Defining Beauty

by rachelfisher-white

Journalist Priscilla Yuki Willson sent her picture out to over 25 international editors to “make her beautiful”, through which she revealed how subjective and prevalent the culture of beauty is on a global scale, and to see the different beauty standards of the world.

With this being the original:

and these being a select few of the most disturbing changes:

from Montenegro-

from Macedonia-

and from Vietnam-

Despite all of the changes, Willson is glad that her face looks nothing like the altered ones. She’s setting her own beauty standards for women, especially those of diverse backgrounds.

“I define beauty as an act of self love and embracing my own humility,” she said.

To read the article and see the remaining pictures, visit

http://aplus.com/a/Priscilla-Wilson-woman-of-color-beauty-photoshop-images-around-the-world

and see the another experiment by Ester Honig who did a similar study with similar results
http://www.estherhonig.com/#!before–after-/cvkn

Can I have some Privacy Please?

by rachelfisher-white

Have internet users lost a sense of privacy?

See, that question could be answered two ways depending on whether you’re looking at it positively or negatively.

Positively, people are sharing more of themselves, users are finding new ways to express themselves and allowing others to see parts of themselves that they might not have shown in public, some quirky talent that has got 543,105 views on youtube is

but negatively, people could be showing parts of themselves that perhaps they shouldn’t be showing to everyone, and EVERYONE does have access to what you post online.. like for example in the George P. Landow’s Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization he explains how he was searching for how many people had created a blog and was sent to a personal page of a woman who was explaining how many people she had slept with, “i assume there blogger intends the site for her friends, but Google mistakenly brought me there, as it may well bring her parents and employers. It is very difficult to maintain this kind of public privacy.”. Landow continues to say that “In their immediacy and accessibility, in their seemingly unmediated state, Web diaries blur the distinction between online and offline lives, virtual reality and real life, public and private.”

Perhaps because users are sitting behind a screen, they forget that whilst there not exposing their secrets directly to someones ears, they’re telling the world because everyone has access to that information. Landow even covers a rebuttal with the comment that “many bloggers screen comments, and protect their posts with passwords but once an entry goes online internet search engines can bring it to the attention of web surfers.”
Once you upload or share something on the internet, on a blog or social media page, it’s accessible to whoever knows how to find it.

Facebook creeper?

by rachelfisher-white

Post by Kimberly Fedelity Hernandez.

Is this true? or is this just another example of how crowd sourcing produces false accusations…
I do not know, but seems a little bit far fetched to me. Why would the creators of Facebook feel the need to do that?
On the other hand, if it is true Facebook’s going to lose a lot if its consumers.

Frivolous Lawsuit.

by rachelfisher-white

In Warner Bros film The Dark Knight Rises, Anne Hathaway’s character Selina Kyle, uses her skills as a cat burglar in return for a software that will erase her criminal history from existence. This software being the ‘clean slate’

Since 2000 Fortres Gran has been selling their ‘clean slate’ product, which allows people to erase the trail of history on their computer.

Fortres Gran sued Warner Bros because of the studios ability to overwhelm the market, believing that consumers would mistake Fortres Gran’s product as something sponsored by Warner Bros. Fortres Grand sued Warner Bros. for federal trademark infringement and unfair competition under federal and state law.

To which of course, Warner Bros won.

The district court granted Warner Bros.’ motion to dismiss, finding that plaintiff’s allegations failed to establish any consumer confusion as to the source of its product, which is an essential element of plaintiff’s claims. Noting that trademark infringement protects only against mistaken purchasing decisions, not against confusion in general.

Remembering that trademarks aren’t copyrights. They serve to identify and distinguish the goods of one seller from another.

Weinberger Small Pieces

by rachelfisher-white

Renee’s Blog Post about Week 4’s reading demonstrated a clear understanding of what David Weinberger was saying.

“Everyone is an author on the internet, everyone is a participator and they make contributions to this great community.We don’t get our authority from degree here, but from what we are writing. The Web is a voice with affect and passion. We listen, write, discuss and evaluate and create the Web!”

I think this is exactly what Weinberger was aiming to communicate that “The lively plurality of voices sometimes can and should outweigh the stentorian voice of experts.” He talks about how the human voice is richer and in some ways more reliable, perhaps because it is more relatable? Academics and experts know what they’re talking about and therefore can not be, or highly unlikely, be wrong and “were not looking up answers” on people’s sites, we are instead asking questions, reading other peoples responses and sometimes even answering questions ourselves. We are researching to see if people have the same worries as us, or share the same opinions.

“The Web is a written world, and the 300 million people on the Web are it’s authors.” The Web is a tool that gives ordinary people a platform to express and expand their knowledge, and it’s the ordinary people that are being listened to.

Reading 04.1 Nelson.

by rachelfisher-white

“The computer and now the personal computer, have opened whole new realms of disorder, difficulty and complication for humanity. With so called “computer basics” and so called “computer literacy”, beginners are taught a world of prevailing but unnecessary complication.”

Hypertext- a text which is not constrained to be linear.

Nelson’s excitement about the abilities of the hypertext spilled out the pdf, so fascinated the that hypertext would allow writers and readers to explore a new depth to writing that heretofore was considered impossible. That this new way is unrestricted by sequence, and therefore allow us to better match our structure with what we are writing about.

But, I quite like linear. I like it’s rules.
Whilst I do appreciate the things achievable due to the hypertext… and i do constantly reap in the benefits with its ability to link, and access to limitless sources and, well, just everything.
I like the rules i’ve been conditioned to when writing. I like beginnings, middles, and ends. I live for temporal satisfaction when i finish a hard copy of a book or television series.

When Adrian commented on one of his posts saying that we’re naive because we assume were network natives because we can work Facebook and mum can’t…I was sort of stumped, I mean like obviously I do know more than all members of my family members and that I am some what network literacy savvy but perhaps not as savvy as i’d like to think and perhaps this is what is creating my bias for the old fashioned linear way. Whilst having no limitations excited others and give them room to explore depths they’ve only dreamed about, it makes me want to run to the hills and get out my paper and pen.

How do you tell what is real?

by rachelfisher-white

Symposium number 4 brought forward the question “How can you judge the validity of things on the internet?”

I back in 2012 was a sucker for the KONY 2012 campaign, along with my friend I purchased a $17 string bracelet in the belief that I was helping a worthy cause. I signed up for all the newsletters and latest news on what was happening. I even went as far as to be involved in the Cover the Night event, in which my friends and I stuck posters of the KONY 2012 campaign on public poles in our home town.

What hooked me?

Everyone was sharing it! My Facebook newsfeed was flooded with KONY 2012, my brother was urging me to watch it and if everyone else says it’s true, that means its true, right?!
Crowd Sourcing (the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community) as Adrian mentioned was a major player in what created this “over night” fad.

It had the moving, fantastically made video. This 30 minute long video, was made by a body of filmmakers who founded Invisible Children, these talented beings pieced together a moving video that raised awareness in an easily understood format. Coupling this was its excellent structure, Shama Kabani, CEO of The Marketing Zen Group and author of The Zen of Social Media Marketing, told TechNewsWorld that “The ‘Kony 2012’ video took off because it had all the elements of a great story — background on the founder, a plot, a resolution, a call to action,”

Professional Body. As an easily manipulated teen, Invisible Children was a trustworthy cause. A non-profit organisation that was on a mission to make the world a better place, well there was my chance to help save the world and i went along.

These factors were what validated KONY 2012 for me.

Facts Found at http://www.technewsworld.com/story/74835.html