Citzen Media and the Public Sphere

This is just a short introduction: I'm in my fourth year at Wilfrid Laurier University,(this link will send you to our University home page rather than Wikipedia as our entry is horrible and currently being restructured by myself and fellow classmates!) and for my final project I have decided to participate even MORE in the blogosphere since I have enjoyed it so much as we have been blogging all semester long!
This has been one of my favourite classes that I have taken in my 4 years! It's full of relevant and up-to-date topics that completely relate to the lives of students. From learning about Blogs and Facebook to interesting topics like the Afrosphere and Hacktivism. This class has sparked my interest in how we have reshaped our many relationships because of how interactive social media sites have allowed us to be. So hopefully you will find this blog as relative to your lives and interesting as this class has been for me!

I want to start by clarifying that throughout these posts when I say that social media sites or instant messaging processes have reshaped our relationships or created new expectations I'm implying that it's our use of these internet tools that has been the determing factor in these changes. The internet alone could not effect us unless we chose to engage in them (this is a very important concept to remember). I will also explain in separate posts how new expectations have arose in each relationship as a result of our engagement in the public sphere. I will do this because many of the expectations vary depending on the relationship. Interestingly, the majority of the defined relationships have resulted in an increased particpation level in another's life.

For now however, I'm going to leave you with this video. It is one of the many interesting things this class has opened my eyes up too, hoping I can do the same for others! It is now up for a GENIE Award which is Canada's top film prize! An amazing new organizational website called Creative Commons has provided it (along with other music and movies under this license) for free!