Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Required Blog Assignments

1. Your Media Diet

Your task for this assignment is to record your media consumption for 5-7 days straight. Take note of how many hours you spend reading, watching television, using the Internet, or engaging with any other forms of media. While you do not have to give an exhaustive account of every TV show you watch or website you visit, do note what types of books, TV, websites, etc. that you consume. You can also describe which particular shows you watch or sites you visit daily/on a regular basis. After listing your media diet for each day of the week (length of time, types of media), you should provide a brief analysis. Questions you might address in your analysis include: What does your media diet say about you? How do you think it might compare to the media diets of other people your age? What might your media diet suggest about American society more broadly? Are there changes you'd like to make regarding your media consumption? How might your social location influence your media intake?

2. Social Networking and Privacy

Your task for this assignment is to record your thoughts on the prevalence of social networking. How often do you use social networking sites/tools like Facebook, Twitter, or FourSquare? How much time to do you spend texting, tweeting, or checking status updates on your phone or computer?
Do you think the cultural move toward social networking, constant access, and the loss of privacy it sometimes brings about is a positive/negative trend on the whole? What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of this entanglement between our personal lives and technology?  Have you ever "over-shared" or texted, tweeted, or posted something you have regretted? Do you ever worry about your privacy when it comes to using these tools?

3. Technology and Social Interaction

Your task for this assignment is to describe your thoughts on how technology influences social interaction. Do you think the spread of technology has had a positive or negative impact on your everyday face to face interaction? What about for people more generally? What do you think about using the Internet to meet other people (via online dating sites, Craigslist, message boards, fan sites, online gaming, or virtual worlds)? Is connecting to others via online communities a viable way of creating meaningful relationships, or are we neglecting our everyday relationships in favor of these "virtual" relationships? Do we, as a society, need to focus on creating more "real" spaces/public spheres for people to connect, interact, and discuss meaningful political and social issues? 

Please Respond by Friday 1/7

This page will act as a the main page through which you can access all of your Soc. 49 classmates' blogs. I will make a list of everyone's blogs on the right-hand side of the page so that you can come here to easily browse through blogs and leave your required weekly comments.  In order for me to create links to all of your new blogger accounts, I will need you to reply to this post with your new blog url. Please do so by Friday 1/7, and I'll have the list of blogs up shortly thereafter. Thanks, and I look forward to reading your blog entries over the course of the quarter!