What are the main arguments in the two readings for this week? What version of historical change do you believe in and why?

From this week's reading, two views were presented one by Castell and one by Fraiberg.
For Castell's view, the article viewed this new digital age in a sociological perspective. The ideas presented were quite dynamic, unifying, scientific and statistical. Castell viewed in the process of globalization, politicians would unify and eventually set aside their difference to negotiate one another for an effective form of government. A very dynamic view Castell also brought up was the idea of the physical space was not simply eliminated. This physical space would instead be transformed into wires and fiber optics opposing the presumed view of cyber space transformation. As well Castell brought scientific ideas in molecular biology along with the human body. Statistics was acknowledged since empirical research is required in such form to contribute to today's information technology.

Fraiberg's view presented a more direct subject and concern over AIDS, sexuality risks and cyborgs. Common issues about AIDS were brought up such as unsafe sex which is risky and the lack of conservativeness in people's behavior and discretion. At one point, Fraiberg suggested a strategy to combat the spread of AIDS with the help and cooperation with government and politicians. He/she stated that politicians should form a policy in order to halt the spread of AIDS.

I strongly prefered Castell's view since it seemed more focus on the topic with the information age and technology. Fraiberg did state some worth issues and arguments but I feel Castell possess a more constructive and favorable view with the information age. I believe scientific development in Castell's article is more likely to occur than AIDS which is a very concerning issue and may take decades before that issue ever gets solved.


Translation: English to French
English: Canada will advance and face off Slovakia in the semi-finals.

French: Le Canada avance et se font face la Slovaquie dans la demi-finale aux Jeux Olympiques d'hiver.

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What are the main arguments in the two readings for this week? Which one do you prefer and why?

In the article presented by Charles Ess, it portrays its view towards an "electronic global village." Ess demonstrates inevitably that the global village will eventually occur in the long run. However, in its process there are bound to be conflicts of interest and restrictions. One of the most notable issues is culture and its values, many cultures fear the uprising of globalization through modern technological communication. Many cultures stress that the global village will position itself in a Western culture and other cultures will deteriorate and become part of the Western imperialism. Like many cultures, they tend to be ethnocentric and resist the Western imperialism through globalization in order to preserve their culture. This occurs in such ways like the internet governance of China. Ess attempts to view globalization in another way as oppose to an imperialistic view. It was demonstrated that some cultures preserve their own values and language with the help of globalization by utilizing its expanding modern technology.

For the second article presented by Bettig, the article views imperialism of western culture in a different method. Capitalism is the main value western culture persist in and attempts to globalize this value. Betting argues in a extreme capitalistic culture, the ones that truly benefit are corporations that make extreme profits. With growing powerful corporations around the world, eventually a monopoly will occur and the view of globalization will be viewed from this single corporation.
Betting stresses the power a single corporation can possess with such influence and governance. The article portrays the issues that can arise if corporations become to powerful and monitor all the communication and thus infringing the privacy rights of people around the world.

By looking at both articles, I would prefer the article that was written by Ess and the electronic globalization. I believe Ess's article seems more realistic and of concern compared to Bettig's article. Both demonstrated favorable arguments and concern to various topics but I believe Ess has a more logical reasoning. Western Imperialism is an issue occurring as we speak and cultural perseverance is an ongoing issue. A monopoly corporation and governance is a notable issue worth being a bit concern about but today most governments prevent monopolies from occurring with anti-trust laws to guarantees healthy competition. Internet governance are usually governed by organizations or federal governments and not corporations. Unlike corporations, they're not under the incentive of profit. To me, I see the real interest is in Ess's article of imperialism since it is talking about an ongoing issue rather than a possible issue that may or may not occur.

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What determines the structure of a folksonomy and why? The code, the content or the social process?

Before determining the structure of the Folksonomy, I should first define it. Folksonomy is a system of categorization that enables users to manage and create tags of their content.

Today, Folksonomy is wildly used as a form of collaborative tagging in social networks and in contents. Clearly, Folksonomy makes our lives easier for us by making things less time consuming and more efficient. This system of categorization allows us to find what we're looking much faster by allowing users to "tag" their content or social process. I see this as a form of Web 3.0 innovation since the introduction of "tagging" brings more meaning to the word in the way of semantics. I believe the social process determines the key structure in Folksonomy. The whole point of the internet was to create a new powerful form of communication which was in the end to communicate with other individuals directly. Content indirectly communicates with other people by sharing information. Our social needs are the key motivation that drove people to create such powerful forms of communication. The word "folk" means people or a form of it and indicates that Folksonomy's foundation structure can be derived from social process themselves. The term folk indicates information is being passed directly to another individual by the means of a social process. Clearly, social processes determines the key structure of Folksonomy since it was used to pass down information long before any powerful communication was developed.

In terms of globalization, Folksonomy helps us understand it better by realizing that it is occurring much faster due to the quicker access of information and findings whether it is for content or social needs. Folksonomy is another factor of globalization, we may not be in a global village but helps gets us closer through social networking which can help develop this village by gathering users to enter such village. Inevitably, all users will unify into a single networks and may one day achieve a global village within the network.