e-Terror alert!

With the Internet, Terrorism now uses a new approach: E-Terror.

Wow.

Terrorists now spread their beliefs through the Internet, just like many other unlawful organisations that once spread news using primitive and small methods. Because of how the government has made Internet a platform for freedom of speech, terrorists can easily utilize this medium to air their views too, and to carry out propaganda.

As quoted from Terrorism Update, “At least 12 of the 30 groups on the State Department's list of designated foreign terrorist organizations maintain Web sites on the Internet. While U.S. officials believe that some terrorists use encrypted E-mail to plan acts of terrorism, most groups appear to use the Internet to spread their propaganda.”

When we look at journalism and the Internet, most of us only think of how beneficial it will be, but we fail to see how boundless it is. From the information above, we can see that the Internet has allowed such dangerous groups to propagate people – who knows, the person beside you using the Internet could be a potential terrorist.

It is true that online journalism has created great opportunities for citizens to air their views, and create their own ways of spreading news, but we should also be aware of the other people who misuse this tool for dangerous missions.

How do we deal with it?

As a Singaporean, I guess this is not a big matter at hand. However, I should keep up my vigilance in this matter. Just like how we have to be aware of viruses and spyware on the computer, e-terror should be something we are aware of too. Who knows if in the future, any other illegal and propagating organisations may just creep into our emails and access our information?

Let’s really keep our eyes opened.

Advertising Obama

As shown above, the is how President John F Kennedy rallied for his Presidential position - using Television.

And as shown above, this is one of the many advertisements screened by President Obama whether on TV or Youtube to rally for President.

“Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,” said Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of The Huffington Post.

President Obama participated in the elections with the use of YouTube, and it claimed him the title of President of the United States. President John F. Kennedy also utilized this act of “advertising” using technology in the 1960s. Both of them used technology that is ubiquitous and popular at the point of time. For President Kennedy, it was Television.

The use of technology seems to be proven useful for the elections, only that President Obama was blessed to be rallying in this era of modern technology where TV is not the only form of advertising. He used the tool of the Internet to reach out to the masses, and true enough the masses were reached, and that does not simply include Americans but people all over the world!

Obama did not only use YouTube for free advertising but also used Facebook and Twitter, and many other social networking sites to reach to the people. Whether this method is fair or not, I sure do not know. But one thing I know for sure, he does have a smart technique in attracting people!

The rise of Internet usage and technology has not only changed how we learn but the way information is being passed. Like Obama, he knew that the best way to let people know him was through the Internet, and true enough, he won the elections!

John F Kennedy was a president who left a major milestone in American History despite his short period of ruling, and he used technology to rally. I feel that these Presidents do have a creative enough mind to utilize not just speeches alone to attract the crowd.

Obama, today, has caused a Paradigm shift in elections, and I am sure we can expect more to come if ever another election were to happen in the future.

Second life, Realistic or far-fetched?

Firstly, let me define “Multimedia”: it is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content forms) or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media, which only use traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content forms.

Another term “Rich” media is also called Interactive media.

These terms, although commonly mentioned when it comes to sharing about music, animation, videos etc. is in fact, a powerful tool.

Multimedia and rich media, has made games and virtual reality possible. Now, many people in the world are immersed in this form of leisure.

It was only through COM125 that I knew abou

t this Virtual Reality Social Networking Site – Second Life.

Look at this; anyone can be a character like this on Second life - living on a beautiful beach house, dressing his or her ideal clothes. What is more, people can even meet and get married on Second Life.

It really makes me wonder if this is what we call realism, or simply too much imagination?

Out of curiosity, I actually signed up for Second Life to see what is the big deal about it. With all honesty, it was bad. It did not make me feel hooked to the virtual world at all. It could be because of my Internet connection, but loading the images in Second Life was such a slow process. The maps in the virtual world were so complicated and hard to utilize. Am I really a dork at this? Or is it a software glitch? I really don’t know.

Then again, in class, Mr Choy was talking about people who really met in real life, after meeting in Second Life. It really got me thinking. Well, maybe it is because they got the paid version, which has more features and loads more effectively? Haha.

Whatever it is, multimedia is definitely a part of the internet that is building up, and I certainly do enjoy the very enjoyable features of it like podcasts, music, video and animation. (But perhaps not Second Life.)

An Interesting Fact