Monday, November 24, 2014

Ebola in the United States: How the Media is Promoting Alarm Across Party Lines while Staying True to Political Loyalties

Source: Washington Times
Rather than promoting calm and providing information on the Ebola, a disease that has affected a mere .00000014 percent of the American population, the media's alarmist coverage is making the United States sick with worry. Part of this is due to political ideologies of the media themselves. This debate between alarming and informing the nation on ebola is one that has been questioned by countless people since the discovery of the disease in the U.S. on September 29. With a total of four cases and one death in the United States, the disease can hardly be called an epidemic. This is especially significant in comparison with the death tolls within certain countries in Africa that ebola has ravaged. Yet the media across party lines continues to label ebola in the U.S. as an epidemic, providing coverage that has promoted wide-spread fear throughout the nation rather than extensive knowledge on what is being done to eradicate the disease.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Chan41 Answers Questions on this iCourse

Chan41 on whether or not this iCourse's format is more effective than traditional college courses.
 

 Chan41 on what distinguishes basic videotaping from personal videotaping.

 

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Packard Fellowship Awarded to Vedran Lekic for His Research in Earth's Seismic Waves

Leckic Granted $875,000 Over Five Years to Study the Earth's Core
Important News 1.In recognition of his efforts to integrate computer science and geological studies, doctoral student at the University of Berkley Vedran Lekic joined the ranks of 17 other early career U.S. scientists and engineers who were awarded a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering last week. 
Explanation 8. “If you look at the field of those who get it and try to figure out from their research summaries and letters which are the strongest candidate, it’s a difficult task,” said Franklin Orr, chairman of the Packard Fellowship panel. “We always run out of fellowships before we run out of wonderful people to give them too.”
Important News  4. Lekic is now one of five alumni faculty members who have received the award while at this university, and he will be given access to unrestricted funds of $875,000 over a five-year period to support his extensive research on Earth’s inner structure.
Explanation 9. “The great thing about this fellowship is its flexibility to go chase a really good idea to wherever it leads,” said Orr, a Stanford University professor. “It is an incredibly valuable fund and gives the researchers an opportunity to take off with a good idea instead of waiting a year or more for federal money.” 
Explanation 15. Now that a large fund has been granted to his work, he hopes to spend more time plotting the seismic information in graphs and models so that he may better understand the Earth, Lekic said. 
Important News 5. Lekic is creating a map that will not only cover all 48 contiguous states, Alaska and Puerto Rico, but also dive deep into the Earth’s crust and core.

Lekic Gathers Seismic Data to Understand the Earth's Layers
Background 10. Lekic’s research is based on ground vibration recordings, which he and his students use to detect the scattering of seismic waves across the North American tectonic plate. In conjunction with the National Science Foundation’s EarthScope Facility network, the data is collected from the 49 states and Puerto Rico and makes up about 3.8 million square miles, Lekic said. 
Explanation 12.“EarthScope is kind of like our Apollo mission, but not as costly,” Lekic said 
Background 2. Lekic has already used the seismic information to investigate why and how the crust moves over the Earth’s mantle. As of now, the deepest any machine has been able to dig was about 12 kilometers into the Earth’s crust, a minuscle fracture of the roughly 6,730 kilometers it takes to get to the Earth’s core. Using the seismic information helps geologists see the shapes and sizes of the Earth’s layers.

Lekic and McDonough Use Neutrinos to Build Their Own Model of Earth
Background 3. Other than his seismology research contributions, Lekic is also a forerunner in the new geological field of neutrino geoscience.
Important News17. Lekic and geology professor William McDonough are attempting to harness that energy to create another way to build a model of the Earth.
Explanation 16. “We are both interested in the energy that moves the tectonic plates and creates the magnetic shield around the planet,”] McDonough said. 
Explanation 13. “What we do is comparable to how an ultrasound let’s us see through our bodies,” Lekic said. “But this lets us see through the Earth.”
 Explanation 6. Neutrinos are a type of electrically neutral subatomic particle that are created during radioactive decay or some kinds of nuclear reactions. The particle, which was only discovered geologically in 2005 and physically detected for the first time last year, moves through every kind of object, McDonough said. 
Explanation 11. “It sounds magical; it’s like a particle that exists but you can’t really see,” Lekic said of neutrinos.
Background 14. Lekic has received several other early career awards besides the Packard Fellowship.
With this fellowship, Lekic will enter a new world of scientific discovery.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Digital Technology Rise in News Consumption of the UK and US

By Alex7 and Kerrigan52

In both the United Kingdom and the United States, digital technology is becoming an important source of news. Mobile devices, visuals, and much more are becoming a more prominent news source in these countries.

Rapid Growth in Mobile and Tablet Use for News in the UK and the US
In both the US and UK, there has been an increase in the usage of both smartphones and tablets as a primary source of news. Between 2013 and 2014, the United States has seen a 3% growth in smartphone usage while the United Kingdom has seen a 4% growth in usage within this timespan. As for using tablets as a news source, the United States has experienced yet again a 3% growth in usage between 2013 and 2014. Though the US has seen the growth in using tablets for news, the UK has itself had a significant increase in tablet usage for news, with a 7% jump between 2013 and 2014. For both countries, they are moving away from the use of one device for weekly news, such as solely a smartphone or solely a tablet. While the US has had only a -1% change between 2013 and 2014, the UK has seen a significant -5% change in this timespan. But while these countries are experiencing an increase of usage for news of both the tablet and the smartphone, the main source of digital news for both countries is the computer, followed by a mobile device, and finally, the tablet.<iframe src="//www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/40358449" width="238" height="200" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Rise of Visual Journalism in the US, not in the UK 
While lists/stories are the primary format of news consumed weekly for each country, the United States has seen a significant rise in the format of video/audio news as a main form of news consumption. While only video/audio news comprises only 18% of the weekly news consumption in the United Kingdom, this figure is almost doubled in the United States with video/audio news totaling 34% of the weekly news consumption. This can be seen significantly in the US where services like NowThisNews and Vice News containing visual content are gaining popularity, as well as the expansion of videos by prominent newspapers such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.


Huffington Post and Buzzfeed 'Fun and Weird News' Rising in UK and US
Sites like these attract younger audiences and generate much of their traffic from mobile and social media. Part of the appeal is the 'fun' nature of much of the content, which is mixed with serious news stories. They found that in this category of Fun and Weird news was accessed more often than celebrity and entertainment news. It is mainly driven by younger mean and whereas entertainment and celebrity news is ready by 18-35 year old women. These sites have also been experimenting with
new 'native' advertising formats where sponsored messages appear as part of the content itself. 

Frequency of Access and Interest in News Relatively Increasing in UK, Decreasing in US
According to an online survey, the % of the United States population accessing news several times a day has decreased in each year between 2012-2014 from 60% in 2012 to 54% in 2014. In contrast,
however, the United Kingdom experienced a significant increase between 2012-2013 with 46% accessing news frequently in 2012 to 58% in 2013. This percentage has remained relatively stable into 2014 as well with 57% of the current 2014 population accessing news several times a day. Overall, the population in the United Kingdom is becoming more interested in news and more engaged while the US is not. 

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Define Good Interactivity





Sunday, October 5, 2014

User Preferences for Personalization of Information Depends on Usage and Privacy Concerns

Although the two words may seem interchangeable at first glance, in terms of technology and the web, these two concepts are very different from each other. While with system-initiated personalization (SIP) the tailoring is done for the users based on preferences and past activity, user-initiated customization (UIC) allows the users "to perform the tailoring of their own" according to an article titled "Personalization versus Customization: The Importance of Agency, Privacy, and Power Usage."

 There are several definitions for both personalization and customization that vary per scholar. A definition given by Blom (2000) in the article describes the process of personalization as one that "changes the functionality, interface, information content, or distinctiveness of a system to increase its personal relevance to an individual." Systems that automatically personalize information acquire information about user behavior data in overt and covert ways. In the over method, data is gathered directly from questions to the user asking for information such as name, gender, phone numbers, zip codes, etc. In the covert method, the systems go "undercover" by placing cookies in user browsers and observing online behavior. You may have experienced such a method yourself when logging into a website that greets you by your name and presents information (such as weather or movie listings) based on your location or even sends you deals on products/services based on previous purchases on the web.

Customization, however, involves an active user rather than a passive one. Unlike personalization that tailors content for you, customizable systems put the user in the "driver's seat." It features "a number of affordances that allow users to make changes to the form and content of the interfaces," according to the article. Users can customize from something as simple as font or a color scheme on Web Changes to more advanced customization such as selecting what news or features of a website you'd like to know more about. The user is able to define their own desires and needs on the web for themselves unlike personalization that does the defining for them.

Preferences for Customization over Personalization Increase with Usage

In a study analyzed within the article, non power users showed more positive attitudes toward web content provided by the personalized condition rather than the customizable condition and control condition (featuring websites not influenced by customization or personalization). The study defines "power users" as "highly self-motivated learners who commit greater effort to discovery and experience frustration if restricted or given little learning autonomy." Nonpower users were defined as users that "lack the expertise and interest in adopting newer technologies and interface features." Power usage was determined by asking the participants a  series of questions dealing with their technology usage.

After exposing participants to a Google Website featuring SIP, UIC, or the "control" conditions, participants were asked "how well each of the following words described the news content on the site: accurate, believable, biased, clear, comprehensive, factual, fair, informative, important, objective, persuasive, sensationalistic, and well-written." The items were rated on a Likert-type scale between ‘‘describes very poorly’’ and ‘‘describes very well." The data found that UIC > SIP for power users, and SIP > UIC for nonpower users. This two-way interaction provided support to the "H2" hypothesis that predicted a moderating effect of power usage.

User Preferences for Customized and Personalized Information Correlate with Level of Privacy

After the first study was completed, a follow-up study was conducted that eliminated the control condition and added a privacy manipulation to the experiment. After the first session where the first experiment was replicated, a second session took place that included the privacy manipulation. Participants exposed to the low-privacy condition read a statement that said "The News Website that you are about to browse MAY USE your browsing information to provide the services you’ve requested," and that the site ‘‘may share aggregated non-personal information with third parties outside of the company.’’ Participants in the high-privacy condition were instead exposed to a statement that read ‘‘The News Website that you are about to browse WILL NOT use your browsing information to provide the services you’ve requested,’’ with an assurance that said the site ‘‘will not share aggregated nonpersonal information with third parties outside of the company.’’

After surveying the participants with a similar ten-point scale following the experiment, it was found that perceived control and convenience increased with power usage in the low-privacy condition with UIC, but decreased with power usage in SIP. For high-privacy participants, perceived control and convenience increased with power usage with no significant differences between UIC and SIP.  This can be explained by the need power-users have to feel in control that they can do with customization rather than personalization. However, for nonpower users, they showed more control under the personalization condition which implied that the low-privacy manipulation may have adversely affected their interaction with the website. For the high-privacy condition, there was no significant difference. Power users did show a gradual preference for SIP over UIC which may be as a result of increased convenience. Strangely, nonpower users prefferred UIC over SIP, suggesting that the high-privacy assurance actually serves as an enables positive attitudes toward the site’s ability to let users act as "active content gatekeepers."