Blog Post #9

 Whistleblowers

When you first hear the word "whistleblower" you may envision a person blowing a whistle. Not going to lie, when I first searched up the term "whistleblower" it brought me to a whistle I can purchase on Amazon. However, a whistleblower in the mediasphere is much different than someone just blowing a simple whistle. for my EOTO presentation, I was able to dive deeper into what whistleblowers do. Whistleblowers are the most feared people in media and here is why.

Whistleblowing is defined under the law as "disclosing information that you reasonably believe is evidence of a violation of any law, rule, or regulation, or gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety". Personally, I would say this is not a positive definition. However, whistleblowers are protected by a network of laws, but the level of protection depends on what they disclose to whom, and how. It may not always be in the whistleblower's interest to work with the press. This means that whistleblowers are protected by what they say to the extent of what they say, in other words depending on what they are leaking to the press. For example, if something is leaked to the press that the government DOES NOT want to get out, then the repercussions outway the protection. 

Whistleblowers must decide who to alert when wrongdoing is discovered. The social science literature focuses on two types of disclosures:

1) those made internally, within the whistleblowers employing organization 

2) those made externally, primarily to government authorities or the media. 

Some examples of whistleblowers include and are not limited to: Employees who report corruption, discrimination, harassment, and fraud. I do not necessarily see a big stereotype for who a whistleblower should be, but If I were to say a specific type of person, it would be a person (male or female) who has a very stern attitude, without bias, to the situation they are reporting on. This type of person cannot be afraid of hate, they need to be a strong person who is working solely for their job. 

Since whistle-blowers speak on the bad things that pertain to the media, they must be protected. therefore, the U.S. came up with the Whistleblower Protection Act, which is a United States federal law that protects federal; whistleblowers who work for the government and report the possible existence of an activity constituting a violation of law, rules, or regulations, or mismanagement, gross waste of funds, abuse of authority or a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety. 

To summarize all of this, Whistleblowing is defined as an action that is taken by an employee or the former employee to disclose unethical or illegal behavior. the employee can report such behavior to higher management in the same organization which is known as internal whistleblowing or a similar act can be reported to public/ external authority. As whistleblowing exposed the wrongdoing act that is being reported, it may carry a huge risk for the individual who is involved in the act of exposing such malpractices. Whistleblowing policy can be extremely beneficial; for an organization, as it gives confidence in fair practices to their employees, shareholders, society, and other organization who are doing direct/ indirect business with the company. All of this information can be found in numerous researches done that report on the cause and effects of whistleblowing.  

Blog Post #8

 

For starters, In class we watched a very impactful video showing the effects of war. This video was far from okay, in total it was almost tragic to watch the innocent lives lost, due to the area they were in at the time. Before I say anything else, I want to let you know that I am not the type of person to involve myself to learn about ongoing wars today. You may ask why? It is because I find that war makes me unhappy and if anything, I wish the world could be in peace, rather then live in a time of war. Luckily, we do not live in a time during a civil war or so forth, but we do infact live in a time of war. Watching that video during class opened my eyes through a lense that made me realize, I need to involve myself in the knowledge of war. 

Just as I did, you may ask yourself, Why do I not see things about war like the video we have watched in class? That is because its not popular to be televised or made seen, because many people arent interested in it as well. I mean, when your watching the news, you do not necessarily want to see people dieing in front of your eyes, and especially Americans being behind the guns, rather then in front. After visiting antiwar.com, I saw things I didn't want to see, just as I saw that video. This website, and other war websites are not popular due to this. Also, take into consideration that the givernment also doesn't want this to be publizied due to it looking bad on us. The government doesn't want us to be apart of "antiwar" groups because it is what they feel we have to do to protect our country. The Government especially doesn't want us to be anti anything that America as a whole is doing. 

Blog Post #7

This week, as a class we presented about the evolution of technology. I learned so much about technologies I wasn't aware of, and also I learned so much about technologies I use everyday.  As being the person I am, I choose to research and present the first Typewritter. Why? Because I was interested in learning about the first form of technology that has impacted our world today. However, this post is not for my knowledge about the Typewritter, this post's purpose is to tell you what I learned about another technology throughout the presentations. What caught my eye was learning about the first telephone. It caught my attention because it, in some ways, relates to the first typewriter, I mean both have "first" in front of their topic. 

Most of us, if not all of us, use a phone every single day, for many reasons. But if you take it back 145 years, the phones we use today are nothing like the telephones then. On March 7th, 1876 Alexander Grahm Bell invented the first telephone. This telephone worked by converting sound into an electrical signal via a "liquid transmitted". This process centered around directing sound through a receiver and onto a membrane stretched over a drum. Other people had idea about creating the telephone but Bells work is mot welly known. However Bells focused on many ideas for the invention of his telephone. Bells became interested in the possibility of transmitting speech over wire. Therefore, in 1868, Joespeh Sterns invented a system were 2 messages could be transmitted over a single wire, with this, Bell was able to create the communication he desired to invent through the use of the telephone. Without the invention of the telephone, we would have the communication we have today.

Because of the first telephone, telephones have rigoursly evolved over time and today the phone serves so many purposes. It is interesting the learn the history behind something we use every day, and how people hundreds of years ago came up with the simple ideas, many of us couldn't live without today.

Blog Post #6

 

Innovation is defined as the action or process of innovating, it is known to be a new method, idea, or device. Technology has been the only thing I have known. It's funny because when I talk to my mom learning about her childhood, technology was barely a part of it. It's very interesting to grow up seeing the evolution of the technology I have used. After learning taking a deeper look into the Diffusion of Innovation theory, I was able to moreover, understand why this happens, and how innovation depends on time. The Diffusion of Innovation is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and what rate new ideas and technology spread. 

I feel that there has been a huge surge in technology because of the pandemic. For example, ask yourself, have you ever heard of "zoom" or "blackboard collaborate" before the pandemic raised? Personally, I had not, it was new technologies that most of had to learn to use, to participate in studies, classes, and also socializing with many friends. Social media also flourished during this time because it was the way we were able to communicate with friends and family, a way for small businesses to sell their items to stay in business, and also it was something we did in our free time if we weren't walking around our towns or having family movie nights. TikTok is an example of an app that flourished during this time. Personally, I had not heard of TikTok until the pandemic, but it instantly became well known for fun dances, clothing hauls, funny videos, and more.

Many people became early adopters of Snapchat and Instagram when they came out. Why? because it was perfect for the generation that were using it at the time. I say this because if you think of Facebook, it was more for the older generations, not for teenagers. Let us take a deeper look into the evolution of snapchat. On the left, you see the picture of the style of the app that has changed over the years. Snapchat is an app, created in 2011, by Stanford students, originally to send pictures that will disappear in moments. However today Snapchat is used for so many different reasons. You can message friends, post stories, create filters, read news, watch shows and so much more. I mean how crazy is that. We have watched these apps grow and flourish. The Diffusion of Innovation describes why. 

There is a downside to this, I say this because as a young kid I was still playing outside with my friends, playing with my dolls, doing things that didn't include technology. But, today children don't do this anymore, they communicate all through social media. Kids in elementary school have the best iPhones that I never would have expected to have when I was young. I find this to be negative because kids shouldn't grow up in a world surrounded by social media and technology. As for myself, I don't really involve myself too much in social media. I am one to enjoy the company of my friends and family and would rather look at a real-life thing than see it on a screen. It's the way I grew up and I want to keep it that way. I am not saying that I completely don't use social media, It is just not something that is completely a part of my life.

Blog Post #5

PRIVACY

Have you ever felt that your life is not completely private? I am sure you have because not everything in this world can be kept private, I mean unless you are on a deserted island living alone with no contact with the world, which many of us are not. After watching the videos on privacy, I felt like I learned more about how there is an invasion of privacy in our daily lives due to the government and new technology. I feel that we have a right to privacy, but due to surveillance technologies, face recognition cameras, license plate trackers, and the government having access to all of these allow people to lack their own privacy. Ask yourself, is this ethically okay? to answer this in my own perspective I think not. In a class I took last semester, I learned the ethical issues facing privacy. I wrote an essay on COVID- passports before they became well known and found that the government wants to track every move you make with these passports. On one side I think to myself, yes, this is good due to us being through a worldwide pandemic. However, on the other hand, I think to myself, this is a total invasion of privacy. It goes both ways in the matter because there are positive and negative restraints on the government withholding the information that invades our privacy.

Have you ever spoken about something with your friends, whether it's something you want or desire, something you are interested in, a hobby or so forth? Then, a short time after it comes upon an ad on Instagram or a website on a page. Well, this happens to me a lot. It frightens me because I feel like I'm being heard on another end from whatever I'm saying. Yes, this is great for marketing, but it just gives me such an uncomfortable feeling. I feel like I almost have to watch what I say, or even say things clearer so that an ad will come up for me. if this all makes sense. In one of the ted talk videos, it spoke on this a woman said "Thanks to modern technology, the government knows everything that happens behind closed doors". It was very interesting watching these videos, and being able to relate to myself. 

The question we may all ask ourselves is "what should the government be doing about this?". This has been the question for so long, why because the government is the one, invading our privacy. What they should do is lay back, I say this not in a way to protect our lives, but in a way that people will feel less invaded, if you understand what I mean. Truly, I don't know exactly what the government should do, I am not in the position to make those decisions, I can only have my opinion. On the other hand, we ourselves can do things to protect against the invasion of privacy. We can be careful about what we do, whether it's posting on social media or doing things in public that is not good. Social media is a place where if you want to be private, it is almost impossible. I am not saying to show your best self, however, I am saying say good things, speak good things, show good things. just how we would want our lives to look like when applying for jobs, show that as well. There is not much we can do, but we CAN do the right things.