Interviews

I interviewed my three people in different generations. My 18-35 person was a university student in Hawaii. Her main purpose of using the internet is e-mail and research. She finds it easy to contact researchers and other students in her various projects. Doing research online in her university library helps when she is in another country doing projects with other students from other countries. Its keeps her informed on any progress that is going on her research. In the other hand, she finds it a little occupying when she gets mounds of e-mail and research questions from other students. Its time consuming looking at each e-mail, but she manages to get through them. She occasionally shops online when she has no time to go out and shop.

The 31-61 person is my landlord. She is a mother of three that tries to balance work and her kids high school activities. She is a team mom for her son's high school basketball team, and two daughters volleyball teams. Being busy with her kids high school activities, she uses e-mail to coordinate team mom meetings. She also gets informed of changes to any team issues that deals with the mothers. Being a landlord, she gets information with work related issues from the main offices in Portland.

She orders supplies for the grounds crew to help maintain the apartment complex. In her real estate business she get numerous e-mails about homes that are posted in her website, she makes appointments through e-mail, and also sends messages to confirm meetings with potential buyers and sellers. She finds the internet as a source of business, she uses it to make contact to other people to help run the apartment correctly and help her real estate business in moving forward with clients.

My 61 and up person only uses the internet to use e-mail. Using e-mail to her is convenient to e-mail friends and family. She is just learning how to use the internet to shop on eBay. She explains that using the internet is still new to her. She finds that using the internet has helped her get in contact with friends and family faster than air-mail. She does not feel that the internet has changed her way of communicating with others. The internet to her is a means to make your self too busy. She loves the way how she lives, with limited use of the internet, but finds it easy to find quick meal tips at times.

Interviewing the three people, I found a common ground in all of them. The use of email is a huge part in keeping in contact with others. This channel of communication has been a huge part for the three people I have interviewed. Technology has made some strides in helping people connect with others around the world. I find the older person using the internet handy to use, but does not really rely on it as much as the other two people. Postman thinks through machinery we can achieve goals. This reminds us how much we use the internet to do our various activities and job assignments. We rely on machines to help us in our daily agenda, like the use of e-mail.

Internet Community

I joined a lowrider car forum earlier in the term. A lowrider is a car or truck which has had its suspension system modified (sometimes with hydraulic suspension) so that it rides as low to the ground as possible. Lowriders often have user controlled height adjustable suspension. I was raised in Los Angeles, so I was influenced by the style of lowriding. This is my first time joining a internet community forum. I found it to be a little difficult to navigate the different forums in the community, but some good practice I found it to be fairly easy to find my way around.

I posed as a student from Oregon State University. In the general forum area, I posted a thread asking for places in Oregon that specialize in lowriders. I also told them that I have a 1964 impala to be fixed into a lowrider. The following day, I received numerous replies about places to fix my car, tow companies that can move my car. The responses were helpful and informative about getting my car fixed. I found out that I was accepted when my thread was read by other members in the forum, also being invited to join car clubs in the state.
The lowrider community has given me a sense of belonging to there forum. I have been active with the community, and replying to other peoples post.

Wood and Smith talk about lurkers who give no feedback or contribution to the internet community. Being a member of the forum, I feel obligated to leave comments on other members posts to show a common respect to them. Being the newbie in the forum, I think its my duty to be active in the car forum. It shows others that I'm serious about cars and lowriders.I have also checked other threads in the forum. Many suggested their style of making a lowrider, I guess there is different ways of making a lowrider. Some members like the traditional way and others the newest technology to make a lowrider. Members would state their opinions and facts about the subject.

When there was a agreement of disagreement in the forum, many used some form of vulgar language to get their point out. In other cases some use emoticons to suggest to others how they feel. We can see the different ways people in internet communities communicate their feelings to others. It is just the same when your face to face to someone. Wood and Smith talks about netiquette in the internet. Many people don't have respect for others in the internet, but having the same standards in life such as respect can clear some disputes. The use of vulgar language is a prime example in the net. I think having good manners in the net can further a better relationship in the community. We need to remember that there are people in the internet that has feelings also.

Academic Research

My topic of research this week is pop culture. I think that many of us in this class can relate to some form of pop culture in our individual and social lives. I chose the topic, because of the information that is available in print and the Internet. The first place I looked was the Oregon State Library database. I knew that reliable information can be found at a credible university. I also tried organization web pages that dealt with pop culture to get some information as well.

Information is everywhere on the Internet, existing in large quantities and is always being created and revised. This information exists in a large variety of kind’s facts, opinions, stories, in statistics and is created for many purposes to inform, to persuade, to sell, to present a viewpoint, and to create or change an attitude or belief. For each of these various kinds and purposes, information exists on many levels of quality or reliability. It ranges from very good to very bad and includes every shade in between.

When evaluating your sources, I usually ask if I'm looking for facts, opinions, reviews, stats for my research. Thinking about what you’re looking for beforehand can speed up finding sources. When I look at potential information on the Internet, I look at the author's source of information. I would check the title of the author or organization that they belong to. Looking for a biography or past experiences about the author can give good insight in whether the information is truthful and correct. One important one that many tend to forget is a contact number or email. Contacting the author(s) can give you more feedback on their research you are looking for. I also think that if a source is in print and on the web that tells me that the work has been through peer review several times, such as journal articles.

Sometimes we forget that not all information from the Internet is credible. Some signs that I follow when looking around the Internet is the style and tone and writing which can give you a heads up. Another way of finding non-credible sources is the bad grammar and misspelled words. This is a huge given to be cautious about that information. I found that many information is not dated, which mean its inaccurate most of the time. These small problems or mistakes really helped me determine what’s credible in the Internet.I also think that search engines help in finding non-credible sources which many students take advantage of to speed up the research and time.

Being in a professor’s position, I would limit the search to journal articles and literature reviews from credible web sites and the university library. I would also take interviews which can help as well. Knowing that professors are loaded with work, I would not waste time in looking for sources that are not reliable. By limiting the search to a few can lighten the load for professors. This also gives the professor a certain web site page to search all of the information and citations, such as the university library database.

Postman talks about technology itself as a means of providing clear direction and information control. In this case many people assume they are providing clear information on the Internet which is not the case all the time. In my interpretation is that we are filled with all kinds of information, and many think it’s a reliable source to start a research paper. I think that having good sense of control of what you’re looking for can help enormously. I also think that institutions such as OSU have a good deal of control of information that is available to students and staff. I guess you can call it a reliable filter of information that is credible.


Maginnis, Robert L. "Parents want help fighting pop culture's influence." Headway 8.2 (Feb. 1996): 22



Browne, Ray B. "Pop Art and the Contest over American Culture by Sara Doris." Journal of American Culture 30.3 (Sep. 2007): 354-355.



Wilson, Robert N. "Pop Culture in America (Book)." American Sociological Review 36.4 (Aug. 1971): 766-767.

Old Skool Vs. New Skool

I had the chance this past week to write two different people whom have influenced my life. I was to write one letter by hand and the other by via e-mail. I decided to write my mom by hand, and my brother by email.

Being a mamma's boy, I had to write my mom by hand. It felt normal writing my mom in free-hand. I lived overseas for two years and I had tons of practice on how to ask for more money and snacks. I wrote mom and told her how I appreciate her hard work and being the backbone of the family since dad passed away. I received her letter this week and was happy to get a quick response. She told me how proud she was and that she missed writing to me, she also wanted me to focus on school and to be careful in Oregon. The letter from mom is always heart felt and sincere, mom's are worried about there kids even when their grown adults. After reading what she wrote, I realized how many of us rely on technology to keep in touch with people we care about. Many of us don't take time to write a heart felt letter to someone important. My mom has never had a email account and has never used a computer so she relies on postal mail and her land line phone to reach people. Writing a letter to mom was a huge given in this assignment. It seems that writing a letter is becoming a lost art, and getting a written letter makes it valuable to me even more.

As for my brother, I emailed him, thanking him for being a good brother to me. I also thanked him for watching over mom while I'm in school. Its was kind of difficult to say "I love you" to my brother. I needed to say it in a macho way like "Keep holding it down." I sent the email and I got a instant reply in within a couple of hours. He told me, I was getting "soft", but he thanked me for the email. We joke a lot online, so my brother kept it simple when responding to me. He didn't write a full page like my mom did, but it was enough to know he loved his big brother. Wood and Smith talked about hyperpersonal communication, when individuals are better able to express their feelings online. With my brother, I feel as if he was more comfortable showing his feelings to me online. He doesn't express his feelings a lot in public. I guess being online can help others show different feelings that they don't express out in the open. 

I couldn't imagine how technology can affect messages by electronic or hand written mail. Wood and Smith explained emoticons. I use them all time when emailing or texting friends. W & S explain that its close to the traditional nonverbal cues. It also serves as the same function as a face-to-face, as it provides a communicative information to the receiver. I have not noticed the use of emoticons, because i'm just accustomed to using them to get my point across to others online or texting. I used emoticons when writing my brother, but not to mom, she would not understand what i'm trying to convey to her. Its amazing to read how traditional nonverbal cues are being used online without notice.  It just shows how fast paced our day of age is to the good old days of writing a letter. I think it shouldn't be taken for granted.