Portfolio Assignment #9

This week's guest lectures were interesting but some of the topics kinda flew over my head. Both the lecture Feeling Fails — Mediated Sentiment and Social Change and the readings provided alongside it covered concepts that I just could not get fully invested in. I understood the core ideas presented in the lecture and how social media is used as a tool that “affects” people in a range of different ways, some negative and some positive. When it came to parts of the lecture, I feel that my lack of knowledge about Psychology/Philosophy made some of the slides feel a bit too overwhelming and left me having to play them back a few times to fully understand them. I personally agree with the fact that social media can impact people in a variety of ways the lecture described. A post does not need to be a work of art for it to incite some kind of psychological response, I have seen people be brought to tears over a single picture just as much as I have seen them cry after watching a movie. The concepts talked about in this lecture very much relate to the relationship between society and digital media. The way digital media has an “affect” on people has sparked real change in society, we have seen how viral post have brought people together to either bring awareness to movements like #MeToo. Digital media has just started to show how much it can impact society and it will continue to “affect” us for decades to come in new and innovative ways.

The other guest lecture on privacy in the digital age at least to me did not really teach me anything new but rather just solidified my ideas and beliefs on the subject. The charts that were provided on the way Americans viewed privacy fell right in line with what I have personally seen throughout my life. For example, the chart shows that 53% of adults say that they are not at all confident that their information is safe with online advertisers, which is something that I also agree with. The purpose of online advertisers is to harvest as much of your data as they can so they can sell to other advertisers and platforms, so people should not be confident that their data is safe with them. The last slide of the lecture also brings up some great points as it discusses how big companies get access to your data in the first place. The slide points out that tech companies bury their privacy policies under hard to understand language which leaves people without knowing what they are complying with. Digital media and privacy go hand in hand but sadly most forms of digital media are used to breach people’s privacy. For example, all social media in one way or another harvests user data and sells it to advertisers or uses it to push you more content. I feel that eventually, the term privacy will not be able to exist within digital media.

This week’s topics relate to my case study in some interesting ways. Even though I could not fully grasp all the ideas talked about within the Feeling Fails lecture, the concept of digital media and how it affects people does relate to the streaming world. Sites like Netflix are starting to become more and more like social media platforms and thus they have started to clearly affect people both in negative and positive ways. Shows like Stranger things, 13 reasons why, and many others have proven themselves to bring people together to talk about important issues. I remember when I was in high school and the first season of 13 reasons came out, people were shocked about the issues the series covered but it led to serious discussions on issues like suicide and bullying. The other lecture on privacy in the digital age relates to streaming in a more obvious way. Streaming platforms like most online platforms collect user data for their benefit. Netflix alone has spent millions upon millions in creating algorithms that harvest your viewing data and converts that into recommendations. The more data streaming platforms gather the more people spend watching and thus the more money they earn. To sites like Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube it makes more sense to invade your privacy than protect it.