A.D.H.D

This was a video that I created with the help of editing of a fellow classmate. It is kind of awful but in my defense it was done in pretty much 1 take with some editing together. It is my view on ADHD. It's actually kind of funny. :-)

Ethics Statement and Privacy Statement (...what's private anymore?)

Ethics in theory and ethics in reality can quite possibly be two very different but similar ideals. In theory we, in a technological world, would like everyone to get credit for everything they do or that is quoted or replicated. This sounds like it should be the right way to go about things and the proper way at that. Though that is not how it works. How it works is in reality, whoever claims something first wins regardless of who said it or did it first. Is this ethical? To me it is not. Our ethical rights are getting a bit out of hand so how do I go about giving credit where it is due? To be honest, citations from sources is the only way. How do you tell where a picture is from? If you grab a picture from the internet do you cite the website that you pulled it from? How do you know that the website isn't copying someone elses work or trying to take credit? You don't know for sure, so who am I to give credit to someone that could be stealing someone elses work? The best way to look at ethics is to see how much credit one gets for the work that is being publicized. If the popularity starts rising then give credit where credit is due. If it doesn't then credit on certain things would be okay. Just remember, someone out there in the world has already done what you are about to do. So why do you get to claim credit and they don't?

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This privacy policy is subject to change without notice and was last updated on February, 9, 2014. If you have any questions feel free to contact me directly here: unheard3cko@gmail.com.

(This policy was adapted from http://john.do/privacy-policy/. Was stated that the above policy was free to use.)

Video Gaming Culture and News Online?

Before the internet really started taking hold of news and newscasts that had to do with entertainment more specifically video games there were television shows that supported this culture. Those television shows are such as G4 which was recently shut down because of lack of viewers. Why was there a lack of viewers? It is simple really, it is just that the majority of viewers shifted to a more adaptable medium, the internet. Through the progression of technology and the availability of such outlets like YouTube.com. On YouTube other gaming news outlets really started to take hold and pull in viewers with examples shown above, Machinima and IGN. These are just 2 of a wide range of news outlets located on YouTube. This particular medium allows viewers to watch a more concise news clip or podcast without advertisements, commercials or interruptions. This was one of the huge turn-offs of watching these types of shows on local cable television. The question really was why wait a full thirty minutes to find out what you want to know when you can just watch a similar clip done by one of the above organizations in a matter of minutes and the answer is you don't hence why G4 went out of business.

So what do these two organizations have to offer us viewers when we make the switch over to internet TV from actual cable television? Actually they have a lot more than what G4 had to offer with the reason being that there are more possibilities with the internet. On the channel that I have linked above the give their fan base news shows, updates, video game trailers, tips and tricks, coverage on the whole video game genre broken down into sub channels, game-play footage from the game producers and game-play footage from the players themselves which turns out to be us the viewers. Some of the game-play footage is that of games like W.O.W (World of Warcraft) which is an MMOG (Massively Muliplayer Online Game) which is mentioned by T.L. Taylor in the book The New Media and Technocultures Reader. Taylor talks about how MMOG's bring together a social culture by the thousands in attempts to create and finish a common goal. Some of these on takings are easily uploaded to these channels in YouTube and are available to everyone to see where as for the television this is something that would not be possible under basic cable. Eventually our generation will have internet televisions that not just allow you to surf the web but it will be incorporated into the internet and the way we view television will be forever changed. Machinima and IGN have shown very prominently that online news and media channels can be as successful or even more successful than television shows. The cost to do these news casts as compared to the cost of airing a single television show is significantly less and thus seems to be a more viable option to air the news especially with the abundance of "smart" technology aka smart phones, tablets, etc. This type of news emergence needs to be embraced and adapted to because it is the future of "television shows".


http://www.youtube.com/user/IGNentertainment
http://www.youtube.com/user/machinima

Digital Ethics and Responsibility

What is digital ethics? Digital ethics is about teaching ethical, courteous and productive behavior while using digital media. Some things to consider when dealing with digital ethics are plagiarism, copyright laws, and productively using the digital resources one is citing. When I, or anyone for that matter, research anything whether it is on my research project, for work or even other classes I want to make sure that the person that wrote the article that I am citing in my paper gets their due credit and referenced otherwise myself or anyone else are stealing information and claiming it for ourselves which is illegal. This kind of citing falls under plagiarism. As long as a source is cited properly within your paper you are safe under the principle of plagiarism which can be grounds for termination in colleges depending on the extent to which one plagiarizes.

Copyright laws are almost about the same as plagiarism but applies to more then just written work. The acceptable use policy falls under copyright. As long as something that is being used that is not rightfully yours falls under the guidelines of the acceptable use policy you can use it. If it doesn't you will need to figure out a acceptable way to re-iterate the information without stepping on anyone's toes.

As far as being productive with the resources one comes across this is quite simple actually. With the amount of media that is available to use we need to ensure that our references are valid and  efficient. When you come across sources that you plan on using in a paper or just referencing in general only use what you need to make or support your point/idea assuming that the source is legit. If you use more than what is needed then it is quite possible to lose our on the idea you are striving for. The internet is a tool with more than enough sources to sufficiently back your paper. What is all comes down to is just be ethical about what you are putting in your personal work. You wouldn't want people stealing from you so then don't do it to someone else. :-)

Violent Video Games Research Guideline

Violence in the Video Game genre

Table of Contents:

1.     Introduction of gaming media

a.     Evolution of playable media 

2.     Violence in video games and when did it start?

a.     Evolution of violence in this media

b.    Evolution of graphic illustrations and animations

3.     Violent outbreaks across the country

a.     Summary of cause and effect

b.    Culprits (Violent Media)

4.     Studies assessing negative effects of video games (I.E. Violent games)

a.     Samples of studies displaying negative effects on children and adolescents from playing violent video games (Violent Video Games:  The Effects on Youth, and Public Policy Implications, an article by Douglas Gentile and Craig A. Anderson)

5.     Studies assessing positive effects of video games (I.E. Violent games)

a.     Surgeon's erring less by playing video games

b.    "Violent Video Games as Exemplary Teachers: A Conceptual Analysis." Article by Douglas and J. Ronald Gentile.

c.     "Impact of an Active Video Game on Healthy Children’s Physical Activity." Article by Psychologists out of Baylor College of Medicine

d.    Article by Jeffrey Snodgrass that discusses positive side effects of video games.

e.     Study done by Paul J. C. Adachi and Teena Willoughby called "Do Video Games Promote Positive Youth Development?"

f.     Henry Jenkins, MIT Professor, discussion on common myths about video games.

g.    Adam Sessler's (Popular video game journalist) Interview on how violent video games are not the cause of these violent outbreaks.

6.       Argument stance

a.       The medium is the message, Marshall Mcluhan.

                                                                        i.      The medium changes the effect on how one views, interprets, and reiterates  the effect of these games. (Televisions, Computer Monitors, etc)

b.      ESRB ratings

                                                                        i.      What are they?

                                                                      ii.      What do they mean for children and parents

c.       Lack of Parental guidance

                                                                        i.      Making  reference to ESRB and how they are not abided by.

                                                                      ii.      Growing technology allows children to stay busy and less parenting needed.

d.      Lack of understanding of new media for the older generation

                                                                        i.      Easy to blame new technology because of the lack of understanding.

e.      Easy to remember the bad and not acknowledge the good

                                                                        i.      Article about Jacob Hartley killing his son due to interruption of video game playing. This makes it easy to blame violent video games for the problem.

f.        Why not blame horror movies? Crime shows?

                                                                        i.      Horror movie genre like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc

                                                                      ii.      Crime shows like Criminal Minds, CSI, Law and Order, etc

                                                                     iii.      Visual  stimulation is the same from movies and shows as violent video games. Medium is key here.

g.       Zero responsibility taken for violence caused by children and adolescents

h.      Possible ways to help with accessibility of children and teens to violent video games.

                                                                        i.      DRM, Digital Rights Management.

7.       Conclusion

a.       The effect of video games more specifically violent video games has little bearing on the violent outbreaks that are happening all over the world. We are a proud country and refuse to be wrong so it is easier to place blame on the uncertainty rather than take responsibility for something that we are doing wrong as a whole.

I will be diving into a very controversial topic which has to do with violent media but more specifically in my case violent video games. In our current society, violent video games come under fire very often due to the outbreak of violence all over the country. A lot of people do not understand the depth of video games and thus see them as a hazard to children and teens. We as a whole do not assume responsibility when something goes wrong and thus blame what we do not understand as a scapegoat. The opposition against the violence in video games do not acknowledge the beneficial gains from video games let alone placing individual responsibility on the games for something that they are not a cause of. I want to enlighten people on both the benefits and side effects of games as well as break down the individual medium (Television and Computer monitors) that is being used to portray the games message. These mediums display visually a different message than say a radio playing the game sounds. This type of difference needs to be known. One of the main reasons I want to tackle this topic is to bring to light the lack of parental guidance that becoming more and more apparent but not assuming responsibility for this lack of guidance. There are video game ratings on the box for a reason and the parents are supposed to oversee this rating. This paper will be geared towards everyone however I believe it would be more beneficial to the people that do not understand what video games can bring to the table so to speak.

Media Tools and Democracy

Democracy is, by definition, is a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them. With this being said there really is only one "tool" that I feel fits this category and that would be anything related to open source. I know that this isn't particularly a tool per say but the idea behind open source promotes the closest thing you can have to a democracy. Open source is a way of development that allows the people to change or edit any particular part of code in that specific software to allow for better use, ease of accessibility, etc within a certain set of guidelines which can be found at the line below. Allowing software to be edited by other programmers outside of the particular company that had originally produced it is a way to bring the population as a whole together as everyone can have a say, all assuming that they understand the coding that goes along with it. It is really hard to have democracy when a specific company has total control over something. If they have total control, the "people" do not have a say in what goes in and what should come out of that software. A good example of open source software is Linux. By having open source you are allowing the the consumer to have a better state of mind knowing that if something should be different in a program, it can be edited as opposed to waiting till the next update or next version of the software all together. Don't get me wrong though, there are things where open source is hard to implement, I.E. video games would be very difficult to make open source and have it succeed however it is possible. Even with it being possible you still would be walking a very fine line. The following are some images of open source software affiliates:

http://opensource.org/osd

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy

DRM ( Digital Rights Management) and the Public

What is DRM or Digital Rights Management? DRM is a technology designed to control access to, track and limit uses of digital media. What this means is that for example say you have a Blu-Ray that you have purchased but cannot load it your portable media player, that is DRM in effect. This type of technology is imbedded within the media itself. Corporations state that the reason why DRM is in place is to stop piracy and copyright infringement however a Google engineer states that DRM has nothing to do with piracy. Ian Hickson from Google states that DRM is not in place to stop unauthorized copying or piracy but is used as a tool for content providers power over playback device manufacturers, as distributors cannot legally distribute copyrighted material without permission from the content provider. What he means by this is referenced by the following example he gives, "Fox makes a movie and Apple purchases the rights to sell it on iTunes. Users then buy and download the film, but Fox wants you to purchase the movie again if you want to use it in a way that doesn't include an Apple device, such as use on an Android phone. With DRM, you cannot use it elsewhere — without DRM, the use of such content is not restricted." He goes on by stating that the movies that you trying to watch are probably available on file sharing sites and no one has been stopped for violating a copyright.

DRM ties into my research of violent media or more particularly violent video games. Most all video games currently are shipped with some sort of DRM technology and thus have put most people on the fence of should DRM be allowed? A lot of people disagree with DRM and feel that it is only in place to soak up more money for the content provider and they are not even remotely wrong because this is exactly what is going on according to Hickson. Essentially companies that manufacture products with DRM could start infusing a way to control the amount of violent video games that are allowed to be played by making them all online and having some sort of verification system in place such as a guardians SSN to verify that someone is of age to play this game. DRM, to me, is an invasion of our rights as a consumer. Companies should not have the ability to limit the use of a media to only one particular product so that way consumers are forced to buy that product for multiple consoles just to play it elsewhere. In essence, I own the product, as in this case,  and the story does not change per individual platform being played on. So if I own a game for say Playstation 3 and my friends own it for Xbox 360, I have to buy it for Xbox 360. That is unfair to me because I own the media already. However, the only way to be able to implement a way around that is through an always online type product in which case becomes subject to DRM. It is a double edged sword that no one really wants to cross.

http://www.zdnet.com/google-engineer-drm-has-nothing-to-do-with-piracy-7000012886/

https://www.eff.org/issues/drm

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/copyright/digitalrights