The Importance Of Inclusivity In The Digital Age

In Esther Dyson’s “Cyberspace: If You Don’t Love It, Leave It”, the existence of the internet is seen as potentially dangerous to today’s society. Dyson insists that the internet was once a sanctuary for tech savvy individuals such as gamers and professionals like engineers. The author focuses on the negative websites and communities that are often found offensive to the majority. She thinks the World Wide Web harbors a lot of power. This power can be accessed and conquered easily by most of the population. According to Dyson, responsibility is the key to changing the future (295). Her argument is convincing but slightly unrealistic. The internet seems to be growing into a whole other alternate universe. Society’s rapidly growing technology industry will only be harder to regulate. Most people will do what they want, when they want especially when it comes to the internet.

In the article “The IRL Fetish” by Nathan Jergenson, is a powerful essay that demonstrates the idea of this so called “Fetish” that we have with technology today. Within this essay Jergenson uses specific word choice in his essay to strengthen his argument about being connected. He uses quotes from other speakers and writers to get his points acrossed about this fetish that we have in our society right now. Finally, Jergenson also talks about the little victories that we have with technology, like “logging off”, and the irrational fear that we have about being disconnected.

When we think of the internet and technology we usually think of all the benefits and innovations that make up our generation. We have all the information we need right on our phones. We can also be connected with anyone or with everyone at anytime of the day, but is being connected with everyone a good thing? “The Loneliness Of The Interconnected” by Charles Seife explores this idea and shines a light on the negative effects that being connected with everyone might have. Seife’s exploration of online extremism challenge Schmidt and Cohen’s optimistic portrayal of technology by analyzing how having a voice in the ocean of the internet and being connected with everyone isn’t always positive.

Censorship is a concept with several different meanings. To each individual censorship has its own meaning. Is it a violation of our rights or is it a protection for our well being? Censorship in the generic sense refers to the suppression of information, ideas, or opinions. It occurs in all forms of communication from technological media to print media. Each society, culture, or individual's belief is violated by the codes of censorship that our society instills.

Censorship dates all the way back to 443 BC in ancient Rome with the Office of Censor. In that time this was an office of great repute, the Office of Censor was charged with the shaping of the character of the people. Thus it was considered to be an honorable task, since then the connotation of the word and such an office has changed greatly. Today censorship is the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc. and suppressing “unacceptable parts” based on whoever is defining “unacceptable.” Unacceptable has been considered to be a wide range of concepts from ideas to sexually explicit content. Historically in the USSR most leaders used censorship in every form as a means of suppressing whatever or whoever was perceived as a

University of Michigan professor, Lisa Nakamura’s work entitled Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet examines how different races are represented online. The Internet, according to Nakamura, is a place where ‘race happens’ (p.xi), and the stereotypes that are found on/offline define Cybertypes. These Cybertypes lay out the unique ways in which the Internet ‘propagates, disseminates, and commodifies images of race and racism’ (p.3)

Social media is often praised for its ability to connect people worldwide, but in reality, it is forcing us further apart; we are no longer individuals but are instead creating for ourselves a fake social identity. Nicholas Carr, author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” focuses on how reading on the Internet has made it almost impossible for us to do “deep reading.” In “Just Between You, Me, and My 622 BFF’S,” Peggy Orenstein looks at how social media has stolen younger girl’s identities, and formed their sexual identity. Chuck Klosterman in his article “Electric Funeral” sees the Internet as a breeding ground for “villains” who feed off our primitive impulses to draw attention and fame to ourselves. These three authors have powerful

Media researcher Johanna Blakley made an argument that “social media and the end of gender”. She believes that social media is going to help people dismantle some of the silly and demeaning stereotypes that we see in media and advertising about gender. Now many media companies use very rigid segmentation methods to label to understand their audiences. They believe that the people fall within a certain demographic category are predictable in certain ways. For example, married people will have certain tastes. It is great that the people’s taste is being respected in a way that it hasn’t been before. The people aggregate online is based on the things they love instead of age, gender or income. Also, sharing interests and values are a far more powerful aggregator of human beings than demographic categories. In addition, it turns out that women are driving the social media revolution. She showed some worldwide statistic to illustrate that women outnumber men in their use of social networking technologies in every single age category. It will make the media

In previous research, it was argued that privilege causes a digital divide on the Internet, and, as a consequence, could cause widening inequalities outside of the digital world, as well. The conclusion was that Asian-Americans, white men, and the privileged understood and utilized the internet more, while Latinos, African-Americans and those of a lower-socioeconomic status understood the internet very little and, in turn, do not gain as much benefit from it (Hargittai 2010). However, this is hardly a provocative conclusion because the research methods employed seemed to be chosen in order to coordinate these results without any regard for the interests or motives of the students in question. Therefore, the goal of this study

The issues raised in Tannen’s article do support the different ways men and women use the web and communicate online. Fallows points out comparable details to those Tannen mentioned, for instance, how women communicate excessively by the web compared to men. Furthermore, how every day we apprehend each other more effectively. The 21st Century seems to be the best era to make these comparisons between the Millennials and Centennials.

Today, censorship is in place in more ways than you can imagine. As mentioned previously, movies, music, television, and more are filtered one way or another. Some people go to such lengths as illegal means of spreading materials deemed inappropriate for a certain viewing audience.

Although the United States is considered to be a “free country”, censorship is still a problem today. According to The First Amendment to the U.S constitution guarantees, the right to free speech. However, some commonly censorship in the United States include the displacement of excessive of graphic violence, government licensing media companies and journalists, creating stealth, fake new sources, and even the removal of LGBTQ+ content. The word “censorship” means the suppression of free speech, often the removal of speech that harms or offends the public. Despite the fact the word is often associated with governmental restrictions in free speech, we are still faced with non-governmental challenges. For instance, recently Youtube has regulated its policy and has restricted “forms of content from being included in videos being monetized with advertising, including strong violence, language, sexual content, and "controversial or sensitive subjects and events”. It has been evidential that LGBTQ+ videos have been restricted or removed from Youtube because of the fear that the video will be controversial. Thus, since the video does not fit the heterosexual normality America has, in the eyes of Youtube, the video should be removed. However, on the other hand a video of Logan Paul vlogging on someone’s suicide and laughing about the hanging body was trending on Youtube and was deleted by Paul himself after receiving backlash. In other words, although censorship in countries like

Due to the nature of the topic being studied, and the emphasis being placed on digital media, the participant pool should be comprised of college-age male and female students, of any ethnicity or race, ages 18-24, from the University of Arkansas. For the purposes of analyzing the disparities that exist between genders, the participants must identify as male or female. It is preferred that there be 30 participants in the study to ensure the validity of the results. To be able to sufficiently participate in the study, the participants will need to have a device, such as a computer or cell phone, that will grant them access to online media, specifically Facebook. Participants will be recruited by volunteering to contribute to the study, and

Cyberspace is a non-physical environment created by computers interoperating on a network. People can interact in ways that are similar to reality, but does not require physical movement beyond typing. Advanced technology established this parallel world, ‘cyberspace’. This can be convenient for people to chat, shop, share, explore or research online, but it can also be a disadvantage at the same time. The prime examples of the disadvantages are, people are able to create fake, imaginative identities and use it to abuse others and this can lead to serious issues, such as sexual abuse or child grooming; and since, the Internet can be recognised as a parallel world to reality, this discourages people to have face-to-face human interaction. Consequently, cyberspace can be harmful to all people, because there are hardly any restrictions on the Internet. Technology inaugurated this and it is having an inimical influence on the majority of people who have access to the Internet on a daily basis.

Digital communication through today’s technology is empowering our society and strengthening human relationships through connecting us in ways that are impossible through organic human to human interaction. This exceptionally innovative technology was once only imaginable in science fiction literature, and is now a reality for most of humanity. We use this form of communication on a daily basis throughout the planet. We rarely stop to think about how wondrous and seemingly magical this advanced technology is, and we seldom ponder on how this new form of communication impacts us as a culture. Advanced digital communication not only enables and emboldens us, but could be potentially harming and hindering us as a culture as well as socially