Blog Prompt: Fake news & what to do about it.

Over the past week or so, we have spent time discussing the problem of "fake news," how it is hurting our democracy and how to combat it. The city-state of Singapore recently adopted a sweeping law targeting online platforms spreading fake news. Watch the following short report about the law. Do you think the U.S. ought to adopt similar legislation? Why or why not?

Blog Prompt: Transmedia Storytelling

Here is a short video of Henry Jenkins, author of our textbook, discussing the growing importance of transmedia storytelling. He insists here that such storytelling is becoming increasingly important as a Hollywood strategy but is also becoming popular with amateurs, fans, who are creating their own transmedia projects. What do you think of Jenkins' arguments here? And what are some of your favorite examples of the sort of transmedia storytelling he discusses in his book and this short video interview?

Here are some complete, pre-fab web templates that you can use. Be cautious about using complicated templates that employ lots of images as elements of the design, use XHTML, have multimedia capabilities, etc. In my experience, those templates are difficult to edit without screwing up their formatting and creating more headaches than they are worth. It is best to use very simple templates (with basic 2- and 3-column layouts) as you can simply past your text directly into the text "container" and they can typically be modified without too much trouble.  In the past students have had success with designs like "Simple Beauty", "Simple #2," "Three Column Fluid," and "Event Horizon."

• Open Source Web Design
• Open Design Community
• Free Web Templates
• Free Website Templates
• Open Web Designs

Free skeletal designs:

• CodeSucks CSS Layouts
• Smashing Magazine's CSS Layouts
• More free CSS layout

Finally, if you work with Adobe Dreamweaver, you'll find it comes with a number of different easy to use templates. When you start up the program, just click on the "Create from Sample" option.

Blog Prompt: What do to do about cyberbullying?

As I mentioned in connection with our discussion of dana boyd's It's Complicated, the media is full of stories about cyberbullying and its sometimes tragic effects. One story that grabbed the public's attention was the case of Amanda Todd, a 15-year old Canadian who committed suicide after being harassed and bullied online (and in person). Stories like Todd's have caused schools to adopt "zero tolerance" policies towards online bullying. Yet danah boyd argues that such policies do more harm than good.

Approaching bullying from a punishment-oriented perspective, as many schools do-- and are increasingly legally required to do-- rarely helps with bullying situations. Often...school and parent involvement worsens the situation because the adults involved do not understand the details. If young people believe that adults will overreact or won't understand the complexities of the interpersonal dynamics, they aren't particularly interested in conveying the challenges they're facing. 

Some state legislatures have, recently, doubled down on a punishment-oreinted approach to cyberbullying, passing laws that  criminalize online bullying. See, for instance, the recent law adopted by Michigan.

What do you think should be done to address the issue of online bullying? Is immediate, strict punishment the solution? Should Illinois adopt a law like the one that recently went into effect in Michigan?  Or does such punishment only add to the "drama"? Write a blog post discussing this messy problem and possible solutions to it.

Blog Prompt #2: Is Google Evil?

On Thursday, we began discussing the central role that Google plays in people's online lives. We use the company's search engine to find information for homework assignments, to check our spelling, to check our symptoms when we're feeling sick, to find directions while we're on road trips and to research and apply for jobs. We use their video sharing service YouTube to fritter away hours watching videos of cats on skateboards and mash-ups of our favorite TV shows. Some of us use Google Docs to write our papers, Google Sheets to maintain budgets and Google Calendar to organize our lives. And, whether we know it or not, Google-- or, rather, parent company Alphabet--  serves up many of the online ads we're exposed to on sites like the New York Times, CNN.com and TMZ.com. This raises a series of questions: Does Google have too much power over our lives? Are we addicted to Google? And, if so, does the Googlization of our lives  endanger our privacy or our independence in important ways (as some critics suggest)? The company's original motto was "Don't be evil" (and was changed to "Do the right thing" when it reorganized as Alphabet in October 2015). But does Google/Alphabet really always do the right thing?   Write a blog post-- on Blogger, another Google property-- reflecting on these questions. I look forward to reading your thoughts on the subject....