Rhetoric Online - Chapters 1 & 2

Well, these chapters were certainly interesting. Chapter one had a lot of points that stood out to me for various reasons. First, the context of social media as a "private sphere". To me, this is true. When I post on Facebook or on my blog, I'm very well aware that anyone with internet access can see my posts, thus making it very public. However, I don't think people would really care about what I post, and would just gloss over what I say, which, in turn, makes it a bit more private - at least in my eyes. A second point was about creating a neutralized space online. The book says that simply creating a space and saying that it's neutral doesn't make it so. I've never thought about it before, but this is true. Facebook was created as a neutral zone, but once a user creates a profile, it's no longer neutral. What I mean is that a user has their own set of friends, their own morals, their own set of "likes" and groups, and they may not always coincide with another Facebook user, which can create hostilities, which de-neutralize the setting.

The chapter also talked about scandals and political opponents. They say that for major politicians, scandals are detrimental, since the public will follow the scandal details. The example they gave was Obama's speech referring to a racial, religious video spread online. Obama was well known, and when this video came out, it was a big deal. Obama responded by making his own video addressing the issue. He then sent it online, which hit YouTube and went viral. I'm not political. I'll say that right now. I don't follow the issues or anything relating to political elections. This being said, I've never considered how political elections could/do use the internet and social media to achieve their goals. I did like the comment that, "negative images have a more powerful effect on voting behavior than positive images". This is true, even for me.

The idea of "infotainment" is new and interesting too. I agree with the fact that users only really follow news that pertains directly to themselves. This is me; I don't care much about news unless it's directly related to me. I think this could be because a lot of the information is too complex for me to understand, since I don't have the background of politics  This being said, infotainment sounds like a good idea to me because I would get the news in a way that doesn't bore or confuse me.

The section about Wikileaks was interesting too because I've heard of the site (obviously), but I've never been to it or used it. I agree with the message/point behind the site, though. I think information should be shared around with people so that everyone has the same news. However, I think there is a point when too much information occurs. The book mentioned something about sharing a document with informant names. I think this may have gone too far, because I know that with politics there is a lot of issues and conflicts that arise. If this was a big document, those informants may be in danger now because this document was posted. I found that to be interesting, I guess.

This chapter also talked about counter-public's, Anonymous, hacktivists, and truthers. These subjects were interesting to me to read about too, because I've never heard of any of these things, but they all seem to make sense. Also, identity, the Cloud, citizen journalism, communities, and sub-cultures. Again, these were all fascinating to read about and I hadn't considered much of these topics before.

Chapter two was a bit confusing for me in the beginning, because it was mostly about politics and I don't follow politics. Then it got better. The chapter talked about how Obama had moved the younger voters through the internet. It talked about how politicians have mobile apps to promote themselves now, which I think is cool. The book also talked about how they (the politicians) don't fully utilize the medium, however. I also had never heard of cyber-squatting before. This was a really interesting term to me. Thinking about it, though, if I were someone important, someone who had a large public reputation that was important to me, or even someone who thought I'd eventually be important, I think I'd buy all web addresses related to me to protect myself. It's not hard to redirect all the URL's to one website either, so it wouldn't be hard and you wouldn't have to create more than one website.

This chapter also talked about identities online in social media, specifically through MUD's. This tied everything in together for me. They also introduced the Tea-Party Network. This was cool to read about because it seemed like a basic version of Facebook that has selective entry. I think this site is genius by doing so, however. By making the site exclusive, they can limit entry to those who are passionate about politics while at the same time inciting others to become more passionate so that they can be granted access. This is also genius in that it guides it's users to only talk about and discuss politics, not their personal lives.