I am challenging my class to collaborate on Google docs to write an essay about how the Internet tells a current event story such as the Chile Earthquake.
This assignment enhances our chapter out of Jenkins book Convergence Culture: Photoshop for Democracy.
This week you do not have to do an individual blog post. Instead, you will break up into groups and explore a current events topic assigned by me. You will analyze how the people used the Internet to disseminate information.
Critically analyze how social media plays a role in your topic as Jenkins did for the chapter Photoshop Democracy.
1. How are citizens participating in these stories?
2. What information did you find?
3. What social media sites did you find with the most useful information? Did you find the information credible?
4. Discuss the pros and cons to citizen media vs. traditional media such as broadcast news and newspapers.
5. Overall, how do you as a group feel that this current event is represented in a collective knowledge environment. Does the information get misconstrued, or more clear?
Hints: what are the search hastags in Twitter? What links are other people providing?
Overall, critically analyze the type of information you are finding and what types of Internet sites people are using to find information. Did you find Twitter to be more useful for up-to-date information than MSNBC.com or did you find that Twitter was useless.
