August 10, 2022

Hello all! I can not believe it’s already the first journal of EMC. Summer is going by so fast, I’m getting excited. I’ve been looking forward to Junior year; I finally get to take some classes I’m really interested in. It’s still Summer though, so let's enjoy that first.

During the summer, I’ve spent a lot of time on vacation. It’s been a bit hectic because I normally don't do too much when I’m not in school. I spend a lot of time passively listening to music, reading, writing, and playing instruments. I’ve recently started reading Chronicles of Dissent by Noam Chomsky, which I am finding incredibly interesting. I also, of course, spend quite a bit of my time practicing my language skills.

My hobbies tend to lie in the arts. I love playing my guitar and piano. I spend a lot of time drawing, and I’ve even done some crafts before like crochet or sewing. Despite this, I’ve recently picked up an interest in HTML and CSS. I’d like to make a personal website someday, and I’ve already started experimenting with different things you can do with HTML and CSS.

I may not look it at first (or maybe I do, I don’t know) but I am extremely interested in political science. I actually picked up this interest during the 2020 election due to how tense and stressful it was. I began to read more and more theory, and now it’s rare if I go a day without at least thinking about politics in some form. I would like to major in political science in college, but I’m torn between political science and linguistics. Both interest me a lot, and it’s honestly just whichever I like more.

August 17th, 2022

Hello! Apologies for the lateness of this assignment. Things have been chaotic and long story short I am drafting this in the notes app of my grandparents Ipad. 

School is staring soon, so lets start thinking about that. I like school. I like learning new things, and considering I’m a desperate extrovert, I need to be around people. I tend to have an unhealthy relationship with grades though. Each year I tend to start out really strong and then drop in the 3rd quarter. Around 3rd quarter is when I get burnt out. When my grades drop from this, it creates a positive feedback loop of stress from low grades and low grades from stress.

I do not have a favorite memory in school because I don’t always remember what has happened in school. Nothing I find particularly exciting has happened in high school, and I can’t remember much before 7th grade (if anything at all). I tend to forget very stressful times, and so far, both of my years of high school have stressed me out more than I would have liked to believe. I’m hoping this year isn’t like that.

I was going to say I am motivated by two things, but these things both boil down to one thing: anxiety. While I enjoy learning, school is not always teaching what I want to learn. So, my strategy for getting things done is to fuel myself off my fear of failing the school year. This has threatened me a lot since I was a kid, and I’ve always been scared of having to repeat a year. I really do need to find better ways of motivation because doing assignments out of fear never produces the highest quality.

I hate classwork. Sounds weird right? I hate classwork more than homework. I can do homework on my own time, when I want to do it and when I wasn’t super tired. Classwork I have 80 minutes tops (usually less) to complete. In geometry last year, I nearly always had to stress about classwork because the class was at the end of the day. I never do well in my last class of the day.

EMC was sort of an impulse for me. I saw it once, got interested, and immediately signed up without thinking about how many other classes I am taking this year. That being said, it’s definitely one I’m most excited about. I like learning what I like to learn, and EMC lets me do that. I first heard of it from my friend Karsen who was studying Chinese. They said that it was fun, and I should give it a try, so I did. I’m excited for this out of everything.

August 24th, 2022

I had a bit of struggle figuring out my topic for this year. When I first made my EMC site, I was on vacation and bored, with my only entertainment being Duolingo. My original topic was going to be constructing a conlang, but I lost interest in that very quickly. However one thing I can never seem to lose interest in is politics. I could talk and read about politics all day. In fact, sometimes I do. 

Combining my interest of linguistics with my interest in politics, I became very interested in the way language is used is propaganda. Language is one of the biggest factors in how effective propaganda can be. I think researching this can be a way to benefit myself and think critically about the media I am consuming. Nearly everyone is exposed to propaganda, but it helps to be able to identify it. 

This is something I am decently new at researching specifically. Sure, I know what propaganda is and how it has historically been used, but I lack knowledge on just why it worked. I know that it is used almost everywhere, but I do not know the best ways to identify it.

So this builds grounds for me to start. The three biggest questions floating in my mind are:

• How far back does the use of propaganda go?

• Is use of propaganda a sign of an authoritarian state or a normal part of the existence of a government?

• And most of all, how can I avoid bringing my own personal biases into my research?

September 14th, 2022

I am looking to investigate propaganda.

I think I know that propaganda is not exclusive to any type of ideology or governmental system, but is used everywhere. I think I have been able to identify propaganda in other countries as well as our own, but I also think a lot of people do not know how to properly identify propaganda, especially within their own country. I think propaganda takes advantage of human psychology and manipulates the way people think in order to make more people believe what the desired belief is.

I know I know that propaganda is a biased piece of information, in order to alter the way people think (Cambridge). I know propaganda has been used throughout history in many different countries and contexts (American Historical Association).

September 21st, 2022

• I don’t know how far back the usage of propaganda goes.

• I don’t know if suppression is part of propaganda, or its own thing.

• I don’t know when the usage of the word propaganda began.

• I don’t know the common identifiers of propaganda.

• I don’t know if diction affects the way propaganda is seen.

• I don’t know if it’s difficult for people to identify propaganda within their own party or country.

  • Going off this, if it is, I don’t know why it’s difficult to identify when it’s from your own country or party.

• I don’t know if those who produce propaganda are aware of it.

• I don’t know who uses propaganda the most, or if it’s relatively even between all parties or political groups.

• I don’t know the media propaganda is spread through.

• I don’t know how to identify propaganda when you agree with it.

Out of this list, I definitely need to know exactly how propaganda is spread. Knowing the places we can see propaganda in the major step in identifying just what propaganda is. Without an understanding of where propaganda can be found, there’s no way to distinguish between it and reality, and therefore, it’s impossible to research. On another note, it would be important to know how frequently we are exposed to propaganda each day. How often we are exposed to it will provide a framework for future research on what it is.

September 28th, 2022

In order to fully understand propaganda, we need to know where to look, and what to look for. Fortunately, it’s not too hard to figure out where to look. Propaganda can come in almost any media (Norwich). Whether you’re watching TV or reading a book, listening to your favorite song or podcast, there’s a chance that it could be propaganda. Of course, not all media you consume is trying to mind control you into submitting to an Orwellian dystopia, there’s no thought police, we can exercise critical thinking.

Well, what a conundrum. Since it’s pretty much impossible to avoid the possibility of propaganda, we need to know what to look for. There’s a lot of techniques and devices used to perpetuate false information (SMU). Two that I thought would be very effective are assertion and buzz. 

Assertion is the statement of something untrue as if it were. Often times, it’s repeated multiple times, in order to have a larger effect. Assertion is effective for two reasons. The first being that people are unlikely to check the information they are being given, and will believe it without thought. The second is more about the way we think about things. When we hear something, especially repeated, we tend to think of it as truth. Presenting a lie as a fact over and over may make more people believe it.

Buzz is a particularly interesting means of propaganda. When you create excitement among people, you’re creating a buzz. And what comes out of a buzz? Free advertising! No need to spend tons of money on a campaign, when the population is doing it for you. As long as you can gain the trust of people (perhaps through assertion), you can spread your ideology naturally, without all the effort it takes to manipulate a massive audience.

I’m finding that a lot of my questions have been easily answered so far. This may mean that I need to dig a little deeper than the surface questions I’ve been answering so far.

SDA #1 Reflection

I honestly thought my first SDA was fun. I’m very proud of what I created. I think I could have spent a bit more time on my SDA than I did, maybe even 30 minutes or so more. I tend to get distracted a lot when doing my assignments, which cuts into the time I plan to work. Maybe for the next SDA, I can plan ahead and carve out a bit more time than I would logically need to work.

I chose a PSA for this SDA. When I saw the PSA option on our list of possible formats, it reminded me of a project I had done in 7th grade, where we made a PSA. That project itself wasn’t directly related to propaganda, but we did have long discussions on propaganda in class that year. I really thought that having my first SDA be something I’m already experienced with might make it more of a solid project. In the future, I’ll try new things, but for this SDA, I played it safe.

If I could change anything, it would be some minor things about the script, as well as adding more sources. Though I liked the script, and really liked the outcome, I wasn’t happy with the way some parts of it sounded with my voice, but I didn’t plan ahead enough to have someone else voice those lines. As for sources, it’s always important to have them. You can never have too many sources.

SPECS was very useful to me. I definitely could have elaborated on it a bit more than I did in the project, but I think in the future, it will definitely be a useful guideline for critical thinking.

Along with SPECS, defining what I need to know vs what I know and think I know was useful. I was surprised to find out how little I knew about propaganda as a general topic. Sure, I knew what it was, but beyond that, I really didn’t know much, and even that was blurry. What I thought I knew was even a relatively small pool of information, which was hard to find sources on.

The directions for the assignment were clear, yet loose enough as to not be restrictive. I’ve had some classes where projects are extremely rigid, with no room for creativity. I feel like I’ve learned less from those projects than my first SDA. However, I think what was hard was figuring out how to properly implement all aspects of the project into what I was creating. 

Overall I’m very proud of my first SDA. It was fun, and I’m looking forward to our next one.

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Is propaganda subjective?

I was originally going to choose historical usage of propaganda as my next question, but ever since being reminded of bias, this has been a burning question in my mind. I now know what propaganda is and how it can be identified, but I do not know how it’s perceived by people. Could person A see information as propaganda, but person B sees it as fact? Does that mean person B has fallen victim to propaganda? Propaganda as a topic itself is very vague, but I’m wondering if this vagueness has concrete boundaries, or if it’s a fluid entity. 

October 26th, 2022

Before I started my research, I came up with a framework of what I’d like to research throughout the year and in what order. I have henceforth decided to throw half of that away, and focus on things that pique my interest as I go. I’ve already learned what propaganda is, and the ways it can be used. Originally, after this, I had planned to research the history of propaganda. However, after my SDA, my coordinator reminded me of bias. The question plaguing my mind is “To what extent is propaganda subjective.”

Along with this, I’ve come up with three sub-questions: 

• Is there anything about propaganda that isn’t subjective?

• What is the difference between wanting others to support your opinion and spreading propaganda?

• Is propaganda always intentional?

I chose these specific-questions because I feel that they will help me answer my question. If propaganda is subjective, then that fuzziness makes things difficult to define. It would be helpful to know what things are concrete so I can leverage them to further identify propaganda. Opinions are powerful. We want people to agree with us. What separates perpetuating propaganda from an attempt to get someone to agree with you? The last question I’ve looked at is whether propaganda is intentional. It logically should be, but I notice devices of propaganda used in the media when I’m sure that’s not the intention. What’s going on with this?

November 2nd, 2022

My need to know question is “To what extent is propaganda subjective.” I believe this question perfectly falls under Analysis. My question aims to analyze the ways that propaganda can be subjective vs what is objective. The overarching theme of my questions should be analyzing, however my sub questions fall into their own categories.

• “Is there anything about propaganda that isn’t subjective?” Falls under knowledge. It’s a yes or no question that also has answers as to what specifically is objective. This question shouldn’t be too terribly difficult to answer.

• “What is the difference between wanting others to support your opinion and spreading propaganda?” seems like another analysis question. I would have to analyze what is different between these things.

• “Is propaganda always intentional?” Yet another knowledge question. It’s something that is attainable without too much thought. 

My need to know is the same. I like starting my questions with “To what extent” thanks to my AP lang teacher. My sub questions haven’t changed either. I’ve thought a lot about rephrasing them, but I think they’re currently only able to be answered in the form they’re being asked. 

To drive forward my need to know, I want to figure out the difference between opinion sharing and propaganda. I think this will end up feeding into my third question as well, or maybe even answering it. 

Resources to be used:

Silva, John. “Distinguishing among News, Opinion and Propaganda.” News Literacy Project, 14 July 2019, https://newslit.org/educators/civic-blog/distinguishing-among-news-opinion-and-propaganda/. 

November 9th, 2022

As we have established, my need to know question is “To what extent is propaganda subjective,” while my most important sub question is, “What is the difference between opinion and propaganda.” I chose my need to know from a little itch in my brain that wanted this question to be answered. Sometimes, there’s questions that you really just have to answer for your own sake. Not only this, but I feel like it’s an essential question that defines the line between propaganda and opinionated material. My sub question was chosen due to it likely answering other sub questions I had thought of. If I know the difference between opinion and propaganda, I can answer whether propaganda is always intentional, and if there’s anything about propaganda that isn’t subjective.

Personally, this question matters to me because I’m extremely concerned with politics. To specify even more, I’m extremely concerned about propaganda and its usage in day to day life. Providing myself with a more concrete framework of what is and isn’t propaganda is especially helpful in the long run. The sources I chose seemed the most reliable out of any others, and provided me with a good explanation of my target questions. Information on propaganda is especially hard to find, so I think my sources were reliable and useful.

For this SDA, I hope to provide more information for my audience. This means that my ideas are likely less creativity based than my previous SDA. I’m thinking about doing a slideshow or a hyperdoc. These will offer a lot more in depth information about opinion vs propaganda. While looking for sources, I found an article from Purdue on source evaluation. It provides an example of fact, opinion, and propaganda. It states that the difference between opinion and propaganda is that propaganda uses factual evidence in incorrect ways in order to tug at the audience’s fears, while an opinion does not. In my SDA, this is definitely something that will have to be looked into further.

Citations:

Silva, John. “Distinguishing among News, Opinion and Propaganda.” News Literacy Project, 14 July 2019, https://newslit.org/educators/civic-blog/distinguishing-among-news-opinion-and-propaganda/.      

“Evaluating Sources: General Guidelines.” General Guidelines - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/conducting_research/evaluating_sources_of_information/general_guidelines.html.

SDA #2 reflection

After this SDA, I have very mixed feelings about it. Though, I think most people tend to dislike a project to some extent after finishing it. I really struggled with some aspects of this project, especially the “So What?” section that I included. I intentionally tried to challenge myself with SPECS. It was much harder this time around than I had anticipated. I think if I had mentioned why it was important sooner, I would have had a much stronger argument to go off of. 

I was more organized with this SDA rather than my first. I began to work on it quite a few days before it was due, and dip in and out of working on it. This was much less stressful. My time management was very good, my attention management could use some work. I’ve been working on my attention skills for years though, and I’ve done my best to correct things not entirely within my control. 

I’m hitting at least a few of the five C’s. I’m definitely hitting creativity and curiosity. Communication needs some improvement, in my opinion, but it’s not entirely missed. Critical thinking is one I’m struggling with. However, it’s a skill that needs refinement. It doesn’t develop overnight. The more I work on it, the better I will get.

I learned a lot from this assignment. The most important thing I learned was the difference between misinformation and disinformation, and even the definition of malinformation. These are important definitions to know in the context of propaganda. I’m glad that I learned about them when I did. I honestly found the most vital sources to be real pieces of propaganda. It’s one thing to know what it looks like, it's an entirely different thing to identify it and see the mechanisms in use. 

To be entirely honest, even despite the work I put into the content of this project, I’m most proud of the design. I think it’s visually appealing, and people would want to look at it. It’s much better than the hyperdocs my sixth grade global history teacher gave me (no offense to her, she was a very fun teacher.) However, I do think I could improve content-wise. I would like to create SDAs that have more information so I can use them as resources in the future. This month’s information can definitely be put into practice with real pieces of propaganda.

As for the HOTQs, I think they were helpful to an extent. Looking at their format helped me formulate a good question. However, I really like the question starter of “To what extent…” It's effective at getting a question going without a simple yes or no answer.

Overall, I learned a lot from this SDA.

December 13th, 2022

• I’ve noticed there’s a big problem with the spread of misinformation over twitter. I’d like to look into the misinformation spread about current or recent events.

Twitter is the 3rd most popular social media platform. There are 237 million people active on twitter daily. 237 million people who are exposed to misinformation, that they will then spread. There's no doubt that misinformation on social media is a huge problem. It affects everyone, as what is spread on social media can eventually make its way offline.

I found a study (Link) done on the misinformation spread on twitter that sparked my interest in examining twitter specifically. It looked at the amount of misinformation spread vs the amount of tweets fact checking this information. I found it to be very interesting, and an indicator of a problem on social media.

• To what extent does the first amendment protect propaganda?

Constitutionally, we are allowed to say what we want with no legal repercussions. However, would this allow anyone to intentionally manipulate the democratic process without any action taken? This problem would affect all Americans. If it’s constitutional for propaganda to be spread, what happens to democracy? 

Historically, there has never been a set approach to the concept of false speech (Link). This leaves a big hole in what we would do if these problems ever arose. 

My biggest weakness in EMC right now is definitely time management. Much of the time I spend one entire night researching for EMC, and then don’t do much for a few days. It’s something I need to work on in order to make my research as strong as it can be.

December 20th, 2022

In my last journal entry, I identified two problems within my topic. I personally like the first one. It’s specific, and narrow enough to not be a topic impossible to research, but still wide enough to provide some wiggle room. Plus, it’s something that affects a huge amount of people. I think investigating this problem will bring light to the amount of misinformation people may be consuming and agreeing with on a daily basis. Knowing this is important. It would allow us to infer the impact of misinformation, let alone disinformation, which is much harder to identify. I’ve altered the topic at hand into a HOTQ question: “Can you construct a model that would change the influence of misinformation on twitter?”

Over the break, I’m looking forward to sleep. A lot of sleep. I’m also looking forward to seeing some of my family. My biological mother, her wife, and my half and step siblings are coming up from Pennsylvania for Christmas. I don’t get to see them often, but they’re family members who are very important to me. I’m looking forward to seeing them. I’ll also admit I’m looking forward to Christmas. I just need to bake some cookies for Santa…

January 12th, 2023

The first article I’ve taken a look at was not difficult to find, but I still think it was a good resource. It was a study on the social media influence on those who participate in political demonstrations done by Shelley Boulianne and Sangwon Lee in September of 2022. I found this on the Gale communications and mass media database (Which I’m extremely glad exists.) It was not twitter specific, and in fact, didn’t really focus on twitter at all except for referencing a few other studies done on twitter vs facebook’s impact on who participates in what protests. However, I still think it was a good resource in general, as it provided some information on why digital media has become so integral to political movements, along with the spread of conspiracy and misinformation. 

This study, in short, concluded that newer social media platforms, specifically Twitch and TikTok triple the chances that someone on the right wing will participate in a political demonstration. It concludes the possibility that those on the right wing may be more mobilized by platforms such as TikTok and Twitch than those on the left, and that conspiracy beliefs are more influential for those on the right wing, while exposure to misinformation was more influential to those on the left wing. One of the most important (or at least interesting) findings was that while political knowledge increases political participation, so does exposure to misinformation. This specific issue affects the entire political spectrum, and is not limited just to one side.

While this doesn’t directly address the issue of misinformation on Twitter, it does provide some information on how misinformation itself affects people, as well as how digital media influences the political actions of an individual. This information will help me draw connections to other research down the line. The study itself seems incredibly useful to the field at large. It’s unique in that it separates the right and left wing, and demonstrates the differences between the motives of both sides of the spectrum. While it only directly looks at two specific social media platforms, it holds enough information for further connections to other research.

January 19th, 2023

Since my last post, I’ve moved away from the question I had before. I was extremely interested in social media's effect on political participation. Since most, if not all, social media has misinformation, looking at how social media impacts the way people participate in politics ties into my previous research. If I were to phrase my question now, it would be something along the lines of, “In what ways does social media impact the way people participate in politics?”

The second article I found looked specifically into the impact of social media on political participation. Once again, I found this article on the Gale Communications and Mass Media Database. It’s titled WhatsApp, Polarization, and Non-Conventional Political Participation: Chile and Colombia Before the Social Outbursts of 2019. and was written by Andres Scherman, a researcher at the Adolfo Ibáñez university in Chile. Andres Scherman specializes in studies related to social media and its impact on people. This article looked at several different platforms and their differing impact in relation to how they function, using data from political demonstrations that occurred in both Chile and Columbia in 2019. It concluded that Whatsapp, at least, in Chile and Columbia, had the biggest impact on political polarization and mobilization.

Last week's article focused mostly on misinformation and its effects on mobilizing political movements. This week’s article doesn’t focus on misinformation itself, and just on social media’s impact on these things. This doesn’t mean misinformation wasn’t a factor. The article itself explicitly talks about how platforms that focus on creating very tight-knit communities often lead to the creation of echo chambers. Echo chambers are often places with high amounts of misinformation, furthered by confirmation bias (GCFglobal). So misinformation is not completely left out of the picture here, but it’s certainly not a main focus of the article. It leaves room for connections with other research.

There are some limitations that come with researching social media itself. Humans are strange and do things you wouldn’t expect them to. It’s possible that some of these people were not truly influenced by social media at all, but that’s not really possible to know for sure. What is shown is that there is a correlation between participation in demonstrations and use of certain social media platforms. While we can’t know for sure that was the only cause, there are connections that can be drawn.

There were no solutions to this problem given in the article. This is likely because the article was not trying to solve the problem in the first place, it was simply trying to see if there were any correlations. It could even be said that the article was not researching a problem at all, and that it was simply trying to see if there was a connection between political participation and social media. That being said, this doesn’t mean that the creation of echo chambers and the spread of misinformation is not a problem; it very much is. Looking specifically at solutions to this problem (or maybe even coming up with them) is something that I’ll have to do in the future.

January 26th 2023

The third article I used was different from the last two. To start, I got it from a different database. Instead of the Gale Communications and Mass Media Database, I decided that it might give me a different perspective to look in the psychology database. This would look more into why misinformation spreads so fast. The search terms I’ve been using for the past two articles— Twitter and Misinformation— led me to a good article this time as well. 

The article I was led to is called (In all caps) I Found It On Facebook So It Must Be True: The Effects Of Misinformation Tags. It was written by Alexandra VanBlaricum, a research assistant at the University of Alabama. She has written a few articles about social media and its impact on people. It was published by The Law & Psychology Review, which was initially founded by law students at the University of Alabama to protect the rights of the mentally disabled (University of Alabama). Considering the author and the publisher are both law based, there are some parts of this article that reference law, which is useful knowledge, but not fully relevant to my current research. I’ll definitely be using the information later on. 

The problem this article addresses is misinformation tags. This was a new term I discovered while reading this article. A misinformation tag is a flag or notice that a social media platform puts on posts containing misinformation to alert users to the false information in the post. In shorter terms, a warning about misinformation. The article claims that misinformation tags may actually do more harm than good. To begin with, correct information may be misflagged as misinformation due to the algorithm slipping up. Not only this, but algorithms fuel confirmation bias. They give people more of what they want, and less of what they don’t. These misinformation tags are also counterintuitive, as they often get more interaction than posts that aren’t tagged. 

Despite these findings, what was most interesting was the psychological impact of these misinformation tags. People tend to argue directly against what they don’t believe, regardless of whether it is true or not. This is yet another new term I learned, called the Backfire effect. This could be part of why misinformation is retained. It doesn’t matter where it came from or how much misinformation is on twitter, because what matters more is people retaining and believing that information. By creating echo chambers full of confirmation bias, people who have fallen into them will hear and retain information, and are less likely to believe opposing information that challenges their perspective.

I do find fault with this article. It didn’t do its own study, but put together other studies into a conglomerate of information. Useful information, but not its own. Despite this flaw, I think it ties into my other research very well. First, I looked directly at misinformation, where it’s spread, and by who. Then, I looked at how people act in response to misinformation they’ve heard. To tie it all together, this article talks about how people refuse to change their beliefs, and one of the things leading to this. It’s not hard to see how this applies to real life, seeing as most people have social media in some form, meaning most people are exposed to misinformation, and are susceptible to misinformed, unswayable beliefs.

This problem is a tough one to solve. There will always be misinformation, and as we can see trying to drown out misinformation doesn’t work, so we can’t focus on getting rid of misinformation. I believe that changing algorithms to show differing opinions regularly, in a non-argumentative way can help people keep their minds open, and end the Backfire effect. Of course, this would be difficult to test, but it would be better than simply trying to drown out misinformation. This method would actually change the way people think about the information they’re receiving, and end the creation of echo chambers which love to harbor misinformation.

SDA Midterm Reflection

I’ve used databases and scholarly articles in the past, but it’s always been for my own personal research. I have a particular interest in ritual abuse and cult programming, which is not easy to find sources on, so I use databases to find information that I can’t find otherwise, and even this is sparse. I’ve never used a database in the context of a project before. At least, not a project like this. If I’m being honest, I don’t find reading scholarly articles much different than reading anything else. The format is a bit different, but I’ve never found it difficult to read. I’m sure if I was researching a different topic, it would be harder, but I didn’t find it too difficult. Due to this, limiting my resources to scholarly articles didn’t affect me too much, aside from maybe my sanity as they can be long.

If I’m being honest, finding the articles wasn’t hard at all. I tried looking at different keywords, but the ones I initially used always brought me to good articles. It took a bit of digging to find the ones that would be useful, but in the end, it was very easy to find what I was looking for. I guess what I learned is “go with your gut” in a sense. My initial thoughts of what to search up worked the best for me. My self doubt only led me to dead ends. This doesn’t mean “don’t dig deeper” it just means “don’t do what you don’t have to do.”

I did like the amount of new information presented in scholarly articles. Even if the article wasn’t useful for my research, it was still packed with useful information that I found interesting. I think that’s something I’ve always found interesting about reading scholarly articles.

The most challenging part of this SDA had nothing to do with the SDA at all. I made the mistake of burning myself out with doing all of the video aspects in one night so that I couldn’t extend the same energy to the second one. Yeah. I know. You should always dip in and out of your work, but I am a master procrastinator and I would rather burn myself out than do the work when I have to. Despite this I think I was successful in creating a model that would change the influence of misinformation on social media, not just twitter in general. Directly applying this is another thing, but the concept is there. I discussed it with multiple people who say it sounds reasonable enough. Curiosity was definitely my strongest of the 5 C’s through this, as while I was researching I was watching documentaries about my research topic. It got me really excited to actually do my research. I’m not sure how I’ll use my research next month, but I’m sure it’ll be fun.

I’ve been proud of my critical thinking. I tend to see myself as having a very basic line of thinking, even if it’s not. I’ve started to stop comparing my level of thinking to other peoples. I’m learning, and mistakes happen, it’s okay. I’m not sure what could guarantee my success. March tends to be pretty rough for me in general, but I don’t think anything could be done by my coordinators to help with that. I struggle with time management, but again, it’s up to me to fix it, not anyone else.

My essential question for this month is: Can you propose an alternative to social media algorithms?

March 2nd, 2023

Jennifer Manganello

Jennifer Manganello was the first person I thought of contacting. She focuses on health communications. This area of study will be especially useful in questions addressing COVID-19 and misinformation surrounding that. If I were to interview her, my essential question would likely change so as to fit her specific area of work.

Masahiro Yamamoto

Masahiro Yamamoto was someone I saw, and immediately thought would be a good candidate. His research interests include social media and political campaigns, which I thought may be good for returning to the topic of general propaganda, while also relating it to research I’ve already done.

Alyssa Morey

Alyssa Morey was one person I couldn’t find too much information about, but I decided she would be a good candidate for the interview. Her research interests included “mass media effects” which I believe will be great for my current research. 

I found all of these professionals by searching keywords like “Ualbany media professionals” on google. It took a little bit of search to find those who I felt would be good candidates for the interview. To contact them, I will be sending emails.

March 9th, 2023

My essential question has changed! It has now been altered to, “How are social media algorithms related to the spread of misinformation about COVID-19.” I changed my question for one reason: I’ve gotten a response!

I emailed all three candidates listed in the last post. One didn’t even go through, and one I did not receive a response from. However, professor Manganello emailed me back with interest in the interview. I plan to email back with more details setting up dates and times, as well as asking for consent to record. 

In order to actually create my podcast, I’ll probably use soundtrap. I’ve used it for podcasting before, and the format makes more sense to me than WeVideo for podcasts. I’ve listened to quite a few podcasts, but usually not informational ones like what I’ll be putting out. The podcasts I listen to are mainly story podcasts. Usually just like a TV show with no visual aspect. It’s a cool idea, but not really something I can implement into this project. I’m trying to inform, not create a cool story, as fun as it would be. For this reason I’ll be taking aspects from them, while changing the general premise. 

Things that may be important:

• Background sounds and music can be good, but don’t overdo it.

• Try to keep audio quality as good as possible.

• Include transitions to keep the listener interested.

Interview a Fellow EMCer

April 17th, 2023

I3. Now don’t worry, there isn’t some conspiracy the government has created to mind control you into doing their bidding, but the spread of propaganda online is a real concern. There’s no question that it’s happening. We all lived through covid, and we are all aware of misinformation that made the rounds online. Acknowledging it is the first step to reducing its spread and effects. I’ve spent this school year researching and studying propaganda and misinformation, especially on social media platforms.

I4. Tonight, you will learn what you can do to help minimize misinformation, and what you can’t.