The type of license that I want to apply to my blog is the “some rights reserved” type. I pick this type because I don’t want compensation for what I post, I am mainly just posting to one, achieving a good grade in this reading and writing class, and two, expanding my knowledge and expressing my opinion on the topics discussed.  I also want the freedom that comes with it; such as few restrictions on what I can write on my blog, but not really caring about the rights (me basically owning what I say), just as long as what I do write isn’t taken out of context.

Summary: There are three distinct modes of self-representation in digital media. The first being a written format, in which the person uses their own text or articles that they produce to represent themselves; such as a blog post or a diary. The second being a visual format, in which the person uses pictures/ a collection of pictures to represent themselves; such as a photo album or a post of the pictures to a social media platform. The third being a quantitative format, in which the person uses data that has been collected on themselves to represent themselves; such as showing people the amount of total steps you took or how far you drove. Self representation has always been a part of our culture. And sometimes we want to be seen as a person that we aren’t.

Main Ideas/ Terms: Technology is a means to see part of ourselves, it can reflect back to us a version of who we are. The data, filters, and social media platforms we use distort our in their own particular ways.

1.) Micro-celebrity: someone that is known amongst a community of people that they might never have been known by if it weren’t for the social media platforms.

2.) Filter blogs: they have a personal style, but the aim is to share materials and ideas that the blogger is interested in rather than telling the story of the bloggers life.

3.) Topic-driven blogs: they often mix posts about general research with topics that are clearly self-representational.

4.) Anonymous blogs: they may consist of nothing but captioned reaction gifs and won’t expose anything about the author’s identity, yet still express personal life experiences.

5.) Selfie: a picture that someone has taken of themselves, mainly while expressing a certain mood or attitude, and usually gets posted to social media.

Commentary: I thought that her perspective on self-representation was for the most part unbiased and controlled. She basically wrote a history book on the origin of how self representation came to be and how it has changed. What I mean by that is she wrote a lot about historical figures and cultures that used and developed advancing ways to represent yourself; such as starting out writing on different materials, to diaries, to photos of a person, to social media now. She used a lot of quotes from some of the more famous people that were involved in self representation. She also used a real world example of how criticism never truly goes away, with the Keller’s condemnation of Lisa Adams, a cancer victim and mom of three that posted on social media regularly.

My thoughts on this article are positive; I liked the format of it and the content of it. It was pretty informational and helpful in teaching us why and how to blog. It answered the question in depth and he gave many good points and information to back up what topics he was talking about. For example, when he was talking about his technical advice for building a blog, he gave us why you should do it and how you should go about doing each point of his advice. I think it really drove home the point of when you are a blogger, you get to have that creative freedom that many people are looking for when writing something online. It’s basically like the saying, “you are your own master” in a sense because it’s you who is writing what you want and not just writing about what other people want to see/hear, simply replying to another online user, or just doing it for a class assignment. Although you get to write about whatever you want to, you have to also take responsibility and be accountable for what you say online and be ready for negative comments because people that don’t like what you are blogging about, will say (type something in this case) how they feel on it due to the anonymity factor when they are online. I think blogging is a good way to engage in the act of writing, in a class anyway, without having the heavy restrictions of a paper that has a deadline. People can either just input their opinions without being too in depth or they can write as in-depth as they want to. I also understand why people would rather just write or type up a paper because it’s not confusing in that you just have to write about what is assigned and don’t have to be that creative, half of my body is in the boat and the other half is in the water on this one because I do like a definitive direction and path that comes with writing a paper, but I also want to be creative about what I write too. I believe that if you get to be creative about writing, you are more inclined to write more because you are writing about things that interest you and things that you find intriguing. In this article, he actually cites documented data that found that first year college students write 92 pages compared to the 146 pages that college seniors write (on average at least). I personally don’t mind writing; just that it’s not pages upon pages or if it’s not something I don’t find interesting. I tend to write a lot more, or at least take more notes than most people anyway because I feel like I have to get all of the information that I can from it so I can be prepared to write about it or talk about it (though I am a introvert and don’t like talking in front of a lot of people). In conclusion I think that blogging, just like everything else, is for a certain type of person, and not for other types of people.

Summary: A one sentence summary of the meaning of the article would be, “becoming good at anything worth becoming good at takes a lot of time.” But going deeper into the article; on a blog you get to control the subject matter, length, format, and due dates instead of not getting to really choose what to write and the format of it in a assignment in a writing class. Through blogging, you can discover motivations not only for writing on your blog but for writing in general, making it easier to put the words on your screen that come from these motivations. A blog can be an invaluable part of your time that you spend trying to reach a writing-based goal.

Main Ideas and Key Terms: 

• A blog gives you a lot more freedom of creation with the same input of other people.
• You can publish entries chronologically or you can also publish them by category, alphabetically, or by author.
• As a blogger, you are free to write whatever and whenever you like.

1. Exigency- an urgent need or demand.
2. Class-type Blog- The students and instructor post to a common blog on the course subject, students are often asked to post new material and comment on other blogs.
3. Individual Reading-type Blog- Asked to write specifically about the course topic, may write in response to readings or other assignments too.
4. Class Team-type Blog- Students work on group projects and are asked to keep a blog that updates the class on their activities.
5. Individual-type Blog- You have the greatest autonomy. The instructor might ask for a certain amount of posts and length, but the content is your decision.

Analysis: Although I do agree that blogging can bring on a lot more creativity and freedom, I think that without some guidelines and actual assignments, for most people it gets confusing in that they don’t really know what to write about. A good way to balance these ideas are to give students enough freedom to write in their own opinion on a certain subject or article/reading/other blogs. Just get the pot stirred, so to speak, I think that opinionated responses are the best ones because it sparks a conversation/arguments and it shows how different people react to different situations. On his technical advice on building a blog, I see it as helpful and useful, and probably will take it into consideration for building my own blog.

 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

For me setting up this blog wasn’t all that difficult, although I did have to ask a couple questions, them mostly being about post length, correct steps,  and correct format. I think that if I was more familiar with blogs, I probably could have done it a lot quicker and more correctly. Nothing frustrated me about setting it up. When it came to writing up the posts, I had to think a little bit because it was about a personal introduction, but not to the point of my head hurting.

Hi, my name is Dalton Breza and I am currently a freshman at RCTC being 18 years old. Back in June I graduated from Plainview-Elgin-Millville High School (PEM). I don’t really know what I will be majoring yet, but will figure it out in the future. Since I don’t know what I’m going for yet, I am temporarily majoring in Liberal Arts otherwise known as “generals.” This is my first time managing and reading a blog.