Christian Zavisca

On the Frontline documentary "Digital Nation"

My latest paper for COMM 601 Social Networking:

Disconnect

In March 2009 I went on a service trip to Tobati, Paraguay, in central South America. For nearly two weeks, we worked on projects such as building schools and medical facilities, distributing clothing and other items to people in need, and interacting with civic leaders, educators, and all sorts of folks.

What we, 20 American chaperones and 100 American high school students, didn’t have were smartphones or high-speed Internet connections. There was one Internet café in Tobati that offered a super-slow dialup connection (for a dollar a half-hour). In Paraguay’s capital city of Asuncion, we had access to a better-connected Internet kiosk, but nothing close to the speed of your typical Comcast broadband link in the United States.

On three occasions I used those Internet connections to check e-mail and read a bit of news. I wasn’t connected to the World Wide Web as I usually am, and I curiously found that I didn’t miss it a whole lot.

Constant pulse

I thought about my time on that trip as we watched the Frontline documentary “Digital Nation,” which explored a number of topics related to how we use technology today, and what exactly the rampant multitasking, Web surfing, texting, and video watching and recording that up-and-coming generations favor is causing them (and older people, too) to gain and lose in terms of learning, development, and focus.

The documentary was very interesting, and entertaining, but I think it tried to cover too much. It lacked depth. We got a lot of sound bites and frankly alarmist perspectives (particularly on segments covering secondary and higher education, the military, and at the South Korean Internet “detox” camp), without the sort of back-and-forth arguments that might have put those segments into better perspective. Those interviewed for the documentary make declarative statements, opinions really, that were just sort of allowed to dangle. I found this most prominent in the comments on how students today are missing out by focusing so much on digital communication.

But wait: There’s more

Fortunately, the Frontline Web site offers much more nuance than the documentary itself did. I found a “roundtable” bulletin board-style discussion of the participants to be particularly useful. In that discussion, James Paul Gee, a professor of literacy studies at Arizona State University and author of “What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy,” described a blind spot in the documentary that I noticed as well:

“There is also an important issue missed by the show and that is the question of how people from different social and economic groups use and benefit (or not) from digital media,” Gee writes. “I guess it is not surprising that American TV does not much deal with class issues, but there is little doubt that digital media are leveraged by some families to great benefit for their children in school as part of a larger learning and literacy ecology that includes digital media and print. Other families use digital media in quite different ways. Indeed, there are many different uses with many different outcomes — my simple dichotomy really will not do, but it raises the issue of equity and outcomes for diverse people in our society (and, indeed, world).”

That’s an accurate criticism and points out a huge issue that goes largely unaddressed in the documentary (we never see the homes of the students at the tech-heavy New York school profiled, for example). Socioeconomic status affects a young person’s access to technology in the home and at school. And that brings to mind my trip to impoverished South America, and how that digital divide is felt in places that don’t have easy access to the Internet.

Links

Frontline “Digital Nation” site.

My knoxnews.com story on trip to Tobati, Paraguay.

JoeBlog review: I wrote a paper

This is actually the second paper I've written for my Social Networking class. We were tasked with reviewing a blog that we don't regularly read. Submitted for your perusal:

JoeBlog

Whenever I come across something written by Joe Posnanski in Sports Illustrated or the Kansas City Star, I always say to myself, “I need to check out more of his stuff.” And for some reason I never get around to it. That’s why I picked his blog to review. I know that he’s a good writer, but I’ve never read his blog, and yet I’ve heard that it is well-constructed and very popular.

It is indeed quite popular. He doesn’t post every day, but he does update several times a week (at http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/). The comments on his posts are always at least in double-digits, and frequently number well more than 100.

The good

JoeBlog is strongly written. Posnanski is inventive, often very funny, and articulates his thoughts and positions well. He’s a sportswriter, and so most of his posts are about sports, mainly baseball. His recent entries include a comparison of the steroid-linked admissions and apologies of Alex Rodriguez and Mark McGwire, an explanation of his voting in the recent Baseball Hall of Fame election, a discourse on Brett Favre’s critical interception in the NFC championship game, and an evisceration of Carlton Fisk’s recent comments on performance-enhancing drugs, comments that mangled several sets of statistics.

Posnanski writes: “So, the point he wants to make is based on entirely faulty information. Whatever. I guess the thing I wish is that old ballplayers — especially great old ballplayers like Fisk — would look a little bit deeper rather than falling into the ‘In my day, we had to walk uphill through the snow’ act. Can’t we have a conversation? Can’t we talk about this without constantly expressing our own moral superiority?”

He also gets away from sports and writes about his family and other subjects, most entertainingly in an occasional, riotously funny series on “infocos” — infomercials.
Design-wise, the blog is clear and simple, which I like, with a plain white background. It even includes a brief glossary.

The not-as-good

JoeBlog’s posts are occasionally a bit long and drawn out, which is by design (its subtitle is “Curiously Long Posts”) but can cause reader fatigue on occasion. The comments are plentiful, but don’t always contribute a lot, and since they’re not threaded it can be easy to lose track of who is saying what to whom when the number of comments runs into the hundreds.

But on balance, it’s a fine blog-reading experience. Joe should be proud.

Links:
Posnanski on Carlton Fisk’s comments: http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/01/19/iron-fisk/
JoeBlog glossary: http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/glossary/
The Latest in Infocos: http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/01/21/the-latest-in-infocos/

I just bought an iPad

Not really. I have been following the post-announcement hype, though, and it's pretty interesting.

Gizmodo is all over it, of course.

Since I do a fair amount of freelance work that requires a remote Internet connection and the need to compose quick dispatches, this might be something in my future, but with the base price, 3G add-on, extra $ for the plug-in keyboard and so forth, it might be in the distant future — too expensive for now, looks like.

Office Space(s)

I like photos and stories about work spaces, like this look at Gawker Media's New York offices.

Here's where I work. Not quite as steampunk as Gawker.

Yes, I'm YouTubing

I've gotten into the video thing a bit with my new iPhone, which seems to have a decent recorder. I've got three videos posted on YouTube, two of them from just after Notre Dame's football victory over Washington on Saturday.

Living without cable TV

Ever since I moved up North, I've been cable TV-free. Now, that's only one week, and much of that time's been spent unpacking, buying stuff for my new place, and getting acquainted with my new job.

But I think I'll stick with the zero-cable program for a bit. No more HD, no more digital cable, no more DVR.

I've got 13 low-def channels. Not the 13 I'd pick (Headline News? Ugh!), but that's OK. I can catch a Sunday NFL game or two in real time (no DVR), stumble upon a show (I caught the first 10 minutes of an episode of "Glee" and found it surprisingly funny, but then I got a phone call), and otherwise live the antiquated life of our TV-watching forefathers and mothers.

I'm not a huge TV watcher anyway. My tube vices are "The Office," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," sports (football, hoops, baseball, soccer), and "Law and Order."

"The Office," for one, is available online. And if there's a game I'm dying to watch, I can always find a sports bar or mooch off of one of my friends (or my parents, an hour away).

And I've still got Netflix. I mean, I'm not a complete monk.

Paying for the news — or not

Hey news consumer, can you spare a dime?

That's what newspaper editors quoted in this Editor and Publisher story are asking.

As newspapers scramble to decide how best to increase revenue online, editors are desperately trying to figure out what content to charge for, while still keeping print viable and their Web numbers up.

Most newsroom leaders who spoke with E&P said no decisions have been made but admit they welcome a paid approach to online, noting that readers seem to be willing to pay for Web content that is useful, exclusive and/or in-depth. In each region, however, the definition of marketable content varies. Some editors believe everything is chargeable. Others point at sports, or find blogs and analysis the most sellable.

It's an interesting story, and explores difficult questions.

I am, of course, without answers, but I'm watching the debate with interest.

As a career newspaperperson until very recently, I've been pondering my role as a news consumer. I was surfing the Web site of my former employer, the Knoxville News Sentinel, via my phone while having lunch at Valparaiso University's Harre Union just today.

Would I pay a small amount of money to gain access to currently free knoxnews.com content if it was entirely behind a paywall? I'm pretty sure I would, both to support the good folks at the KNS and because I'm genuinely interested in Knoxville news, though I no longer live there and don't have family or deep roots in the Southeast.

But would I pay more than a little? And how much would be the dealbreaking point? And what if the pay process was unwieldy or annoying? Would I just bail?

And there are more questions on the flip side. OK, so newspapers keep content free. How would the News Sentinel target advertising to me? Does it need to? Am I a valuable piece of the online readership puzzle in terms of my utility to advertisers?

In the Editor and Publisher story, several news execs seem to favor a tiered approach: some stuff free, more specialized or unusual or useful content behind a paywall. But where's the right balance? What should be free? And, most importantly, will consumers pay?

Steve Dahl, Phil Rosenthal, and Chicago

I grew up in South Bend, Ind., on the fringes of the Chicago media market. And I worked as a sports writer and news editor in Michigan City, Ind., which is about 40 minutes from The Loop.

When I think of Chicago, I think of three guys: Steve Dahl, Phil Rosenthal, and Roger Ebert. Steve, a radio icon, has been off the air for many months. I'm very much looking forward to his return. His podcast is set to launch today.

And I am looking forward to moving back to the Midwest.

I'm wishing Steve all the best, and I'm excited to move back to northern Indiana.

Notre Dame football goes 12-1, disappoints fans

In my inaugural season of "NCAA 10," I was cruising to a national championship, driving Notre Dame to a 9-0 record, when all of a sudden the train got derailed by Pitt, 42-38. I thought we might win it all. Despite the loss, the Irish went on to finish 11-1 to end the regular season, and trounced Cincinnati 38-13 in the Fiesta Bowl.

I'm sure many virtual fans were quite happy, while an equal number were wondering why exactly we didn't win the national championship.

To that, I reply: There's always next year.

No Facebook for Bill Gates

The Microsoft mega-titan says that he's quit Facebook because he ended up with "10,000 people wanting to be my friends."

Whole story via Yahoo.

And good for him, I say to this quote: "I read a lot and some of that reading is not on a computer."

Contrast that with Apple's Steve Jobs, who famously told the New York Times, when talking about the Amazon Kindle: “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”