Blog Post #8: Diffusion of Innovations

The diffusion of innovations theory is something that most haven't heard about or even realized is a real thing, even though it's become very prominent everywhere around us. It's derived from modern society, where it is constantly in motion all around us, but it isn't something that has been brought forth into light as an actual theory most understand and know about. It seeks to explain not only how but why and at the rate at which new ideas and technology spread through the consumers, market share, and much more.

The theory follows the notion that diffusion is a process where an innovation is communicated through a series of channels over a period of time by a group of participants. 

This theory was crafted by the late Everett M. Rogers, an American communication theorist and sociologist, who proposed that five main elements to this theory influence the main spread of an idea, those being the innovation itself, adopters, communication channels, time, and a social system. The entire process relies heavily on the social capital that's being influenced and utilized, alongside the innovation having to become widely adopted throughout its lifespan to be self-sustaining. Through said adoption, the innovation can end up reaching critical mass, which is just a sufficient number of adopters of a new technology. 

The innovation I'm going to focus on is Instagram, starting from its first big boom onto the scene and original critical mass milestone hit. In mid-October of 2010, Instagram was launched as a fairly simple site, just a picture-sharing and social app that people could talk to each other on. It began to reach its innovation step 2 years later when it began to implement new features that enticed more and more people, and then finally mass exploded into stardom when it included Android users that could utilize the application. The adopters hit its critical mass capacity around this time of 2012, and it effectively made an enormous breakthrough into the mainstream media as one of the most influential and prominent apps that was being utilized daily by millions of users and hitting around 50 million users at this time.

Most people got attracted to this app and became adopters due to the certain features it provided you with, with photo and video sharing, editing, tweaking, social aspects, and so much more that enticed early users and ended up expanding it so heavily that just kept roping in more and more people to the app. 

Some were later to the party, usually being younger kids who were just downloading the app after learning that others around their age used the app, or people not on social media much that got convinced by a close person in their life, family, friends, etc. that convinced them to do so, theses being the main 2 types of later adopters.

Although Instagram is still prominently riding high and showcasing how dominant of an app it is even to this day, there are glaring downsides to it that you can see and find just a few minutes of being on the app. Prominent issues like botting, where you buy followers, likes, and comments on your post can be seen literally everywhere on Instagram, leading to an annoying rise of scams and buying your way to fame, the extremeness IG models take photos to with their lighting, effects, and their looks, which only serve to get them popular for their body and for comparison with them. 

Stuff like the comparisons people immediately start making to these people who look "too good" becomes incredibly detrimental to people's self-image and leads to heavy self-deprecation and depression over not liking your own body image. Bullying also becomes rampant due to things like these, where under almost any and every post you can find there will be people bullying others, and Instagram has literally become known for the insane amount of people that harass others like this.

There are still plenty of positives throughout the entirety of the app that can be found very quickly, like the good people under most posts providing actual insight and realistic expectations, formed groups of like-minded individuals, a place to express yourself, and much more overall. The positives I think personally outweigh the negatives and are the reason scrolling through Instagram is so enticing and enjoyable and brings more help than harm to others and the media around.

Blog Post #7: Why Antiwar Voices Have Disappeared From The Mainstream News

A confusing sentiment of the mainstream media is the attraction and further push towards showcasing the "War Party" to everyone willing to pay attention to the media. The enticing notion that this war system of mainstream media is through the government and military pushing the idea of their moral compass and ideals onto the people listening and are actively purposefully attempting to shut down the media sources proclaiming antiwar sentiments. This is why sources like Antiwar.com and The American Conservative are sources that no one really knows about unless purposefully searched for and scouted out.

A major reason for sites like those to be purposefully hidden and harder to find and access is due to the blatant media bias that is shown to these antiwar ideal-driven sites. These sites proclaim a different stance that isn't usually brought up or shown in the media often at all, and push their own way of thinking that the media doesn't want to show for the sake of keeping their pro-war ideals in the mainstream, mainly due to major news outlets having a lot of political or economic ties that are enhancing the support towards national security or military actions.

These antiwar outlets are purposefully showing the more uncomfortable side of this spectrum of media, proving that not everything the media is showing is completely true, but rather unearthing the harsher narratives that most try to ignore for the sake of feeling secure and safe in our own country. The mainstream media pushes these narratives deeper into the abyss of the internet, forcing you to go way out of your way to find others who share harsher sentiments about everything about the wars and these actions taking place, mainly to maintain a more stable global order. They cover the worst subjects that are usually failed to be shown, like the economic instability that is brought forth, the unnecessary deaths caused by militaristic actions, destruction, more violent but true sides, and a lot more overall that won't gain the spotlight of the mainstream.

A part of this mainstream media is that it's entirely governed by only a few major companies. This practice is called media consolidation, where the media is controlled by a set of governing bodies with major influence and power who run the news and media sources, forcing their own narratives that only they want to display. 

The pie chart on the right displays how in 1983, 90% of the market was effectively owned by 50 companies, but in 2011, 90% of the market was controlled by only 6 companies. This shows the drastic difference in what's happened to our media as a whole. It's become controlled by set outlets that only display their specific narrative to the public, usually consisting of pro-military/militarism and national security type of viewpoints, so smaller sources, and especially ones that show separate viewpoints than the ones these networks are constantly pushing for, won't be pushed forward and showcased at all.

Thousands of independent and smaller outlets of news sources won't be brought forward into the mainstream due to not aligning with the ideals of the controlling major news outlets but should always be made a point of and focused on in some type of light, so people won't be left in the dark about one side of the argument and information overall. 

I've always heavily encouraged research about topics since you won't always get the full story about whatever topic is being explored, which is heavily seen with militaristic news and raging wars more than anything. These smaller sources bring a completely separate, but helpful side to understanding a minority of opinions and information that won't be shown normally. Global problems shouldn't be showcased with only one opinionated and specific narrative but should be shown with a complete understanding of all of it as a whole, with the harsh realities in tow to maintain a clear and concise viewpoint of said issues.

Blog Post #6 - EOTO Reaction: Carrier Pigeons

The carrier pigeon is the first and fun starter to the EOTO presentations, and I learned some confusing but fun information that I never knew about carrier pigeons. 

The exact date is actually unknown, but the first instances were likely in Ancient Egypt and quickly became the fastest way to get a message from point A to point B. These pigeons were specially trained to provide specific messages to a certain recipient, secretly and discretely.

This was where my understanding of carrier pigeons was fully halted, since I’ve only ever learned about the basics of them and where they came from, but not the actual history of the carrier pigeon or their impact. I only knew about their existence and utilization in some wars and how they were trained to provide messages discretely. 

The next big instance was through the Roman Empire. This method of delivery was initially for the wealthy who wanted to deliver their mail faster than those on horseback, which is a common ideology of the upper class today, with them being more privileged than the lower class, and being able to have opportunities like this at their disposal. The Roman Empire was when this type of delivery method was utilized the most by the upper class when compared to Ancient Egypt and is when the basis of carrier pigeons really took off.

Another area of the world where the pigeons were highly regarded was in the Middle East. These pigeons are also known for being extremely helpful during the World Wars, more specifically and most prominently in World War I especially where they were used extensively to send hundreds of short messages on land, in air, and at sea. These carrier pigeons were utilized for specific espionage and emergency messages, seen heavily in no-man's land when attacks were about to take place. Around 100,000 carrier pigeons were used throughout the British, French, American, and German militaries throughout the Wars. 

There are many stories about these pigeons, with some of them being how a pigeon flew twenty-two miles in twenty-two minutes to deliver a message that helped with the rescue of two wrecked seaplane piolets, or how a pigeon fought against a gale with an emergency message of four airmen who were wrecked at sea, where it died from exhaustion shortly after arrival. One other incredible story is how one of the pigeons was shot in the left eye while attempting to deliver a message through hails of gunfire and heavy artillery, but despite the injury, the bird was still able to deliver the message. These pigeons were so incredibly vital to the information gathering and relaying from destination to destination and deserve so much respect for what they accomplished and fought through during these wars.

They are still actually utilized in the world today, mainly through the Royal Family collecting them, and a small area that still utilizes them for pigeon racing. The population of these pigeons is likely much higher today due to their past usefulness that it would be otherwise obsolete if they weren’t so utilized in their previous endeavors. The study of pigeons and their continued usefulness today laid the groundwork for the RPRA or the Royal Pigeon Racing Association.

This showcase of expertise with pigeons created an understanding of not only the birds but set a groundwork for how we wanted our messages to be carried, through the air, and faster than others. These pigeons might just seem absurd overall but actually contributed so heavily to the forms of communication we utilize today, and most likely should be recognized as a groundwork for the privilege of normalized communication we have and understand today.

Blog Post #5 - Privacy, Online and Off

 A major concern in recent years that everyone has nowadays is privacy and their personal security towards their information online, one of the most important things in this day and age is your information, so privacy is a necessity. The problem that we're facing is the breaching of this privacy and access to our incredibly valuable information, that practically displays everything about us. We basically live through technology; the world wouldn't be moving or revolving if it wasn't utilized so heavily to fit our needs and circumstances that show new avenues of innovation. But with this new innovation, more security is needed to catch up and progress alongside it. 

A main part of our security that needs to be addressed is tracking. Most apps and our iPhones, in general, are utilizing tracking to track our location and keep tabs on where we go and what we do. Apple has revolutionized technology for the better, but with it comes this tracking and invasion of privacy that most have ignored and overlooked.

Another part of this tracking is through advertisements and what is directed at us online. A major understanding of this tracking is through what is advertised to us personally based on what we see online and what we direct our attention to. Something about this tracking that's always stuck with me is a story I heard years ago about an experiment a married couple ran, where they turned off their internet, devices, electronics, and whatever else could be seen as a "device" completely and talked specifically about one type of thing per day. This ranged from a certain stuffed animal to games or movies, etc. Once they turned their internet back on and started utilizing their devices again, almost every single advertisement was strictly towards those specific things they would talk about. 

This shows that there's a constant breach of privacy, no matter where we go or what we do, due to the need for these electronics and their usefulness in our lives. Our improved technology brought along a security risk at all times, especially with our normal lives being constantly monitored. Alongside our normal lives, our data is stored practically everywhere we go on the internet and can be accessed at will by the companies we give it to just by visiting their sites at the easiest or agreeing to their data collection at the hardest.

Another area of concern is through our government, where back at the end of January the government, and more specifically Donald Trump and the Trump Administration's Office of Personnel Management, attempted to pass the notion of setting up an encrypted type of unique email system specifically tailored towards government officials to mass send them emails. This is probably one of the stupidest forms of privacy that can easily be figured out and eventually hacked. Thank God that they received such severe backlash for this ideation since the ease of access that people could gain if something went wrong through this encrypted email system is insanely vast. 

Privacy is something that everyone should be concerned about, but it's become an overlooked and avoided understanding of safety towards people, mainly for the fact that we usually try to ignore whatever privacy concerns are brought up due to them being lengthy and annoying to read. Most people's attention spans are lower nowadays, especially younger people, and they don't have enough care to carefully look over what is at stake for doing something as simple as signing a document. 

What we do shouldn't be anyone's business to scour through, and we should be completely protected at all times instead of having a constant worry about having our information stolen. We cannot have these businesses and powerful entities deliberately getting our information and marketing it around, further creating a breach in trust overall with better technology growth throughout the world and who creates it. 

There are still plenty of ways to limit this tracking, with Apple recently adding a function to the iPhone and its apps, where most apps are forced to ask if you'd allow your data to be tracked across other websites for more accurate advertising and posts directed towards your interests. This shows a bit more about the tracking that goes on behind the scenes that most don't realize or understand but is a better act of privacy than what we had before. 

EOTO #1 - Compact Discs (CDs)

I chose the compact disc, or CD for my Each One Teach One (EOTO) presentation. These small, circular discs provided an entire generation of people with a new and innovative way to store and record types of information, bringing an entirely new age of innovation to the masses. These discs proceeded to take over the next generation of people all over the world, once these compact and easy-to-use discs were introduced into the mainstream market through their mass production and quick handleability.

Starting with the earliest known precursor to the compact disc, the optophone was first made and utilized in 1913. This precursor was an incredibly early device that attempted to utilize light to record and playback sound signals on a transparent photograph. 

It was primarily created to help people who were blind experience the news and printed letters on paper. It translated letters into tones that could help those who were completely blind to practically "hear" light. This became the precursor and earliest inspiration to the compact disc, even with its massive size comparison, mainly giving the inspiration of the "hearing" of light.

Onto the compact disc, a compact disc is most basically described as a molded plastic disc that contains digital data. The discs are scanned by a laser beam for the reproduction and recorded sound. These compact discs utilized a format called Compact Disc Digital Audio, or CDDA, which typically provides around 74-80 minutes of audio on a disc. The compact disc is a further evolution of laser disc technology, where there was a focused laser beam utilized to enable the high information density that is required for producing better quality digital audio signals.

The American inventor, James T. Russel is primarily credited with the creation of the compact disc, mainly after gaining the patent to make them once he invented the first system to record digital media on a photosensitive plate. He was granted said patent in 1970 to produce the CDs once he succeeded in his invention of the first digital-to-optical recording and playback system. With the photosensitive platter, he had somehow found an ingenious way to record tiny "bits" of both light and dark onto the plate, each being just a tiny micron in diameter.

How this worked was mainly through a laser, which read the tiny binary patterns, then had a computer convert the data gained from the binary patterns into electrical signals, which were then transformed into an audible or visible transmission.

It took about nine years of creation to finally unveil the first prototype CD to technology enthusiasts in Europe and Japan, which garnered a huge buzz in the technology world. This excitement was further shown when both Philips and Sony ended up partnering and teaming up to begin fully working on CDs for public use. This came to fruition for both companies when in two years, the first commercialized CD player was launched to a Japanese audience, that being the CDP-101 model. It took just a year later before they released it to European and American audiences as well, to an incredible amount of success in the industry, thus starting the CD revolution that came forth from it, effectively moving from cassette tapes to compact discs. 

Cassette tapes were the most recent precursor to compact discs at the time, them being what was taken over by the compact discs a bit after their release and slowly faded out of the mainstream market. Cassette tapes utilized magnetic tape, and the music would play from the left to right side of the tape, and once one side was played through, you'd flip it over to hear the other selection of songs on the other side. Even though cassette tapes were smaller and could be used a bit more efficiently, CDs soon took over and became more popular since you could just skip straight to the song you wanted to listen to. There are a lot of smaller parts of CDs that just worked better overall and makes sense why they became so much more mainstream and popular when compared to cassette tapes. 

A part of the earlier production of compact discs is that they weren't erasable, meaning that data encoded onto their surfaces could be read, but weren't able to be erased or rewritten.

This problem was eventually solved with the introduction and development of WORM in the 1990s, alongside writeable/rewriteable discs. WORM, or write once read many, is a function that describes a data storage device, where information that is written cannot be modified. This protection ensures that the data cannot be tampered with once written to the device. 

WORM, alongside the writeable and rewriteable discs, solved the erasure and rewriting problem for compact discs as a whole and created the final push to put them at their peak popularity throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s due to their amazing capabilities and utilization throughout the world. 

In recent years, CDs have exponentially declined in usage and popularity, mainly becoming a niche thing of the past that hasn't seen much action apart from small groups and stored information. Since 2008, CD sales have fallen by around 10 million or more each year, and that number gets considerably lower every single year as people have basically all moved past CDs in this day and age. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be ignored or forgotten overall though, as they were an amazing period of innovation and data storage that influenced so much on the world overall and should be remembered as a benchmark of creativity and information.