media literacy and personal identity

Media Literacy and Personal Identity

What it means to you.

Presented by Jamie CohenProfessor and Program Director

New Media at Molloy College

Have you ever Googled yourself?This sounds silly, but it’s important to check from time to time.

We have only one reputation and what we leave online is called a “digital footprint.”

Everything uploaded associated to your name is part of your footprint.

What it means to understand personal identity in an online

space.The term for the amount of “stuff” online is called “Big Data” and

it’s being used for advertising purposes. The more people add content to to the web, the better the machine understands the

user.

How is your online identity?According to Pew Internet Life, the more you go online, the more integral it is to your life.Pew finds that “people without Internet access are at a real disadvantage because of the all the information they might be missing,” while 94% percent surveyed agree with the statement that “the Internet makes it much easier to find information today than in the past.”

Where online identity starts1.2 billion people have Facebook.Their online identity begins almost immediately. Over 80% of children under the age of 2 have an online identity.Many have a presence before they are born.

The issue at hand: Privacy and Identity

What is identity? How do you create it? How to do you maintain it?

How the web sees its usersAs technology advances, we are more susceptible to digital algorithms that “phish” and “rake” our data. It’s weird to think of our uploads as data, but that’s all that the software thinks it is.

Where is your stuff?Becoming media literate about content uploads and identity

management.

And now the gloomy stuff.Who sees it?

Why do they see it? How do we know?

Why it matters.Your identity is valuable, literally. It creates a sense of who you are and why you are. The more we leave online, the more there is left there for a long time. To get even gloomier, our data outlive us.

Steps to being more media literate

Context is king. Remember that what you post may be taken out of context for

anyone to see.

Steps to being more media literate

Context is king. Remember that what you post may be taken out of context for

anyone to see.

Think first, post second.Very often, misinformation is spread simply by sharing without checking. You can help other users (and yourself) by checking with Snopes.com first before posting something.Pro-tip: If it sounds too good or too crazy to be true, it probably is. [The Internet is a weird place.]

Good luck out there!Any further questions? I’d love to talk!

jcohen@molloy.edu

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