Facebook: Friend or Foe?

In doing the reading for this class, I have read many different view points on Facebook and the role it plays in both personal and professional lives.

I find it interesting that both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have policies regarding Facebook and both are quite different. The New York Times allows its journalists to use Facebook. It is a good way to find sources and leads. The Wall Street Journal does not allow any social media use, believing that business and pleasure should not be mixed.

Personally, I think if a journalist knows how to use Facebook properly and friend the right people it can be a great journalistic tool. In agreement with the New York Times, Facebook helps find sources and potential leads on stories. After all, the only way Journalists could get in touch with the White House Crashers was through Facebook.

New Start

Hey all,

so it's time to start a new semester, which means a new communications class. This semester the class is Ethics in Communications.

TED Description

Kayla Sorbara gives a talk examining the effectiveness of webcams and how they are contributing to our social world. Using personal stories and examples, she discusses how webcams allow people to communicate and keep in contact even when they are on opposite sides of the world.

Final Project: Ted Talk

For our final, we are going to be giving a five minute TED talk. I am still not 100% sure what I am going to do yet but I think I am going to talk about how the webcam and programs like Skype are helping people to communicate with each other and how they are changing communications practices.

People usually stay in touch via phone, cell phone, chats, texts, emails, and social networking sites. While some of the aforementioned practices allow people to communicate in real time it is only the webcam that allows for both real time conversation and visualization. It is as if two people are standing in a room together having a conversation when in reality they could be on two different sides of the world.

In my speech I will talk about the benefits of the webcam, how it is different from the way people currently communicate, and how it could possibly be used it the future.

Communications Case Study

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Communications Case Study

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Case-Study: Twitter

Above is my case study on social media. Topic of choice: Twitter.
For those of you that don't know, Twitter is a social media website that allows for constant status updates written in 140 characters or less.
Some of the social objects on the website include: Tweets, Profiles, Videos, Lists, Followers, Trending Topics, Status Updates, Links, Pictures, Replies, Direct Messages, Favorites, Settings.
The relational practices include: creating, linking, following, building, messaging, doing, tagging, sharing, directing, trending, updating, searching, connecting, finding, requesting, adding.


Users make knowledge and meaning by providing constant status updates written in 140 characters or less. The micro-blog allows users to keep their followers informed about what they are doing as well as staying informed with what friends, celebrities, and businesses are doing. It provides news relevant to each particular person's life. Twitter users are then able to share information with each other. Some people get their news from Twitter. Trending topics is a great way to find out what people are tweeting about and have some common knowledge with other users. People can follow different businesses or people in a particular business can use twitter for career related information. Friends/followers can also direct tweets to each other creating a short micro-blogging conversations. People can post links in their tweet, introducing people to new websites or directing people to funny videos or informative web-pages. People can also put up pictures and videos.
I was able to determine this because Twitter users give and receive knowledge to each other through their status updates. The information means something because if somebody was not interested, they would just not follow a particular person or business.


Users attribute value through their interaction with social objects on the site by simply using the site. If a person did not attribute any value to the site, then the person would simply not use twitter. Staying informed about what friends or other people are doing also has sentimental value to people. The direct messages allow friends to have small conversations through tweets. Twitter allows for news that is relevant to each individual person. It is personal news, so that also adds value.


I think the site is successful at bringing people together. Friends can now constantly know what others are up to and it allows for mini-conversations in which you direct a tweet @ somebody. It is how some people get their news and it allows for people to have something in common by sharing the trending topics.

Jyri Engestrom and Social Media

In class on Friday, we watched a video of Jyri Engestrom talking about social objects and social media. He works for google and is unbelievably smart, he even came up with his own social media called Jaiku.

At one point in his talk he says that people are going to want a constant media that they are always connected to. I agree with him. I believe that social media has become such a big part of our lives that people won't know what to do with themselves without it. While admittedly, I am a lazy facebook user (I have one but don't really write on anyones wall or anything) I still check it everyday in the hopes of getting a friend request or seeing if anyone has posted something on my wall. So even if you do not use social media all the time, it is still there and you are most likely a part of it in some way.

Even if people don't realize it, social media plays a part in all of our lives with websites such as Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, and Twitter.