Unit 1 Reflection

From the unit 1 assignment, I feel that the sources that I chose accurately represent what I want to speak about as the units go on and this forms into a paper. I am choosing the focus my ideas on how technology has influenced and changed the way we communicate in society, how it has changed journalism and provided a second source called alternate journalism, and how social media has and is going to affect our generations and younger generations self image. I feel that the quality of the sources I have chosen are very good and well written. I have sources that range from news articles to scholarly articles with different facts, statistics, and study cases.


The first source that I have is From Pencils to Pixels by Dennis Baron, and I think it is a very in depth and good source about how not only technology has influenced writing, but also has influenced communication. Baron states that the advancements that were made with the computer make humanists mad, but other advancements of technology are technically the pencil and the printing press. Without the computer, where would we be in the processing of paperwork, submitting assignments and work in possible bulk, and also communication that is received in a literal nanosecond. I think the thing I found the most interesting was the fact that at first, handwriting was considered a crazy idea, and at first, did not even have a creative notion. This can also tie into how communication has changed from writing becoming more technology based.


The second source I have is How Social Media is a Toxic Mirror by Rachel Simmons. This article is about how social media is changing everyone's self image and causing depression because people can just edit away their imperfections. This article fits into the larger conversation of my topic because I am planning on writing about how communication, journalism, and self image is being affected by the ever changing ways of social media and straying away from face to face communication.


My third and fourth source both are along the same lines of journalism. The third source I have is Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr as Platforms of Alternative Journalism by Thomas Powell and Erik Borra, and the fourth source I have is The Impact of Technology on Journalism by John Pavlik. These articles are about how alternative journalism is helped by technology to allow our generation and the masses of people that are being discriminated against have a voice when the news is not covering anything that is happening to them. It allows people to share their individual experiences on a platform that can be shared and added to in order to build a movement. This ties into the larger conversation about how journalism is changing and that social media is becoming a larger platform for news to be expressed instead of selfies just being taken.


I used technology to enhance my product by using different search engines such as EBSCO database and Google search. I have numerous pictures on my blogs that I have found on the internet and pictures that I took on my phone and uploaded to my blog. The blog is the medium that I have used to convey my work, and I like using it. It keeps all of my posts in one place, and I can see and edit them if I find something I like better or want to use. The blog has a nice background, and is very organized so I can tell what is what and where it is, according to the date that I have submitted it.


The quality of my sources and what I want to discuss in my paper correlate completely. It is found on the basis that the ways we communicate in society are ever changing because of the different forms of communication that we have. Instant messaging, facetime, texting, and direct messaging are all taking the place of different forms of writing and communication. The alternate journalism is one very good thing I think comes out of technological advancements and social media because it's an even playing field for people to get their thoughts and experiences to be heard around the world. Social media has its positives, but also has its negatives because it is teaching our generation and the younger ones as well that they can change and hide their imperfections online, but have to have them in real life. The one “hole” that I found while trying to research is that it is hard to find statistics on many of these things, because all these advancements are still fairly new in society, especially the rising of different social media facets.

I think I can see myself using all of these sources. They fit very well into the topic that I am planning on discussing, and the topics that I have chosen are very interesting to me.

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