Unlock document.
This document is partially blurred.
Unlock all pages and 1 million more documents.
Get Access
431
In the description phase, you will need to not only draw on your own experiences with social
media but also research others’ experiences systematically. For example, you might do
me.
1. I fear others have more rewarding experiences than me.
3. I get worried when I find out my friends are having fun without me.
5. It is important that I understand my friends’ “in jokes.”
7. It bothers me when I miss an opportunity to meet up with friends.
9. When I miss out on a planned get-together, it bothers me.
10. When I go on vacation, I continue to keep tabs on what my friends are doing.
432
Other information to gather for your subjects could include the number of social media
times and it’s been nice, but I felt like I missed out on too much, so I went back to it.” To
completely give up Facebook would be harder, she said. “I would just have to learn how to not
know what people are doing all the time, and more importantly, not to care.”
Step 2: Analysis
• How did the total score on the ten-item FOMO questionnaire correspond to the number and
frequency of use of social media platforms for each person?
• What kinds of things do subjects spend less time doing because of time spent on social
media?
• Do your subjects who spend less time with social media report a higher level of satisfaction?
• Are there patterns in the particular social media sites that your subjects find most valuable
and/or least valuable? That is, do some social media make them feel better than others?
433
Our sample sixteen-year-old student noted that she uses Instagram and Tumblr just for
humiliated on social media. Are there any patterns here?
Step 3: Interpretation
“So what?” and “What does all this mean?”
For example, is there social pressure to present ourselves in the best way possible in social
close friends in the traditional sense? Are we being pathetic in constantly seeking approval by
collecting “Likes” for our pictures and posts? Is social media use leaving us feeling more
alienated, alone, and depressed?
Step 4: Evaluation
The evaluation stage of the critical process is about making informed judgments. Building on
description, analysis, and interpretation, you can better evaluate the impact of social media on its
users.
434
Based on your critical research, consider what happens to people who use social media—do
thing or a bad thing for society?
Step 5: Engagement
The fifth state of the critical process—engagement—encourages you to take action, adding your
own voice to the process of shaping our culture and environment.
psychologists Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener acknowledge that the high use of mobile
phones, text messaging, and social media is evidence that people want to connect. But they also
explain that “we don’t just need relationships: we need close ones.”6 Frequent contact isn’t
share intimate aspects of themselves with the other. Importantly, they can count on the other
person for help if they need it. Although acquaintances and casual friends can be fun, it is the
supportive close relationships that are essential to happiness.”7
One way to take action might be to think about how to use social media without creating
FOMO in others. Is there a way communications can be structured so they don’t seem
exclusionary? Another way may be to decrease use of social media wherever possible and to
1. Lev Grossman and Matt Vella, “iNeed?,” Time, September 22, 2014, p. 44.
2. JWT, “Fear of Missing Out,” May 2011. Internet Archive,
4. Ethan Kross et al., “Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young
Adults,” PLOS ONE 8, no. 8 (2013), doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0069841.
6. Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological
Wealth (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), chap. 4.
7. Ibid., 51.
Extended Case Study: Patriot or Traitor? Unveiling Government Surveillance of Us (9th
Edition Update, 2015)
436
News stories about previously undisclosed U.S. (and British) government surveillance of citizens
(NSA).
Americans are split on their opinions of Manning and Snowden—they are either great
patriots or horrible traitors. But it’s likely that most people aren’t certain of exactly what
Manning and Snowden leaked and the impact of what they leaked.
In this edition of Media & Culture, a new Extended Case Study asks students to investigate
state power?
Using the five stages of the critical process, students will evaluate the main articles revealing
the Snowden leaks written by Glenn Greenwald, then a columnist on civil liberties and U.S.
national security issues for The Guardian, a major newspaper in London; and Barton Gellman, a
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and contributor to the Washington Post who writes about digital
security issues. Then the exercise asks students to “act” on their evaluations.
How can you teach the Extended Case Study?
If you thematically organize your course, you may be interested in applying “Patriot or Traitor?
Unveiling Government Surveillance of Us” whenever you draw connections between news
437
media, ethics, and the relationship between the audience and media. You also may want to
discuss journalism’s coverage of this topic.
Specific ideas
Ask your students to familiarize themselves with the most current news stories related to
Greenwald and Barton Gellman.
Below are a few suggestions of other sources they could look at:
President Obama and the NSA.
• A video interview Greenwald did with Snowden published on June 9, 2013, on YouTube is a
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yB3n9fu-rM.
438
• For another good video insight, see Howard Kurtz’s interview with Greenwald on CNN’s
Reliable Sources, June 12, 2013, http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/12/opinion/kurtz-snowden-
greenwald/index.html.
Berlin,” Washington Post, November 26, 2013,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/leakers- privacy-activists-find-new-home-in-
berlin/2013/11/26/272dc7fc-4e1d-11e3-97f6-ed8e3053083b_story.html.
• Given the difficulties that investigative journalists encounter, particularly when working with
Omidyar. Because of his “concern about press freedoms in the US and around the world,”
Omidyar has committed $250 million to the venture. Glenn Greenwald left the Guardian to
join Omidyar’s start-up in 2013, and several other top journalists also joined later that year.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/oct/16/pierre-omidyar-ebay-glenn-greenwald.
439
http://reliablesources.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/03/keller-vs-greenwald-glenns-take/.
• Greenwald was responding to New York Times opinion columnist (and former executive
• The initial exchange between Greenwald and Keller was in Bill Keller, “Is Glenn Greenwald
the Future of News?” New York Times, October 27, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.eom/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-column.html.
• In his published note in the New York Times prefacing his exchange with Greenwald, Keller
journalism.
all the old rules.’ I invited Greenwald to join me in an online exchange about what, exactly,
that means.”
440
• Finally, perhaps the most important angle to discuss is what is the story—Edward Snowden,
the person who leaked the information, or undisclosed NSA surveillance, the content of the
the NSA Story,” Washington Post, July 3, 2013,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/03/how-ed-snowden-became-
a-bigger-story-than-nsa-spying-in-two-charts/.
Extended Case Study: Patriot or Traitor? Unveiling Government Surveillance of Us (Full
Text) (9th Edition Update, 2015)
up to thirty-five years in prison for offenses that included violations of the Espionage Act.
In the second case, Edward Snowden, a twenty-nine-year-old computer system administrator
working for government contractor Booz Hamilton and a former employee of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), leaked details of U.S. and
British government domestic surveillance programs, including Internet surveillance and
441
collection of supposedly private data, to the news media in May 2013. By the next month, the
asylum in Russia.
Americans are split on their opinions of Manning and Snowden—they are either great
a former army colonel and a professor of history and international relations at Boston University,
suggests that the interests of the federal government and its institutional authority aren’t always
aligned with the interests of the American people. He asks, “To whom do Army privates and
intelligence contractors owe their loyalty? To state or to country? To the national security
apparatus that employs them or to the people that apparatus is said to protect?”3
privilege and prerogatives”?
For this case study, we will look at one of these complicated cases—the case of Edward
442
As developed in Chapter 1, a media-literate perspective involves mastering five overlapping
critical stages that build on each other: (1) description: paying close attention, taking notes, and
researching the subject under study; (2) analysis: discovering and focusing on significant
patterns that emerge from the description stage; (3) interpretation: asking and answering the
“What does that mean?” and “So what?” questions about your findings; (4) evaluation: arriving
and (5) engagement: taking some action that connects our critical interpretations and evaluations
stories and recorded interviews resulting from this case.4
The main articles revealing the Snowden leaks were written by Glenn Greenwald, a
columnist on civil liberties and U.S. national security issues for the Guardian, a major
newspaper in London, and Barton Gellman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and contributor to
the Washington Post who writes about digital security issues. Other articles were based on Glenn
Greenwald’s reporting:
443
• Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill, “NSA Prism Program Taps in to User Data of
Apple, Google and Others,” Guardian, June 6, 2013,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data.
Phone Metadata,” Washington Post, June 15, 2013,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-surveillance-architecture-includes-
collection-of-revealing-intemet-phone-metadata/2013/06/15/e9bf004a-d511-11e2-b05f-
3ea3f0e7bb5a_story.html.
The U.S. government responded with a fact sheet to defend its intelligence activities:
• Director of National Intelligence, “Facts on the Collection of Intelligence Pursuant to Section
702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” June 8, 2013,
http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Facts%20on%20the%20Collection%20of%20Intelligenc
e%20P ursuant%20to%20Section%20702.pdf. (This fact sheet was issued by the U.S.
government in light of news reports based on Snowden’s leaks.)
A helpful time line was prepared by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which is
sympathetic toward Snowden’s cause:
• Electronic Frontier Foundation, “Timeline of NSA Domestic Spying,”
https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/timeline (spans the period from 1791 when the Fourth
Amendment of the Constitution went into effect up to today).
444
Step 2: Analysis
In the second stage of the critical process, analysis, you will isolate patterns that emerged from
the interviews and stories that call for closer attention. For example:
• What communications of yours (e.g., Google, Apple, Facebook, mobile phone) could have
been potentially swept up in the data-collection programs?
• Was there sufficient oversight (e.g., by Congress) of these data-collection programs?
• Was anyone put at risk because of Snowden’s leaks? Explain.
• Is it possible to verify that the various secret data-collection programs made U.S. citizens
safer?
Step 3: Interpretation
In the interpretation stage, you will determine the larger meanings of the patterns you have
analyzed. The most difficult stage in criticism, interpretation demands an answer to the questions
congressional oversight? Or, looking at the historical time line of the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, is the history of federal government surveillance activity one of constantly trying to
find a way around the law?
445
Should the user data of Google, Apple, Facebook, and major mobile phone providers be
tapped by government surveillance projects without our knowledge? Should the companies
submit to do whatever the government asks?
Is there partisan support for or against these surveillance programs as a political issue, or
things about the U.S. government surveillance program that we shouldn’t know?
Step 4: Evaluation
The evaluation stage of the critical process is about making informed judgments. Building on
description, analysis, and interpretation, you can better evaluate the fair information practices of
should be charged under the Espionage Act?
2. John Cassidy, “Demonizing Edward Snowden: Which Side Are You On?” New Yorker, June
3. Andrew J. Bacevich, “Are Manning and Snowden Patriots? That Depends on What We Do
4. For more articles on this case, see special Web pages for the two newspapers: “The NSA
Files,” Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-nsa-files; and “Edward Snowden
5. Bacevich, “Are Manning and Snowden Patriots?”
2014)
As we leam more and more about what kind of data media technology (and other) companies are
the ninth edition of Media & Culture, an Extended Case Study asks students to critically analyze
two or three different privacy statements from a list of popular companies (which tend to be dry,
legalistic, and hard to read): Google, Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Facebook, Hulu, Microsoft,
Netflix, Pandora, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, Verizon, Yahoo!, and Zynga. Using the five stages
of the critical process, students will evaluate the way these companies articulate their online
448
privacy practices and consider whether the convenience of our digital ecosystem outweighs the
increasing invasion of our privacy. Then the exercise asks students to “act” on their evaluations.
How can you teach the Extended Case Study?
If you thematically organize your course, you may be interested in applying “Our Digital
World and the Self-Invasion of Privacy” whenever you draw connections between advertising,
economics, and the relationship between the audience and media. You also may want to discuss
journalism’s coverage of this topic.
If you organize your course by industry, you may want to use the Extended Case Study to
discuss the ever-present tension between advertising and audience across all media industries.
technology companies:
• “U.S. Is Tightening Web Privacy Rule to Shield Young,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/technology/ftc-moves-to-tighten-online-privacy-
protections-for-children.html
• “A Trail of Clicks, Accumulating in Conflict,” http://www.nytimes.com/2
012/11/06/technology/silicon-valley-objects-to-online-privacy-rule-proposals-for-
children.html?pagewanted=all
449
• “Your Online Attention, Bought in an Instant,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/technology/your-online-attention-bought-in-an-instant-
by-advertisers.html
• An eye-opening New York Times Magazine investigative feature story, “How Companies
Learn Your Secrets” by Charles Duhigg, also from 2012, outlines how companies (not just
media technology companies) use mathematical algorithms to find out all sorts of personal
privacy-controls-social-networks.
• “Online Privacy Bill Introduced in House of Representatives,” Huffington Post,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/online-privacy-bill_n_2829167.html.
• The Wall Street Journal’s impressive “What They Know” series:
http://online.wsj.com/public/page/what-they-know-digital-privacy.html, along with this
interactive graphic: http://blogs.wsj.com/wtk/.
• An interactive graphic, “Facebook’s Targeted Ads,” from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/04/technology/internet/20100304-facebook-
ads-interactive.html.
450
Extended Case Study: Our Digital World and the Self-Invasion of Privacy (Full Text) (9th
Edition, 2014)
photos, stories, tweets, and status updates with digital media companies that are working on
ever-evolving schemes to monetize all of our information. All of this raises an important
question: Is the convenience of our digital ecosystem worth the increasing invasion of our
privacy?
