Blog #9 Diffusion of Innovation Theory

I looked at the innovation of Instacart through the lens of the Diffusion of Innovation Theory. Instacart is a service that people can use to hire a shopper to pick up and deliver their groceries to their door. Instacart was founded in 2012, but It really gained its popularity within the last three years. It became especially popular when the Corona Virus pandemic hit. People were too afraid to leave their homes and would rather hire a personal shopper to deliver their groceries.





The Pioneer of Instacart was the inventor Apoorva Mehta, he was able to launch the service in 2015. The pioneers and people who really believed in the service were Mehtas two hundred employees. America was really the early adopters of this service as many states were starting to see a growth in Instacart. Instacart changed their payment contracts with the drivers which made more people want to be employed by Instacart and become personal shoppers.

Instacart started its uptake when it transcended into other countries including Canada. It reached the tipping point when the late majorities (large grocery store chains) started to make contracts with Instacart. Food chains like Kroger, Publix, and Costco all joined in on the Instacart service. The market became completely saturated when the Pandemic hit and Instcart hired hundreds of thousands of employees to assist families in the pandemic.





Although the majority of the population knows what Instacart is there are still people who do not see a need in the grocery delivery system. Some people do not have the extra money to tip the drivers and pay off the extra fees. Others simply do not want someone shopping for them and they prefer to go out and shop for themselves. Insta Cart has definitely made shopping more convenient for the consumer, but some people still do not see the need to have someone else deliver their food items.


Background Information on Instacart


Background Information on Instacart

Blog Post #8- What I Learned from EOTO

In the Each One Teach One presentations in class today I learned about many revolutionary inventions. One in particular that was vital to the communication technologies we have now, was the invention of the telephone by Alexander Grahm Bell. The telephone was invented on February 14th, 1876. What was interesting to me, was the Bell was not the first inventor to try and invent the telephone.

An inventor Johann Reis was the first person to construct a technology that was similar to the telephone. He did not take credit for inventing the telephone because it was only able to communicate one way. Antonio Meucci was the second inventor of the telephone in 1874, he did not have enough money to afford the patent.

Bell was almost not the inventor to get the patent for the telephone. Two hours before Bell filed for the patent inventor, Elisha Grey filed for the telephone patent. The patent was given to Bell. This caused him to be involved in hundreds of lawsuits, five of them made it to the Supreme Court.

Bell not only received the patent for the telephone he also was the founder of AT&T . Bell's invention was the foundation for the technology that we use today

Blog Post #7- Anti War Voices

As I went through ANTIWAR.COM I was shocked at all the articles that have been written. I was mainly shocked because I had never heard of anything that was written. Honestly, the first time I heard that our country could potentially go to war with Russia was in my Media Law and Ethics class. My professor was the first person to bring this up to me and I watch the news frequently. Now, I make sure to look up specifically the U.S. foreign affair news. I only kept up with news that was happening in the country and I think that my social media pages and google news followed that trend. They never put any foreign affairs news on my timeline.

I think that we have to search up foreign affairs news on our own because the government does not want to give any attention to it. Strong anti-war voices are censored because of how society would react. If people were to read a very strong one-sided opinion it could cause fear in people. Fear can lead to violence and protests. It causes a further divide in our country. Anti-war voices inform people of what the government is really doing. The government also does not want people to investigate and look further into what the U.S. is doing in other countries. The government would not be able to get away with as much if people were really informed about what America is doing overseas.

Blog Post#6- EOTO Amazon Kindle

Technology evolves every day and our world keeps becoming more advanced. In order for technology to evolve it had to start from somewhere. Inventions like electricity, the phone, the radio, television, and computers were significant inventions that led to so much more than anyone could have envisioned. As technology became more sophisticated inventors started to turn the computer into handheld devices or tablets. One handheld device that changed the way people read was the Amazon Kindle.

The Amazon Kindle was one of the first series of e-readers to hit the market. They had one goal; to bring people books. The first model launched in 2007 and it sold out within 5 hours. The first model gave access to over 90,000 digital books through the Amazon Kindle Store. The price of the Kindle was around four hundred dollars and on average the books available cost around fifteen dollars. Amazon named it “Kindle” because of their branding consultant at the time,  Michael Cronon. Cronan “suggested Kindle, meaning to light a fire. They felt this was an apt metaphor for reading and intellectual excitement".

Amazon quickly elevated the Kindle to be much more than just an e-reader. Every one to two years Amazon came out with a new version of the Kindle. As the new models developed the number of digital books available grew enormously. Now, the Kindle has over three million books available to the consumer. Although the availability of books grew, the pricing still remains around three hundred dollars. In 2019 Amazon even released an “Amazon Kindle Kids Edition” which is specifically made for younger children to enjoy. In a study by Pew Research Center “E-book readers in the United States in 2018, by age”  the largest number of E-book readers are in the age range of 18-29.

The Amazon Kindle was revolutionary by being the first company to have a mass consumption of affordable e-readers. The evolution of the Kindle has also changed the relationship between publishers and authors. Kindle has such a wide variety of books because they have the “Kindle Direct Publishing Service."Which allows for authors to publish their own literary work. This means that authors no longer have to send their work out to multiple publishing houses to get rejected. This allows for many new books to be published every day through Amazon’s bookstore.

The Kindle has made many positive changes to e-reader technology. They allow anyone to read from anywhere. Although they have made many positive changes by bringing people affordable books, I do see some downfalls to our society. The Amazon Kindle is not helping the tremendous decline of bookstores. Many studies have also been proven that retention and concentration are hindered when reading from a tablet. Many people report straining their eyes from reading on the Kindle.

Overall, the Kindle’s positive contributions to our society outweigh the negative side effects. The Kindle really revolutionized the way that society reads books now. They made it possible for millions of people to have access to affordable books. They have also made it possible for the fast publishing of new literary works from all genres. The kindle proves to be a widely used source of education and entertainment in our society.

Amazon Kindle Information

Blog Post #5- Living in the Age of AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has progressed over the years and has become an extremely powerful tool used by the government and large companies.  Britannica describes AI as “the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings.”  AI has many positive benefits to society, like cancer treatments and solving crime. But AI can be a scary technology that blurs the lines of privacy. As I was watching the In the Age of AI film in class I became frightened and shocked. 

I became especially nervous when the video started to speak about how AI is used in China and in other countries. AI is used to control people and get them to do what the government wants.  It made me wonder how AI is used in America to find out information on citizens without them knowing. Seeing what is going on in other countries worries me about what AI will be used for in the future in America.

Not only am I worried about AI infringing on our privacy rights I am also worried about it cutting jobs. Many people have already lost their jobs because of AI and if AI keeps evolving I wonder what professions are next. Seeing this film made me research more jobs that technology could not do with my degree. I am curious as to how AI can affect the communication field.

Overall, AI is a groundbreaking technology that has major effects on humans. I think that AI can be very useful and have a positive effect on society. AI can also be used as a dangerous weapon against people if it is used incorrectly. The government and large corporations need to be more transparent about what they use AI technology for. I'm frightened and curious to see how AI will develop and what it will be used for in the future.

Blog Post #4- Meriwether V. Hartop and the First Amendment

 

On March 26th, 2021 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in the case Meriwether v. Hartop sided with the educational system and faculty speech rights. Nicholas Meriwether, a professor at Shawnee State University filed a lawsuit under First Amendment rights. Meriwether refused to call a student by the preferred pronouns of a transgender student because of his religious views. Even though, years prior the institution instated a new policy that professors had to use a student's preferred pronouns. Meriwether was reprimanded by the University after his refusal and continual discrimination of the student by calling other students “Ms.” or “Mr” and her by her last name. 

Meriwether took it to court saying that it is his right to exercise free speech under the first amendment. The sixth circuit sided with him “the court did not decide whether a professor could insist on actually using a pronoun that didn't match the student's preferred pronoun. Rather, the court only considered whether a professor could decline to use the student's preferred pronoun.” They ultimately rendered that consideration to be true. The verdict of this case poses the question “If the court says it does interfere with an individual’s first amendment rights, does that make it morally acceptable”? 

In today's culture, people are becoming who they feel best fits their inner self and being apathetic to society's judgments. Just because Meriwether did not believe in transgender identities, does that give him any liberty to discriminate against the student and sue because he did not want to follow the rules? I surmise this may be a case in which promoting tolerance from the Eight Values of Free Expression comes to play. If the other students and professors “handled” Meriwether by letting him know he was morally incorrect, does that give the girl enough justice? In my opinion, I believe the First Amendment is black and white when it comes to looking at facts and coming to a verdict, but it is gray when it comes to giving the “wronged party” proper justice.

Meriwether v. Hartop Verdict

Blog Post #4- The Eight Values of Free Expression

 

The First Amendment is the foundation of America that aims to protect the individual rights of citizens from governmental power. Within the first amendment, there are eight major values of free expression which include: a marketplace of ideas, participation in self-government, stable change, individual self-fulfillment, check on governmental power, promote tolerance, promote innovation, and protect dissent. Freedom of expression means individuals can express their beliefs and thoughts without fear of censorship from the government. All of these values can be seen in everyday events, but the more prevalent values in our society are protect dissent, participation in self-government, and marketplace of ideas.


Protect dissent means protecting the belief of everyone, especially the minority voice. No matter how much someone’s views differ from the majority belief, that person has the right to stand by and express their opinion. This is the basis of individual rights because without this society would never develop. Development takes place when the minority belief becomes more of a majority-supported belief. Protect dissent is very important in society because it enables everyone to feel safe expressing their beliefs.


Participation in self-government means that one’s civic duty is to petition or speak up to the government if they are doing something unlawful. The right to free speech and press is what gives citizens the ability to participate in government. Citizens can petition the government and hold peaceful protests if they disagree with actions made by the government. This year individuals who participated in self-governing increased, with the recent social justice issues. This is evident in the protests that were held this summer, thousands of Americans protested for human and social rights. These peaceful protests were a main example of how participating in self-government works because it helps pass new legislation and get new politicians in office.


A Marketplace of ideas was meant to create a society that allows everyone to express their beliefs even if they are false. This value was created because the founders hoped that the truth and the great ideas would always prevail. This may have been a great idea at the beginning of our democracy, but I believe this idea has morphed over time with the use of social media. In our current society, individuals can easily spread false stories on social media platforms. This makes it harder for citizens to trust what is true and they have a difficult time deciphering what is true and false. Fake news stories are spread every day and they have major effects on citizens and their trust in the government. False stories about the coronavirus and what the government is doing to control the spread have made citizens lose trust in the government and science. Sometimes the truth about fake news stories is not spread nearly half. Fake news is a part of a marketplace of ideas, but that does not mean it's always productive in society.