CMN 140 exam 2

Is public concerned with this issue? Are people aware of the problems? Are they willing to address it? How do they address it?

People are aware of the issue, and people feel like the self regulatory environment is insufficient to protect their privacy.

What are the three primary fundamental decisions that producers need to make about the game design? Define and explain each

- Category of play: there are six types as determined by the objective of the game. These six types are Agon (a struggle or contest), alea (game of chance), mimicry (pole playing), Ilinx (vertigo, fairground rides), Exploration (discovery, new places, new experiences), social play (making friends, communities) - Formality of play: there is a range in the number of rules that a game can have. At the informal end of this range are games with very few rules, at the formal end of the range are games with man rules that require discipline to follow; players who learn the rules best and who are capable of using these rules to their advantage succeed the most. - Affective tone: designers must think about what they want their players to feel as they interact with the game. One feeling is aggression as players fight a series of stronger opponents. Another feeling is mystery or suspense where players must figure out what is happening before something bad happens to them.

What is "magic window"? Please define

- Children but not limited to them, view TV as simple, unvarnished truth of what Is happening in the real world

Telling an entertainment story present a different challenge as you move from one medium to another. What are these challenges? Consider commercial TV, web, and movies.

- Commercial television is one of the most challenging media for telling stories, this is because there is significant amount of competition for audiences. And producers must keep audiences engaged, so they do not change the channel during commercial breaks. - Entertainment on the web face a great deal more competition. So breaking through in the cluster of content is difficult - Hollywood movies are also very challenging because they cost so much to produce, and the risk of failure is so great with more than 90% of all Hollywood films failing to earn back their basic production costs at the box office.

Character patterns on TV do not match real world demographic patterns, how so?

- Content analyses of the television landscape in the 70's and 90's showed that producers of stories were featuring patterns of characters that were very different from the patterns of people in the real world. The patterns of gender, ethnicity, age, marital status, socioeconomic status, and occupations have been very different in the television world compared to the real world over the years. There are far more medical workers, police man, lawyers, forensic specialists, then in the real world. There are only less salespeople, and managers/executives in the TV world compared to the real world.

What is content analysis?

- Content analysis: is a scientific technique of counting occurrences of various things (characters, gender, age, ethnicity, occupations, etc.) that relies on analyzing samples that are representative of the total population of things being analyzed.

What do we mean when we say that news has a dynamic nature? - How has the nature of news and its transmission changed over time? Pay attention to historic periods and timeline. In what stage of development are the news markets now? What are the characteristics of this stage for the news industry?

- Early new was shared through interpersonal communication, newspapers did not begin until the 16th century in Italy. Following the civil war, there was increased literacy in the US and this was seen as an opportunity to develop newspapers with large circulations. - The era of big news lasted from increased newspaper readership through the penetration of the radio in the 1930s to the 70s when it reached its peak and circulation of newspapers began to decline - Traditional news markets have been losing their audience, they are failing to attract young people, and they face increased competition from alternative news outlets on the internet.

How can we become more media literate with news?

- Exposure matters: our exposure decisions are likely to be shaped by what we consider to be news - Media literacy warns against a narrow focus - Quality matter: if we don't periodically evaluate the quality of our news sources, we run the risk of believing we are well informed when in reality we are not.

What makes electronic games attractive? Consider all three major reasons

- First: Video games offer players a way to satisfy their emotional and cognitive needs. Games arouse people and trigger emotions. Completing challenges gives players a sense of competence - Second: Despite living complicated lives, games may help people feel in control - Third: electronic video games may offer opportunities for socialization with others on common tasks.

Media is also believed to portray deceptive health patterns. Please consider portrayals of healthy habits, consequences of injuries, physical health, mental health, health care professionals. Pay attention to described patterns, statistics, and stereotypes.

- First: although most characters are not shown having healthy habits most characters appear healthy. 65% of Americans are overweight, but on television only %6 of males are and %2 of women are. And character do not gain weight from their high caloric diets. - Second: although there is a degree of violence on many shows, few characters are portrayed as suffering any harm. Only 6-7% of major characters are portrayed as having injuries or illnesses that require treatment. Prime time characters are not only healthy but safe from accidents. - Third: everyday normal health maladies are rarely shown. Most health problems that are portrayed are serious and life threatening. Hardly anyone dies a natural death on television. - Fourth: mental health is portrayed in a dangerously stereotypical manner. In real life, mentally ill people are usually passive and withdrawn, frightened, and avoidant. But on television, mentally ill characters were found to be 10 times more likely to be violent criminals than non-mentally ill television characters. - Fifth: Doctors are greatly overrepresented on television compared to their numbers in real life. They are five times their number in real life proportionally

What are the primary characteristics of the process of designing electronic game platforms?

- First: an idea is conceived and sketched out in a demo - Second: a team of designers determines what a player will do while playing the game - Third: artist render the environments and characters - Fourth: programmers take the instructions from the designers and artists and write the digital code - Fifth: when enough code is written, an alpha version is tested - Sixth: where the alpha test reveals design flaws, corrections are made. - Seventh: a beta version is made available for wider testing - Eight: when management is satisfied with the beta testing the game "goes gold" and is released to the public - Ninth: The publisher designs the box, reproduces the game disks and distributes them.

Consider psychology of playing electronic games: what is flow? What is telescoping?

- Flow refers to losing track of space and time - Telescoping refers to focusing on steps within the process of moving through a game. These characteristics can be intense and rewarding, these characteristics continually draw players back for repeat experiences

How are electronic game experiences different from board game experiences?

- For millennia humans competed against themselves to solve puzzles and mysteries, humans invented card games and board games to compete against one person or several other people. With the invention of the computer. With games on a computerized platform expanded the competitive platform. We can play, pause, take as much time as we want.

What are the formulas that journalists use to construct news stories? Make sure you know all four types and can provide examples

- Formulas: - For gathering information on a story, journalists follow the formula of asking six questions, who, what, where, when, why, and how? - The inverted pyramid formula tells the journalist to put the most important information at the beginning of the story, then add the next most important set of information - Another formula is to use a narrative to tell a story in an entertainment format. Journalists who use this will begin the story with a heated conflict to grab the reader's attention in an emotional manner. - Simplified extended conflict (SEC): is a formula which journalists look for an angle of conflict that appears very simple but can be played out over a period of time.

What are some forms of cooperative experiences satisfied by interactive media? Provide examples for each type.

- Friendship: The most prevalent platform for friendship is the social networking sites. SNS offers a sense of community. There are relaxed geographic limitations. Popular SNS's include Myspace, and Facebook. - Dating: there are SNS's specifically designed for partner seeking, Skout is an app that uses GPS to help singles find local dates - Living: Contact with friends is virtual and people generally do not interact in real life, second life is a virtual world launched in 2003, where individual create and maintain avatars. - Opinion sharing: People can share their opinion through blogs. There is the possibility for an unlimited size audience. Tumblr has 220 million blogs, Twitter has 555 million users.

Accuracy as a criterion for news involves truthfulness and neutrality but there is more. What are the additional criteria for accuracy?

- Full set of facts: presenting only a partial story is a type of distortion that is not usually regarded as bias because there does not seem to be an intention by the journalist to mislead the audience. One form of partial story is when a major story stops getting covered, even though important events continue to occur. Another type of partial story is when a journalist tells a story from a single point of view - Context: is what helps audiences understand the meaning of the event in the news stories.

What are the major steps in general formula that entertainment follows?

- General formula: entertainment that follows this formula begins with a problem for at least one character, followed by heightened conflict, and the climax where the conflict is resolved.

How can media literacy help with understanding/ dealing with next step reality phenomenon? (Answer this question) - you should ask, which elements in this message reflect reality and which elements are removed from reality in some way?

- How should one phrase their questions about media message reality? - Ask "which elements in this message reflect reality and which elements are removed from reality in some way? - What does it mean to be flexible and aware from the media literacy perspective? - Being flexible means being willing to traverse the entire spectrum of messages and being willing to enjoy the full range of messages - Being aware means thinking about where you are in the spectrum and knowing the different standards of appreciation to apply to different places on the spectrum of reality.

What are some forms of acquisition experiences satisfied by interactive media? Provide examples for each type

- Information: Wikis are online databases; Wikipedia began in 2001 - Music: Napster was a social network for sharing music; it was founded in 2009 and was shut down by the RIAA in 2001 - Video: YouTube was created in 2005, in 2015 there was over one billion unique visitors each month. More than 100 hours of new video are uploaded every minute - Shopping: E-Commerce is relatively new but accounts for 6.4% of all retail sales in the US. Amazon and Ebay are popular E-commerce sites.

Reality Programming as a Genre a. When did reality programming become a recognizable as genre? What are the major characteristics of this genre? b. This of the Survivor show. How is it made? Can you explain how it speaks to the audience's and producer/programmers' perspective on next step reality?

- It became recognized as a genre in 2000 when three popular shows survivor, American idol and Big Brother came out. - They were unscripted series using real people, instead of professional performers. - Survivor take 16 real people and puts them in a wilderness setting where the individuals depend on each other for survival. These 16 applicants are chosen from thousands of people based on their attractiveness of getting audiences to watch the show. - The audience only sees 2% of what is actually filmed. - It speaks to the audience's perspective on next step reality because it gives them messages they cannot get in real life, because most people will not go to a deserted island to compete for free. And to get those messages in real life it would cost too much. The show also presents it to be realistic and possible, and gives people a little more than they would get in their everyday lives. - The show in the programmer's perspective, removes the audience from reality one step at a time.

What can you do to form your own informed opinion about this issue?

- It is essential that your opinions be informed by accurate facts rather than faulty information, informed by your own personal values that you use as evaluative standards, and informed by the differences between social responsibility and economic responsibility.

There is huge risk in selecting stories to present on television. What type of risks are out there in entertainment business? How can these risks be minimized?

- Shows that are too formulaic may bore audiences, but if shows deviate from the norm too much, they may offend audiences. - Because the financial risk in producing television programs is high, producers need to attract large audiences. Because the larger audience that you have the more money you make. - Television programmers are usually very conservative with risk and typically force other to share the risk with them. For example, major television networks have developed payment conventions that force producers to attract large audiences if they want to make money by paying only 80% of production costs for new shows

c. What are knock-off and spin offs? d. What are the sub-genres of reality programming? Define each and provide an example

- Knock off series is produced by different people who are copying the formula used by other people who produced the successful television series on which the knock off is based on. - Spin off series is produced by the same people who produced the previously successful television series on which the spin-off is based on - Documentary style: camera record what happens in everyday life ex: undercover boss, keeping up with the Kardashians - Reality legal: people's behavior is recorded as they deal with legal problems ex: court shows - Reality competition/games shows: people compete for some prize as one or more contestants are eliminated each episode ex: American Idol, Dancing with the stars - Self-improvement/Makeover: viewers are amazed as a real world person or object is drastically improved ex: the biggest loser, pimp my ride - Social experiment: people are put in unusual situations and a camera records their reactions ex: wife swap, secret millionaire - Hidden camera: people's actions are recorded without their awareness ex: what would you do? - Supernatural: people are put in frightening situations that are involve paranormal forces ex: ghost hunters - Hoax: people are fooled to believe something false and their reactions are recorded ex" Punk'd

How can media literacy help with interactive messages? Consider both personal and broader implications.

- Personal implications: need to make clear distinction between opportunity and addiction. When you use interactive platforms, keep your personal goals in mind - Broader implications: interactive media platforms affect the economy. Brick and mortar cannot compete with online retailers. When people spend their money in virtual worlds, it does not get spent in the real world.

What is reality? Why do we say that judgements about reality (realism) are complex?

- Psychologists have been focused on the fundamental problem of how the human mind encounters the world and seeks to make sense of what is real - Factuality: Does the message show what actually happened? This is the idea of magic window which asks, is the media message an accurate, unadorned view through a window on actual events and people - Perceptual persuasiveness: does the media message present characters and setting that look real? - Social utility: does the message portray social lessons that can be used b people in their everyday lives - Identity: does the way characters are portrayed in media messages lead people to believe that those characters are very much like people in their everyday lives? - Emotional involvement: does the media message engage people's feelings so they are pulled into the action and feel it is really happening? - Plausibility: does the media message portray something that could happen? - Typicality: does the media message portray something that usually happens? - Narrative consistency: Does the plot of the story make people believe that the sequence of actions is believable

What are the six design rules that help condition players for repeat playing?

- Rewards - Easy to learn - Predictable - Consistent - Familiar - Challenging

Now consider controversial content elements such as sex, homosexuality, violence, and offensive language use. For each element, how does media address this issues? Is it successful? What is still problematic?

- Sex: prevalent on television, especially teen TV. Two thirds of network TV shows contain talk about sex or sexual behavior. Rates change in cyclical pattern. Topic related to safe sex, responsibilities, and risks are increasingly included. Infrequent overall - Homosexuality: US television has a long history of marginalizing, ignoring, and stereotyping homosexuals. Recent analysis shows that non-heterosexuals account for 15% of television programs. So it is not necessarily any more progressive then it was - Violence: this is the most studied form of media content, and violence has been found in 60-80% of entertainment programs. Violence is prevalent in movies. This level of violence is higher than in the real world. - Offensive language: Obscenity is regulated by the FCC; the FCC takes context into consideration also. The greatest increase in profanity came during so called "family hour" Racial slurs and gender slurs are also included with obscenities

What is the primary function of story formulas?

- Story formulas help designers of entertainment messages attract audience attention and condition audiences for repeat exposure. They are also guides that help producers navigate the process of making decisions as they select story elements and structure those selections in a meaningful sequence. They help audiences quickly process their ideas about characters and efficiently follow the unfolding action.

How are teenagers presented by television industry? Why is this portrayal problematic?

- Teenagers are presented as being on their own, with no need to listen to their parents who know little anyways. This helps the TV industry certify teenagers as an autonomous culture with its own set of ethics and consumption patterns.

How are electronic games marketed? Consider demographics, audience characteristics (four types), and current trends.

- The average player is 35 years old, 44% of gamers are women, with 67% of households play electronic games - Explorers: players who are curious and want to wander inside the game world to discover all its territories - Socializers: players who like to interact with other players - Achievers: players who are attracted to the games in order to build something - Controllers: players who want to dominate others - There has been a shift from selling games on disc to selling internet subscriptions.

Storytelling formulas must evolve as public tastes change overtime. How did stories adapt to these changes? Consider variety of examples including sexual and violent portrayals, views on minorities, women, gender roles, etc...

- The line of acceptability has changed over time - On television, sexual portrayals and violence that offended people in the 1980s would not faze people today. - With music the basic formula for popular songs is a story about love or sex, but the songs have become much more explicit overtime.

What do we mean when we state that advertising is pervasive (spreading widely in an area)? In which way?

- The united states is saturated with advertising. With about 8% of the world population we absorb almost half of the world advertising expenditures. Estimates range from 247 to over 5000 for the number of ads the average person is exposed to per day.

Media at the same time is credited for some responsible health patterns. What are these?

- The use of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs has dramatically declined over the years on television. Smoking was a frequent activity until the mid 80's until it almost completely disappeared except for reruns of old movies. Alcohol is presented now with negative consequences. Movie characters still frequently abuse drugs and alcohol without worrying about consequences.

What do our stories tell us about our current culture? Make sure you are aware of Comstock's list and Walsh's list

- Themes deal with material consumption. Comstock is not referring to the ads in the stories but referring to the fact that characters have material objects that are beyond their means. Walsh thinks that the values of the marketplace or the people are happiness equals wealth, instant gratification, and me first. - Comstock's list: Material consumption is very satisfying, the world is a mean and risky place. The TV world has turned the social pyramid upside down by showing most characters as wealthy and powerful and very few as working class - Walsh's list: Happiness is found in having things, get all you can for yourself, get it all as quickly as you can, win at all costs, violence is entertaining, always seep pleasure an avoid boredom.

What makes MMORPGs special? Consider both psychological and economic aspects. Provide examples.

- They are designed to attract certain kinds of audience then to condition that audience to play continually. They have been very successful at conditioning players to the point where players believe that the cyber world of the game is more important to players than the real world. - In World of Warcraft players paid 19.99 to download the game and 14.99 a month to play online. - In Ever quest, individuals in poor counties can make 3.50 per hour performing basic tasks in the cyber world. As of 2004 ebay was hosting about $30 million of annual trade for goods that only exist in synthetic worlds

1. The book suggests that judgements of reality can vary widely even among people of the same age and experience, How so? Consider Voort study. What can the incident with Gilligan's island described in the book suggest about this issue?

- This is because not every child of the same age is making the same judgements about reality, Voort reports that perceptions of reality and the degree of identification with characters vary substantially at any given age. His research found that some children became absorbed in watching violent videos and judged the violence to be realistic, which led to a stronger emotional reaction, which led to a belief that violence was bad, which did not lead to aggressive behaviors in real life. It suggests that people's perception of reality varies.

1. Consider drama genre. What are the three basic subgenres of drama? Define major characteristics of all three provide examples

- Three basic subgenres of drama: Tragedy, mystery, and action/horror. - Tragedy: must have characters that are perceived as noble and good by the audience ex: Titanic - Mystery: the mystery genre must have an element of the plot that is missing ex: crime shows like castle - Action/horror: this formula is a plot driven good and evil fight it out in ever deepening conflict. Ex: the shining

What are the seven criteria an event must have in order to be considered newsworthy? Explain each

- Timeliness: An event has to be current in order to be considered news. - Significance: refers to the magnitude of the consequences of an event - Proximity: refers to how close the events is to the news audience - Prominence: refers to how well known people and institutions are in the event being considered as news worthy - Conflict: refers to the degree to which the parties in an event disagree - human interest: refers to how strongly the event would appeal to human emotions - deviance: refers to the degree to which an event is out of the ordinary

How do you become more media literate with advertising? What do you need to analyze? How can you evaluate ads?

- To increase your media literacy, you need to construct a good knowledge structure about advertising then use that knowledge structure periodically to check the advertising aimed at you. - Analyze your personal needs: the more aware you are of your needs, the more you can use advertising to control your life. If you are not aware of your needs, the constant flood of advertising messages will create and shape your needs often without you knowing it. - Analyze ads: there are too many ads in your environment to analyze them all. Make this manageable by making a list of the advertised products you buy most often then find some ads for those products and analyze them. - To evaluate ads you, you are making value judgements about how well the advertiser understands your real needs and how well they present their products as the best way of satisfying those needs. If you found a lost match between your personal needs and the advertising appeals for the product you buy, then you can conclude that advertising is exerting a positive influence in your life.

Who qualifies as a journalist? Pay close attention to the three-part definition of profession. Be prepared to identify and explain each part. How do people try to draw a distinction between journalists and non-journalists?

- Until recently a solid criterion was: "journalists were reporters and editors working for newspapers, the broadcast media or wire services." Another criterion that could be used to answer this questions is to determine whether a person is a valid member of the journalism profession - Professionalism: in general, is traceable to three qualities, knowledge, organization, and autonomy - Knowledge: is composed of a cognitive base and particular skills, there is no agreed upon set of facts journalist must share, nor is it possible to think what such a set of facts might be given the side variety of stories that journalists cover daily - Organization: refers to "how a profession may require membership of professional associations that legitimately represent the profession as a how practitioners must be able to earn a living from engaging full time in their profession and how formal codes of ethics organize the profession." Journalists do have professional organizations and a kind of cannon of ethics. - Autonomy: refers to how professionals are able to do their jobs with a great deal of individual discretion and that external influence over the work process itself should be non-existent or minimal. Journalists have always sought to be independent from outside pressures in a quest to report the news accurately.

Why the news workers fail to achieve the prescribed standards of newsworthiness? What types of constrains they have to deal with at work.

- Use of sources: although news workers are aware of normative news perspectives that tell them what they should do, they frequently cannot achieve the prescribed standards because of unavoidable constraints, such as deadlines, limited access to sources, and limited financial resources.

How do media producers use scholarly research? What research findings are (can be) useful for them?

- Violence is a story element that attracts audiences, but it is the arousing nature of violent portrayals that is the active element - They also said that humor is a desirable element to put into media stories. However, there are many different types of humor and because humor is personal, not all audience members "get" all types of humor - Suspense has been found to be a useful characteristic but not all audience members enjoys suspense the same way. - Research that can be useful for them: while disgust repels and offends us, it has functionally evolved over time to compel our attention to core disgusts and socio moral violations.

Why do we say that privacy is an issue on-line? What is at the essence of this issue?

- When sensitive information was stored on paper files could be locked away and kept secret. But now all information is digitized as electronic blips that flow continuously everywhere throughout the internet. - The issue is that all this kind of information is frequently illegally accessed by hackers and even legally by marketers as well as people working in a variety of governmental agencies

What is middle-ware market?

- While games are typically marketed to players, game developers also market their game code to other game developers. This is called the middle-ware market

What are strategies that can help one become media literate with entertainment messages? Consider both challenges and solutions

- With patterns, the challenge for media literacy is considerably higher. Patterns are insidious because we typically process each portrayal individually then unconsciously infer patterns often based on a few instances or faulty samples. Thus after watching a small number of movies or television shows we infer patterns about the real world these inferences often result in unrealistic beliefs about attractiveness, romance, success, health, family and so on. - Strengthen knowledge structures regarding content patterns, discrepancies form the real world and formulas. Separate reality from fantasy, be entertained by fantasy, avoid being guided by unrealistic expectations. Ask, questions, be skeptical, and stay active during consumption.

From the economic perspective, how does commercialism and marketing affect the content and quality of the news stories?

- commercialism: news organizations are in the business of constructing large audiences so they can rent those audiences to advertisers. News organizations present the kinds of stories that audiences want most - Marketing: news decisions are made by marketers instead of journalists, it tends to change the content of news in a way that is somehow harmful to the public. Journalists under this perspective are more likely to present stories that grab the attention of large audiences by highlighting the unusual so as to shock people.

From the consumer personal perspective, how do people see out information? What is selective exposure?

- people are seeking out information strategically that benefits them. As the audience for news fragments, news vehicles are getting more and more specialized, which Is known as hyper-localism - Selective exposure is a psychological concept that says people seek out information that conforms to their existing belief systems and avoid information that challenges those beliefs

People can criticize ads based on their personal values. What are some of these claims against ads? Make sure you know all three and can provide examples.

1. Advertising is excessive: - Culture is saturated with advertising. - evaluative judgement, means that you must have a standard for what is an acceptable amount. If you have a high standard for excessiveness, then you will likely conclude that the amount of advertising has not yet reached that level, and therefore advertising is not excessive. - You must decide for yourself whether you think advertising is excessive or not. when you are making this decision, consider what your standard is for an acceptable amount of advertising 2. Advertising manipulates us into buying things we don't need: - Hierarchy of needs: - Humans most basic level of needs are those required for survival (food, water, shelter) - The next level is are the safety needs (freedom from attack from predators and disease) - Next is the social level of needs (friendship, family, and belonging to groups) - self-esteem level of needs (achievement, confidence, respect from others) - The highest level of need is self-actualization (fulfilling one's self through creativity and morality) 3. Advertising makes us too materialistic: - Americans say that they are dissatisfied with materialism despite all the abundance. Most Americans agree (80%) that most of us buy and consume far more than we need. - we keep asking for more products to consume, even when we believe that we are too materialistic.

a. Advertising Potentially Harmful Products b. Invading Protected Groups

1. Advertising potentially harmful products: - there are products that are potentially harmful to individuals, especially people do not use them properly. They are legally available, and the job of the marketer is to find new users as well as push existing users to buy more of the product. - Consumption of liquor, beer, and pharmaceutical products are all legal, and each can be used responsibly. However, the aggressive expansion of persuasive messages in the mass media to encourage people to use more of these products is likely to risk greater harm to society. 2. invading protected groups: - Psychologists, parents, and social critics are concerned about protecting children from a barrage of advertising, especially from inappropriate products. Children are not sophisticated in making decisions about how to spend their money

What is next step reality?

1. Next step reality is embedded in how media messages get produced and why certain messages attract large audiences whereas other messages do not. - Consider audience's perspective on the next-step reality. Why do people expose themselves to the media according to this perspective? - People find messages that they cannot get in real life, impossible to get messages in real life, and high cost to get message in real life. - From this perspective, what are the audiences looking for in the messages? Consider both factors? Are they in conflict with each other? How do they meet the needs of the audience? Consider fiction, persuasive messages, and news. - They also search for messages that have two general characteristics, first the messages must appear real, and the messages must present a little more than everyday reality; one step removed as in one step outside of the audience's everyday existence

What are the three major perspectives on news? Identify and explain each?

1. Political philosophy perspective: This is a normative not a descriptive perspective. The political philosophy perspective specifies what news should be. People who take this perspective on the news argue that news should focus on the most important events and people in a society in order to keep people up to date about what is most significant. 2. Traditional journalistic perspective: Journalists believe their purpose is to inform the public, rather than persuade the public. This is a normative not descriptive perspective

c. Invading Privacy d. Altering Needs

3. Invading privacy: - In their pursuit of their economic goals, advertisers continually invade your privacy by monitoring your economic transactions, and by invading your day to day lives with messages designed to alter your behavior. Advertisers collect information on every product you buy, they monitor your interests on blogs and social networking sites. Online retailers know that 98% of visitors in online shopping leave without purchasing anything. So they collect data on each of these people and send them messages to lure them back to what they visited, this is called retargeting. 4. Altering needs: - advertising alters our beliefs about needs in several ways, one way is that it has shifted our beliefs in needs from public goods to private goods. - Public goods are those that are owned by society and are open for sharing for free or for a modest fee. Beaches, city streets, bridges, public transportation system. - Private goods are those that you buy, own, and control (your clothing, car, furniture, phone) - Advertising has also conditioned us to believe that we have more and more need. It does this by subtly and gradually shaping our standards about success, romance, and beauty. Then it leads us to believe that we are not living up to those standards.

What can you do? Consider the following: a. Information Assessment b. Threat Assessment c. Privacy Strategy

A. Information assessment: - take an inventory about what information is publicly available to you. - Map your information by privacy levels. B. Threat assessment: - use your desired privacy map as the standards for what should be shared when compare your desired privacy levels to what websites are doing to protect or invade your privacy. - To protect their privacy a small number of users are devising their own opt in policies and deciding some websites are not worthy o their personal information. C. Privacy strategy: - Remove private information - Be vigilant, search for yourself on people finder sites every few months, to make sure data collectors have not added you back again - download software to protect your computer from threats to your privacy - Set up your internet browsers to disallow cookies as the default.

Consider criminal threats to our privacy: a. What are the different ways in which our private information can be stolen? b. What are the dangers of the identity theft? c. What is hijacking?

A. What are different ways in which our private information can be stolen? - Spyware is a small program that you inadvertently download into your computer, which records keystrokes, sites visited, and even personal information such as credit card numbers, email address, passwords etc. - Phishing: is a technique used to acquire sensitive information from unaware users by seemingly trustworthy message senders. - hacking is a set of computer techniques used to break through "secure" databases B. What are the dangers of identity theft: - If someone gains access to you name, date of birth, and social security number they can steal your identity - Identity thieves ruin individual's credit - 85% of victims of identity theft found out about the crime due to an adverse situation - Criminals can now buy verified credit card numbers for as little as $1 and full identities for about $14 - Every year in the united states 10 million people become victims of identity theft. - On average victims lose between $851 and $1378 out of pocket trying to resolve identity theft. C. Hijacking: - Another invasion of privacy is when your computer is hijacked and used by hackers without your permission and often without your knowledge - Hijackers use bot network activity is a network of infected computers (bots) that is remotely controlled by hackers who put these computers into round the clock service sending spam, fishing for credit card numbers, spying on internet traffic. Some of these bot nets have been found to send 30 billion spam emails per day. - Another form of hijacking, is done by advertisers, is to take over your homepage with a browser or to implant a search engine in your computer.

What are the non-criminal threats to your privacy? a. Who can and is monitoring you? How? b. Who can sell your information?

A. Who can and is monitoring you? how? - Every time you use your computer, your activities are being monitored. ISP's track your internet activity. ISP's (internet service providers) collect information on which websites you visit and for how long. - Facebook, Google, and other sites monitor your activity using cookies. Cookies are tiny computer files that are planted on your hard drive when you access many websites. These were created to allow online retailers to keep track of items shoppers put in their "shopping cart" Netscape created cookies telling people it would make their experiences with internet sites easier.

How can the concept of "magic window" be used to explain negative effects of TV on children?

Based on the television that children watch, their perceptions of reality can be very skewed.

How criticisms towards advertising being irresponsible is justified?

Criticisms towards advertising being irresponsible is justified by the fact that advertisers job is to make money for their company and the owners. These advertisers have a economic responsibility and when faced with both economic and social responsibility advertisers will choose economic responsibility

d. What are the potential dangers of a database security breach? Consider timeline issue 6.1 in the book as you are preparing for this question. e. What are the threats of a computer virus? f. What is hacktivism? Consider international level cybercrime

D. What are the potential dangers of a database security breach? - Database security is becoming more difficult because of the "cloud" The cloud is a really large network of computers and storage devices for information. So you are able to access your information from different devices. - Cloud services generated $41 billion in 2010. - The federal government is encouraging the digitization of heal information, this comes at the risk of invasion of privacy by hackers. - with many databases containing highly sensitive and personal information all existing on the same network, this becomes an enormously attractive target for hackers. E. What are the threats of a computer virus? - A virus is a string of code that inserts itself to a normal software program and then begins to destroy your stored information. Computer viruses are highly contagious - Because most viruses remain hidden most users have no idea they are passing around the virus until it is too late. - In 2011 Symantec corporation that markets Norton Utilities software estimated that there are over one million viruses. F. What is hacktivism, consider international level crime. - Hacktivism is the use of hackers' techniques to break into organizations' secure databases for the purpose of either damaging those databases or using the information to publicly embarrass the organization. - Foreign governments are engaging in cybercrime against US businesses, individuals, and even the US government agencies - The North Korean government hacked Sony's database after the film company promoted the movie the interview - the most serious cybercrime comes from China, which accounts for 43% of all attacks against businesses, government agencies and officials.

What is privacy? What are the assumptions that we make when we expect privacy?

Privacy: is the secluding of personal information by individuals about themselves. Characterized by four ideas 1. individuals do not want to share all information about themselves with everyone. 2. Privacy is a variable condition, that is a person might want to share some bits of information with some people but not with others. 3. Individuals own their personal information and should be able to control it. 4. When we share some private information with another person and set boundaries on sharing that information, we expect that person to respect our boundaries.

c. How can our behavior be controlled? Who can control it? Consider Kosinski's discovery that we discussed in class. How can it be used for good? How can it be abused? d. What are the dangers of spamming?

Sites like Google, are controlling our shopping by using information they have about us to guide us to certain products and away from others. - Paid placement is a method developed by Google as part of its algorithm. Our internet searches are also affected by our past search history. - The big five OCEAN that Kosinski came up with can be used to incite riots, but it can also be used to benefit people. Spamming can shut down businesses, Internet service providers are wary of spammers because a sudden inundation of hundreds of thousands of messages can slow down their systems.

What are some criticism of ads that are considered to be faulty? Name and explain all three

The three popular criticisms of advertising is 1. Advertising is deceptive: Puffery is a promotional statement that presents subjective claims that cannot be tested for truth although they convey the impression that they are truthful in saying that their product is superior or valuable. - Pseudo claims ( X fights cavities) - comparison with unidentified other (x has better cleaning action) - comparison of product to its earlier form (new and improved) Pseudo survey (4 out of 5 dentists recommend this) Juxtaposition (happy faces next to a product) 2. Companies manipulate us using subliminal advertising: - The idea of subliminal advertising having an effect on us is also a hoax. - Unconscious impact: is a powerful effect that advertisers rely on, advertisers do not want their audience to pay high attention to their ads, instead they want images and jingles to flow into your mind unconsciously. In doing so it alters our perceptions of what is real, our perceptions of needs, advertising does by showing us that we can change our attractiveness, body image, whiteness of smile etc. - Layers of meaning: for instance for a toothpaste commercial, the deeper level, the ad is a message about the importance of health, the ad tells you that you need to buy something to clean your teeth. 3. Advertising perpetuates stereotypes - almost all advertisers must use stereotypes, this is because a 30 second ad cannot develop a character, this is the limitation of the medium (time and space constrains) - It is more about negative or positive portrayals, if an entire class of people is portrayed with negative characteristics then it is reasonable to argue that this is bad, this is offensive to many people. Even when people are portrayed as attractive and smart this is a stereotype even if people would not be offended by this.

Are regulations of internet activities effective? Why or why not?

They are not effective, because if you ban spammers in the US, then people outside of the US can still send spam mail. - And federal agencies tasked with this have so much trouble with enforcement.

Now think about the process of constructing advertising messages:

a. What is campaign strategy: - the planning document that companies or advertising agencies develop to sell a product or services is the campaign strategy b. When creating a campaign strategy, what are the three things that must be kept in mind? - first they need to realize that advertising is both a science as well as an art. - Second, planners must realize that advertising is a risky endeavor - Third, the role of advertising had changed with the popularity of newer media long with fragmentation of the population

How can we make judgements about quality of news?

a. What is objectivity? - It means a separateness from the object being observed so that the object is perceived accurately and that the perception is not distorted by human limitations b. What is truthfulness? - Truthfulness means that the story contains no lies, either by the sources used or by the journalist. Truthfulness also requires that journalists not make up facts to fill in the gaps of their stories or to "sweeten" their stories. c. What is neutrality? Address both the lack of bias and balance principles - Neutrality means that the story is free from journalistic bias or editorializing. This means that the journalist does not slant the story to convince the audience to think a certain way. Journalist focuses on informing and not persuading. - Lack of bias: bias is a willful distortion on the part of a journalist, but it is difficult for audiences to recognize when this is occurring - Balance principles: fairness requires that journalists present both sides and try to do so with equal weight.

Now think about multiple dimensions of reality (NOT ANSWERED)

a. What is the beginning point of judgement reality? What question do we usually start with when someone asks us if what is reported/presented/written is real? - The beginning point of judgement reality is usually an assessment of whether a portrayal actually happened. b. What are the additional criteria that people may use while judging how realistic something is? Please know all six. Define them and think of example.