Social movement on YouTube.

At the beginning of the quarter, we watched An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube, a video of a talk given by Michael Wesch. In the video, he mentions that we are in an age where we covet our individuality, but long for community. We are basically communal beings, yet past generations have always found something standing their their way to community--in 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, living with the social isolation of being a woman whose only company was her children, devised a Declaration of Sentiments, which was a sort of women's declaration of rights. In the early 1900s, immigrants moved into slums with others from their country to try to preserve a sense of community, even if they were isolated from society as a whole. In the 1950s, suburbanization led to the lonely housewife and stressful breadwinner scenario. I feel as if today we are faced with different challenges to the companionship that all people seek.

Coming together as a community isn't just about improving our quality of life, per se. Many of our problems stem from the fact that we are socially disconnected--although we have the tools to connect. Our suburban lifestyle has exacerbated environmental problems. Our social isolation has undoubtedly led to higher rates of depression. Our disconnectedness from the rest of the world has led to weariness and distrust.

There are hurtles to overcome on the way to social connectivity, though. Falseness, distrust, shyness, etc. The fact that only people of a certain financial standing are able to connect this way, or have time to forge connections.

Here is the first video I wanted to share, an example of YouTube users coming together to share a smile. I think it's adorable!

A larger-budget project, Playing For Change, seeks to bring people together globally. Artists from around the world collaborate on songs without ever meeting each other.

The well-known and ever-hilarious Numa Numa song--a small compilation of the guy who started it all and several people who were completely bemused by him.

Where the Hell is Matt? is another large-budget production, apparently, because this guy manages to dance his way around the world in about 14 months, and gets people from various countries to dance with him. His dance is completely ridiculous, by the way!

The Free Hugs Campaign is a favourite. The founder was living in London for a long while, and when he returned to his home in Sydney, he found that there was no one there to greet him. I feel like Free Hugs is now a household term--there were always a few people at the Farmer's Market in Boulder to give out hugs, and it was the best thing ever. I think this is a great example of bridging the gap that the Internet can't help but leave.

And, lastly, laughter yoga with John Cleese.

Also, I decided to add some other great videos...I kind of feel like I've already posted too many, but I get excited. So here are a few honourable mentions...

Stockholm's dance tribute to Michael Jackson. An excellent flash mob!

ImprovEverywhere's high-five elevator! I love people's expressions.

Three fairly well-known YouTube artists collaborate. It reminds me of the Postal Service's album "Give Up," which was done entirely through mixtape--one member would record a layer and send it back, until all of the songs were done.

I think there are difficulties with building community, but I feel that community is ever-so-important. What do you think? And also, what are your favourite social media moments? Did I miss anything?

Social networking and men.

A recent study found that on most social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace, women outnumber men. The authors speculated on why this might be. Another interesting article explores the tendencies men and women tend to exhibit when making friends online. This study looked at how men and women follow other users and reciprocate with users on Twitter--men are about twice as likely to follow other men than women, as it turns out. There is not just a gender gap with social networking, but a gap between married and unmarried men. Another interesting article is about what men actually do on social networking sites--if they do not seem as inclined to connect with others, how are they wasting as much time on Facebook as women? Apparently their top activity is looking at photos of women that are not in their network, followed by looking at photos of women who are. Women mostly look only at women in their network, therefore giving women the majority of photo views. When I first heard this, I found it hard to believe that men would spend time looking at women they don't know--until I found out that my brother actually met his current girlfriend by looking at photos of his friend's friends. Can any men vouch for any of these trends, or are your individual experiences completely different?

Google's Sidewiki

We already know that the opportunity for interaction through forums, comments, or chat has changed the way we find information and read news outlets, travel sites, and consumer reviews (among others). But what if every site had this feature? And what if the site didn't control it? Google's sidewiki is a new feature that allows any google account holder to make comments on any page. To see the comments, you just need to install the small sidebar add-on. The entries are ranked based on an algorithm of usefeulness, including user rankings and how many posts the commenter makes.
As Sarah Robbins noted, the potential for Sidewiki is huge - every site could become a social networking site. There's also a risk of those comments being personal attacks or descending into flame wars, without any control or moderation by the site owner. Does sidewiki, in a sense, give users complete control over the interactive function of the site?

See http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/help-and-learn-from-others-as-you.html for more details.

Ya' know what? Doughnut!

Our course considers the social implications of technological change. In normal classes students complete assignments, and the teacher grades the assignment and gives it back. End of story. In our class, students create contributions, which are either shared with the other students, or shared to world via this blog.

In addition to hopefully providing some interesting insights to the world, our class contributions have generated doughnuts! Via adsense, our class has earned enough money to buy doughnuts for our Friday class meeting, this week and next.

Next week students will be presenting their mid quarter group projects. And we will have some fresh ideas based on their original research. Please consider following the blog to check out our fresh produce!

I "monetized" the blog with Google Adsense as an experiment. I had read about the micropayment, targeted add model in "The Search" by John Battelle. I was also interested in the "game changing" potential of both the advertising model and the democratized publication model. So far, the process has been empowering for our class-- it is cool to think that our efforts can be monetized for our collective benifit, or more accurately doughnutized!

Twitter vs. Facebook vs. MySpace & CNN Article

Here is a graphic from the Chicago Tribune that compares the number of unique users per month for Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace from 2007 to 2009. Maybe one of the groups will find this useful, I think it is interesting to see when Facebook became more popular.

Jeff

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-biz-twitter-graphic-oct07,0,1689342.graphic

Also, here is a CNN article about a new book that looks at social networking. The article overlaps a lot of what we have talked about in class and they even use a screen shot of the facebook app we talked about in class (the one that creates the chart of your social network)

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/08/social.networks.connected/index.html

Collective Action

I have read a really good and interesting article about collective action. The name of the article is "Managing Without Managers: Crisis and Resolution in a Collective Bakery" by Ann Arnett Ferguson.

The article is about a organization named "Wholly Grains." Wholly grains is a bakery the sells different goods, such as cookies and bread, and they use whole grains to make their products. They do not use white flour because it is not as healthy. When one baker tried to experience with using white flour in their bread one of the other bakers said the following: "This is a whole-grain bakery, we're part of the Whole Grain Association. If we start using white flour and it sells, I'm afraid we'll be drawn more and more to white flour. If we decide to add white flour, I'll have to resign." When this baker delivered this to the "collective", it came out with a lot of passion and it emphasized again what their organization was about. They are not about maximizing their profits and expanding their business, they are about selling good bread within the community. The baker that proposed to use the white flour later quit.

This organization works collectively to achieve their goals. They are all equal within the group and they make decisions collectively. "...the process at Wholly Grains affirms the ideal that power is distributed equally to all members."

If you are interested to read more about it here is the website:

http://burawoy.berkeley.edu/Books/Unbound/Ferguson.pdf

Gang Related Violence

Over the summer I worked as an EMT for an ambulance company in Lorain County in the city of Lorain. There were many shootings that took place, and it was all gang related. People were constantly getting assaulted and hurt because of the gangs. They also had many feuds going on between them, so they would go back and forth shooting each other.

A scary incident happened right in the ER. Gang members were being brought in by the ambulance and as they were taken through the ER their rivalry gang wanted to make sure that they were dead, so they followed the ambulance and they shot them again as they were on the cot being unloaded. Security was there and was armed but the gang member still got away. The entrance to the ER became a crime scene and detectives did their investigation.

Experiencing this was new to me but to the other EMTs in Lorain it was normal. In Athens County shootings are very rare and when they do happen they are accidental or it’s a hunting accident. I thought this was really scary, but to the others it just seemed like another shooting. You can read more about an incident that took place b y clicking the link:

http://www.cleveland.com/shooting/index.ssf/2009/06/two_killed_three_wounded_in_se.html