This article offers a solid dose of Web fear, aimed at higher education. The author hits a wide range of scary topics: pornography, privacy violation, religious bigotry, suicide, murder, hate speech, "cheating, bullying, identity theft, slander and other mischief and malfeasance."
And it begins with one of the best fearsome internet images I've ever seen:
Notice how the Shelob-monster comes from behind students, not being something reflecting what they might do to each other. And it has that old Web-spider pun, too.
At no point does the article pause to consider any positive uses of Web 2.0. There's nothing about pedagogy, scholarship, campus life, town-gown relations, outreach, convenience, generational connection.
Good find! I particularly like how the only connection from cyberbullying in middle and high school students to the Canadian universities that the article is supposedly focused on is this parenthetical: "(some of whom will soon be striding onto the quadrangles of Canadian universities)".
Posted by: Nick Doty | October 19, 2008 at 15:01
"Ryan McNutt, the university’s first new-media officer" - you can't make this stuff up.
Notice the careful research methods here: "It’s an issue still in its infancy, and there’s little in the way of academic literature to document these kinds of incidents, making it difficult to comprehend the scope and seriousness. But a survey of newspaper headlines reveals a growing problem..." So the article affirms traditional academic standards, appealing to their authority, and then eschews them by entering a self-referring and -reinforcing cycle of alarmist headlines.
Your point about the absence of discussion of the positive potential of 2.0 is spot on. Of course, there is one mention: "Last winter, Ryerson University was in the news when a first-year engineering student organized a Facebook group, an online bulletin board where classmates shared answers. Ryerson said this amounted to cheating, while the student – who was eventually punished but not expelled – maintained that the group was nothing more than a library study group taken online." I encourage my students to collaborate, including using wikis etc. I don't know and don't care about the details of the Ryerson case, but the student may well have had a legitimate point: if a study group happens online, must it be policed differently?
Are there no journalists out there doing balanced work on these issues?
Posted by: Ed Webb | October 19, 2008 at 16:18
Most journalists (and for that matter, most college/university administrators) don't understand what is going on and this is why they consider it a threat. This article may be misplaced from a technologist's perspective. However, we have to be aware that a lot of non-technical (and many technical ones, too) view the world in this manner. As such, this article serves a useful purpose in illustrating a particular world view. There is a reason pedagogy is not mentioned here. It's not relevant to this perspective.
Posted by: Tom Haymes | October 20, 2008 at 13:13
Blogs are so interactive where we get lots of informative on any topics nice job keep it up !!
Posted by: Dissertation Sample | July 04, 2009 at 06:03
WE just need to teach the teens how to use the Web 2.0 properly; in such way they can help other.
Posted by: Search Engine Optimization Tips and Tutorial | October 06, 2009 at 02:23