MEDINFO 31 Notes (Lesson 8 & 9)

Lesson 8 - Opportunities, Challenges, and Power of Media and Information

Opportunities and Challenges of Media and Information in the Economic, Educational, Social, and Political Aspects of our Society
We shall now walk through the different aspects of our society and see how far media has made an influence on us.

1. Education
 Opportunities
a) E-learning
✓ Today, education need not to happen within the four walls of the classroom
✓ E-learning is a new method of learning where a student may take classes online or
via an interactive software installed in computers and handheld devices
✓ A certificate is optionally issued upon completion of the course taken.
✓ Getting a degree is now even possible through e-learning. Universities locally and
abroad are now recognizing it as an alternative means for their students to obtain a
higher educational degree.
✓ This method of learning is especially advantageous to students who are working full
time as professionals or who desire to obtain a degree from universities overseas
without having to physically attend classes.
✓ Furthermore, students have the luxury of learning by repetition through e-learning as they can backtrack lessons
which are conveniently stored online and review them before proceeding to more advanced lessons.
b) Social media has provided learners a means of interaction to fellow learners, mentors, teachers, field experts, and
education advocates online.
✓ Interacting via chat rooms and forums allow more fluid exchange of information from one person or group to
another.
✓ Discussions online encourage students to deepen their knowledge as well as take different viewpoints on a subject
matter. It also helps them become more motivated to pursue a certain field as they learn from experts themselves.
 Challenges
a) Lack of physical activity
✓ The lack of physical activity may cause boredom specifically for young students who may have
to sit in front of computers for several hours. Even worse, too much time spent using a computer
will possibly lead to physical and mental health issues.
b) Miscommunication risks
✓ E-learning software oftentimes do not have the features of further explanation,
clarification and better and more understandable examples that are always available
in face-to-face interaction with an instructor.
✓ Some students may also have a hard time expressing their questions and views
through writing and are more comfortable if it were done orally. In a physical
classroom, students also learn as they pick up clues coming from non-verbal communication such as the tone of
voice and body language pf the instructor, something which may be unavailable in an online environment.
c) Privacy Issues
✓ While social media greatly helps in the connection of students to other key players in the educational formation,
they cannot help but ask, “How is my personal information handled in this site?” Naturally, users would want that
their personal information to be privately held as much as possible. But given that they are participating in a social
networking site, they cannot be entirely sure to which extent their personal information is freely available to other
users and sponsors of the site and for what purpose thus may serve when their information is being used.
2. Economic
 Opportunities
a) Electronic Commerce (e-commerce)
✓ E-commerce is the conducting of business activities electronically over
computer networks such as the Internet.
✓ Mobile commerce (m-commerce) is a variation of e-commerce which refers to
commercial transactions happening through wireless handheld devices like
smartphones and tablets.
✓ 3 forms of E-commerce:
o Business-to-consumer e-commerce (B2C) – refers to the commercial
transactions performed by a consumer straight to the business
organization. Ex. Amazon, Lazada, Zalora
 o Business-to-business e-commerce (B2B) – refers to the commercial transactions performed between two
or more business organizations.
o Consumer-to-consumer e-commerce (C2C) – refers to the direct commercial transactions between a
consumer to another consumer. Ex. Ebay, Olx, Craigslist
 Challenges
a) Identity Theft
✓ Identity theft occurs when someone uses your personally identifying information, like
your name, Social Security number, or credit card number without your permission,
to commit fraud or other crimes.
✓ As of September 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported a total of 17.6
million US residents who became victims of identity theft which resulted generally to
financial losses. Fourteen percent of the victims suffered a loss of $1000 and above.
3. Political
 Opportunities
a) Provide updates on current political issues
✓ Social media provide a great amount of information on current political issues. Before, pieces
of information are accessible only on televisions, radios, or newspapers. Now, social media is
considered the fastest option to be more updated.
b) Opportunities for political expression, participation, and vox populi
✓ Through social media, people have now acquired more opportunities to express political views
and participate in political gatherings
✓ Furthermore, freedom of expression on the internet has given the people a sense of vox populi
*vox populi – a Latin phrase that literally translates “the voice of the people”
Example event (vox populi) : In January 2001, President Joseph Estrada was ousted from power
after a text brigade caused a million people to gather at EDSA, choking the traffic in the streets
of Manila, eventually resulting on a second version of the 1986 People Power Revolution.
 Challenges
a) Using media and information as a tool for, making a political standpoint on a massive scale
will not necessarily guarantee favorable outcomes
Ex. Street protests in Belarus in March 2006 caused by chain emails ended in a failure
to oust President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who then controlled social media to his
benefit
4. Social
 Opportunities
a) Communication Tool
✓ Various social media platforms allow young people to meet new people and make
friends. They also kept updated with their current friends’ lives as they read posts
online. What’s more, social media has helped them reconnect with people from the
past such as grade school classmates, old neighbors from their hometown and relatives
and friends living outside of the country.
✓ Social media has made communicating with people more convenient regardless of
time and distance
b) Support System
✓ More than a third of survey respondents felt that they got support from friends online
whenever they faced difficult times or challenges.
✓ This is especially important to people in their teenage years undergoing a crucial stage
in their lives and experiencing support from other people will most likely motivate
them to surmount a challenge or overcome difficult situations
  Challenges
a) Comparison, Self Presentation, and Authenticity
✓ In a survey, 53% of teenagers read posts about social gatherings such as
parties and trips which they were not part of, with 21% of them leading to
negative comparison of their friends’ lives with their own
✓ Social media also put pressure on teenagers on their self-presentation as
evidenced by 40% of the respondents who shared the same feeling of trying
to project a cool image so that they would be well-liked by their peers
✓ In terms of authenticity, 77% of the respondents thought that people were
not being their true selves as compared to what they showed offline.
b) Oversharing of information
✓ In terms of content that people share on
the internet, according to a survey,
roughly 9 out of 10 respondents felt that
people tended to overshare information
about themselves on social media.
Therefore, is a potential breeding ground
for identity theft incidents.

Empowerment and Responsibility

❖ Social media tools, needless to say, have empowered people In different aspects.
❖ In education, there is now more focus on digitalizing the learning methods and literacy.
❖ In economics, electronic commerce has magnified the buying and selling capabilities of business organizations and individuals
alike.
❖ In social aspects, human interactions now defy distance and time constraints.
❖ Politically speaking, people from all walks of life now have a say on issues concerning the government and the nation as a whole.
❖ But to quote Peter Parker from the famous Spiderman movie series, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Now that the
youth today are properly educated and are media and information literate, prudence in using the social media and technology
tools is expected.
❖ Trusting on people one meets online should not immediately be done knowing that personal and some fraudulent people may
infest on the internet waiting for an unsuspecting victim to divulge personal and confidential information.
❖ To avoid scams, be sure to check the reliability of e-commerce sites that you are intending to transact with.

Threats, Risks, Abuse, and Misuse of Media and Information

 4 Types of Invasion of Privacy
• Appropriation – Happens when one uses another’s name, likeness and even voice for commercial or trade purposes
without consent. This can also be seen in social media where “fraudsters” create false profiles and target other users
• Intrusion – entering another’s property without right or permission.
• Revelation of Private Facts – the unauthorized disclosure of embarrassing personal facts about an individual
• False light – occurs when the offender is accused of spreading falsehoods or lies about the victim
 Threats to Computer and Internet Security
• Virus – a malicious program that attaches itself to applications. Replicates itself by modifying other computer programs
and inserting its own code.
• Worm – can be injected into a network via USB flash drives or an email attachment. Once the PC is infected, the worm
sends itself to all email addresses it finds. Replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. Often uses a computer
network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it.
• Trojan – leaves your PC unprotected and prone to hacking attacks, even though it might appear harmless and useful
even at first. Any malicious computer program which misleads users of its true intent. Term is derived from the Greek
story.
• Spam – otherwise known as unwanted emails, spam mail, junk mail. But it also can be used to send different kinds of
malicious software (“malware”) like viruses and worms.
• Cookies – in computers, cookies are files added to your computer when you visit a site. Cookies contain information
about you (interests, activities, etc.) which actually make your browsing experience more personalized, however, this
information can also be exploited
• Phishing – (pronounced as “fishing”) and yes, it fishes out sensitive information such as passwords and credit card
details by sending official-looking emails asking for these information.
• Pharming - a more sophisticated type of phishing where pharmers create a fake website and then collect information
that users think they are sending to the real website. This threat could lead to identity theft.
 • Smishing – (sms + phishing) This criminal scheme aims to bring the user to follow a malicious link from the SMS
message.
• Vishing – (voice + phishing) It refers to the type of threat that involves a fraudulent phone call using information
previously obtained online.

Tips on how to protect yourself from Phishing, Vishing, Smishing, Pharming

• Always pay attention to the sender and subject of the message. If they look suspicious, just delete these emails or SMS;
• Do not click the suggested links in emails and messages from an unknown sender;
• Never reply to messages requesting personal information;
• Watch for mistakes in the text, if you find them, most likely the letter is a hoax;

Lesson 9 - Current and Future Trends in Media and Information

1. Massive Open Online Courses
• A virtual classroom in which “learners” gather and receive lectures,
coursework, and tests
• A model for delivering learning content online to any person who
wants to take a course, with no limit on attendance
• The course can either be self-paced(asynchronous), or synchronous
which means that they have a schedule and deadline per topic and
everyone taking that MOOC will progress at the same rate
• The key difference between MOOCs and other online learning
platforms is the word “OPEN”
• Other e-learning platforms’ access to their resources are generally limited to certain organizations, institutions, or groups
• A MOOC, on the other hand, lets anyone with an Internet connection access courses, usually for indefinite periods of
time or several times a year
• Other noteworthy trends in MOOCs are the college credits, full degrees, and credentials that have begun to be offered
on several MOOC platforms.
• These can be obtained after finishing a course, but they are often offered for a price.
Examples of MOOCS:
o Udacity – is more focused on vocational courses for professionals.
- Considered to be self-paced (or asynchronous) since you do not need to take the lesson in a specific
period of time

o Coursera – an educational technology company that offers courses in many subjects with a given schedule per
topic (synchronous)
 o edX – also synchronous since it consists of weekly learning sequences. Each learning sequence is composed of
audios, videos and exercises that will help the student learn the topics. It hosts online university courses in a
wide range of disciplines

2. Wearable Technology
• Also known as wearable gadgets or wearables
• Are electronic technologies or computers that are incorporated into items of
clothing and accessories which can be comfortably worn on the body.
• Characteristics of wearables according to Wearable Devices magazine, include:
✓ Performing computer-related tasks such as laptops and mobile phones
✓ Provide sensory and scanning features (such as biofeedback and tracking of
physiological function) that are typically not seen in mobile and laptop
devices
✓ Have some form of communications capability and will allow the wearer
access to information in real-time
✓ Data-input capabilities
✓ Local storage capabilities
• The online magazine further noted that wearables may either be worn or incorporated to the body “to create constant,
convenient, seamless, portable, and mostly hands-free access to electronics and computers.”
• Different fields such as health and medicine, fitness, disabilities, education, transportation, enterprise, finance, gaming,
and music, have slowly started to adapt the use of such technology to improve people’s lives.
Examples:
a. Smart Watches – are wrist worn devices that connect your mobile phone and act as a minicomputer

b. Fitness Tracker - a device that counts the number of steps you make each day and measures your heart
rate. Some have an altimeter feature that measures elevation, GPS feature, and breathing reminders
for meditation and destressing

c. Google Glass - is a wearable, voice-controlled Android device that resembles a pair of eyeglasses and
displays information directly in the user's field of vision.

3. 3D Environment
• Are often referred to as virtual reality or interactive 3D, and have a figurative appearance

a. 3D Printer – prints out 3-dimensional solid objects from a digital file through the process of 3D
Printing

b. Holograms – are three-dimensional images that have been created using photographic projection.

c. Virtual Reality (VR) - A realistic three-dimensional image or artificial environment that is created with a mixture of
interactive hardware and software, and presented to the user in such a way that the any doubts are suspended and
it is accepted as a real environment in which it is interacted within a seemingly real or physical way.
 3 Types of Virtual Reality
• Non-immersive simulations
- provide the least immersive implementation of virtual reality
technology.
- Only a subset of the user's senses are stimulated, allowing for
peripheral awareness of the reality outside the virtual reality
simulation.
- Users enter into these three-dimensional virtual environments through
a portal or window by utilizing standard high resolution monitors
powered by processing power typically found on conventional desktop
workstations.
• Semi-immersive simulations
- provide a more immersive experience, in which the user is partly
but not fully immersed in a virtual environment.
- Closely resemble and utilize many of the same technologies
found in flight simulation.
- Semi-immersive simulations are powered by high performance
graphical computing systems, which are often then coupled with
large screen projector systems or multiple television projection
systems to properly stimulate the user's visuals.
• Fully-immersive simulations
- provide the most immersive implementation of virtual reality
technology.
- In a fully-immersive simulation, hardware such as head-
mounted displays and motion detecting devices are used to
stimulate all of a user's senses.
- Fully immersive simulations are able to provide very realistic
user experiences by delivering a wide field of view, high
resolutions, increased update rates (also called refresh rate),
and high levels of contrast into a user's head-mounted display
(HMD).

4. Ubiquitous Learning
• Or U-Learning is a new way of learning everywhere with the use of technology.
Also sometimes called mobile learning
• A student is more involved in the learning process because u-learning utilizes all
forms of materials “that may be transferred to mobile devices via cable or
wirelessly and can be operated in these mobile devices”
• These materials can be videos, audios, PowerPoint presentations, or notes
Main Characteristics of Ubiquitous Learning:
a) Permanency: Learners never lose their work/files unless it is purposefully deleted
b) Accessibility: Learners have access to their documents, data, or videos from anywhere. Learning involved is self-
directed
c) Immediacy: Wherever learners are, they can get any information immediately. Thus, learners can solve problems
quickly.
d) Interactivity: Learners ca interact with experts, teachers, or peers through online discussions, forums or chats.
Hence, the experts are more reachable and the knowledge becomes more available
e) Situated Instructional Activities: Learning in context (on-site) happens