Common Sense

ESOC 211 Group Presentations! Image: Wikimedia Commons This week we had our Collaborative Group 2 presentations. I thought it would be interesting to put these comments in my blog! Community Commitment Group 3: Hannah Leigh Johnson, Alan Castillo, Ryan Cohn, Christian Williams, Ethan Mermel The First Group (3) that went made a came up with a good product. The video was concise in the points it made as well as some interesting facts and statistics in the presentation. I had no idea that there was that high of a number of college students committing suicide. Social media also had a part to play in the suicide narrative as it can have an impact in preventing it (Reddit) Toxic Food Environment Group 4: Jeremy Thompson, Alex Lozano, Shannon Washington, Josh Quirk, Kaci Burden This presentation was incredibly informative. The video was comical and I enjoyed learning more about nutrition. This is important because there are many options of items to consume and the

Calling All Citizen Scientists! By Jacob Chan Image: File:Science-symbol-2.svg, Wikimedia Commons Over the last couple of weeks in ESOC 211, we have explored what it means to be a contributor to large online platforms such as Wikipedia. This week’s activity included introducing our class to the possibility of being “citizen scientists”. Citizen Scientists refers to the user of the website being granted the ability to contribute their own time and effort towards a collective research goal. Through platforms such as Zooniverse, anyone can be a researcher. That’s right. There is no background or any specialty necessary to participate in Zooniverse. This is a unique aspect as users can contribute their own research from the comfort of their own home on their own time. This main body of researchers is comprised of many men and a surprising amount of women contributors. Source: https://www.zooniverse.org/

Intro to Understanding Wikipedia’s Gender Gap By: Jacob Chan Image: Wikimedia Commons For this week’s iteration, the beginning of the week covered an interesting topic: the wikipedia gender gap. At first I  had no knowledge of what or where this was going but after further research and reading I learned more about it. Long story short, it refers to is the lack of female editors in Wikipedia, however the bigger picture is something to take note of. Wikipedia in itself is a method in which a large encyclopedia can be edited by anyone and is not controlled by one sole entity. It can be described as a playground of sorts where anyone can lay check and balance on information placed on the popular search website. This in theory is an ideal means of keeping up to date information on the website which keeps its relevance and fills the demand for current information on nearly anything. Where the theory comes to a grinding halt is that the public check and balance system does not

“Save the Tree Octopus” Image: Wikimedia Commons This week we covered the effects of the spreading of misinformation, disinformation, fake news, and bullshit. The Tree Octopus reading was created with the intent of demonstrating the spreading of content from user to user. In the article it described a tree-inhabiting octopus and surrounded its fictitious existence with a few real octopus facts. Although the “tree octopus” is not a real thing, the author sprinkled some facts and edited pictures to fool readers into sharing the content. The point of the article although satirical, was to see if the “consumer” or reader would possess the ability to digest information with sound and informed judgement. Misinformation, Disinformation, Fake News, or Bullshit? Answer: A little bit of everything! What the author did here was an artfully done precursor to the Onion. This article was a masterpiece of integrating all four descriptions in the reading. Now the question is