Create a new entry using Blogger. Choose an online news article published by Time, The New York Times, or The Huffington Post and track its cited sources. Visit each source online and evaluate its credibility based on the guidelines set in Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources. Draft a blog post that briefly states a potential impact of unrestricted web publishing through mass media as it relates to this article. 

The article I chose was from the New York Times, entitled, "Global Rise Reported in 2013 Greenhouse Gas Emissions".  It was penned by a journalist named Justin Gillis, who has written or co-written more than one hundred articles for the Times, most of the environment related. 


There are a number of sources sited here. The first source is for data regarding emissions numbers: The Global Carbon Project. According to its .org website, the GCP "was formed to assist the international science community to establish a common, mutually agreed knowledge base supporting policy debate and action to slow the rate of increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." 

The site also states that it is supported by a number of other scientific bodies, including the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change, the World Climate Research Programme  and Diversitas. On the GCP site, links are provided to each of these organizations. This appears to be a credible source as the data released by the GCP was published in a reputable scientific journal, Nature Geoscience.


A second source is a direct quote from a scientist at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Reserach, Glen P. Peters. A click on the link for the CICEP and a name search reveals Peters is listed as a research fellow at the Institute. I would regard this also as a reliable secondary source. The CICEP is, according to its own site as well as other 


The article also cites an additional study released by the World Meteorological Organization. A link is provided to this source as well. The WMO is, according to the United Nations website, a specialized agency of the UN. It is also the same organization that names hurricanes and typhoons. This source would also appear to be a highly credible source. 


There is clearly a bias to this article, which present scientific claims that greenhouse gases have risen again after years of decline. Though his sources are all well-established organizations and professionals in the field of environmental science, there is a pronounced lack of dissenting viewpoints here to counter the conclusions that the quoted scientist has extrapolated from the report. There are no other voice present here to offer another interpretation of the data.

Bias is just one of the hazards of unrestricted web publishing, as well as poorly vetted resources and low standards for research and accuracy, and while this article does not suffer from any of the latter issues, it is quite clearly skewed toward a pro-environment stance. 

Gillis, Justin. (Sept 21, 2014) "Global Rise Reported in 2013 Greenhouse Gas Emissions". Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/science/earth/scientists-report-global-rise-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html


Justin Gillis. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/justin_gillis/index.html


WMO World Meteorological Organization. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.un.org/events/wssd/exhibit/WMO.pdf


"The State of Greenhouse Gases in the Atmosphere Based on global Observations Through 2013

WMO Greenhouse Bulletin. (Sept 9, 2014) Retrieved from https://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/documents/1002_GHG_Bulletin.pdf
"

About CICERO" (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.cicero.uio.no/about/index_e.aspx#hvem

How Do I Really Know What I Know?

How do I really know what I know? Good question. I read today this heading on the news feed of my AOL homepage: "Joint Relief Without Glucosamine; How can this new ingredient relieve joints in 7 days? See why it's flying off shelves". Being someone who has been running, jumping and rolling around on Disney streets for a decade, I have back and joint issues from time to time. It's a hazard of the trade. The nature of the best. But this caught my attention and my first thought was "Oh, here's a news article talking about something that interests me. There's useful information I can use." Upon closer inspection, however, I realized that it was an advertisement. Though it slid across my feed, peppered in among the news articles, it took a second glance to realize I had just been duped. This wasn't even a particularly artful attempt to make a sales pitch look like news, but it still fooled me for a moment, much to my chagrin. 

Is social media a reliable source for obtaining credible information at times? I say, yes, and no, and it depends on what kind of information you are seeking. It can be a very reliable source of information on the events and happenings in the lives of those I care about. When news breaks, or even while watching a TV broadcast such as the Oscars or the Tonys, it can serve as a general gauge of what my friends and family think, how they are reacting, what they believe about what they are seeing and hearing. It can also be a deceptive sales pitch of appearances, much as that AOL newsfeed ad was, meant to convince and persuade and skew. Most all of us are guilty of trying to perform a bit of a facelift on our lives in a public fashion via social media. I wonder sometimes who we are trying to convince more, our friends or ourselves.

In your first entry, answer these questions: What forms of new media do you use daily? How has new social media influenced your perspective of events? Are these positive or negative influences?

My daily use of new media includes accessing the internet from my iphone, ipad, as well as my laptop. I visit Facebook every day, often multiple times a day. I commonly use the internet for research as well as entertainment. Monthly, I stream movies and TV shows from Netflix and Amazon, as well as watch YouTube videos. During last terms Communications course, I conducted an experiment and took a sabbatical from Facebook. The results were startling to me. I had no idea how ingrained my habit of spending time just cruising FB and the web was, how social media functioned as the "other person in the room" to me until I did this. Crazy!

Social media has made news less of a fact gathering experience and more of a temperature gauging experience. On the down side, I have to look harder for factual information. Some of news media has fallen in with the trend of expressing opinion, rather than fact, in what I believe is an attempt to stay relevant and interesting to younger audiences. This makes it more difficult, however, to trust your sources.

On the upside, it has given me a better read for how the public in general is reacting to news at the moment it is released to the public. People are much more comfortable expressing their honest opinions online than they are at the office or the water cooler. The internet has made it easier for people to find their "tribe" and creates a safer environment for others to express their beliefs.