Participatory Culture –

This is a strong case of censorship as it intrudes on Weiwei’s privacy and is evidently being misused by the government through abusing his rights. China has been successful in the censorship of Ai Weiwei and his works within the country; however, they have been unable to impede the worldwide recognition and support he has received with his artworks being shared throughout various other nations. As an artist, Weiwei should be able to express himself freely through his works as it is the very essense of creativity; however, it is unfortunate he resides in a country where there are such evident and concrete boundaries concerning ideologies which do not parallel to that of the authority. In this contemporary age, there is increasing political and social change which Weiwei is attempting to drive towards through being a symbolic representation of what a large number of individuals within China may be thinking but unable to present it as effectively as Weiwei does in his artworks. Also, the absence of censorship is important in order to promote free will in terms of being able to make choices about what is available to us in society. The enforcement of censorship in China, to such an enormous extent at that, comments on the government more so than what is presented through Ai Weiwei’s

“The threat of blood on the tracks has become constant as the number of passengers surges to a level unseen since 1948”, Andrea Peyser writes in “Subways are New York’s Biggest Deathtrap”. The New York Post reported several subway incidents happened in the past weeks: a man in a wheelchair fell onto the tracks and was struck by a train in Brooklyn (Moore), a woman was shoved onto the tracks and killed by a train in Times Square (Furfaro), a man was pushed onto the tracks and injured (Moore), and a teenage boy found dead on the tracks in Bronx (Prendergast). These alarming number of incidents raised the public concern for subway safety, which made “MTA board member Charles Moerdler… [to renew] a push to have the doors installed on New York City’s

No one wants to watch a video of people getting hurt and be manipulated into doing others work. That is why there are rules in place and why censorship exist, to keep the internet safe from such videos or pictures. A great example of why we need censorship is cyberbullying or cyberterrorism. If we did not have censorship in place this would get out of control and cause chaos. However, censoring to the point where people have no right to the freedom of speech is taking it to far. China has almost done this by removing almost all forms of communication besides texting, calling, and e-mailing. Their lastest move was the removal of the WhatsApp, it was a very popular app in China because of how well it was for communication and sending out information for others to see. While they did not fully remove the app from its place, they did however, reduce the usage by disrupting the videos, video chat, and picture function to the point of the app not being useful. WhatsApp is an app that was founded by Facebook and is now being censored by the Chinese. WhatsApp was Facebooks way in getting back into China, but because of government trying to get rid of it, the company has taken a major blow. Facebook only stake in the country is the Colorful Balloons app. This event has many featured articles that are relevant to the issue such as the “China Blocks WhatsApp, Broadening Online Censorship.” At first, users of the app were having disruptions when sending voice

What is your perception of the poor and less fortunate in society? Would you say that you have a low perception of them or do you regard them in the highest? Would you do your social duty to reach out to the poor and impoverished to assist them, or help assist, in establishing programs that would aid in leading them to a brighter future? These are the questions that I ask of myself as I read, “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor,” by bell hooks. My paper examines the perception that pop culture, society, and media have of the poor, as well as, the expectations and responsibilities of society to ensure a response to

Writer, Bell Hooks, in her article “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor” focuses on images of poverty in culture/media society has displayed of poverty through any false assumptions made by media portrayal and higher class culture. Hooks adopts a compelling tone in order to appeal any similar experiences or feelings in her audience. The author does a good job convincing her audience by including personal anecdotes and speaking about various cultural attitudes between the relationship of poverty and personal integrity. Due to the personal experiences of being poor, Hooks uses ethos to back up her evidence by using her own personal experience. She uses both logos and pathos in a smooth manner throughout her argument, using logos by providing information from other sources to be able to support her facts. Pathos are used by sharing her emotions and feelings about the current situation.

Cultural critic bell hooks is known throughout the academic community as an academic rebel, so it is only fitting that she would write about the sensitive subject of being poor. The term “poor” has become a dirty word which most people try to distance themselves from as much as possible. In fact, the second sentence in her essay “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor” paints a pretty clear picture about the word: “Most of us use words such as ‘underclass’ or ‘economically disenfranchised’ when we speak about being poor” (432). The purpose of this essay is to educate the reader about the reality of being impoverished and to break away from the negative stereotypes that they face. hooks accomplishes this through her use of pathos to give the reader a glimpse of what it was like for her to grow up poor; additionally, this glimpse creates ethos because she is sharing firsthand knowledge.

Censorship in China has gained much attention recently because of the conflict between Google and the Chinese government’s self-censorship policies. In fact, censorship has been practiced since ancient China and the intensity only increases by the years. Nowadays, the most notable measure of censorship is being done on the Internet. More and more restrictions have been put into actions by the Chinese government, which make the life of Chinese Internet users, the Chinese netizens, very inconvenient. With the intensity of censorship increasing and the censoring technology improving, Internet censorship has mainly negative effects on Chinese society.

The most common censorship method used by the Chinese government is IP blocking. This means that when a user requests certain IP addresses, access is immediately denied. A Harvard study, discovered that more than 18,000 sites are blocked; many of them top websites in the United States. A government sponsored news organization states that only “superstitious, pornographic, violence-related, gambling, and other harmful information” are blocked but critics have been quick to point out that many sites that do not fall into these categories are also blocked. Another Harvard study found that 13% of social media posts were blocked. These were posts by political activists that promoted or could conceivably incite collective action (such as riots or protests). Popular American social media sites like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have been completely blocked, as have news organizations such as the New York Times. These websites have been recreated for the Chinese internet with censorship restrictions put into place.

China is one of the most controlled countries in the world. The Chinese constitution states that the people of China have freedom of speech, of the press, and of demonstration. However, this article in the constitution also states that the Chinese government has the authority to censor anything in the country when freedom of speech or of press could potentially be harmful to the country. So, in China, you are free to speak, but only about what the government says is okay to talk about. Also, protesting in China is a very dangerous task, as shown in the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. But, in August 2009, Chinese Internet users were able to “indefinitely postpone” the use of censorship software on all new computers in China, called the

Activism using the Internet and other new media is increasingly having an impact in broadening the scope of civic action in support of human rights in East Asia. Select one or two case studies of activism in ONE East Asian country studied in this course. With regard to your chosen case studies, how effective is online activism as a force for social change? How are government authorities responding to the challenge of internet activism?

Like any other form of media the Internet can be censored, which means that full access to materials on the Internet can be restricted. To the general public, this is not considered a good thing, since it restricts their access to knowledge. One of the hallmarks of a repressive government is the restriction of information to keep its citizens under control. Yet, at the same time the unrestricted power of the Internet can cause much social and political harm, which is why there are many who support the idea of Internet Censorship. At the same time this restriction dulls a community, diversity and growth of ideas come from the unrestricted flow of information. An isolated community generally does not synthesize new ideas on its own.Thus,

Michael Anti is another person has a different perspective of censorship but the anti-censorship. Anti made a TED video explains the censorship of the Chinese’s internet, and how their firewall is like the Great Wall of China protecting their people. Anti described the situation of the Chinese’s internet as the cat and mouse game. The cat is the Chinese’s internet as in the government and the mouse as the citizens using the internet (TED video). He explained that all the social websites that the United States of America have and other countries like Twitter, Facebook, etc., the Chinese have their own version. The video continues to give detail on the Chinese’s government and how it prevents citizens to access the global internet and inaccessibility

Now, many Chinese citizens are attempting to access these applications and searches without censorship by “connect[ing] to virtual private networks that provide them with communications channels to servers outside the Chinese mainland” (Bradsher 4). Though, many citizens have found loopholes in order to post their messages to these websites. For example, on Weibo (the Chinese version of twitter), if a user were to post using a specific keyword, the post would automatically be deleted, if not manually by a superior on the site if it slipped through the system. However, because the use of “abbreviations, neologisms, homophones, and homographs” by users, many political satirists, revolutionists, or regular citizens find themselves sliding through the cracks thus escaping the censoring governments reach (Wang and Mark 5). In addition, because the government also changes from time to time, a man named Yu Jia, a government critic stated that “Today's China is very different from Chairman Mao's China. I think then, it used to be like an iron slab, and there was only really one idea. It was completely impermeable. But now, it's more like a fishnet, and there are holes” (Jia, Han and Fu 4). This further proves the argument that legislation in regard to behavior online is too varied in

The Chinese government had enforced these rules and regulations through blocking, filtering and shutting down Internet cafes. According to Amnesty International, the Chinese government routinely blocks news sites, especially those with dissident views or banned groups. Anniversary’s such as the 1989 pro-democracy protests are heavily guarded days that see increase Internet blocking. Internet blocking of major search gateways is also

The concept of culture is something that defines many aspects of one’s life. From physical objects to different ways of thinking, culture adds significance to human life and makes groups of people distinct from one another. Culture is essentially a group of people who come together with similar interests and points of view. According to the Center for Advanced Language Acquisition of the University of Minnesota, “culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization.” From a more sociological perspective, culture is a way in which people come together in order to fulfill their needs. These shared patterns and ideas identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.” Culture is one of the things that sets the United States apart from the rest of the world. Not that the rest of the world is not cultural, but the circumstance here is different. Many people of different cultural backroads come to this country in search of a better life. As a consequence, the United States has become a place where many cultures merge together like a colossal pot soup.