The history of the Internet -- and the history of technology in general -- could be described as one big demonstration of the doctrine of unintended consequences: a system designed to help researchers collaborate, and developed to protect military communications in the event of a nuclear war, wound up being used primarily for shopping, socializing and entertainment. The same is true of many of the products and services on the Internet as well. In its early years it was mostly seen as a one-to-many broadcast medium, like TV or radio, but over time it's the more interactive elements that have proven to be most popular, with users producing at least as much online content as professionals.

One such development that may be in its infancy is the relationship between news  gathering and the Internet. So far that relationship has been a largely one-sided one: professional news organizations gather their news the old-fashioned way and then post it to the Internet, where it attracts readers and advertising dollars. Increasingly, though, the Internet is also being used to gather news.  One online service being used for both roles is one that's frequently dismissed as the most trivial, Twitter.

Twitter, as most people likely know by now, is what's known as a "microblogging" service: users post short (140 characters or less) messages called "tweets" which are delivered instantly to anyone who subscribes to, or "follows," their feed. For many critics that character limit exemplifies the pointlessness of Twitter, and it's true that many tweets are trivial, while many more serve as promotional materials, providing links to blog posts or photos. It's also true that, for all its Web 2.0 credentials, Twitter is closer to the broadcast model than many other Internet services, with ten per cent of Twitterers accounting for ninety per cent of tweets. As a result, many have dismissed Twitter as a tool for narcissists or celebrity-stalkers.

The one feature those critics miss -- the thing that has made Twitter so important in both making and gathering the news -- is that it is searchable. Though you only get a feed of messages from people whom you follow, you can also search every public tweet for key words or phrases. To make this easier, tweets on a particular topic are often prefixed with what's called a "hashtag," a word prefixed with the number sign as a sort of label (so a message about Twitter itself would bear the hashtag "#Twitter"). Finally, the Twitter home page shows a constantly updated list of the most discussed phrases, words or hashtags. Because Twitter is updated in real time, it can be used to gather eyewitness accounts, opinions and even photos more quickly than any news outlet could manage.

The use of Twitter for newsgathering first became widely known during the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, when the general chaos of the situation, as well as the limited ability of Western media outlets to cover the attacks first-hand, made it the most reliable source of information about what was going on. Twitter then went on to beat The New York Times on its own turf when a user tweeting from his iPhone broke the story of US Airways flight 1549's crash landing in the Hudson River.

Where Twitter has really come into its own, though, is the protests following the Iranian election. What makes Twitter so important in this situation is the unusual combination of a literate, educated, Internet-connected urban population and a regime that is willing and able to censor its media. Even before the election Iranians turned to the Internet for opportunities to speak out without censorship (Iran has the third-largest number of bloggers of any nation). But the disputed results of the vote, and the rallies that followed, have caused a flood of tweets. Because tweets can be read from a variety of platforms -- the Web site itself, applications that provide a direct Twitter feed, and even cell phones -- it's particularly resistant to censorship, making it an ideal tool for organizing and disseminating information when other media are blocked or state-controlled. As of this writing, "#iranianelection" is the number one topic on Twitter, with more than a thousand tweets being posted every ten minutes.

Watching the feed of all tweets with the #iranianelection tag is an interesting, nearly addictive experience. There's definitely a sense that this is a watershed moment, not only in the history of Iran but in the history of journalism; as one poster put it, "There's a revolution going down. I'll never be able to take the news seriously again, not after seeing what Twitter can do."

It's unclear, though, how much of what's on Twitter is actually news, particularly now that the story has become so widely known. Unlike during the Mumbai attacks, when most of the tweets were coming from the event itself, at this point Iranian Twitterers are probably a minority compared to people from North America and Europe. Many of those are commenting on the events rather than participating, or are piggybacking on the topic to push their own political ideas ("This is what happens when the people are disarmed") or conspiracy theories ("If Israel is ever going to attack and destroy the nuclear facilities, wouldn't now be the premier time due to #iranelection?"). The sheer number of tweets has also left some readers feeling overwhelmed; as one put it, "The tweets in #iranelection are so voluminous, how can you read each one in order to decide which you can trust, which you can't?"

Indeed, credibility is a major issue when using Twitter as a news source: as well as random pranksters (one tried to highjack the discussion to spread a rumour that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had died), there is a suggestion that the Iranian government has begun to use Twitter to spread disinformation instead: one repeated tweet is "DO NOT RT [re-tweet] anything U read from 'NEW' tweeters, gvmt spreading misinfo." Beyond that possibility is the issue that there is virtually no way to confirm anything reported by Twitter: the message "RT Army moving into Tehran against protesters!" appeared dozens if not hundreds of times, often prefaced by the word "confirmed," but there was no way of knowing if it is true. Some users claiming to be Iranian have posted photos, but in this age of Photoshop they add little credibility. To make matters even more confusing, reported efforts by the Iranian government to block access to Twitter have led to calls for all Twitterers to change their time zone settings to Tehran in a sort of "I am Spartacus" manoeuvre, meaning that it's now harder than ever to know where someone is actually posting from.

In this one event, Twitter has shown its strengths, weaknesses and potential as a tool for journalism. Despite the concerns, it's almost certain that the Twitter feed will be a major source of information for almost any event of importance in the future. But at the same time it cannot be taken with any more confidence than an overheard conversation. Perhaps in the future news providers will designate "Twitter reporters" whose job it is to monitor trending topics, search the feed for the information that is most probably relevant and reliable, and co-ordinate with their offline colleagues to confirm what's being reported. In the meantime it falls to news consumers to develop new critical thinking tools for sifting out the truth.

Questions for discussion

• Do you think that Twitter will be an important tool for journalists in the future? Why or why not?
• What might be some ways that you could verify information you learned on Twitter?
• Twitter is unusual among social-networking programs because it is more popular with adults than with teens. Why do you think this is? Do you think it is likely to change? Why or why not?
  

It's been widely said that attention is the currency of the 21st Century. In an age where media occupy an increasingly central role in our lives, the need to have that media focused on you becomes intense. For no-one is this more true than for children and teens, who now expect to be connected twenty-four hours a day and for whom the Internet and cell phones are essential parts of their social lives. An interesting Facebook page, amusing Tweets, outrageous YouTube videos, even shocking photos sent by cell phone -- most of us are aware of the ways that young people seek their peers' attention. In today's media environment, is it still possible to teach young people the value of privacy? What, indeed, does the idea of privacy even mean to today's children and teens?

With support from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Media Awareness Network has completed a thorough review and updating of its popular professional development resource Kids for Sale: Online Privacy and Marketing to better reflect today's media environment. While fears of online predators have turned out to be largely overblown, parents and educators need to be aware that there is a powerful and organized force that is trying, and succeeding, to compromise children's privacy: online marketers.

Few adults are aware of just how commercialized kids' online environments are. According to MNet's study Young Canadians in a Wired World, ninety-five percent of young Internet users' favourite sites contain commercial content. In many cases these sites blend advertising and entertainment in ways that would be unimaginable in other media. Embedded with images of logos and mascots, these sites use video, downloadable content and free games to build up exposure to branded material and inspire consumer loyalty. Knowing that kids' Internet time is largely unsupervised, they take advantage of children's inability to discern advertising from non-commercial content. MNet’s research shows that two-thirds of children surveyed who played advergames -- online games which contain branded content and serve as advertising for youth-marketed products -- did not recognize them as advertising.

The privacy concerns of these online environments arise from the data collection techniques that are used. These are found not just in overtly commercial sites such as Candystand but also popular children's sites such as Neopets. In nearly all sites aimed at youth, children must register to gain access to the full content -- giving up personal information they would certainly not tell a stranger offline. Moreover, many of these sites give incentives (such as the "Neopoints" needed to purchase items on Neopets) for completing surveys on such topics as one's favourite candy, breakfast cereal and so on. The result, for the sites' owners, is a wealth of valuable consumer data that can be used to shape marketing decisions, in the case of the overtly commercial sites, or sold to marketers for the same purpose by the others.

What should concern parents and educators is not that the information being collected by these sites is especially sensitive -- no-one can identify or track you by your preference for Hershey over Cadbury chocolate bars -- but that these information-gathering techniques train children to give up personal information without thinking about it. If they are accustomed to trading their privacy for what they want as children -- access to games and other online content or "Neopoints" to customize their online houses -- then they will likely do the same to buy the attention of their peers as teens. Of course, this can lead to unwelcome attention as well -- either at the time, in the form of embarrassment or humiliation when material meant to be private goes public, or later, when material is viewed by unexpected audiences such as employers or university admissions officers.

So does the term "privacy" even mean anything for today's youth? In fact it still does -- ask any teen if she'd want her mother as a Facebook friend and you'll learn that. What's changed is that we can no longer view privacy as an absolute: instead it has become a negotiation, in which information is traded in exchange for other things.

What parents and educators need to do is teach children and teens privacy management, the skill of making conscious and wise choices about what information to give out and why. Kids for Sale: Online Privacy and Marketing, part of MNet's Web Awareness Workshop Series, gives educators a detailed rundown of the privacy concerns facing youth today and provides strategies and resources for dealing with them. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has also sponsored a two-part lesson series, available for free download from both the MNet and OPC Web sites, that teaches students in Grades 7 to 12 how to balance maintaining their privacy with leading an active online life.

Resources

Kids for Sale: Online Privacy and Marketing, part of MNet's Web Awareness Workshop Series, explores current strategies for marketing to kids and the ways in which children's privacy may be compromised online. The workshop underlines how important it is for kids to know when they are being informed, entertained or marketed to online and also to understand how their personal information may be used. To see if your school, board or ministry has already licensed the Web Awareness Workshop Series, view our list of current licensees.

Privacy and Internet Life, a lesson for Grades 7 to 8 which teaches students how to protect their personal information on social networking sites such as Facebook, and The Privacy Dilemma, a lesson for Grades 9 to 12 which asks students to consider and discuss the trade-offs we all make on a daily basis between maintaining our privacy and gaining access to information services.

MNet's Media Issues page on Information Privacy contains background information on the ways information privacy is compromised online, Canadian and American privacy legislation, voluntary privacy codes in industry and how online marketers target children.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner recently launched a youth-oriented Web site titled myprivacy.mychoice.mylife which includes information on building a secure online identity, tips on protecting your privacy online and a blog on privacy issues.

The last year has been an unusually busy one for watchers of gender representation in the news media, with not one but two high-profile women involved in the U.S. presidential race. The way in which these two politicians were covered provides a view of how gender in politics is portrayed in the media, and how this can help to explain just how unusual those two women are.

Let's begin with a composite of media portrayals of the typical politician. Whether a portrayal is positive or negative, some characteristics occur in nearly all such portrayals: politicians are driven, confident, well-organized, committed to their cause (or else corrupt and beholden to special interests -- but in that case still determined to achieve their purpose), and above all willing and able to achieve their goals through conflict. When these characteristics are embodied in a positive portrayal, the result is a character like The West Wing's President Bartlett: loyal to his principles, tough, clever and ruthless enough to get things done.

Now let's turn to a composite of the female characters found in media, particularly the media most consumed by young girls. How many female characters on Nickelodeon or Family Channel have two or more of these characteristics? If a character has any of the traits on that list, can they show them openly, or must they (like Hannah Montana) hide them from their peers? Are they the characters whom the viewer is meant to hate, like the inappropriately-confident Sharpay of High School Musical? In order to find sympathetic characters with any of these traits you need to go to animation, and even then to shows for the very young (Dora the Explorer) or for adults (The Simpsons).

The problem is not only with the portrayal of women but also that of politics. Stereotyping politics as an essentially masculine endeavour creates an "echo chamber" that more-or-less guarantees that it will be practiced in a stereotypically masculine way. The U.S. Founding Fathers saw politics ideally as a part-time profession, so that one would both serve the public and be a part of it, but today politics is seen as a commitment that makes it nearly impossible to have a family life. Despite the aspects of democracy that make consensus-building necessary for success -- whether it's our multi-party Parliament or the U.S. government's checks and balances -- the narrative of politics is almost always one of conflict and conquest. In short, the media's picture of politics is no more accurate than its portrayal of girls and women.

The treatment of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin in the recent U.S. presidential election is instructive. While each certainly received some legitimate criticism, many of the attacks on them had to do with gender: that they were insufficiently feminine as women, overly feminine as politicians, or both at once. Hillary Clinton received criticism for being too "cold" and "staged" -- long analyses were written of her forced-sounding laugh, for instance -- while at the same time having her candidacy trivialized by discussions of her wardrobe and fashion sense. Sarah Palin, meanwhile, was mocked for her past as a beauty pageant contestant (a memorable Saturday Night Live sketch suggested her contribution to the Republican campaign consisted of "fancy pageant walking") and simultaneously attacked for her perceived shortcomings as a mother (her daughter's unwed pregnancy, for instance.) Female politicians, in short, face a two-edged sword in the media, portrayed either as too feminine or not feminine enough.

There may be hope, however. As rough a ride as they received, Palin and particularly Clinton have made strides in forcing the media to take female politicians seriously, if in no other way simply by being serious candidates. In the less politicized role of Secretary of State, Clinton may -- like House majority leader Nancy Pelosi -- provide a model of a female politician whose two identities contain no apparent contradiction. Meanwhile, the media picture of politics itself may be changing, not due to a female politician but a male one: with his preference for consensus over conflict, his "team of rivals" leadership style, his emotional openness (as evidenced by his first, more personal memoir) and his active involvement in his family, Barack Obama may redefine our idea of just what a politician is.

Questions for classroom discussion

The activity below is taken from the MNet resource The Girl in the Mirror. Click here to view the entire lesson. An interactive version of this activity is also available here.

Portrait of a politician

Based on a class discussion of the nature of politics and political action, ask students who would be able to succeed at politics as you have defined it. What characteristics would s/he have? What strengths or qualities would s/he need to succeed? Write the heading “Portrait of a politician” over the third column on the board and list the students’ suggestions below it.  (Likely suggestions: a successful politician must be confident, forceful, willing to fight for what s/he believes in, good at tactics and strategy, persuasive, charismatic, well-organized, ruthless, a leader, inspiring, committed.)

Stereotypes in media products  

Ask students if they know what the word stereotype means. With the class’s participation, explain that it means an idea of what a person is like based on what group s/he belongs to, rather than his/her individual qualities. To make sure students get the idea, ask if they know of any stereotyped ideas adults have of young people.

Ask students where stereotypes come from, and make sure that in the following discussion the media are listed as a source. Ask students what media products girls and young women consume. The list will likely include the following:
 
• Disney products
• Family Channel, Nickelodeon and other tween-oriented shows
• Tween and teen movies
• Teen magazines
• “Grown-up” TV (make sure to get details on different kinds of shows – sitcoms, dramas, reality, etc)
• Music (again, get details – what genres, sources)

Divide the class into five groups (or more if the class suggested other media products you think are worth considering). Have each group consider one of the media products and develop a list of what stereotypes of girls and women that medium or media product communicates. (Provide the group doing teen magazines with the examples you brought to class.) Make sure students understand that they are not listing which qualities they believe girls and women possess, but which qualities these media products suggest they do.

Once the groups have made their lists, write the heading “Female stereotype” on the fourth quarter of the board and collect the groups’ findings under it. Ask students: how many stereotyped qualities came from more than one source? Do some sources give substantially different pictures of what girls and women are like, or do the different media generally agree?

Comparing stereotypes

Have the class look over column three (“Portrait of a politician”) and column four (“Female stereotype”). Are there any qualities or characteristics that are found in both columns? (Probably not.) Are there any qualities or characteristics found in one column that are the opposite of those found in the other? (Examples: ruthless/caring; well-organized/ditzy; willing to fight/wants to please.)

Based on this comparison, ask the class: if you believed in the picture of girls we get from the media, would you think girls would make good politicians? Ask the girls: if you believed in this stereotype, would you think you might make a good politician? Would you think you could get involved in political action?