#SocialMediaforChange

Twitter.com started as a site that was used for socializing. People would follow other people to see what’s going on in their lives. 140 characters or shorter was the only way to get it across for a long time. Then, Twitter introduced pictures and video options on their site. This added to the experiences that people might not have been able to share in just words. Twitter allows people to stay updated with people.

 Now, Twitter is not only used for socializing and marketing but also microblogging. Microblogging is small frequent posts. All types of people microblog in today’s society. The President of the United States - Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump), the Pope (@Pontifex), and everyday celebrities and people such as news stations (@WGRZ), Sophia Bush(@SophiaBush) and organizations (@PPact) microblog. These people are microblogging while using their twitter for socializing and marketing. Microblogging is a great way for people to be known for standing for a certain cause (activists).

 Live tweeting is a part of microblogging. When you’re watching a television station you may notice a hashtag sometimes in the corner of a show. This means that the show wants you to live tweet along with the new episode. This curates talk about them show, helps with views, and keeps the show on tv. If you’re a creator the best thing that can happen is that people talk about your show so much is gets another season. Microblogging on twitter is helping this.

Another way to microblog is in instances of crisis’. There are many instances when microblogging came into play in a crisis. There was the attack on Paris and the Boston Marathon where Twitter was used greatly to update citizens on what was going on. The victims of the attacks would be tweeting that they were alright, certain details, and certain pictures to help understand what was going on. Fellow citizens would tweet out information to spread the word about the attacks.

This is where microblogging gets tricky. As users of the social media world we can take everything on there and run with it. False information and accusations of people jumping to conclusions was on Twitter during these attacks. People who didn’t know any better were retweeting the wrong information. When false information is being put on the internet about such a serious issue it makes the investigation longer. The false information could have added time on to the work the police were doing and creating suspects they had no part of it. Microblogging can be great but when it’s not being wrongly used by trolls on the internet.

Twitter can be useful to journalists and organizations. Most organizations and journalists are verified tweeters or are verified by the media they represent. This helps the journalists and organizations to be trusted. Twitter is a great tool for journalists to have because users choose to follow that journalist because they relate to them in some way. Journalists microblog certain stories they’re working on. This gives a preview to viewers of the upcoming story. For a journalist, this pulls viewers in and makes them interested in a story they’re working on. Organizations also use twitter. Organizations tweet out what they stand for, how they plan to help and ways that other people can help. Journalists and organizations using twitter let’s people hear from each of them first. It is the users own words which can be great most times. It’s when either of them makes a tweet that is widely offensive or taken the wrong way that can be damaging. If the tweet becomes popular it could ruin the image of the station the journalist is working for or the image of the organization that the twitter user tweeted out.

Three events where twitter was useful in the past twelve months were the Steve Stephens murder, the Italy earthquakes, and the Syria attack. The Steve Stephens case started on Facebook. This man by the name of Steve Stephens live streamed himself murder a stranger for an audience to see. The video went viral and there was a concern in the areas of PA, NY, and Ohio because the man was on the loose. Twitter was were most people learned about it because of the ability to Trend Topics or read under the “explore” tab. There was concern over this man because he was considered dangerous. People retweeted his picture and his car and warned others what he had done and to report him. He was reported to the police by a McDonald’s employee because they noticed Steve from social media. The Italy earthquakes happened in January of 2017. There were four major ones in central Italy. The Earthquakes destroyed towns and injured several people. The news of the Earthquakes broke out on Twitter. The people of Italy were able to inform every one of these events by posting photos of the towns that were hit the hardest. Citizens deemed themselves safe and asked for help through Twitter. Twitter is a great place for donations in tough times. Lastly, the attack on Syria stirred up a lot of emotions for people. Innocent people were gassed in Syria by Assad, their leader. This raged other countries such as the United States. There were awful images and videos of children and people who were gassed going around. It made the event more real and it left an impact. The United States in turn fired missiles at Syria to let Assad know that people weren’t just going to let him gas his own country. There were links going around for relief and help to those in Syria.

Twitter is great for following activist and groups of activists. Feminist’s movements are something that curates a lot of power and motivation in today’s society. Not just white feminism either. Intersectionality feminism is something great to keep up with on twitter. There is certain Twitter pages that let you know what you can do as a feminist to help. Twitter is different when you’re using it as a professional to help be an activist or if you’re an organization because of the way you have to address people and matters. You’re not allowed to be objective when you’re being professional. This can be very hard on Twitter because of the tone the website and its users created. Overall, Twitter is a great site for change especially because its users have the power.

Group Project? *cue all the whining*

Several topics were given to students, as a group the topics were discussed and from those topics the groups chose one. Communication, Politics, Separation, Time, and Abstract were amongst the topics to choose from. Abstract was a topic that stood out because there were very little limits when it came to creativity. This topic was difficult because you have to figure out how to portray abstract concepts using colors, filters, and symbols. If something is abstract that means there's no physical or concrete existence of it. It exists in the brain. The idea for the abstract video changed several times. As a group, the ideas that were brought up were too large and over thought. After realizing that the concept could be portrayed in a different way the group was able to overcome the brainstorming process and have a set idea. After coming of with a set idea, it's important to divide the work up so that each person has a responsibility in the video. As a group, you should brainstorm or formulate a way to shoot your idea. How are you going to shoot it? Which angle are you going to shoot it in? Who is going to be in the film for what part? Think about what filters you could use and what transitions you could use to strengthen a part of the video.

Group communication is one of the most important aspects of a successful project. There has to be open communication and sharing of ideas. When group members share ideas the other members must listen and evaluate whether or not that would be a good idea. It's okay if at first the group doesn't agree on a topic. If you talk it out and provide more ideas you're on your way to the goal. Each group member should be an active part of the group. Each part of a project should be discussed as a group so that you're all on the same page. When doing a group project you want the work to be divided between all of the members so that you can all share you're grade and deserve it. Sometimes it's hard to be in a group when some personalities are more controlling than others. There's some people that like to be in control and the boss because of their personality. Others are more of the "but in when I can" kind of people. Whichever you are make sure you have some say because at the end of the day a portion of the grade is yours.


Shooting the video was an easy process. The lighting had to be right so that people could actually see the film and or the people in it. Self-timer makes it easier to film yourself when there was no one else around to help. As long as the film was in landscape more instead of portrait you'd be set to go.  There's always some difficulty in scheduling when a project requires a group. It's hard to have 3 different schedules meet at the same time on one day, more than once. Groups rescheduling meetings occurs more than once. As much as group projects are disliked, sometimes they have some of the best work because there's more than one brain working together.

One of the hardest part about the shooting was including the self-portrait experience. Trying to have a cohesive video while still having your own fact about yourself is hard to include. You want to make sure your self portrait video doesn't stand out from the video as a whole. Your self portrait experience and your concept video had to make sense together.The littlest fact could have been included but it was made  more complicated sounding before shooting actually started.


Editing is the fun part. There are filters and transitions that can be used to make a concept more visually appealing and understandable. Editing was pretty straightforward and to do. Once the group planned out what filters to use to get abstract across the video started to come along. As a group you don't want to overkill the simplicity and abstract idea with too many filters. Just a few filters really added to the video to bring it to life. After starting the editing process, part of that is deciding what sound affects and music to choose. That part comes quickly especially if you have a vision for your video. Two songs were enough for the video to keep it flowing smoothly.

Making a visual video is a better way to communicate a message than it is to use text or photographs. Using visuals allows the viewer to come to their own message versus photographs or text where it's spelled out for you. Visuals and video also required the viewer to use their five senses; sight, taste, hearing, touching, and smelling. While all of them weren't used in this video sight and hearing were. These two provide a larger impact if they're used in the right way. That's why it's so important to make sure the small details in your video are done the right way. Transitions, filters, shots, and music will strengthen each other to make a powerful video.

The last part of the process is sharing the video. You want to make work/a video that you're proud of. Putting it onto places like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook is very easy. Accepting people's criticism and perspectives while opening yourself up in a way may be the hard part. You want people to critic and analyze your video so that the next time you have to do something similar you know how to attack it better. Presenting the video in front of others can cause some anxiety. Being the center of attention is hard sometimes especially when you have to do it. Allowing people's thoughts and comments to make yourself better is always a good thing. Working as a group also strengthens a part of your personality whether it be communication, responsibility, or an individual skill. When you're on a group sharing ideas or an idea you're vulnerable. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable and trying new experiences is the only way to learn.

wikiHOW..?? HOW do I create on this website?

   Making a wikiHow page is a new experience for anyone who has never been involved in creating or editing a website. There are several steps that are involved. You must come up with an interesting, unique topic that has not been taken, you must write up an outline, you have to code your page and lastly you have to take or illustrate your own photos. How well you do those steps will tell you if your page will get published or not.

    Coming up with a topic is difficult since there are no limits on what it can be. The only problem is that you have to make sure it hasn’t been taken by someone else in the wikiHow world already. If the topic was taken you can give it a twist to make it your own. The topic of “Space Buns” was already taken when doing a wikiHow so “SpaceBuns with Glitter Roots and Highlight” is a way to give the topic a whole new outlook.  After you finish focusing in on your topic, you must then construct an outline. This may be difficult because you have to figure out how to explain directions to someone so that it’s possible to redo or to remake. Redoing the topic or remaking the topic is an easy way to ensure that the topic is a good one to create a page on. Being able to recreate the topic is the whole point of the wikiHow page.

    When you construct an outline you have to break the topic up into steps, they must be simple and straight to the point. You don’t want to lose your audience when you’re explaining a step to them. It has to be stress free and easy so that they don’t go somewhere else for a tutorial. You don’t want your reader to leave your wikiPage. It’s important to remember that each step that’s outlined should be a part of the tutorial to get you to the final product. 

    After you redo your topic to make sure that it’s explainable and you make your outline you must include illustrations or photos. You have to take your own photos for your topic because you don’t want to run into any copyright issues. It may be difficult to take photos of yourself for your topic. Taking photos of yourself doing your hair in space buns is difficult because most times you need both of your hands to do your own hair. You either should have a tripod or have someone take photos of yourself for you. You want your photos to be helpful looking. Each step that is provided by you should have a photo to go along with it. This will make for easier understanding on what the outcome of each step should be. For example, “Brush one side of your parted hair into a ponytail…,” and the photo that would illustrate this would be right above. In the photo you can clearly see the instructions that needed to be followed in the step. After you take your photos you must edit them to fit a website. You want your photos to look polished and professional. Using Photoshop you resize the image suited to a website and you change the levels of the photo. Once you do this your photos are wikiHow ready.

     The final step of your wikiHow is putting all of these steps together in a finished outline. Once you put all of the steps together, one of the hardest parts of creating a website comes. You have to code your outline to format it to wikiHow’s standards. There are certain codes for spacing, headings, steps, numbering, and bullets. If you don’t correctly code your page it changes the way your outline looks on their website. Each wikiHow page has the same format. Wikihow does this so that you know what to expect on every page that you go on. The steps are easily outlined for the viewer. This last part is very important in getting your wikiHow page to be published.

     Make sure you’re saving your work in new documents outside of wikiHow each time you edit it. WikiHow seems harder to go back into and edit unless you’re editing for the first time. WikiHow deletes each section of your drafts when you go back in to edit. If you’re saving each new edit you can just paste it onto their website later. This ensures that your work is being saved somewhere outside of wikiHow so that you don’t have to keep restarting.You don’t want to lose all of your content once you hit the publish button.

   After you submit your wikiHow draft to be published several wikiHow administrators will be on top of it to edit it and give you feedback on it. If you don’t properly follow each of these steps your wikiHow will not get published until you make changes to your post. According to a wikiHow administrator you can’t have two topics under one title. You must split them up into separate posts to make it easier for the users to find content on their website.They prefer you to talk about one topic at a time.          
  The wikiHow administrators won’t reread your post if you don’t fix anything on it after they have given you feedback the first time. The administrators are there to give you help while keeping their website easy to use. Since most of us are not professional website editors and content creators, we need the help of the wikiHow administrators. Each time that you edit your wikiHow and republish you get a new admin. 

   It’s important to put out work that you’re going to be proud of. You also want to put out work that follows rules and guidelines of other websites if the work isn’t going on your website. Communicating with professionals such as wikiHow administrators and professors help with the process of having successful content. You want to take the constructive criticism and use it to better your work; after all people all over the world are going to see it and it’ll be on the Internet forever.

Wait... there's an evolution in the way that the Web works?

The Differences in Webs From My Point of View

As technology advances so does the Web. The Web started out as a minimal interaction, basic information, and required very little skills.

Web 2.0 is websites that are interactive but just the basics of interaction. What I mean by this is that users can comment on things. Web 3.0 is being able to be a part of websites. While using the content the users are also creating the content for the websites. For example, Twitter is a good websites that users are using but they're also creating content that other users are using. Retweets allow the users to recirculate a tweet that they agree with. I think with the technology that we have now anything seems better than Web 1.0. Web 1.0 is quick and great for finding basic information such as contact info, a bio, and maybe hours on a company. Websites of 1.0 also were very easily to maneuver on. Web 2.0 and 3.0 allow people to be more involved in companies and brands. Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 share the goal of wanting their users to be happy. This is why there’s a blur between the Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 is about getting the content out there for their users to interact with. This helps companies because this way they know what their customers/audience want. 

Web 2.0 allowed websites to be more user-friendly and interactive on their websites. I believe this is a positive thing because companies can get feedback on their products and get to know their customers better. I like when I can interact with my favorite companies. If the interactive sites have a good setup on their webpages then they're easier to use and find out information. I find it useful for there to be tabs with drop down options. That way you don't have to go digging on the site. 

Web 3.0 is taking us to a whole new style of Web. The internet is becoming more complex and technologically advanced. I think Web 3.0 might be transitioning into Web 4.0. We can live stream on websites such as Instagram, Periscope, and Facebook. We can pay our bills with certain applications that we have on our phone, we can post photos about things that are happening in the moment. The advantages of Web 3.0 are that it's quick, real time, and keeps people up to date. Web 3.0 is also widely used so people are growing up with the web being an essential part of their daily lives. This is improving the things that can be done using the Web. The disadvantages are that things spread quickly and once it's put online all it takes is one person to see it. That one person can spread it like wildfire and it's on the internet forever. People are also using the live streaming for bad things such as fighting and robbing people. 

The 3 Evolutions of the Web

Web 1.0 is known as websites that are very basic. These websites have the administrator’s information on the webpages such as contact information, hours, and a blurb about them. Depending on the topic of the webpage there’s links that you can click to gain a bit more information. Web 1.0 easily breaks things down into topics so that you can quickly find information. The only problem is that it’s the only information that is available. Web 1.0 requires no interaction with users. The webpages aren’t very dynamic or on going. The websites are very easy to use and require very little internet knowledge. For example, this website on dinosaurs is straight to the point. It gives information on each kind of dinosaur listed and that’s all that there is to the page. As technology advanced the sorts of Webpages advanced. This introduces us to a new type of Web.
Web 2.0 is all about user collaboration and the beginning of interactive Webpages. Web 2.0 allowed people to personalize pages with coding and to comment on posts on these webpages. Web 2.0 was all about the ideas of the users. Web pages became more advanced based on its users. Wikipedia allows users to create and edit content on their Webpage. This Webpage is altered to the needs and wants of the user. There are Wikipedia pages on many different topics. It’s more complex and requires some knowledge to use these websites. Web 2.0 has features such as bookmarking and content creating. Users can “bookmark” a page to the Web browser and go back to it later. This is because there’s so much content on the Web that the Webpage could easily get lost. In Web 2.0 users also began to create their own content. This is a great way for people to get their work out into the world. YouTube is a great site for it’s users to vlog, post singing videos, and tutorial videos. YouTube then allows other users to comment and share the creator’s video. Web 2.0 advances into Web 3.0 with how quickly and easily people can share and create content.

Web 3.0 is all about connecting people and information using the Web. Web 3.0 is quick in the way that it gets information out to its users. Snapchat is a popular app that allows users to create 10 second maximum video “snaps” and then instantly post them for their friends to see. These “snaps” only last a certain amount of hours until they vanish from the feed. This Web is all about connecting the users with the content that is being created. Web 3.0 is more advanced in the ways that content is shown and shared. Web 3.0 requires prior knowledge of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 in order to be able to use it. This means that users have to know how to share their content and what websites allow you to share content in order to actually connect with the rest of the Web users.

            The Web has advanced in its content and sharing processes. The Web is becoming more complex as time goes on. Some people even believe Web 3.0 is advancing into Web 4.0.

Are You Welcoming Intruders by Posting Your Whole Life On Social Media?

   Social media can be intrusive if you allow it to be. Limiting posting everything on social media is a way people can’t intrude on you. You don’t need to “sign in” at every location you’re at or snap a photo and instantly upload it to Instagram when you’re on vacation. When you do this you’re allowing people to see that you’re not home. This could put your house at risk for break-ins. You could also put yourself at risk of stalking by posting everything that you do. As you post things online anyone can see them if your page has public settings on. These intruders can keep up with your posts if they have your notifications on. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have settings to get sent people’s new posts. Save your posts for after you get done with an event. This allows for more focus on the action while you minimize the risk of intruders. When you sign up to use social media you should learn about the safety and responsibility of using it.

     This is why there’s a responsibility that comes along with using social media. You can’t put whatever you feel like onto the internet. The internet is a good place for people to put their opinions but they shouldn’t be hurtful or derogatory opinions. You can’t say whatever you feel like to people. There are laws that could get you into serious trouble when you’re on social media. Uploading fight videos and cyber-bullying people are examples of ways that you could get in trouble on social media. You should treat people on the internet how you would treat them in person although there’s a screen in between the two subjects. Posts spread very quickly on social media which can be a positive and a negative thing.

   An example of how posts spreading on social media can be negative is in every act of the terrorist group, ISIS. ISIS uses social media to spread their attacks on the world. ISIS posts threat videos online targeting a certain person or group, or they’ll take responsibility for a certain attack. Each of their attacks on cities has become a trending topic on twitter. The people that are going through these events in real life upload posts. This is another negative factor to social media. The people uploading the posts are putting themselves in danger by uploading where they are because if your friends and family can see it, ISIS can see it. During the Paris attack by ISIS social media played a huge part in the news of it. The world first found out about the attack through a social media user uploading posts as the events unfolded.

  This doesn’t mean social media is all negative. What I stated above has positive factors. The future of social media is unknown but it’s been bringing the world closer. I believe social media will find new ways to do that as time goes on.

                                                                          

                                                                                                       
                                                                           Waltzman, Rand. Nd.  avemariaradio.net. Web. 29. Jan. 2017.