Online Communities: What are They?

The rules of our game are still in flux and humanity is grappling with the implications of its perpetual high stakes social experiment. Communities are the lifeblood of… well life, and our new technologies are shaking things up as usual. While old and reliable, in person communities have spatial disadvantages that the internet seemingly ameliorates …

Civic knowledge in the US: Why is it Important?

https://sites.google.com/a/sdale.org/cjhs-brown/assignments Civics knowledge is one those ideas that seems important but is often disregarded. Why should the general public have an understanding of civics knowledge? The idea of knowing the inner workings of the country, while sung from the rooftops by social studies teachers is easily perceived as not practical enough for serious focus. Civic …

How to Hijack Algorithms

Algorithms control the way that we see media which impacts the way we see the world. The way that social media sites recommend us content might seem an overwhelming concept to try to understand. While it is true that there are many decisions that algorithms make we can’t understand, there is much that we can …

The Complicated War of Values and Media Literacy as a Bandage

Media literacy education conversations can feel deceptively simple. The idea of a societal increase in critical thinking and validity prioritizing sounds essential when you pair it up with the backdrop ocean of information that surrounds us now. The need to combat digital misinformation is treated like a moral issue in today’s society. Perhaps the skills …

Far Right Communities: a Deeper Dive

Human social activity has served our evolution from scavenger to king of the food chain in relatively lighting speed. Our great social power has, in the technological age has prompted us to expand it to more consistently achieving things greater than any one of us. There is, of course, hardly a better example of that …