Anonymity. Good or Bad?

Anonymity on the Internet can be seen in perspective as both good and bad, but it often gives people the confidence to be nastier in their speech, than if they were to say their comments and ideas face to face. The reasoning for this is caused by allowing people to not have to take responsibility for their own actions. On the other hand, getting rid of anonymity may not necessarily be considered a good thing because it allows people to freely express their opinions on to

pics that if their identity were to be seen, might not be given the same amount of respect as when it is posted anonymously. I believe that with the issue of people using anonymity to be racist, sexist, or to enable bullying is very unethical and steps do need to be taken to not get rid of anonymity, but to stop people from using it in the wrong way.

When people abuse anonymity to bully others, or to make sexist or racist remarks it allows them to get away with their actions with no consequences. This issue of using anonymity for the wrong reasons is escalating more and more every year and something definitely is needed to be done to either get rid of it all together, or to at least minimize it as much as possible. The site called Hello there, Racists has many good examples of the amount of racist comments that are made on the Internet by both males and females of all ages. The amount of racist comments that are made about the president of the United States is sickening and the idea that we all possess thinking that racism has minimized over the years in my opinion is very far from the truth, as it is still very prevalent today. Having a site like this makes the point of racism very obvious and it gets awareness out to people, and I believe this is a very positive and good thing. These people should not be given the right to make comments like these if they are not willingly to face the consequences of their own actions. I believe that we are given the right to free speech, but if what you have to say is unethical or is said just to hurt another person, exposure of your real identity is absolutely necessary.

The anonymity of the Internet may provide a level of privacy, but it can also enable certain participants to become much more aggressive and rude than they would be without hiding their identity. Using exposure in outing people who use anonymity to be racist or to bully people I believe is a very necessary action. There is no doubt that anonymity can allow users to express their opinions more confidentially than they would in the real world. However, my reasoning for exposure is because some users ignore Internet etiquette when they are able to continually make rude remarks without any consequences, and it will just continue to happen because there is nothing stopping them from doing this. If we are able to take away the freedom of anonymity from the people who abuse it, I believe this will have a positive effect in decreasing the amount of racism and bullying found on the Internet. The bullying that happens online has extremely harmful and devastating effects on people's characters and self images.

A recent example of anonymity that I have come across is a Facebook page called MRU Confessions, and on this anonymous site it gives students a place where they can make a range of confessions from people confessing about people they like from around campus, to various school incidents. For the most part, the confessions made here are harmless and quite entertaining to read, but there is one example of "The Phantom Puker" that is not very entertaining at all. I live in residence here at Mount Royal and over the last semester there have been many incidents of someone puking in the elevators and hallways at all times of the day, and no one ever owns up to it. It was becoming quite the problem and we have had to have building meetings to discuss these frequent incidents. Since MRU Confessions has begun, there have been multiple posts from "The Phantom Puker" making comments about how nothing will stop him, and just being plain ignorant about the whole situation. For me and many of the others who live here, as well as to the cleaning staff, we find this very disrespectful and completely disgusting and this person deserves to be exposed because these actions are very immature, and may end up costing all of us more money if it continues.

I believe that the Anonymous' intervention in the Steubenville and Rehtaeh Parsons cases is not justifiable and is seen as an act of vigilantism because given the information from Anonymous is unknown if their facts are true or not. There is a reason Anonymous does not want to be known and to be held accountable. Anonymous involvement in the cases by taking the law into its own hands and potentially incriminating and violating of those individuals is not doing any good. Although Anonymous' actions are done with the right intentions, I do not think it can be justified because of the way they go about it is still illegal. If vigilante is seen as appropriate, it is likely for more groups of people to take it upon themselves to use illegal activity to change what they believe is wrong. Anonymous' actions are ones that law enforcement is incapable to do because it is hacking into peoples private lives without any legal authority.

Therefore, anonymity is an issue that is hard to take one side over the other because anonymity is seen as being extremely effective in promoting freedom of expression, but when used wrongfully the impacts can out way the good. I believe when anonymity is used to harm others, their rights of being anonymous should be stripped away from them and they deserve to suffer the consequences for their actions.

Growing Up in Banff Alberta

Since this is my last blog and we were given the choice to write about whatever we wanted, I have decided to write about my hometown. I believe that growing up in a small town has had a huge impact on shaping the person I am today. I was born in a small popular tourist town, which was Canada's first National Park centered in the Rocky Mountains, called Banff. Since I have grown up and moved away, first to Victoria and now to Calgary, it has really made me appreciate where I grew up a lot more and has made me realize how much I took it for granted growing up. Growing up somewhere where literally everyone knows each other made it tough for me to move away after grade 12 to a city where I did not know anybody. Since living away from home, whenever I tell people that I am from Banff they cannot believe it and tell me how lucky I am. Living in a small outdoorsy town has given me the opportunity that most city kids do not have such as, learning so much about nature and it has also made me a very active person. I think Banff is a great community to raise your children; it is safe and is filled with amazing people. Unlike many kids who would sit inside and play all day or play video games, my childhood was mostly spent in the outdoors consisting of going on many hikes, bike rides and just playing games outside. 

I would recommend visiting Banff to anyone young or old, as there are plenty of different activities for everyone to enjoy. For the younger crowd, Banff has quite the nightlife having 3 nightclubs and tons of bars and pubs, and during the weekends a lot of people come into Banff to go out. For both younger and older people there is a ton of shopping in the downtown area, and during the winter months Banff is surrounded by many popular ski hills. A new addition to Banff's winter season is the Snow Days Festival where the town of Banff puts on different activities that are fun for the whole entire family. Some of these activities include ice sculpting, skating, tobogganing and ice climbing. During the summer, there are also plenty of things to do as well in the park such as hiking any of the beautiful hiking trails, which are available at all different hiking levels There are also a ton of great walking and biking trails around the town, as well as having the bow river in the middle of the town which allows you to go on and take canoe trips.  

No matter where I end up in life Banff will always be my home. If I do not end up living there again when I am older, I will definitely be visiting a lot. I believe growing up in Banff has had a significant impact on the person I am today, and I could not have grown up in a better place!

Online Identities

Identities and our sense of self emerge from our earliest experiences and are based internally on what others think about us. Some of our identities are formed at birth such as your sex, and others such as your faith, can be inherited or adopted from your family and culture. We also have a choice in shaping our identities and in the online world it makes it very easy to change your identity to be seen differently. This can be both good and bad in my opinion. The ability of being capable of changing your identity gives a person a chance to be seen differently or heard differently, then they probably actually are in person. I believe that online when it is not necessary to state what your gender or ethnicity is, most of us would assume that the other person talking is a white male, when actually the person could be part of a minority group. I believe that I also possess this same prospective because it is a part of my heritage, and it impacts the way I shape others identities that are otherwise unknown online.

In other Internet interactions where having the ability of changing your identity can be seen in a negative way would be for example in some online chat rooms, social networks and dating sites. Here, being able to change someone's identity is dangerous because people sometimes choose to use the ability to change their identity in a negative way, unlike changing it in order to be heard. Some examples of this are when teens are talking to strangers online and then begin to create a more emotional relationship with the person on the other side of the screen. When they decide to finally meet up with that person who they thought they were talking to online, that person usually ends up turning out to be someone completely different, and in most serious cases, someone who is very harmful.

From my own personal experience on social network site such as Facebook or Twitter, I will only interact with the people I believe to be legit. If a person chooses not to have a profile picture or a little blurb about himself/herself, I am more hesitant to interact with them because they are limiting the amount of information they share with you and they are then perceived even more as a stranger. The information that we choose to share on the web on sites such as Facebook, have a major role in developing our identity. The way you talk online and the things you choose to post or talk about all have an impact on the image you are leaving for yourself. Recently, I have heard of companies usingFacebook as a place to gather free data about certain market groups, and they do this by collecting data on what sorts of things people choose to "like" on Facebook to help them get a better understanding of their market.

Having the internet as a place to converse with strangers can be done in a safely manner, as long as you always take precautions, because even though if what they say and tell you about themselves sounds to be real, it just may not actually be the truth. The Internet gives us the freedom and even the confidence that we may not have if we were to have the same interactions in person. Being able to create your own identity empowers you to be heard in ways that might not be possible in real life interactions. This all just goes to show that even though we believe we now live in a country where everyone is seen equally, we actually still have a long ways to go.

Memes: Condescending Wonka

In today's Internet culture memes have become a very popular trend especially with the younger audience. Memes can be identified as an image paired with a specific text to create humour to the viewer. Humour usually reaches people the best and we are more attracted to forward on something humorous to others. Internet memes were first seen on websites like Reddit and Know Your Meme and were shared between a network of friends as inside jokes. Now Internet memes have grown to be seen on social networks such as twitter, Facebook and Tumblr and are continually expanding across the Internet. 

The meme I decided to look more in depth on was the Condescending Wonka memes. My reasoning for wanting to explore more about this meme was because of its popularity on Facebook and it seems to be the most common meme I have seen. "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" was one of my favourite movies as a child and when I first started seeing memes about the film I found myself being quite interested in learning more about them. The image of Willy Wonka in the meme comes from a scene in Gene Wilders 1971 musical "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" when the the character Wonka a chocolate and candy inventor asks the children if they are interested in his new invention the Everlasting Gobstopper. In the memes Wonka is seen as someone who likes to talk down to people, and was first used with the caption "You Must Be New Here" referring to people who are new at something, afterwards the image caught on by many people and was referred to as "Creepy Wonka." 

The Condescending Wonka meme I chose had the caption "Your parents bought you an iPhone, a macbook and a car? And they are paying for your school?... Please, tell me how hard your life is." I found this caption to be quite humorous because of how sarcastic and true it is that students think this way. Being in university now you constantly hear students complaining about how hard their lives are right now, but in reality these will probably be the easiest years of their lives. They don't always seem to appreciate everything their parents do for them. The Condescending Wonka memes captions seem to be endless and very popular, people are continuing to make new ones all the time. The Condescending Wonka memes can also be seen in other ways such as dry humour and signify irony such as how it was transferred into another meme where there is a picture of a Wiemaraner dog that says “Oh, you run a chocolate lab? / I am a chocolate lab.”

After looking into the Condescending Wonka memes it has opened up my curiosity to other memes and has interested me into learning more about where they come from. Once you have a good understanding of where the image or text comes from it makes the memes a lot more humorous and enjoyable. 

Her Bad Mother

The blog I chose to analyze was Her Bad Mother, the reason why I decided to examine this blog was because I thought it was focused on a very specific group of people and that their discussions would be quite opinionated and in depth. My first impression when I went onto the blog was that it looked put together very well and I felt like it gave off a more personal vibe. Without even reading any blogs yet I knew what the main focus of the blog site was because of its name as well as the photos that appeared on the home screen. 

The readers of Her Bad Mother are mainly made up of young mothers all the way up to mothers whose children have grown up but still want to offer their advice. I believe this blog is trying to appeal to new moms who have a lot of questions on being a new mother and it gives them a place to let out some of their frustration to other people who can relate. I also think this blog appeals to mothers who wish to brag about their families or want to share stories about their own children. 

I think Her Bad Mother is a place that gives mothers a chance to escape reality for a while and allows them to be able to sit down and have their own time and express their thoughts. The community aspect of Her Bad Mother I believe is very important, they rely on each other for their support and guidance. From reading a few entries it seems that most participants in the blog have taken part for quite sometime, which has allowed them to get to know each other and have created good friendships. Having created these friendships it has lead most of the blogs to become real back and forth ideas, allowing each one of them to share their suggestions, advice, support and love. This aspect of Her Bad Mother I believe to be quite important to the blog. All mothers want to be able to find people who have been in their shoes and can really relate to what they are going through whether being good or bad, and Her Bad Mother gives them a place to do so.

If I were a new mother who did not have many friends who as well were becoming mothers, I believe this blog would be a great place to come. When we are faced with new challenges and excitements in our lives we as humans like to know that there are others out there who are going through the same things and are able to relate and give us comfort. My older sister has just recently had her first baby and I think she would really enjoy partaking in Her Bad Mother because she is just starting to learn all the new roles of motherhood.

Plagiarism and Intellectual Property

Plagiarism seems to be a growing topic of concern that will never really disappear. Since being in university, I have heard about this topic over and over again in all of my classes and know about all of the consequences that come with it, but then ask myself: Why do so many students still do it? The truth is that most of us do it without even realizing it. Plagiarism doesn't just involve your academic work; when participating in social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you are constantly plagiarizing when posting links and images on your wall and on your friends' walls. Rarely do you see someone giving the credit to the original publisher. Being such a common occurrence, in the end does it really matter if someone uses the same photo that hundreds of thousands of other people across the globe are using as well? A photo that becomes that popular on the web is usually seen as public property. So is it wrong?

On Twitter, my friends and I are constantly sending each other funny pictures that we come across on our newsfeeds-memes, cute animal photos, and romantic quotes. None of these photos were labeled with copyright stamps or the creators' names. In this case, how would it even be possible to cite the original person who posted it? Is it even necessary? It's not like I'm claiming any of the ideas to be my own. On these social networking sites, it generally isn't anyone's motive to try and pretend something is yours. It's usually quite clear that a photo is from a site like Pinterest or The Chive pages, with the intention of putting entertaining photos and videos out for the world to access.

I think the main reason people plagiarize is mostly because of just plain laziness. I know I have had friends in high school who would leave assignments until the day before they were due, and then would just try to scramble to put something together and end up just taking information straight from the internet. I think the main reason for them doing this is that in high school the teachers are not as strict about plagiarism as they are in university, and you are also not as likely to get caught. I believe they need to start being more strict in high school and have more serious consequences to scare kids out of being lazy and to do the work on their own, because most of the time they are capable of doing it and could do well, but choose the easier, lazier option instead.

The main reasons why I think people should cite work that is not their own is because you should be giving credit to where the credit is due. With our world we are becoming more and more technologically advanced, meaning the need for people to understand how to avoid plagiarism is becoming more important. To help decrease the number of plagiarism cases I think it would be smart to start teaching children at a younger age about the importance of citing and how serious plagiarism is taken. I believe we should be teaching kids how to cite sources right when they first start writing papers, and by doing this it really will get drilled into their heads.

New Media vs. Old Media

I believe that by being a part of generation z, the "net generation" we have grown up with the internet and media technology. We have been the generation to best understand and use it, and it is also easier for us to accept it. I know for myself, when I have to do research or when I am looking for something out of my my own interest, the internet is always my first choice. Rarely, my first choice is to check a newspaper or go to a library. I believe for myself that it is all about accessibility and convenience, as it is a lot easier to sit down at a computer and find the information you are looking for. Once you are able to accept the transformation of new media, the easier it will be for you to evolve in the future.

Today, I picked up a Calgary Herald newspaper from my local grocery store to get more of a feeling about new media compared to old media. I read an article in the Calgary Herald titled Oil discovery in Australia's outback could "transform world's oil industry" and I then read its equivalent on the newspaper's website. At first glance, I did not think I would feel any different reading the two because they were the exact same story, but the layout was quite different from each other. In the physical newspaper, you had to finish the story by flipping to another page, whereas with the online article, the entire article as altogether. After I read both verison, I found that when I was reading the newspaper I had little connection with it and I found my eyes wondering to the other headings and photos on the page. When reading the online version, there were links to read more about similar stories and there were also video clips to choose from, giving me the sense of having more control over what I was reading. For me, I believe I enjoyed reading the online version better because I felt like I was able to get more information on the story than I was able to with the physical newspaper, and I also found myself getting bored quickly while reading it.

With new media becoming more and more popular there are many advantages. Not only is it cheaper to read online newspapers, it is also more environmentally friendly, and is an opening of communication with the world. With new media there are less barriers, what you have to say gets heard faster and the development of new media is irresistible. It is developing faster and faster and soon traditional media may be gone altogether. Although it is easier for new generations to grab hold of the quickly changing media, the older generations will have to jump on because new media is inescapable. I believe that even though new media is overpowering traditional media, the base of new media comes from the traditional style. We are now just expanding the way we get our information across to keep up with the rapidly growing world of technology.  

About Me

This is the first time I have ever done any sort of blogging so I am not sure how it works! A little bit about me I am in my second year business, I went to University of Victoria for my first year but didn't like being so far away from home so I transferred to Mount Royal. I am from Banff which lots of people find interesting because it is a tourist place and you don't hear about many people actually being from there. Lots of people ask what it was like growing up there and my response is always I loved it. My family is quite outdoorsy so my childhood consisted of lots of skiing, hiking, and figure skating. I would recommend Banff as a great holiday place for anyone there is many things to do there ranging from sports, shopping and even the night life. So saying all this my blogs are going to consist events that are going on in Banff that might interest others, as well as things that interest me that I think others would also enjoy. Hope you enjoy!