Weblog 9: Importance of Internet Access and lead-in to SAP

Core Idea: My group wants to organize a cell phone/internet device collection and donation to those without such access. Dual issue: Deal with eWaste and the importance of internet access in our age.

                My group’s SAP project idea is to try to organize some kind of electronics donation drive to provide access to those without. This project works towards [at least] two different digital media-related social justice issues. The first and foremost being to deal with the growing “digital divide” in regards to access:

The importance of internet accessibility goes without saying for my peers at JCU, and I would venture to argue that access to the internet is becoming an increasing necessity. More and more products, services, businesses—therefore job listing and payment systems for utilities—are relocating to the internet as their main platform. Think about all of the roadblocks you would hit in your daily life without internet access.  

“Snail-mail” is being replaced because of how much faster the transit time between writer and reader is with email [as well as practically nonexistent [direct] cost per message and the extended options of writing/conveying a message--in unique ways not possible on written paper]. Without internet access, your email inbox is 100% inaccessible [except for cached emails, but you still would be unable to send any messages].  

Now combine the previous roadblock with an issue faced by many in our society: unemployment. The heart of any capitalistic economic theory relies on the purchasing power of consumers, which will—hopefully—allow consumers to dictate the availability and types of products and services [and therefore political system, representatives are said to be “serving” there community] available. Without employment [particularly once unemployment insurance funds/time run out], people cannot participate in a capitalistic economy, effectively disenfranchising them of any kind of influence [especially because of how modern republics act like a boards of trustees and executives, along with stakeholders, of a company or corporation, which is another issue itself].  This makes finding employment extremely important in just the political sense alone, ignoring all of the other issues with it. Today, of course, finding work requires extensive internet research, or at least online applications. Yet another roadblock without internet access.

A third and final roadblock [but yet still just one of what is likely an endless list of examples] faced by those without internet access is simply general access to information. Without the web, citizens in a republic only know what some particular behemoth of traditional media has decided to publish, be it TV, physical advertisements and mailers, newspapers, billboards, etc. This undermines the political process of a republic, leading to voters going to the voting booths just knowing the latest tag line/talking-point for or against a candidate. This effectively sets modern republics back to the levels of political corruption that went on in the US between Reconstruction [~ 1865] to--at least--the Great Depression [1930s]. Radio and TV temporarily disrupted this, but were quickly subverted via advertisements and “encouragements” from candidates/parties to media organizations to run or kill a story. The internet has once again subverted the corruption spread by creating many nontraditional sources of information and opinions. This resource though is only as good as the ability to find the information, which requires accessibility of the internet.

My group and I know that we cannot provide the internet service itself, but many areas now how some time of common meeting place where Wi-Fi is available; however, those places require people to bring their own devices [for the most part]. So therefore, we want to address the device accessibility issue.

Our project also attempts to work on the eWaste issue via reusing people’s unwanted/needed electronics by sending the products to people who have nothing. This keeps the devices from ending up in some awful “recycling center” in a third-world/global south country, as shown and described in my earlier posts.

As far as the literature review goes, my focus is going to be to find studies and info on how the lack of internet access hurts individuals. I have played around with a few different search phrases: importance of internet access, necessity of internet access, benefits of access, and then finally, digital divide. Digital divide is likely going to be my key search term. Unfortunately, I cannot access a few of the articles I was interested in because they are either improperly linked or run into some kind of JavaScript error. That was pretty annoying…

Citation for the Dictionary

"Digital Divide." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/digital divide>.

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 For the record, the dictionary post was not a direct embed, Merriam Webster does not appear to offer that. I used a screen-grabing Firefox extension, and then re-hosted the screenshot on imgur.

Somewhat eWaste Related: 

Garbage Planet, Raxus Prime
 Another WALL-E like example, and robots making other robots out of discarded technology 
 http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Raxus_Prime
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Junk_droid
 The main aspect unique to this source compared to the others I have mentioned is that it is gamefide as a world for Star Wars: Force Unleashed (the first one), so it could act possibly as another way of to experience eWaste.

Discussion Group 4: Identity Crisis

Article:
http://digitalmediafys.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/70238345/Turkle_2011_IdentityOnline.pdf

Questions/Thoughts

1. Do we actually use digital media to show completely different aspects of  our selves that we would not show in public? I'd argue that we do. Anonymity inspires false courage.
2. Does acting out our worst parts of ourselves in an anonymous environment create a better net society?
3. How valid is Freudian Theory anyway? (Unconscious, subconscious, conscious)    

Abandon Ship

Source: https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/35268956/

                Yeah… so after seeing the other students SAP ideas, I think I want to jump-ship to Connor’s [http://digitalmediaandsocialjustice.tumblr.com/ ]. To be honest, I feel more “at-home” working with the topic of surveillance than trying to scrape something together on eWaste. Easily half of the class’s ideas are involving eWaste already, in more interesting and creative ways [art projects and the like]. I already have a decent background on the surveillance subject from a unit in my “World Affairs/Current Events” course that I took in my last semester of high school, as well as research on my own. I did not right up a project idea on the topic because I did not have an idea as to what to do with it. Connor’s poster idea sounds great, and could be used alongside something along the lines of what I was planning to do with eWaste. Attach a video clip screening/discussion part to it, with the poster giving information as to when and where that discussion would be taking place.

            Government surveillance is not exactly something that is new. Nations have long had censorship systems acting against the spread of literature and ideas. However, in our evolving information age, where much of our communication relies on indirect, non-person-to-person methods, the power censorship and surveillance has [and continues to] grown exponentially. Just think about how much of your own personal communication is done by impersonal methods on a daily basis, all of which is subject to what amount to wiretappings.

            The whole issue of bulk surveillance violating personal privacy is already a social justice issue in itself, yet that is just the beginning… The one who controls the message controls the conversation, will control the “facts” and “definitions” of a phenomenon, which leads to mass public opinion/thought shaping and controls, especially when the propagandists appear legitimate [or even are legitimate but have fallen into the same thought trap as the rest of us]. I remember how I found out last year that the NSA surveillance programs had already been reveled once around the time the Iraq occupation started, but were ignored because of event priority in the news. Of course, it is hard to say whether discovering the programs earlier would have changed anything, given the war climate in the USA at the time and the lack of mobile, internet-accessing devices, as well as constraints on the practicality of video streaming at the time.

            Regardless, surveillance is a major social justice issue once one realizes how censorship--and even more so, indirect censorship by psychological warfare--instilling fears of surveillance--is able to dictate the entire conversation on a topic. So, for that reason, I am jumping off this eWaste WALL-E-class tugboat to jump onto Connor’s all-seeing-eye-class surveillance aircraft carrier.

Social Action Project Proposal: Film Festival

                Issue: Undecided, Within the Sphere of eWaste and it's Component Issues

Acknowledgement: Dr. Shutkin suggested the basic idea for this proposal after reading my last blog/discussion question post.  

The film festival project that I have in mind has the potential to address a plethora of social justice issues, depending on which clips and videos are used in the final project. The project will have to address eWaste[an issue that is as old as the first garbage dump in history, no one wants to have to live in or near someone else’s trash], which is—in its-self--a springboard into many potential topics.

1.      The growing issues of increasing consumerism can be directly linked to worsening the eWaste crisis in the third world countries, illustrated by the PBS’s Frontline episode “Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground” and likely many other documentaries and programs would reinforce the awareness to that issue.  Consumerism has really been an issue since the beginning of mass production, leading the European powers to constantly seek out new markets and material hubs to grow their wealth so that their people could then buy more stuff to feel better about themselves.

2.      Disney/Pixar’s WALL-E starts out with showing a simply devastated Earth, full of stacks of trash cubes and the remnant buildings of a formerly populated city. The film later reveals humans flat-out left the Earth after they trashed it to the point that vegetation could no longer grow. Again, this works to show the problems that are, have, and will become worse over time from increasing consumerism.

Sign: Do Your Part, Fill Your Cart

3.      WALL-E could also be used to talk about concerns relating to humanity’s increasing reliance on digital technology. This issue might be outside of the scope that our class is supposed to focus on, it has the digital media component; but, it is on the outer-rim of social justice end. It could be considered somewhat a social justice if we were to consider how individuals who do not or cannot use new technology are becoming ostracized from society. You could argue that since the first time a projectile weapon was used, humans have become reliant on having access to a ready supply of tools to accomplish basic tasks. That can be scaled up to modern day, with cars replacing walking, text messages replacing conversation, etc.

4.      In the previously mentioned Frontline episode, there was an interview with a Chinese illegal eWaste dealer, who made comments that were along the lines of saying that since China is a developing country, it needs to make “sacrifices” to grow and compete with developed nations. He also admitted, implicitly, that the eWaste de-manufacturing is poisonous to the workers who extract the valuable components from the eWaste. Here we could start a conversation on the plight of the developing countries, another major springboard.

What I am really getting down to here is that the film festival idea’s target-issues will depend greatly on what kind of input I would hear from other group members. All I can say for sure is that eWaste should be a stepping-stone, since it can lead to so many other issues discussions, as we have already seen within our in-class discussions. 

Works Cited for the Issue Side

"Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground." Frontline World. PBS, 23 June 2009. Web. 09 Oct. 2014.

"Wall E Earth Images & Pictures." Becuo Images & Pictures. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2014. Copyright Owner: Disney/Pixar

"WALL-E Intro." Wall-E Intro. YouTube, 19 Dec. 2010. Web. 10 Oct. 2014. Copyright Owner: Disney/Pixar

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Project Style: Film Festival/Discussion

I think that a film festival-type project would work well to perform an awareness-raising and discussion-starting action for a social justice issue such as eWaste and its component issues. There is far more power to be found for a message in using moving images of an actual event with on-site audio, rather than just hearing a recalled story from a witness, especially from 2^nd hand+ sources. I would think that most people would agree that seeing an event itself is the best source of information. If a picture is ‘worth a thousand words’, how many would a film be worth?

            Really the entire Civil Rights Movement of the 20^th century can be viewed as a type of news-film experience of social justice issues--such as the truth of what “Separate but Equal” facilities looked like--from how much of it made the national TV news, reaching a massive audience in a way not possible earlier in history. Written words and pictures had been used before that time for social justice issues like women’s suffrage in the USA. Films were also used as well, but they took a while to be produced and long time to distribute. Radio came close to films power, but the visual component was missing.

            John Carroll University has already had some film festivals involving social justice on the human rights side: First Annual Second Annual Third Annual (coming up on November 1^st)

These festivals have included films that address issues such as: the homophobic laws of Uganda (“Call Me Kuchu”), imprisonment and immigration (“Broken On All Sides” and “AbUSed: The Pottsville Raid”), and the ramifications of the 20^th century’s events the Holocaust(“The Last Survivor”) and Russia recovering from failed totalitarian communism(“Putin’s Kiss”).

I think that showing a series of clips and/or movies with discussions and supplement media would work well to address just about any social justice issue, particularly for eWaste and its subcomponent issues, since the scale of eWaste is hard to describe in text or speech alone. You need a pictorial component to just see how horrible the problem has become with our so called “recycling” of old electronics.

Works Cited for the Project Form Side

"First Annual JCU Human Rights Film Festival." Inside JCU. John Carroll University, 12 Mar. 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2014. <http://inside.jcu.edu/2013/03/12/first-annual-jcu-human-rights-film-festival/>.

"Third Annual Human Rights Film Festival." Peace, Justice, and Human Rights. John Carroll University, n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2014. <http://sites.jcu.edu/pjhr/events/third-annual-human-rights-film-festival/>.

"Tomorrow: Second Annual Human Rights Film Festival." Inside JCU. John Carroll University, 25 Oct. 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2014. <http://inside.jcu.edu/2013/10/25/tomorrow-second-annual-human-rights-film-festival/>.