Blog Post #9 - EOTO #2

For my second EOTO post, I learned about News Deserts, and the impact they have on people. A News Desert is an area which has no news outlets, or not enough to be able to fill people in on what is going on in the world. Sometimes areas have news sources, but ones that are not credible or able to rely on for accurate information. This can cause issues, because it is important to be filled in on what is going on in the world. This is a supply issue because metro papers cut back rural circulation and it is also a demand issue, because readers in these areas opt out of subscribing to significantly diminished local newspapers. This leads to problems, when people are not getting the amount of news that they need, and not learning about relevant events going on in this world. This can be dangerous. Even though people in certain areas can have a much harder time being able to access news, there are still ways for them to gain knowledge and information. If they live in an area that does not have physical copies of news papers, they can stay up to date by reading social media, radio. etc. Problems arise when people do not have access to social media or the radio. Some people do not have a phone or even electronics. Some people can not afford them, or just do not like smart phones. When you are unable to get to a radio or social media, you can not hear what is going on. When there is no paper option, this is when it is worse because they have neither ways to find out information.

News Deserts are even more common now. More than one in five papers has closed in the last decade and a half. Half of the 3,143 counties in the country now have only one newspaper, usually a small weekly, attempting to cover its various communities. Out of the whole country, almost 200 counties do not have newspaper at all. This is a serious drop, and is something that needs to be looked at. Another issue that has happened that is effecting the newspapers is that private equity funds, hedge funds, and other newly formed investment partnerships have swooped in to buy and manage newspapers all over the country. Another issue as to why newspaper is not having as heavily of a production is because of new media. With so much social media and how popular it is these days and recently, people do not buy newspapers as much or make an effort to look at them because they rely on gaining information when they turn on their phone. This has decreased the production of the newspapers which is not an issue for some people but a serious issue for others. It is not a big issue to the people who only use social media and radios for this information anyway, but a more serious issue to the people who do not use social media or even have access to it and relied their whole lives on the physical copies.

 Blog Post #8 - Diffusion of Innovation

A technology that caught on quickly was the invention of the Smart Phone. This spread quickly and became popular because it was helpful in letting people communicate easier and more rationally. It was a good invention for not only making things easier in being able to contact people, but also in making things more safe and reasonable. In case of something important coming up, or even an emergency people have the convenience of being able to pick up a phone and contact someone immediately. A lot of people were early adaptors because when this invention came out they knew it would be a good purchase for being able to connect with people pretty much whenever they would like. When smart phones were not a thing, people would have to go to the same location, telephone booth, or wall whenever they wanted to call someone. When this became possible to do at any location people jumped at the idea. With flip phones, you could only text and call. Technology like iPhone has the advantages of apps like safari, and social medias as well.  People who were late adaptors, maybe had a hard time figuring out how to work a smart phone, or just did not want to over complicate things so decided to stick to the old fashioned way. Another reason for someone to be a late adaptor is if they have trouble affording a smart phone because they are a generous amount more money than using phones in other ways such as a telephone booth or a flip phone. Some older generations never became adaptors at all because of these reasons as well. 

I do see some negative sides, as social media can cause problems, and also the use of smart phones can become addictive. This can become dangerous if your head is always in your phone, and causing distractions. I think the positives outweigh the negatives though, so people can access easy communication whenever they need it.

 Blog Post #7- Anti War and The American Conservative

Social Media is biased, and commonly catered to a certain political view. Common news sources are Fox News, CNN, NewsMax, etc. These are common and easy to get information from, depending on your political views. These are all well known sources, even if they are not everyone's go to channels when watching the news or receiving information. When people want to listen to the news or get information they usually go to their news channel that they prefer, depending if they are conservative or liberal. Websites like Anti-War and The American Conservative are not the best channels to get information from. On Anti-War website, there are so many words that clash and it made me want to exit immediately. This does not draw viewers in, but only draws them out because it is confusing to look at and has too many links which is confusing to understand exactly which information you need.

When people see this it makes it hard to want to interact with the website and continue reading. I did not even know where to click or what to do next. With this many words, I will look at it and exit the page to find another website to get my information from. On The American Conservative, there is almost nothing to even read about. There is no main page, just a lot of links. This makes it confusing for readers and can steer away people looking for certain information. 

I also believe that with social media being biased, some stuff is not shown or made popular by the government because they do not want people to read about information they do not agree with. If the government does not want a website to be popular because they do not want it to be shown to the public, they easily are able to take things down or not make them known to the public to become popular.