Forum Topics

1. "March 17, 2008: The home of Yossi Knafo, the Jewish Agency for Israel's representative in Providence, Rhode Island, was attacked with two Molotov cocktails.  No one was injured, but the house sustained damage." Is this an example of an anti-Semitic hate crime, or could it be a shenanigan with another intention? There is speculation that this was an act done by foolish hooligans with no intention further than causing chaos.

2. Why do people choose to use graffiti to express hatred towards Jews? Is this just as bad at hate crimes involving sabatoge and molotov cocktail explosions?

3. Have you experienced anti-Semitism in some way, whether serious or in joke form? How did it make you feel?

Potential SNS Blog Ideas

1. Analysis of RI March 17th, 2008 hate crime event

2. "Education remains a strong predictor of anti-Semitic propensities, with the most well-educated Americans largely free of prejudicial views while less educated Americans are more likely to hold anti-Semitic views. 19.5% of Americans with less than a college education hold anti-Semitic views, a significantly higher figure than the overall 12%"...Why is this??

3. Anti-Semitic graffiti: what type of people do this and why do they use this approach to hate crimes? Is it just as bad as the molotov cocktail and sabatoge incidences?

Response to Boyd and Bennett

      Boyd and Bennett both agreed that there is a problem in the way younger generations view politics and social change. They don't really care and if they are involved, it is for personal, selfish reasons to make themselve feel and look good to other people and/or build popularity.

     Where Boyd and Bennett disagree is the method of using SNS's and other digital technology to promote political action and social change involvement. Bennett believes that this is a useful method because it is relevent to the time and would make more sense to young people, come across as more interesting, and maybe even be compelling. Boyd thinks that this would be an ineffective method because of what young people use SNS's and digital technology for. According to Boyd, they are used primarily for social and comedial use. People want to connect with friends, gossip, and watch embarassing videos. Because of the mindset and tone associated with this kind of technology, young people are less likely to use these same sources for serious matters.

SNS

The definition and factors of Social Networking Sites isn't really anything new for me. I joined my first SNS when I was 12 on KiddoNet, which was a site for kids only. I then got a Myspace in the beginning of High School, and by my senior year, I had replaced Myspace with Facebook.

What was new whats the history. I have never heard of SixDegrees and wasn't aware that it was the first offical SNS. I would agree with the author that it was ahead of its time. It failed rather quickly, but not because the idea and technology behind it was a flop; it just was present in a time before social networking had entered into the spectrum on technological evolution. If SixDegree had come out right before Myspace and Facebook, it would've probably been just as sucessful as these top networking sites today.

It doesn't really surprise me that SNS have become such a global phenomenon. Theres really something for everyone. Its good for work, expanding your social life, finding a date, sharing information, growing popularity, selling, media, etc... the list goes on. The fact that its gone global has in some way connected the world. Its a big step for mankind.

5 Causes

Pro-life, Human Traffiking, Retouching of photos leading to self-esteem issues with girls, Healthcare, Hormones in meat/genetically modifications in produce.

Finished

The project is done. I'm overall satisfied with the finished project, considering the limits we had with google sites. The only things that needed revision was the project memo and more clearification with the meeting times. The homepage/layout and sitemaps were good to go. It's weird, but for some reason, this didn't feel like a group project. I feel like my group just split up the work and did our part as if it were separate. There wasn't much discussion, disagreements, or suggested revisions.I'm not realyl sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. It's good because we didn't have any issues and everyone did what they were supposed to. But this could be potentially bad because we communicated less and just did our own thing. It didn't feel like a real group experience.

Google Sites. Not a Creativity-friendly Program.

I found google sites to be easy to use, however, very frustrating. While redesigning a webpage, a lot of creativity is required. You get an idea and vision in your mind of what you would like to achieve. Using google sites, I could not do everything I wanted because the program was limited and sometimes had formating issues. I would've liked to have a background image on the sidebar, but that option was not available. Also, I woul've liked to use more creative and subject-appropraite fonts, but that option was not available, either. The html that could be edited was also very limited, which I found frustrating. I feel like I could do more with html with my blog than with this website. I would've liked to take to time to figure out a more complex and creativity-friendly program, such as dreamweaver, but I just didn't have the time and had to keep up to speed with my group and what they were doing.

Tech Creativity

I unfortunately missed one class and fell a little behind on the first real group work day. Thanks to Zachary, though, I was able catch up. He agreed to meet up with me and explain everything I missed. I was then assigned to do the homepage. I was kind of excited to do this because it meant that I also got to pick out and design the template and overall look of the sight. I enjoy this sort of thing. I also got the idea of creating a totally new logo because I wasn't too keen on the pre-existing one. Luckily, I had a ton of pictures from a concert I went to recently that I could use with the logo and also the page background. Can't say that I was really all that nervous about the project. Computer technology, though it can be confusing, irratating, or tedious, I find to be enjoyable when I'm allowed to get creative with it.