DS Initial Proposal

I never really thought about social justice and digital media until my eyes were opened to it from my First Year Seminar class. Now I have been thinking about what social justice and digital media mean to me from my life experiences. To me social justice and digital media have their positives and negatives. A positive is cultures coming together and embracing one an others cultures and beliefs. A negative is that there is cyber-bullying going on now as a result of digital media. My philosophy on digital media and social justice is that digital media does not promote social justice because as the world is coming together media is tearing cultures apart. I will find research that goes towards and against my philosophy. It may be confusing to why I want research that goes against my philosophy, and the reason is to show that there is another side of my argument. I will use some of the articles we talked about in class and will find others online through google. To expand off my philosophy, if everyone had computers and a social network there would still be cyber-bullying going on. Also, people in developing countries are happy with what they have until they see on the television that Americans have more and then they want that. The problem with digital media is that at first people thought it would bring together cultures, but instead it is tearing them apart. The reason to this is because cultures are not accepting of other cultures beliefs. This is causing social injustice all around the world because cultures looking to protect their own identity are causing conflicts with others cultures as digital media brings them closer together. Digital media causes globalization. Globalization is the world coming together. An example of how digital media does this is by social networks such as Facebook. Facebook makes it easy for news to travel. An example is if you “like” a news company they can post a news article on Facebook and anyone who likes that page can see it within in seconds. News can spread this way across the country much quicker than before. In the past, our knowledge of ongoing news stories had a greater delay from the time it happened to the time we found out about it. People used to have to watch news at a specific time or read the next days newspaper to find out what happened in the previous day. My digital story will prove how digital media proves a major role in the social injustices that we see in the world today. 

Annotated Bibliography:

Barber, Benjamin. "Jihad vs. McWorld." The Globalization Reader. By Frank J. Lechner and John Boli. Malden: Blackwell, 2000. 21-26. Print. This article is about globalization. Jihad represents the old world which consisted of wars. McWorld represents todays technological advance and companies spreading all around the world. As McWorld expands cultures are being brought together and cultures want to be independent and not be forced to accept other culture's beliefs.  This article will help my paper because it shows how cultures are being forced together and cultures not wanting this. As a result, a war occurs because cultures are not accepting of one another's beliefs. My digital story is about globalization and cultures not wanting to be forced together and therefore this article will help. 

Packer, George. "When Here Sees There." Global Issues, Local Arguments: Readings for Writing. By June Johnson. Boston: Longman, 2010. 421-23. Print. This article is about how developing countries are satisfied with what they have until they see on television what other countries such as the United States have. After this, the developing countries are jealous and want it. The article will help my digital story because my digital story is partially about how countries are happy with what they have until they see what other countries have and that is one of the main focuses in this story. This article is also about how countries such as America read something in the newspaper about something bad in another country and then two days later they are onto something else and forget what just happened. This is showing how the world is coming apart when it should be coming together. This article will help my digital story by showing how the world is falling apart due to technology such as the television.