a bookmark folder solely for online news, however I have my favorite magazine shipped to me all the way from San Francisco and one of my best birthday presents this year was a subscription to the Herald Tribune and Ha'aretz. I believe that people choose their medium of choice, whether that be television, internet, books, movies, or newspapers. For example, I have been living without a television for over a year. Life is very easy without tv and I have made a conscious effort to read books that have been on my 'to-d0' list for years. I made this choice to choose books over tv, even though books may be seen as 'dated'. Similarly with internet, one may use it for various purposes but there is definitely this possible choice of exposing oneself to tangible papers rather than online news. Even with the massive switch to the internet, I think we would be surprised at how many people still rely on the daily paper.

The global network society

Today's class was very reminiscent of last semester's globalization course - high paced development of social networking, off shore financing, limited government autonomy...
There were two points made in class that I disagreed with:
First, the idea that states have limited control over business and development because they must conform to international standards. Therefore, they must compromise their values in order to sustain their economy. The example given was the 35-hour work week in France. In order to keep up with the international community, France must compromise and work 42 hours a week. However, Israel has been successful in maintaining Saturday as its day of rest while the rest of the western world takes Sunday off. In other words, Israel has maintained its values even with pressure from the international business community. Therefore, I do not think all values are compromised when dealing with the global network. It's just a matter of how strongly one holds these values.
Another emphasis made in class was the phenomenon of networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. It was said that if MySpace were a country, its 2 billion users would create the 5th largest country in the world! However, what kind of country would this be? Look at all the groups on Facebook - many of them are innocent but hundreds are factional such as "Israelis against Hamas" or "Help the Poor People of Gaza" or "Everyone who hates George Bush". It was said that these site users are often more loyal to their global networks than to their own country. This I find daunting and dangerous, not progressive and modern. In the virtual world, the lines between being politically correct and being inappropriate are blurred. The internet allows a sense of freedom without censorship, which has the potential to unleash some very extremist thoughts that up until now were tamed within the mind of the individual because there was no outlet for such thought. Social networking sites may very well be this outlet for public hate and factionalism. For this reason, my feelings towards the phenomona of public networking sites are mixed.