Week 10- Methodology and Social Semiotics

 Methodology: 

When researching this topic methodology was defined in a few different ways. Wikipedia defined methodology as “the study of research methods or the contextual framework for research.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodology ). While yourdictionary.com defined it as “ the branch of logic that studies reasoning of the way something was done. The last definition I found defined the research methodology which was defined as “ the specific procedures or techniques used to identify, select, process, and analyze information about a topic” (libguides). With all these definitions varying and essentially similar, I would say that methodology is the study of research on a specific topic or subject and how to obtain explanations and backings to what is being researched in a logical way. Methodology is an important concept because it allows for proper research to occur and achieve proper facts and findings in society or discover new information that can benefit individuals by providing new evidence or new perspectives to ideas in society or even completely change a view one might have thought was accurate or how something should occur. When researching who founded Methodology the only person I came across was the founder of the scientific method, Sir Francis Bacon who created the “ inductive methods of scientific research.” and it is also how the methodology was used to help explain what was happening in the natural world (https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introchem/chapter/the-scientific-method/#:~:text=The%20scientific%20method%20was%20used,rational%2C%20problem%2Dsolving%20method.). 

Some of the rules associated with methodology had to do with research methodology. The four main rules I came across were:  1.) The logic of Inquiry ( quantitative or qualitative) is also referred to as measurement objectives such as reasons for research and how to inquire that research. 2.) Data Collecting and determining the method behind collecting that data, 3.)Data analysis  4.)  Reporting or transcribing the data collected. 5.) Evaluating the ethical issues. These are steps of applying the methodology to research. I also found that the three main types of methodology are qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method. 

Additional Sources: 

https://melinsights.com/5-key-elements-of-methodology-section-of-a-research-paper/ 

https://www.eventmarketer.com/partner-content/four-key-elements-of-a-successful-research-methodology/ 

https://libguides.wits.ac.za/c.php?g=693518&p=4914913 

Social Semiotics method: 

The social semiotic method is an aspect of visual communication. Semiotic refers to signs and symbols, so the social semiotic method refers to how humans communicate through symbolism and how we interpret these signs and visual images through different societal meanings. A good resource for understanding this topic further was this video I found: 

According to the video, “” Social Semiotics revolves around the idea that in society people derive meaning from objects of imagery based around our shared assumptions. Visual meanings in society come from a shared point of view established in society that we all feel or agree with when looking at a symbol or an object and as a result, can have universal meanings people agree which can be invoke positive or negative feelings as well as positive or negative behaviors. 

Applying Social Semiotics to Images: 

A classic example of social semiotics through imagery and societal interpretation of this symbolism are black cats 2 images around the phenomenon of black cats: 

1,)  A black cat and a witch

2.) This image is reminding people in our society that black cats have a bad stigma but are lovable and smart and still deserve a home.

I decided to use this example of imagery with the black cats because the original stigma for black cats came from the middle ages and the folklore that black cats came around witches that practiced witchcraft. As a result, black cats were often harmed and this is because it became a universal symbol in society that back cats were bad luck, had negative energy, and bad omens came from their presence. Because we had these stigmas for so long and a cat is a physical visual reminder of these negative feelings it is still hard in the modern day to push the adoption of black cats. Now when imagery it is positive and usually pushes to leave a black cat alone if you see one and that they are generally sweet animals that need loving homes like in image 2. Although this may seem like a silly example black cats are a good example of social semiotics and how images and visuals can convey messages within our societies that hold a universal meaning human beings can all agree on which alters how we view something and what is conveyed about that something through imagery.

Week 9- Online Argument

Over the past few months, concerts are back to being held in venues. A big factor in this is the covid 19 vaccine. Most venues and artists on tour have required the attendees to provide proof of vaccination before entering the venue or a negative covid test. This has caused a lot of disappointment and backlash among fans and has resulted in arguments between fans in the comments and just overall negative mean comments. I am a fan of reading these arguments among vaccinated and nonvaccinated fans for entertainment and was going to a post on one of the comment sections but, negative comments about vaccine requirements have resulted in bands removing their comments sections on a certain post. While looking for an article around this issue I found this article and started reading it along with the comments. 

This article was about a woman who was once antivaccination due to the common belief of vaccines cause autism in children, which she said has been debunked since. So the woman has had a change of heart about vaccines and has gotten the covid vaccine as result. She also explained that becoming antivaccine didn’t happen overnight it happened over years of intense personal beliefs around health and exposure to beliefs that catered to hers. Her recent come around also came from life changes, and is supported by individuals who were patient with her coming around to the covid 19 vaccine. This article was very interesting because the woman admitted that her being an antivaccine person as a result of consuming and being exposed to content that aligned with her beliefs which of course led her to be ridiculed in the comments. 

A lot of the arguments in the comments in regards to the article were other antivaxers criticizing this woman's recent change of heart and her pushing getting the covid vaccine or saying things like the vaccines are not vaccines they are gene modifiers. In the mix of all this I found an argument between a “vaxxer” and anti “vaxxer” which I will post below: 

So there are some screenshots to create a better picture of the arguments in the comment sections also click the link above to read more. Three things about this argument I found in the comments I found negative was 1.) How anti-vaxxers couldn’t let an anti-vaxxers change their mind and opinion on the issue to what she thought was best, instead they ridiculed her. People are allowed to change their minds despite what others think. 2.) How all these individuals felt the need to flock the comment section to debate their ideologies when it is supposed to support advocacy to get vaccinated so their comments should be “ glad she had a change of heart!” or "glad she helping spread the message” these comments are really just arguing with one another trying to push different agendas on each other, nothing positive. 3.) The last negative thing I notice despite what believes I have and what I agree with was that all these people fighting just come off as extremely self-righteous none of these arguments are well thought out or going to change anyone's mind like the article was intended to. They’re just people bickering about whose view is more valid and both sides of this argument don’t really seem to care about each other viewpoints they both just want to be right. I'm not sure how to address the divide out there or this misinformation circulating around but arguments in comment sections like these are not going to get us there.

I am not one to argue online and any time I have I don’t say nasty I just make statements like “ well that's not what I meant or well that's not what this post was about it's about this, or ok but that not what I met I met thing. People online can be very out there so I try not to fuel the argument if I can help it. It's been a while since I fought with anyone online but I try to be very emotionless and direct when responding if I'm going to respond at all. 

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These are my five online argument rules for arguing online: 

1. )   Evaluate the post or the argument you’re about to chime in on, is it worth responding to? 

2. ) Are the people in the argument making any logical sense or is it so confusing you can’t follow it? This is a sign not to comment back 

3. If people are commenting or fighting to spread their specific agenda just say right but I don't agree with that because of __. People arguing online don’t do well with pragmatism or not picking a fight back. 

4. If you are going to argue, the argument shouldn't just be based on the personal belief it should have some factual backing to like website you can lead them to educate them on things they swear they know. 

5. Don’t allow this person or people to harass you there are settings for a reason block people you need to, opt-out or mute notifications, stop responding, or report them if you really have to. People online can just have too much energy for these arguments you need to know when to pull back and when things are not worth a response just like in real life. 

 I have attached this youtube video about arguing online: 

Week 8- The Toulmin Method Applied

 

                

    According to the communicating online text, the Toulmin method is “ a method of analysis that helps readers use critical thinking of an argument and detect the weaknesses in that argument.” ( p. 317). This method of analyzing arguments includes the following setup:  Claim, Qualifier, Grounds, Warrant, Backing, Rebuttal. 

A good example of the Toulmin method being currently used online was a website called procon.org. Procon.org is a website that provides both sides to topics commonly discussed and debated in our society by providing a list of multiple pros and cons on the topic. Each pro and con for the topic applies the Toulmin method with the claim being the initial pro or con followed by a qualifier, grounds, and a warrant. These all lead up to the study around the topic being used to back the pros or cons being discussed. A direct example I am going to use to break down the Toulmin method on this website is a con argument for zoos, which I have linked here. Con #3 states “ Zoo confinement is psychologically damaging to animals.” this is the initial claim of the argument. It is followed by the warrant being that Animal behaviorists have seen psychological changes in animals not seen in the wild such as OCD, or depression. This links us to the grounds which say that this occurs from what zoo animals are exposed to in captivity such as limited space or change in diet tying us back to the claim. The qualifier in all of this is the fact that zoos have provided psychiatric programs as a result. For the backing of this con, there was a study cited about negative behavior in captive whales and captive chimpanzees. The rebuttal or pro # 3  to this argument was “ Zoos save species from extinction and other dangers” which one can see the Toulmin method applied. 

   This website is a great example of well-thought-out debates where the user can see the rebuttals listed side by side and provides well-thought-out arguments to get users to critically think about each opposing viewpoint.  According to the websites about me section, procon.org was created to “make readers more comfortable debating and discussing their views with others by critically evaluating information” (https://www.procon.org/about-us/ , retrieved Nov 19,2021.)  Lastly, the creators of this site believe that having the pros and cons listed side by side gets individuals to do a comparison of each argument, and honestly, it did make me think about the validity of both viewpoints which can be broken down even further using the Toulmin method.

 

Week 7- Podcast

 One of the major themes in this course this semester was the positive and negative effects of online communication and the role social media plays in this theme.  The podcast I found for this assignment discusses this major theme along with content moderation and politician mobilization. I found a podcast called The Media Show on the podcast website player.FM is a podcast run by the BBC radio. In the shows about section, it states “ that it is a program all about a media revolution” (The Media Show, https://player.fm/series/the-media-show-1301223) that discusses topics about breaking news, faking news, social media, and anti-social media topics. The episode I listened to and will attach in this post was called “ Why can’t social media companies stop online abuse?”. In the first half of the episode the host interviews two people in the British sports scene and how social media affects some of the biggest UK football players and the recent acts of racial abuse African American football players are experiencing in the U.K online. BBC reporter Andrea Catherwood wanted to know why would these football players have social media profiles at all if treated in a negative way, did the positives out way the negatives? 

When interviewing  Henry Winter, Joey D'Urso, and Mayowa Quadri three football reporters in the U.K.  they explained the rise of hate comments being left on African American Instagram pages including racial slurs, hate speech, and even racist emojis. They all agreed that this was the dark side of sports stars in England sharing themselves on social media but followed these comments stating that these players shouldn’t even be burdened with such bigotry. Raising the question, of how should these types of slanders and hate crimes online be handled even if they seem as harmless as a rude Instagram comment? With the consensus among the interviewer and the three guests being more content moderation on these sites.  To quote Winter and D’Urso “ Someone needs to moderate these hate comments and social media companies should be held responsible” even bringing up the possibility of charging commenters. 

On the flipside, Mayowa stated that sites like Instagram allowing these players to share more of themselves was a good thing. It allows fans to get to know the players better, share their side of the story of being African Americans in British sports, helps create a better narrative of their experiences, and allows them to share causes they care about and get civilians engaged which does outweigh the negatives.

In the second half of this interview, political mobilization is discussed by the New York Times reporters  Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang who wrote the book the ugly truth (Caterwood,2021).  Although last week we discussed the many ways social media has benefited mobilization this same power to raise awareness for positive social changes is also used for the negative. Sheera and Cecilia discussed how the power of Facebook political mobilization is what led to the storming of the capital on Jan 6th of this year.  Sheera discussed how the day after the election Facebook groups called “Stop the Steal” started to emerge on the platform with these groups planning to storm the capital claiming the election was stolen. She also shared her own personal experience reaching out to Facebook executives before the riots occurred. Sheera emailed Facebook’s headquarters asking them if they were going to do anything about these groups. She said, “ These groups are sharing images of assault rifles, and talking about storming the capital, is anyone going to take these groups down?”(Caterwood,2021) I think “Stop the steal” groups are also a good example of the agenda-setting theory.

 

Facebooks algorithm shows us what we know we want to see. Whether it’s plants or intense right-wing ideologies it caters to our personal agendas. Facebook is one of the biggest mediated communication networks in the world and has the ability to alter our views based on what we look up and what the site thinks we would like. By doing this Facebook is setting our personal agendas by filtering and catering to the media’s overall agenda by personalizing content to specific groups of people and that is why the “stop the steal groups” were able to gain the momentum that they did. But when is this agenda-setting too much?  When it is catering to a large portion of hateful individuals. To sum up, this podcast tied to many of the subjects in this course from the positives and negatives of social media, political mobilization, online moderation, and even agenda setting. 

Source: Caterwood, A. (2021, July 17). “ Why cant social media companies stop online abuse? The Media Show. BBC Radio. https://player.fm/series/the-media-show-1301223/why-cant-social-media-companies-stop-online-abuse

Week 6- Social Media and BLM

Back in the day when civil rights movements were happening, the only way people were exposed to what was happening during those times or kept up to date is if they were watching the news on tv that day or if they happened to be watching at the time the news broke out. It still reached people and people were still aware of what was happening but you could never really feel the effects like we can today. One of the biggest differences between civil rights movements today as opposed to ones in the 90s, 70s, 60s, etc. is the scale at which we were all exposed to it because it was all happening right in our back pockets and as a result, it came to be an at-home issue for most people. Thanks to social media, issues like the black lives matter movement can not only move us nationally but in our own backyards. It wasn’t just big cities protesting and mobilizing it was happening in small towns and neighborhoods. This is because people are able to utilize social media to communicate with local people and organize marches, and other advocacy groups and can lead to more people getting involved in something that was more difficult to accomplish. Any group you joined, or march people attended was the most likely word of mouth. Social media allowed for the black lives matter movement to mobilize at a rate that other black activists might not have been able to do previously.  Social media has become a powerful mobilization channel because of the rate at which it can reach people and the number of people they can get to come out. This is because people can share meeting places, times, create groups, or mass post on all different platforms to reach people who care about the same causes which are why the civil rights movement was so big in 2020.

I would say the way social media is changing the way we document history by providing us with a living archive that is constantly changing. When something happens, within the last 15 to 20 years it is almost automatically documented online via social media or the news. Since the internet is permanent historians will always be able to utilize the internet to pull up posts, tweets, news articles to reference, conduct research and try to understand what was going on during a specific time for example how people reacted online during the 2020 civil rights movement, the pandemic, women's marches, etc. or how social media was able to expand a cause. They will also use social media and internet archiving to compare and contrast the way things have changed in the future.  Historians have already been known to do internet archiving it is just a part of their research and work to document history correctly.

 Questions:

How has social media played a role in the 2020 civil rights movement and protests? How has social media become a powerful mobilization channel? How is social media changing the way people document history?

Week 5 - Miracle gros online presence

 Miracle gro is a popular garden supply company that sells gardening products such as soils for different plants, fertilizers, care products, and even their own brand of plants. As a gardener, I am a big fan of the plant fertilizer product miracle gro sells. I use it on my plants and usually get big healthy plants as a result. This is a product I use quiet frequently in the summer months and wanted to do some research on the companies online presence.

When logging on to miracle gros website, the first thing one will see is a display of hyperlink images that reference different products sold on the website. At the top left corner, there is the miracle grow logo that is adjacent to a drop down menu with a shop products tab, learn and grow tab, and a purpose tab. When scrolling down the page to the bottom, the individual scrolling will pass the display of images in the center of the page. If one of the image hyperlinks is clicked on it  takes the user to a product sold on the company website. At the bottom of the page, their contact info is listed along with their social media profiles. They also have the same hyper links listed at the top of the page listed at the bottom which I personally didn’t like.  For the most part the layout of this website is clearly designed to be a user friendly way to buy miracle gro products, and for gardeners to educate themselves on how to use those products. Miracle gros website also educates consumers on the company vision in gardening in terms of the environment and the next generation of gardeners. For the most part, I think this is a nicely designed website and gives people a clear idea of miracle gro as a brand yet I feel that  it lacks any information on miracle gro as a company. They should have an about page that explains more of the companies history, who the current ceo is, show us some of the people who work for the company, and show the opportunities miracle grow has to offer people besides the products they sell. I also find the repetitive links on this website redundant. They have a lot of space on the website that I think could be utilized better to tell a story about miracle gro. One thing I admired about the design of this website was the grow and learn tab. This was a section of hyperlinks of different gardening articles providing miracle gro  customers on information including subjects like gardening basics, planning and landscaping,  and information on a variety of different gardening styles like veggie gardening and flower gardening. 

Miracle gro has a strong social media presence with an Instagram, Twitter profile, a Facebook page, a Pinterest, and even a YouTube. On all their social media pages it seems that Miracle gro is very engaged with their customers.  Their instagram shows a series of different photographs of tagged customers with their plants they’ve grown using miracle grows products. It seems like miracle gro has a very personal social media out reach and is trying to encourage people to garden. I really appreciate the company sharing beautiful images and telling customers stories about gardening. Another platform where they shared their customers stories was their Youtube page. Miracle gros YouTube page had an entire section dedicated to different gardeners stories, how they got into gardening, and what they grow call “How I grow”. In this blog I have attached a video from the miracle gro YouTube page with one of these stories. From what I’ve learned in this course, it seems like miracle gro is trying very hard to be transparent and interact with their consumers and their online viewers which I was honestly wasn’t expecting. I am glad such a giant corporation is able to see that their customers are the ones to thank for how far and successful the company has become over the years their products have been around. 

Website: Miracle gro 

Week 4 - digital immigrants and digital natives

- Questions 1 and 2 

     In this weeks readings we learned the difference in digital immigrants and digital natives. Although this sounds like how immigrants use technology different from native people in a specific country it actually refers to how ones experience in the digital era differs depending on the time someone grew up. A digital immigrant refers to people who did not grow up with internet  but are people who saw the internet come to be, and had to adapt to the way it changed the way people learn.  Due to this distinction these people had to learn the internet and incorporate it in ways that worked for them at the time everything was changing. Somethings include, printing hard copies to make edits on assignments. Prenskey referred to these things as an “accents” but really its just the way older generations were taught to utilize a computer for their studies as opposed to millennial's or people my age. The divide refers to the way older generations relationship with the internet affects the way they teach the modern generation information. Not only that but it involves their judgement of how younger generations absorb information. Based on Prenskeys findings, many of the digital immigrants think that old school methods of teaching can still be utilized and are better for the mind.  Which Im sure is true to some extent, for example I will probably always be a traditional note taker yet, I have to be able to take what I learn in a “traditional way” and apply it to a digital platform to do my assignments. That is something I’ve probably had to learn to do when they first taught me how to make a power point in 5th grade. Needless to say processing information digitally is not a problem since I’ve been doing it forever. I think this divide comes from the fact that “digital immigrants” think traditional learning methods are better because that's how they process information and that's what works for them without considering like the article said, digital natives learn completely different from them due to early exposure of the internet and learning how to learn on a computer at a young age. Anyone born in the late 80's through the 90's had at least one educational 4 disk computer game that their parents bought for them. I grew up on those types of games, and I doubt my mother thought it was making my ability to learn any worse then if she didn’t buy those games for me.  My point is digital learning is something most digital natives are highly comfortable with and it doesn’t make sense for the push back from the “ digital immigrants”. 

As being someone who is a digital native, I remember seeing this divide among educators and students as I was getting ready to graduate high school. I remember having teachers being very anti-online schooling, and remembering them not appreciating students going from truly traditional methods of learning to the technologically advanced way. I even remember asking my teacher why she felt that way and she said “ Because people don’t learn the same way in front of a screen as they do not being in front of a screen” and I remember saying “Yeah but were use to its not a new way of learning to us” she did not agree. Well id say I was right considering I am completing a bachelors degree online and feel comfortable doing everything digitally in fact I prefer it. I mean “digital immigrants” can have those opinions but at the end of the day they’re the ones that are going to have to adapt to a constantly changing technological world. They're the ones that have to learn how to teach using virtual methods not the other way around. I mean if this pandemic has taught us anything most kids K - 12 are probably going to learn online majority of their lives they’re not even going to remember the switch from traditional methods to ipads in every room. All they're going to remember is Ipads in every room and doing kindergarten through zoom. Take that however you want but the fact is it is what it is, and its not going to be surprising if most of those kids from this pandemic do their degrees online as well.  Being a digital native, I just don’t see how being anti or disagreeing with the way  people obtain information is going to change the way digital natives learn.  Although, I am probably bias because I am a digital native I found this video online that explains the positives and negatives of being a digital native. The video also explains how being a digital immigrant has its advantages and finishes with how no matter where you fit in the digital era we can all benefit from disconnecting once and a while which I agree with.

Week three- Knapps Model applied

 

        The most recent relationship that comes to mind when thinking about knapp's model is an old college friend who I have drifted apart from since graduating community college. We originally met at a scholarship dinner, where we both had been rewarded the same scholarship for women in horticulture. This initiated our relationship, and when we met again in our agriculture classes we began experimenting our relationship by engaging in small talk in class and learning things we had in common.  From seeing each other everyday in class and getting to know each other this intensified to a friendship. This person would even give me rides home from school. Those car rides further integrated and bonded our relationship learning we had similar music tastes and ragging on our days together. Linking up everyday to talk, sharing personal information with each other, studying together, talking about what we had learned in class, and sharing our passion for plants really bonded us. My professor one day asked me, "where my buddy was" when weren't together. It was a really fun relationship that I still value to this day. I am glad I got to go through community college with such a good friend. Eventually, we started to differentiate and circumscribe having different ideas of what we wanted upon graduating college, and also not graduating at the same time caused us to psychologically distance. We were on different time lines going down similar yet different paths. Our relationship eventually got to the point of stagnating and avoidance. Which I truly believe is because as our relationship distanced, what we wanted, and who we were becoming just completely differentiated. These differences and different life experiences during college lead us to put a wedge in our relationship. I am sure if we saw each other we still talk to each other we’d probably even have a lot to say, but its terminated in the sense that we are not close like we were when pursing our degrees. In fact, we were never that close after college. Sometimes its just the way she goes, that being said I hope shes doing well.  The video I shared in this assignment explains five signs you have out grown a friendship, and most of these signs are what I experienced in this relationship. Lastly, I guess it is important to remember that there is nothing wrong with no longer engaging in relationships with people we no longer feel connected to. The people we are met to have in our lives come for a reason and the ones that are met to stick usually don’t go anywhere.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNV01mxFOw0 

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Week 2- Oversharing Online

3.) I think one of the biggest links between social media and depression is FOMO syndrome, or fear of missing out. I know I have experienced this feeling before. In fact it happened the other day. I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and I saw people I know sharing posts from their time at the firefly festival in Dover,DE. After seeing peoples groups photos and videos of Megan thee stallion I automatically thought to myself, “ I should’ve went to that”, “why didn’t I go to that”, and things like “ Do I not know how to have fun?” Just really judgmental statements about myself that are unnecessary..When the reality is my life is completely different from theirs. I don’t know what's going on in their lives besides they went to that festival, or why they may have been able to go. Despite what  is true of a situation, most people have experienced those thoughts from time to time. Instagram and Facebook were designed for individuals to share life events and photographs with people so most of the time people are sharing the positive life events and the well done photos not the bad ones. When experiencing these feelings of fomo though we are only going off what we can see.

Unfortunately, when individuals are having a difficult time in life (don’t have access to certain things, having financial trouble, health problems or lack resources,etc.) and they see others doing well, going places, buying lavish things , or a happy moment it can cause the viewer to compare and despair. Compare and despair is another aspect of depression when the individual is constantly comparing themselves to others. They start to feel really low about their situation, appearance, themselves, and sometimes their relationships. For example, If someone is in a bad relationship with their partner and constantly sees another couple post happy photos together it could  cause someone to compare and despair and have thoughts like, “ I wish we did stuff like that”, or “oh why doesn’t my partner do that for me” and so on and so forth. I have seen a lot of these things occur with people I know personally. Some of them are depressed in general and then they go on social media to escape, yet it tends to make them feel worse about their situation.  

On the contrary, everything I described can be viewed with a positive outlook. If someone sees another person online doing good in something you are also trying to do well it can be very inspiring, or if someone leaves a positive comment on a photo you shared it can boost that person's confidence!. The same thing could be said for fomo.  If someone sees someone in their feed take a trip to Jamaica, and that's where the viewer has always wanted to go instead of feeling bad, it could inspire them to actually go there, and encourage them to have experiences instead of just seeing it online. The positive side to fomo is well if they can do that I so can I! 

 4.)  Yes I do. I think social media should take some responsibility for their user's mental health and at least address the negative side effects of their platforms. Like I stated above, people with depression tend to get on these platforms and tend to feel worse about their lives more frequently than not. Even if users are not people struggling with depression like our lecture video said, “more often people who communicate mostly online often feel more stressed and alone” (interpersonal communication in the future world Celine Fitzgerald, May 5th,2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlI2qDO0J6s). More and more studies have come out about how social media affects our mental health but rarely ever hear the people who create social media addressing mental health. I’m just saying individuals who run these companies such as Mark Zuckerberg of facebook have a lot of power and money. They are aware of their control and effects on society's well being..There's no reason these billionaires can't donate to mental health programs or help provide access to mental health professionals.  Facebook literally has encompassed every other form of social media it has dating, its own craigslist, event pages and groups, the last thing it's missing is a therapy section. Even though it is odd to seek mental health through the place that causes so many issues, but it certainly is accessible and a lot of people log on to Facebook virtual therapy via facebook might be the move. Maybe Facebook could provide free mental health services to billions of people.

     *I know I focused on a lot of the negative aspects of social media in this post but I do believe there are a lot of benefits. So far when it comes to OSU I have been able to chat with some fellow horticulture majors because of facebook, and today I made a facebook group for plant science majors and green majors to connect on I am going to leave the link below.  

 OSU Ecampus Horticulture and Green Majors

About Me Assignment 1

 

    Hello everyone, my name is Alysah.  I am an east coaster, born and raised in southern New Jersey where I currently live.  This is my first year as an ecampus transfer student and my first time back in college since graduating from community college in 2018. After three years of working different horticulture jobs, I decided to finish my undergrad through the OSU online Horticulture program.  My love for horticulture started in high school where I got my first exposure to botanical gardens like Longwood Gardens. My goal after getting my bachelors degree in Horticulture is to land a position working in a botanical garden as a gardener or as a greenhouse grower. I also am highly interested in starting my own business, and contributing to plant conservation of native species. Some of my hobbies include reading,  gardening, and growing as well as collecting house plants. In my free time, I enjoy going to different parks and gardens, thrift shopping, listening to podcasts,  going to live concerts/entertainment, and playing video games.  An interesting fact about myself is that I am a first generation American on my mothers side. My grandmother, grandfather, and their children came to America in the 1960s after my mom and her brothers were born.  One thing I found interesting in this week's reading was learning how those that are stigmatized have a hard time forming and experiencing relation needs we get from communicating such as immigrants. This semester I would like to learn how to better communicate with stigmatized groups of people as well as learn how we can help them not let stigmatization affect how they communicate. 

My primary forms of online communication include instagram , facebook, and snapchat. Most of my social media use is to chat/communicate with friends and family members, see updates they might be sharing, and to post about my garden. I also turn to social media for food recipes,gardening tips, to learn about new plants, and to look for job opportunities.  This is my first time taking a communications class and I'm glad I get to take one that actually applies heavily to my life since I have been using social media for years. Two goals for this term are to one, do well in my courses, and two to learn a new study method that works for me that is different from traditional note taking and flashcards. If anyone has a method leave it in the discussion board comments. Also everyone wish me luck in my online chem course! Also I have a plant blog on Instagram @hortflort where I share garden posts of my garden, a few gardens I planted and designed, and as well as my house plants.