Answers to study questions: Internet unit

Responses from the reading questions for the article How the Web Polarized Politics.

1. What does the author mean by political polarization?

I think what the author is saying that political polarization is fueled by the web because it provides an open forum for people to converse about issues across space and time. In these open forums, the author points out, most of the participants are people who have strong views, opinion and feel compelled to express their points of view. This may not be the case for the general population. Many people may not feel as strongly about an issue and therefore do not feel compelled to speak their mind online, whereas the content that is found online is from people who feel that they must expel their beliefs and engage in conversation.

2. What are your thoughts about the statement, "Governments feel they are royalty to some degree"?

I believe what the author is conveying with this statement, is that the government does not feel they justification for certain choices are needed. Government may not engage with constituents about every decision being made. That once a decision is made after discourse in congress, there does not need to be more debate and discussion with the general public.


3. Do you agree/disagree with the statement, "We've literally experienced an information tsunami-but more information does not mean better decisions"? Why?

I believe that the amount of information that is continually being made available through the web is massive. However, I don’t believe – like a tsunami, that the information has become all encompassing, with the threat of drowning us all at once. More information may help make a better decision. The access to new information can certainly provide clarity. I understand the author’s point that it is very east to drown in the title wave of information that is available. That with so much information it could be hard to discern one particular path or answer to a question. I pose the opposite thought, without any direction, reference or relation to other’s experience you are making an uninformed decision. Instead of making a decision based on lots of information you could be making a choice based on your own intuition and limited knowledge.

4. The author states that "the very technology that is meant to solve problems merely makes people more emotional-not more reasonable". Give an example of a real life digital convergence that can be viewed to make people more emotional.

The idea that people feel passionate about their views and can easily publish these views can lead to disagreement. Emotions can run high with conflict and disagreement. In another way, people have more access to information and can find things online, like news stories that are graphic, sad and or upsetting. If a story is popular, there may be over exposure of the story and it cannot be avoided.

Article #2
Responses from the reading questions for the article Digital Future of the United States: Part 1--the Future of the World Wide Web.

1. The Web has been a platform for the creation of a wide and unanticipated variety of services. Name one of the commercial services and how you apply the service to your daily/weekly routine.

I use Google all the time for searching for information, images and anything else I might need. I also have their e-mail service. I use Google for both work and personal use. It has gotten to the point where I use Google everyday, from research, to using Google docs. for our group project to looking for directions.

2. What does the author mean by "Semantic Web"? How does this effect the future of convergence?

What the author is talking about in a “semantic web” is a higher level way of organizing data and information across web pages. The author makes the analogy that eventually users will be able to look at the data on the web as inter connected pieces of one giant data set. All the data follows a format so that it can be easily accessed and linked based on the universal format. This makes the data set even more valuable and malleable because it can plug right other data.

3. The future of the web has created substantial privacy challenges which are barely addressed by our current privacy laws. What are your thoughts on new data integration? Is the thought of this legal?

Do we give up our privacy for convenience? Do we put innovation above releasing our personal information? I think that data integrations is a positive and powerful tool. It would be easier to find what I am looking for, research and information, if data is integrated. However, to me these things are not worth loosing my identity. I don’t think that data integration of personal information is a good idea. However, this leads to a tough balancing act. How do you regulate this information, is it even possible to do? Is it reasonable to think that we can regulate this information? Just as there are pornographic content on the web that is not easy to regulate – how could laws be enacted to ensure that all private information remain private. I would think that data integration of now personal information is not legal. I just wonder how we could regulate and control something like web content once the process of integration takes place, there are bound to be some glitches.