Posts Tagged ‘Emily Long’

Breaking news: Ads on Twitter!

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Speaking on a panel with the IAB Annual Leadership Conference on Monday, Twitter’s head of product management Anametra Banerji announced that the company is in the test phase of an advertising platform which will be released in about a month. Cue the theme from Jaws—ads are coming to Twitter!

Except, they’ve been there for a long time by now. Not only can any user tweet to their heart’s content about the wonder of a product, but there are a number of services like Twittertise, AdCause, TwittAd, SponsoredTweets, reTweet.it and BeTweeted which exist to promote the practice of being paid to tweet. There are already a lot of ads of Twitter that many people don’t even realize are ads; back in December, fans of Kim Kardashian were shocked to learn that her odes to things like Reebok EasyTones were less than genuine. She gets paid by ad.ly up to $10,000 to tweet about certain products, as do other celebrities like Soulja Boy, Dr. Drew and Lauren Conrad.

With no further details released by the company, all the announcement really means is that soon there will be something created internally by Twitter which will enable advertising. It is unclear what exactly the platform will do or how it will function, but (as reported by MediaPost) Banerji did say that Twitter will make it “explicitly clear that a sponsor” paid for the ad, which will be “relevant and useful, so the doesn’t think of it as an ad.” What? How can an ad be both explicit about the fact that it is an ad, and yet not be thought of as an ad? This sounds like more of the incognito advertising happening every day, unbeknownst to most people on Twitter. (Never mind that Banerji also said, “Innovate very, very quickly, before someone innovates on top of you.” Really, who hasn’t been innovating on top of Twitter?) The company does need to monetize, but they may have missed the boat on doing it with ads.

With ever more ad platforms being built, consumers seem to have never considered that a celebrity might be paid for an endorsement, and even television channels are being created as a result of advertising demand, it is clear that more attention needs to be paid to media literacy. Advertising is not going away, and it is not inherently a bad thing, but it is important for people to know when they are being coaxed into buying something.

–Emily Long

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Harriton High School: Now what?

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Harriton High

Harriton High School

Late last week, a story broke from Pennsylvania that Harriton High School had been using the webcams on school-issued laptops to spy on students; school officials have said that this was done so that the laptops could be recovered in the case that they were stolen or lost (even though students report being approached by school administrators about questionable behavior). This is a big deal for many reasons–invasion of privacy, failure to notify parents of the practice, and the fact that the laptops were issued by a public school with government funding. However, the thing that has me worried is the cue for hysteria. At The LAMP we talk to lots of parents about their fears of their children going online; a few frightening and major news stories are all that is needed for many people to be convinced that the Internet is an inherently dangerous place. I’ve talked to more than a handful of parents who say they don’t allow their kids online at all, because it just isn’t safe. When a story like the one from Harriton High is released, I can’t help but think about how–or if–the incident will change the way media is perceived by parents.

One of the worst things about the digital divide is the potential for fear in the absence of knowledge. People who are not media literate fail to understand the boundaries of new media, and are not in a position to get to the truth usually because they are either intimidated or prohibited by economical constraints. So, “Internet safety” may mean nothing at all, or it might mean installing spyware on the family computer to track activity. Unfortunately, it does not always translate to honest and open communication, or parent and child sharing the Internet together. This perpetuates a culture of fear, easily set off by overwrought headlines to stories which are largely the exception and not the rule to managing an online presence.

Stories like what happened at Harriton High School can be the sort of thing that keep parents from letting their kids go online, and worse, it can give a bad name to any program where students are issued laptops by their school. If I were a parent who heard about what happened, I too would wonder about whether my child’s school had told me the whole truth about what was on the device. Programs where children are automatically given laptops are still fairly rare, especially in the world of public schools, and they can vary greatly, but the Harriton High story raises some valid points. What are the student’s rights to privacy on their laptops? What kind of tracking software should be reasonably permitted on laptops lent out by a school? And, if the laptop should be stolen or lost, who is responsible for replacing it? I realize that the situation is much more complex than this, but at its most basic I parallel the laptop program to the programs which allowed me and my schoolmates to rent or borrow instruments for music class or band. I knew perfectly well that if my clarinet was damaged or lost while it was in my possession, my parents would have to pay for it, and I would be in big trouble. Shouldn’t it be the same way for laptops? A student reports it missing, the school remotely wipes the laptop clean of any data and personal information, and the student is stuck with the bill. No need for webcam spying.

Perhaps the school was overreacting in terms of the lengths it was willing to go to ensure that school property could be recovered. Perhaps the terms of laptop-issue programs should be more closely monitored by the state or school district. What happened at Harriton High is upsetting, but don’t blame the laptop.

PS–Be sure to check out The LAMP’s revised “Beginner’s Guide to Going Online,” available for free download.

–Emily Long

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Is broadband Internet access a public utility?

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

water faucet

Is not having broadband like not having water?

Broadband Internet access in this country is a problem, and as many of you probably know, the FCC is currently drafting a plan to change that. In findings released yesterday by the Department of Commerce, 40% of Americans do not have broadband access, and 38.9% of people who don’t have Internet access at home cite high costs as the reason. The federal government has taken on the task of increasing broadband access in part because it expects that increased access will improve the economy, as well as provide more opportunities for health care and education–all of which are cornerstones of the Obama Administration’s agenda for change. As I watch the development of the broadband debate, one question springs to mind: Has broadband access to the Internet become a public utility?

A public utility can be defined as “a business that furnishes an everyday necessity to the public at large.”  Gas, electricity and water are all considered public utilities, as is telephone service. In strictly legal terms, there is also a regulatory component in the public utility definition, but here I am concerned with the “everyday necessity” portion. One of my college professors spoke about a problem he was having with his neighbor, who wanted cable television. At the time, the only way the  neighbor could get cable service was by running a cable under my professor’s lawn (at least this is what he was told). When my professor arrived home to find his lawn in ruins, the neighbor claimed that cable television was a public utility, and so he had a right to dig up personal property in order to receive cable TV. My professor disagreed, took the neighbor to court for damaging private property, and the judge determined that cable was not an “everyday necessity.” Thus, the neighbor was denied what he believed was his right to HBO via my professor’s lawn.

I agree with the judge that cable television is not an every day necessity. It is a luxury. However, just as the Internet is a major source of information, so is cable television; the difference, I believe, is interactivity. A lack of cable TV does not make it more difficult for someone to search for a job or apply to school, and I would count both employment and education as necessities. You may be able to learn about general health-related issues on TV, but with so many health care plans and resources now being diverted almost exclusively online, it will soon be very difficult to manage your personal health needs.

I don’t recall an argument ever being made by the government that people not having cable is an issue for real concern, but this seems to be the case with the Internet. Equally important as having Internet access is learning media literacy; otherwise we’re in a world of trouble. One thing I frequently hear is that people already know how to use the Internet, so what can media literacy do for them? My response is usually something along the lines of, “They may know how to put the key in the ignition, but that doesn’t mean they should be on the road.” It’s easy for those of us living in a big city like New York to assume that everyone has access to the Internet, and everyone knows what they’re doing. After all, you can’t get on a subway here without seeing smartphones, mp3 players and handheld video games. But the truth is that not everyone has access, whether you’re talking about New York City or the entire United States, and this is a problem because the Internet is quickly becoming essential to daily life. It may have been ridiculous to say this ten years ago, but I do believe broadband Internet access is a public utility; as websites continue to get more sophisticated, low-speed access is less and less useful . My hope is that, together with building the infrastructure to strengthen this utility, adequate attention is paid to the media literacy education which must accompany this growth.

–Emily Long

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“Digital Nation” Reviewed

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

It is unfortunate for the producers of PBS Frontline’s “Digital Nation” that the Kaiser Family Foundation’s landmark survey results were released last week. I say this largely because “Digital Nation,” a 90-minute documentary on digital media use in the United States which premiered last night, did not provide much in the way of new information. My main takeaway was that young people use a lot of media, but this is something I already knew (and I would venture a guess the typical PBS viewer knew it too). The KFF results support much of what I and many others have believed for a long time, but perform the additional service of indicating through metrics just how wide the digital divide can be, and how much that divide has grown within the last five years. As “Digital Nation” presented interviews with MIT students, scholars and die-hard World of Warcraft and Second Life players talking about heavy media use, I couldn’t help thinking that this was all redundant. I get it; people are wired all the time. But what does it mean?

When I learned that that PBS Frontline was making ”Digital Nation,” I expected to see something covering the nation. Instead, we mostly saw New York City, Cambridge, parts of California and South Korea. I understand that South Korea was held up as a foil to media use in the US, perhaps even as a cautionary tale of where we could be heading: Internet Rescue Camps and classrooms of second-graders chanting songs about netiquette. However, there are so many more regions in the US which deserved treatment; I would rather have gotten a look at, for example, the ways that digital media is impacting rural areas rather than spend time on Korea. Other American communities I wish were covered include those which are impoverished, undereducated, underemployed or multinational.

As for what was covered in “Digital Nation,” the film was divided into halves. It began with education and learning, which included the segment on South Korea and also spent time speaking with people studying the cognitive effects of new media on the brain. This is where we learned that young people use an awful lot of media, and in some ways it distracts them from their studies, but in other ways using media may make students more focused. The second half covered gaming, and looked at the online and offline communities created in multiplayer games like World of Warcraft, and also how Second Life can be used to fulfill both personal fantasies and business meeting needs. Following this was a look at gaming and the military, and covered the use of video games as treatment for soldiers with PTSD, but also at the use of predator drones in war zones, a practice which is eerily reminiscent of playing video games.

None of these topics should be left out of an examination of our digital nation, but to cover essentially only learning and gaming leaves out a lot. Working in media literacy, as I do, I was disappointed to not hear media literacy mentioned once. There was also no discussion of how digital media influence our democracy, consumer habits, economy, physical health or interpersonal relationships. Right now, major decisions are being made about broadband access, net neutrality and the limits of free speech on the Internet, but none of that was included either. In all fairness, this is a tall order for a 90-minute documentary, and I do think that “Digital Nation” might have been better served as a series. I admire the work of Rachel Dretzin and Douglas Rushkoff, and I am positive that they could have provided valuable insight on the complexities of a digital culture if they had more time. I agree with Cathy Davidson of HASTAC that this is a transitional documentary, and I wish it were more than that. Still, could have/should have/would have does very little good, so as it is, “Digital Nation” is valuable as a snapshot summary of a thin slice of living in a digital world. You will probably see some things in “Digital Nation” that look familiar, but you will not get a comprehensive look at our digital nation.

–Emily Long

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Ad It Up! Diesel’s Stupid Campaign

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Walking through Union Square last night, I passed by the Diesel store and saw their current ad campaign, which literally insulted my intelligence: “Smart critiques. Stupid creates. Be stupid.”

My first thought was, “What’s stupid about creating?” The ability to create requires a lot of intelligence–maybe not to create something like eyeglasses with balloons tied to them (left), and perhaps it doesn’t necessarily require the type of intelligence one gains from formal education. Playing devil’s advocate, I thought, “Maybe they’re talking about when things are created without a lot of heady, intellectual ideas behind them.” But even if that is what is meant, it’s still a false statement. I fully believe that a large part of the creative process comes from a visceral place, but that alone is not enough, and it’s not stupid. Intelligence, whether it is emotional or intellectual or something else, is needed to create just about anything.  In my life, I have worked with a good number of designers, directors, actors and writers, and regardless of what I thought or felt about their work, I could never reduce it to “stupid.” There is always something happening behind it.

Moving on, I grew more annoyed by the first statement, “Smart critiques.” If the only critiques made about anything in this world were carefully constructed arguments, then yes, you could say that only “smart” people critique. I don’t want to take the time here to hash out examples of what I consider to be poorly-made criticisms, but for the most part, you don’t need to look very far to find them. And, put up against the rest of the tagline, it seems to say criticism is the opposite of creation, criticism is destructive. This simply isn’t true, and messages like this perpetuate a stereotype of intelligence as snobbery and elitism.

It’s hard to be smart. It’s easy to be stupid. It’s much more difficult to think critically about the world around you and make informed choices than it is to stumble through it without thought about your actions and the actions of others around you. I don’t think people need to be encouragement to be stupid, and I’m a little appalled that any company (especially one that sells $100 jeans for toddlers) would want to brand itself as the mantle of stupid people.

I do hope there is something more behind a campaign which is ultimately sending a message that it’s not cool to be smart, all in the interest of selling clothes. I hope there’s something more that I’m just too stupid to see, but then again, here I am writing a critique of the campaign. I don’t agree with Diesel that this makes me smart, but I’m proud to say that it’s not stupid either.

–Emily Long

***See more “stupid” ads at The LAMP’s Ad It Up! Ad Archive, and send us pictures of your ads!

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Can China be media literate without Google?

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

The news that Google threatened China to cease operations and search result censorship in the country due to the possible hacking of email accounts by the Chinese government belonging comes as no surprise. China has a long history of censorship, and for a while now, certain Google searches have returned blank results. Back in March, YouTube and Facebook were banned. Possibly China’s sole source of true investigative reporting was Caijing, the financial newspaper, but back in November its founding editor, Hu Shuli, resigned along with other senior staff. The reported reason for Hu’s resignation is that she was offered a tenured position at Zhongshuan University, but questions remain as to whether she has simply been sidelined by a government growing increasingly nervous over her reporting.

So, again, no surprise that Google is censored, and has been since Google.cn was started. But what is surprising is that in recent months, China has been taking steps to incorporate media literacy into its educational institutions.  In November, days after Hu’s resignation, British, Japanese and Chinese scholars gathered in Beijing and formulated an action plan to incorporate media literacy with existing primary school curricula.  The forum itself was organized by the University of China. Just three days ago, Li Xiguang was announced as the head of a new journalism academy in Chongqing; Li also happens to be known for his recommendations to the Chinese government for increased transparency, and his Tsinghua International Center for Communication (TICC) is the designated as the training base for government spokespersons. He also plans to bring his existing media literacy course from TICC over to the new academy.

Given these steps, it will be especially disappointing if China wants to continue censoring Google results and hacking Gmail with zeal, prompting Google to remove itself entirely from the country. A decision to stop censoring Google (and YouTube, and other sites) would fly in the face of China’s deep-seated policy towards free speech, but do the people of China really believe media literacy is possible without the embrace of an open Internet? Obviously, Google and YouTube were still being censored during the forum in Beijing and when the announcement was made about Li Xiguang; perhaps the hope that this was a herald of change in Chinese media policy was sheer naivete. News literacy is an essential component of media literacy, and without it, progress seems unlikely.

Every blank screen that shows up after a search for “Dalai Lama” is like a light bulb reminding the Chinese people who is in control (though, I’m sure if you ask them, it is not easily forgotten). In Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles, television screens went blank when the station was not allowed to broadcast a documentary about alleged prisoner abuse in Belfast. This was done in favor of running a comedy program; everyone who tried to watch at that time was alerted to the fact that something was being kept from them. During political unrest in Fiji last summer, the Sunday edition of the Fiji Times was published blank, except for a statement announcing that content had been censored.

The power of blank can be great, and surely Google knows that. I don’t blame them for perceiving their Chinese operations as a waste of time and money if they will continue to be censored and have their systems hacked by the government, and I would be very surprised if they do not carry out their threat to leave. It won’t be long before the people of China are left without even a blank from Google, and the dream of media literacy slips further away.

–Emily Long

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Me, Myself and Media: Ten Years in Review

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

New years lend themselves to reflection, but this is especially true for new decades. I am no exception, but what strikes me as I look back is how closely my personal development has tracked with the development of new media and new technologies. I started college in 1999, back when the .edu email address as standard issue for incoming students was still a pretty new concept. I was no longer identified by whatever silly nickname informed my first email address I used in high school. For the next four years, my online correspondence and identity was linked with a handle assigned to me by some computer system, and there was nothing I could do to change it. In high school, I had a name, but as I began to pass into independent adulthood, I had a user ID.

The first time masses of people around me believed the end of the world was near was with Y2K, all because computers might not be able to understand a date change. Of course, life went on, and when 9/11 happened, the Internet was the first stop for those of us who couldn’t get an intelligible news story from the bewildered commentators on TV in the student union. For me, television was the only media that was able to fully communicate the destruction and fear of that day and those that followed. The images were somehow comforting. If I had only learned of the events by radio or through still pictures (video was not yet commonly found online), I know that my imagination would have dreamed up something even worse than reality.

Also in 2001, I got my first cell phone, since I finally had a car at school and my parents were worried about me driving between Chicago and Champaign by myself with no phone to use in an emergency. Though less clunky than the car phone we had in the family minivan, this one was still fairly cumbersome. I could fit a whopping twelve names in my speed-dial, got whatever ringtone the thing came with, and the digits on the screen looked similar to the digits on a clock radio.  By comparison, I can now program a nearly infinite number of contacts into my phone, have the choice of thousands of ringtones which can be customized to match the person calling me, plus I can watch video, check email, take pictures, send pictures, play games, play music, organize my calendar, get directions and much more that would have been a challenge for the desktop computer I had in college.

I graduated college in 2003, and when I moved to New York City for graduate school a few months later, I purchased a refurbished laptop to replace my ancient desktop PC. I upgraded to a snazzy new flip phone with a color screen. I purchased my first television, which also had a VHS and DVD player. Early in 2004, I met the man who is now my husband—through something called Friendster. Also in my grad school years, I first heard of something called “media literacy” in a class I took with Todd Gitlin, and I was hooked. The next year, pinching pennies while writing my thesis, I began a personal experiment/money-saving venture where I cut out TV altogether, and used the set solely for watching videos and DVDs. I quickly came to love the absence of commercials in my apartment, and found that watching things on demand from my library was far better than living by a schedule devised by someone else.

The innovations since 2006 may have been greater in number, but none impacted my life as much as the earlier years. As I grew more independent in my own life, the media and technology industries seemed to grow with me, making their products more accessible, personalized and interactive. I used to feel embarrassed when I got upset with my computer for losing a file or with my phone for dropping a call. With technology having played such a large role in my life, it was easy to put my gadgets through a process of anthropomorphosis. Ten years ago, I was being taught that media happens to me—like it or not, you get an email address, crashing computers will end our planet. On the surface it seems that now, I happen to media—watching what I want when I want it, choosing wallpaper for my smart phone, creating an online space to socialize with people I choose, loading up my laptop with any number of applications and programs to adapt it to my needs. But the more I think about my relationship with media then, now and into the future, one thing seems certain: The line of control will always be blurry. The pursuit of media literacy is just one way to keep that power in check.

–Emily Long

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Are “spend to save” deals worth it?

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Even though we’re already on the third day of Hanukah and there are only ten shopping days left until Christmas, the email offers keep coming in. Ever since the week of Black Friday, my in-box has been filled with special “deals” from just about every online retailer I have ever used. The message is about the same–20% off on this, free shipping on that–and I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t taken advantage of any of them. However, the ones that trip me up are ones like the Sephora offer pictures at left. The email starts off telling me that I’ve got $15 free to spend on anything I want, which sounds good. I enjoy make-up. But then, my marketing/media literacy kicks in and tells me that there has to be a catch; nothing is ever really free. I read a little further, and sure enough, I have to spend $35 in order to save $15.

So, holiday shopping tip number three: Beware of “spend to save” deals. (Missed our earlier posts? Check out holiday shopping tips one and two.) Offers like this are tempting, and can be useful depending on your shopping plans, but they can also bring you to spend more than you may have originally intended in order to pass the  threshold of, for example, $35. You buy what you set out to buy, but then your basket totals only $30, so you throw in something else just to get the deal. Yes, you’re saving money, but you also had to make an extra purchase and are now saddled with some extraneous item, just so you could say you got a bargain.

Again, sometimes “spend to save” offers can be genuinely useful, but think carefully before you buy. Remember that the job of advertisers and marketers is to create need. Before you enter the ring and start shopping, make sure you’ve thought ahead so that you, and not the advertisements, are in control.

–Emily Long

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The Salahis, Facebook and the Power Wall

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Michaele Salahi getting friendly with Joe Biden

Michaele Salahi getting friendly with Joe Biden

Like everyone else, I couldn’t help but hear about Michaele and Tareq Salahi. On Thanksgiving morning, I was eating breakfast with my parents in the hotel where we were staying, and that same bit of footage–Michaele and Tareq enter, wave, walk; Michaele holds him back for another camera opp–played over and over again. At first I didn’t realize the magnitude of what had happened; that this was a major security breach and not just a publicity stunt or a misdirected invitation. Then reading online today in the New York Times, I learned of still another sin the Salahis committed–they put the pictures up on Facebook!

Now, aside from the obvious stupidity of publicizing pictures of yourself posing with leaders of the free world at a very exclusive party to which you were not invited, I have to say I disagree with part of David Segal’s criticism. He points out that by posting photos on Facebook, the Salahis erred by making public the traditional, time-honored Power Wall (i.e., physical wall of photos of yourself with important people). The Power Wall used to exist only in offices or homes, but not anymore. Years ago, if a photo was to be seen at all, it had to be printed, so the print itself was not a big deal. Now, choosing to print a photo indicates that it is something special, and so the pictures you display in private are carefully curated by you or someone close to you. For the purpose of striking awe in someone sitting across from your desk, a traditional Power Wall is still effective, but the days of owning your image are long gone. That client can walk out of your office, find you on Facebook or Flickr, and see any old picture they want; the word ‘authorized’ means very little. Your real power wall is on Facebook, and you demonstrate power by making sure you are not tagged in photos you don’t like. One would think this would be understood in an Administration which was put in place due largely to its wielding of social media.

While a large part of this has to do with social media and technology, another part of this has to do with media itself. One of the basic points of being media literate is understanding the power of imagery, which is something we generally take for granted. The Salahis certainly did. I have plenty of friends who have posted photos on Facebook from the time they met a famous actor, shook the hand of Barack Obama as he campaigned for President, and even one friend who snapped a shot of herself with the Dalai Lama, but the difference is that no rules were violated in the process. It’s really the very well-known context of Michaele Salahi’s shot with Joe Biden that makes it so inappropriate to share, and the fact that she shared it demonstrates idiocy, naivete, lack of foresight or all of the above. But if Biden–or any other White House officials who allowed personal cameras into the event–didn’t think that photo would turn up later, he was not much better.

–Emily Long

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What does your holiday shopping really cost?

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Rise and shine, shoppers!

Rise and shine, shoppers!

I personally have a deep love of the holiday season, but I know many people who do not. Reasons include sentiments such as “Peace on Earth” which are forgotten after January 1, obligatory family time and holiday parties, but the one constant I almost always hear is stress. And that stress is usually related to money.

Shopping can indeed be a high-stress venture over the holidays, given the crowds, the sales, the picking-the-perfect-gift challenge and a host of other elements like the tempting food court in the mall. But, it doesn’t have to be that way, so throughout the holiday season, we at The LAMP are offering some simple ways to keep your spending (and sanity) in check during one of the most difficult times for consumers. The first one is:

The real cost is not on the price tag. On Black Friday, thousands of people head to stores right after that last bite of pumpkin pie, prepared to wait for hours in their cars or on sidewalks for “doorbuster deals.” People get injured, angry and broke over a zeal to complete all of their holiday shopping in one day, or to save money on a new flatscreen.

Before you join the fray, ask yourself if this is worth it. Is buying the hot holiday toy for your kid really worth coming home in a foul mood, exhausted, resentful of what you just had to go through for it? Remember that you teach your children what the holidays are about. If you act as though shopping is at the heart of all December activity, odds are that your children grow up and continue the vicious cycle. They recall not that holidays are about building relationships with your friends and family, but that they are for competitive shopping excursions. If you are someone who finds yourself exceedingly stressed this time of year, take a second and think–how did your parents act during the holiday season?

In the end, you may finally be getting the TV you’ve always wanted, or you may be getting your children the toys at the top of their lists. But, you’ve lost the ability to sleep in the day after a large meal, a bit of your sanity has been sacrificed, and you’re buying into what retailers mean when they say dreams come true at the holidays. The $200 you saved to buy something you probably don’t really need, the lesson taught to your child when he receives every gift on his wishlist–how much does that cost?

–Emily Long

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