After today’s class I was now also thinking about another survey I could create to discuss the students’ perception of social networks like “Facebook” or the German “StudiVZ” as a second possibility to write a paper about. Possible useful literature would be the book “The Stories of Facebook, Youtube and Myspace: The People, the Hype and the Deals Behind the Giants of Web 2.0”by Sarah Lacy or the book “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.
By the way, this is my new Twitter account: http://twitter.com/ChrisDortmund go and watch it!!! ;)
Monday, July 13, 2009
A very short response to Joe Trippi’s Afterword
After reading Joe Trippi’s “the Revolution will not be televised” and his entertaining Afterword I still find it very interesting how important Joe Trippi’s Howard Dean campaign became because of his innovative use of the World Wide Web. For the very first time Joe Trippi created an official campaign blog and moreover, he used different social networks on the Internet to connect Dean’s political supporters. Today these techniques are used by many other social and political campaigns and show how innovative Joe Trippi as campaign worker was.
The mentioned fact in the Afterword that Joe Trippi fell ill after the Dean campaign and that Howard Dean replaced him as campaign manager after consecutively losing the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary seemed to be a tragedy and a lucky chance for him at once. After all, Trippi finally signed on as a commentator for MSNBC and started his own consultancy, Trippi & Associates.
The mentioned fact in the Afterword that Joe Trippi fell ill after the Dean campaign and that Howard Dean replaced him as campaign manager after consecutively losing the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary seemed to be a tragedy and a lucky chance for him at once. After all, Trippi finally signed on as a commentator for MSNBC and started his own consultancy, Trippi & Associates.
Moment of Zen 06/30/09
When I saw today’s Internet research study
on the worldwide use of the Internet where they for example compared Germany and their users to the US American users I was thinking about a first idea of writing a paper in this course. I am still not convinced of what exactly I should write about, but I am now thinking about a survey I could create to see how young German students in school use the Internet today and to compare my results to the interesting study on the Internet I already mentioned above. Furthermore, I could analyze them to finally see what this could mean for the German society among the other great nations. I could hand in this survey in the German school classes/years 5 and 6 because I am already working at a school with these age groups.
http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html
on the worldwide use of the Internet where they for example compared Germany and their users to the US American users I was thinking about a first idea of writing a paper in this course. I am still not convinced of what exactly I should write about, but I am now thinking about a survey I could create to see how young German students in school use the Internet today and to compare my results to the interesting study on the Internet I already mentioned above. Furthermore, I could analyze them to finally see what this could mean for the German society among the other great nations. I could hand in this survey in the German school classes/years 5 and 6 because I am already working at a school with these age groups.
http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html
Monday, June 22, 2009
Why is he US voting/electoral system so difficult and apparently disused?
Last Tuesday we talked about the US voting system and I am still confused how this system today works and why they still have such an old and disused indirect electoral system in the United States. Congressional elections in the United States take place every two years and the US Congress has two different chambers.
First of all, the House of Representatives in the US has 435 members. They are elected for a two year term in single-seat constituencies, therefore the elections are held every two years on the first Tuesday after November 1 in even years.
Secondly, the US Senate has 100 members. The Senate elections also take place every two years, but the members will be elected for a six year term in dual-seat constituencies/two members from each state/ with only one-third being renewed every two years.
Furthermore, the most important US Presidential elections only take place every four years. The year the US Presidential elections take place must be divisible by four; therefore the last election we all should still remember was in 2008. US President Barack Obama and his Vice President Joe Biden were elected together in this Presidential election. Today’s Presidential elections are still indirect in the United States and Congressional elections which do not take place together with these Presidential elections are called mid-term elections.
As I already said in my initial paragraph the US Presidential elections are still indirect today. The winner and therefore the new US President will be determined by electors of the so-called United States Electoral College. This means that the voters in each State of the United States select a slate of electors from a list of several slates designated by different parties or candidates. These electors have to promise in advance to vote for the candidates of their party. The winner of the election will be the one with at least 270 Electoral votes.
Today the US Electoral College consists of 538 electors. 435 of them come from the 50 different US States, depending on the number of districts they have, therefore depending on the population of each State. California for example, as one of the biggest States has 53 different districts, which means 53 representatives/electors. There is also the group of 100 Senators as electors, two from each State plus 3 Delegates directly from Washington. Altogether a number of 538 electors finally elect the new US President.
The indirect US electoral system is often criticized for being undemocratic by definition because of its already mentioned indirectness on the one hand and for several other reasons on the other hand. There is for example the problem with the so-called swing States, like Florida. These States are States in which no candidate has overwhelming support; therefore any of the major candidates have a reasonable chance of winning the Electoral College votes of the State. Therefore, the voters in these swing States often determine the outcome of the US Presidential election and the majority of Americans, who do not live in these States, are largely ignored by most of the political campaigns. Moreover, a lot of very small US States is better represented by the Electoral College than other much bigger and much more important States. These smaller States seem to be overrepresented compared with voters from larger States like California.
All these above mentioned facts finally show the necessity to abolish the old indirect US electoral system and to replace it with a modern national direct system. The US electoral system is criticized so often and I think it is time to replace it in order to still provide a role model (voting system) for other countries worldwide, like Iran. ;)
First of all, the House of Representatives in the US has 435 members. They are elected for a two year term in single-seat constituencies, therefore the elections are held every two years on the first Tuesday after November 1 in even years.
Secondly, the US Senate has 100 members. The Senate elections also take place every two years, but the members will be elected for a six year term in dual-seat constituencies/two members from each state/ with only one-third being renewed every two years.
Furthermore, the most important US Presidential elections only take place every four years. The year the US Presidential elections take place must be divisible by four; therefore the last election we all should still remember was in 2008. US President Barack Obama and his Vice President Joe Biden were elected together in this Presidential election. Today’s Presidential elections are still indirect in the United States and Congressional elections which do not take place together with these Presidential elections are called mid-term elections.
As I already said in my initial paragraph the US Presidential elections are still indirect today. The winner and therefore the new US President will be determined by electors of the so-called United States Electoral College. This means that the voters in each State of the United States select a slate of electors from a list of several slates designated by different parties or candidates. These electors have to promise in advance to vote for the candidates of their party. The winner of the election will be the one with at least 270 Electoral votes.
Today the US Electoral College consists of 538 electors. 435 of them come from the 50 different US States, depending on the number of districts they have, therefore depending on the population of each State. California for example, as one of the biggest States has 53 different districts, which means 53 representatives/electors. There is also the group of 100 Senators as electors, two from each State plus 3 Delegates directly from Washington. Altogether a number of 538 electors finally elect the new US President.
The indirect US electoral system is often criticized for being undemocratic by definition because of its already mentioned indirectness on the one hand and for several other reasons on the other hand. There is for example the problem with the so-called swing States, like Florida. These States are States in which no candidate has overwhelming support; therefore any of the major candidates have a reasonable chance of winning the Electoral College votes of the State. Therefore, the voters in these swing States often determine the outcome of the US Presidential election and the majority of Americans, who do not live in these States, are largely ignored by most of the political campaigns. Moreover, a lot of very small US States is better represented by the Electoral College than other much bigger and much more important States. These smaller States seem to be overrepresented compared with voters from larger States like California.
All these above mentioned facts finally show the necessity to abolish the old indirect US electoral system and to replace it with a modern national direct system. The US electoral system is criticized so often and I think it is time to replace it in order to still provide a role model (voting system) for other countries worldwide, like Iran. ;)
Moment of Zen 06/16/09
I am still wondering why the United States of America always criticize other countries worldwide for example for their voting systems. For sure, the indirect electoral system they have is a democratic voting system, but it is not that democratic like a much more direct voting system would be. The United States should still provide a role model for countries like Iran to show how a democratic voting system works and with such an old system they still have I think it is not the best way to support the thought of democracy in America or in other countries worldwide.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Moment of Zen 06/02/09
Is a conversation on a web based social network much more impersonal than a face-to-face conversation in reality and are we all today pushed to be part of such “web based” social networks? These were two different questions I am still thinking about after class.
Although I think it definitely depends on anyone’s personal opinion to decide either to prefer a personal conversation or to use one of many ways for web based social network members to interact, in my opinion a web based social network conversation is much more impersonal because you do not see your opponent and you cannot use any facial expression to clarify what you mean or how you mean it.
For sure, you could also use some “smileys” on the Internet to somehow “substitute” such facial expressions, but such a conversation still remains much more impersonal FOR ME. As long as I am an open-minded person I would prefer personal conversations instead of hiding behind an Internet profile or character. Even though this definitely provides a great opportunity for a lot of people to pretend a person they do not really are.
Furthermore, I think it is really difficult to say whether today we all are pushed to be part of a “web based” social network or not. As I already said in the fishbowl conversation in class, my best friend does not participate in any of these new media or social network tools, such as Facebook or MySpace. Although he is really computer literate and interested in the Internet as such, he never registered himself on any social network and he is definitely still alive. ;) He has got a girlfriend and he lives a normal life with friends like me and a good job.
I do not know why it is such a necessity today to join a social network. Although my best friend never did it, millions of other Internet users like me already participate on Facebook or StudiVZ and could not imagine a life without such social networks any more. I like the idea of searching for former class mates from school, but I do not use these social networks to simply “collect” friends or contacts to “put on the dog”. A handful of such friends are real friends of mine and I still have the opportunity to meet them in real life and a lot of these called “friends” are people I had to confirm to add to my “contact list” to be polite, but I do not want to meet them ever again in reality.
So, why do we register on such social networks on the Internet? All these above mentioned facts clearly show that we do not have to and that we are not really pushed to be part of such online communities. Is it just the curiosity to join in a conversation about Facebook or MySpace or what else? I can not give a precise answer at the moment, but I will keep on thinking about it to hopefully find an answer for me in the future.
Although I think it definitely depends on anyone’s personal opinion to decide either to prefer a personal conversation or to use one of many ways for web based social network members to interact, in my opinion a web based social network conversation is much more impersonal because you do not see your opponent and you cannot use any facial expression to clarify what you mean or how you mean it.
For sure, you could also use some “smileys” on the Internet to somehow “substitute” such facial expressions, but such a conversation still remains much more impersonal FOR ME. As long as I am an open-minded person I would prefer personal conversations instead of hiding behind an Internet profile or character. Even though this definitely provides a great opportunity for a lot of people to pretend a person they do not really are.
Furthermore, I think it is really difficult to say whether today we all are pushed to be part of a “web based” social network or not. As I already said in the fishbowl conversation in class, my best friend does not participate in any of these new media or social network tools, such as Facebook or MySpace. Although he is really computer literate and interested in the Internet as such, he never registered himself on any social network and he is definitely still alive. ;) He has got a girlfriend and he lives a normal life with friends like me and a good job.
I do not know why it is such a necessity today to join a social network. Although my best friend never did it, millions of other Internet users like me already participate on Facebook or StudiVZ and could not imagine a life without such social networks any more. I like the idea of searching for former class mates from school, but I do not use these social networks to simply “collect” friends or contacts to “put on the dog”. A handful of such friends are real friends of mine and I still have the opportunity to meet them in real life and a lot of these called “friends” are people I had to confirm to add to my “contact list” to be polite, but I do not want to meet them ever again in reality.
So, why do we register on such social networks on the Internet? All these above mentioned facts clearly show that we do not have to and that we are not really pushed to be part of such online communities. Is it just the curiosity to join in a conversation about Facebook or MySpace or what else? I can not give a precise answer at the moment, but I will keep on thinking about it to hopefully find an answer for me in the future.
What is a social network?
On Tuesday we had another great Fishbowl conversation which was much more interesting than it was last time. We had a discussion on social networks. What is a social network in general?
First of all, it was and still is really hard to give a precise definition of what a social network is because there are always two different meanings we all directly associate with the term social network.
On the one hand, the term social network defines a “new” network today we all know from the Internet. I mean social network websites like Facebook, MySpace or the German version of Facebook called StudiVZ/MeinVZ which are being used regularly by millions of people worldwide. These are all different types of social networks which focus on building online communities of people who for example share interests or other activities or who are interested in “spying on” someone’s interests or activities. ;)
These social networks are web based; they provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services and they of course have encouraged new ways to communicate and share information. These social networks provide lots of different advantages as well as disadvantages and people do not necessarily share opinions.
On the other hand, we came up with the term “biological network” which we defined to distinguish between the two “ideas” of the already above mentioned web based social network and the traditional social network based on social relationships which I am going to explain a bit more now.
Such a “biological” social network is something we could also call a social structure and it is based on social relationships in our “real lives”, for instance a friendship, a sports club or the simple relation in a neighborhood.
Interestingly, the creators of Facebook and MySpace or other Internet users invented the term social network to name a type of new media and thereby used a term we already had in our lives before, moreover they used an ambiguity, maybe to simplify the usage of such new tools or to familiarize the Internet users with them.
Incidentally, we compared such “biological” social networks to our biological fathers and furthermore, we compared the “web based” social network to a possible stepfather what I found very strange as well as funny and interesting.
Finally, we also said that a conversation on a web based social network is much more impersonal than a face-to-face conversation in reality and we came up with the thesis that today we all are pushed to be part of such a social network on the Internet. These are two points I will focus on in my “Moment of Zen” now.
First of all, it was and still is really hard to give a precise definition of what a social network is because there are always two different meanings we all directly associate with the term social network.
On the one hand, the term social network defines a “new” network today we all know from the Internet. I mean social network websites like Facebook, MySpace or the German version of Facebook called StudiVZ/MeinVZ which are being used regularly by millions of people worldwide. These are all different types of social networks which focus on building online communities of people who for example share interests or other activities or who are interested in “spying on” someone’s interests or activities. ;)
These social networks are web based; they provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services and they of course have encouraged new ways to communicate and share information. These social networks provide lots of different advantages as well as disadvantages and people do not necessarily share opinions.
On the other hand, we came up with the term “biological network” which we defined to distinguish between the two “ideas” of the already above mentioned web based social network and the traditional social network based on social relationships which I am going to explain a bit more now.
Such a “biological” social network is something we could also call a social structure and it is based on social relationships in our “real lives”, for instance a friendship, a sports club or the simple relation in a neighborhood.
Interestingly, the creators of Facebook and MySpace or other Internet users invented the term social network to name a type of new media and thereby used a term we already had in our lives before, moreover they used an ambiguity, maybe to simplify the usage of such new tools or to familiarize the Internet users with them.
Incidentally, we compared such “biological” social networks to our biological fathers and furthermore, we compared the “web based” social network to a possible stepfather what I found very strange as well as funny and interesting.
Finally, we also said that a conversation on a web based social network is much more impersonal than a face-to-face conversation in reality and we came up with the thesis that today we all are pushed to be part of such a social network on the Internet. These are two points I will focus on in my “Moment of Zen” now.
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