Emojis and their History

 

Sure these emoticons were basic but they were a step in the direction that we see emojis today. In 1999 a Japanese artist by the name of Shigetaka Kurita created the first emojis with his team at “I-Mode”. These emojis were made to help portray emotion and have simple and easy ways to communicate with one another over the phone. Kurita ended up making 176 emojis in their entirety and they now sit in the Museum of modern art in New York and are viewed by thousands of people daily. 

Emoticons and emojis have had a very long and robust history, even though you may think of emojis as a more recent thing in the timeline of history emoticons were actually used in 1862. When President Lincoln was giving a speech and in the transcript written by the New York Times the emoticon ;)  was used. Whether that was a mistake or the first use of emoticons is heavily debated. Going ahead to 1963 Harvey Ball invents the smiley face :) which was a staple of “Hippie Culture” In the ‘60s and ‘70s.  

After that, many companies try to mimic and recreate the emojis that Kurita created in Japan only but eventually moved to the United States through both Google and Apple. Both those companies created their own emojis to start the competition in the States for better quality and more versatile emojis. 

Emojis have changed communication forever and there have been multiple things that have allowed people to use emojis more casually and use emojis in more ways such as the Emoji adaptation of Moby Dick, the book was written completely in emojis and which was a very big breakthrough because it showed that emojis could be so complex and be able to communicate so much information, even to the point of writing a whole book in emojis.  

In 2009 two coders from Apple requested that 625 new emoji characters be put into the Unicode Standard, which was later approved in 2010. Those 625 new emojis were now easily accessible to all phone users. This choice to add the emojis to the Unicode standard made two things clear, that emojis were too mainstream for the major tech companies not to include them in their text/chat messengers anymore and that emojis were on their way to being their own “language”. 

When you look at emojis today, they are an everyday part of conversations and texts and have affected how we communicate.  There have been many emojis that have even taken the place of words and emotions in our text conversations. Things such as 👍(yes) , 🔥(fire/awesome) ,and 🤷(I don't know). Those simple emojis can replace whole sentences and get an idea or emotion out in just one click of a button.  

When you think of emojis you can associate them with my generation (Gen Z) because of how much our age group uses them and they were first popularized during our generation as well. 74% of people in the US regularly use stickers, or emoticons in their online communications, sending an average of 96 emoticons or stickers per day. That number will only go up as technology advances and continues to grow in the modern age.

Emojis have been a huge part of the history of communication and instant messaging even being named the word of the year in 2015.  Our generation understands that a picture is worth a thousand words and emojis are the pictures of instant messaging and they can communicate so much information 

Key Blog Post- Eight Values of Free Expression

 The eight values of free expression through the first amendment are very important when it comes to freedom of speech and our civil freedoms as citizens. These freedoms are so important because, without the freedom of speech and freedom to express ourselves, we would live in a much different society and less of a democracy. I think the one value of the first amendment that resonates with me most right now as a college student is Individual Self-Fulfillment. I've heard it said by many people that colleges really where you find yourself and I think as a first-year college student individual self-fulfillment, aka self-actualization, Is a value that really resonates with me. 

Faculty at Oklahoma State University describe self-fulfillment as “Individual realization of character and potential as a human being means the right to form your own beliefs/opinions and the right to express those belief/opinions” I personally am only nineteen right now at this time and I think as I continue to grow in my knowledge of the first amendment and in my knowledge of life in general that I will come to know my character and who I can be in the future more because that we can express ourselves through self-fulfillment and it is protected by the first amendment.

The one value that I see as the most important would be participation in self-government because, without the citizen's participation and knowledge in government, there is a high chance that the government would look vastly different and possibly corrupted without the help and ideas of the citizens. Reporters and different media outlets can interview politicians and talk to even the president about different things that are happening in the government and without that we, citizens would not know anything about the policies that they're putting in place and the things that they're doing.  The first amendment allows non-politicians to go and understand what kind of policies are being made and what is happening within the country because of the importance of self-government. 

Protective dissent is the one value I see in the world using the most. I believe that many media sites such as the very big news casting TV stations criticize the government and force citizens to think about the laws being passed and the government's different actions, which creates criticism and possible hatred towards the government in many ways. I think that one way that protective dissent is available to practically everyone who owns a smart device is through social media you have a lot of people that will post their opinions about different governmental laws and thoughts on certain political figures that are protected by the First amendment right and you can see that first amendment is being used a lot through social media and that connects with us as college students directly. 

When we have talked about privacy in class it has been something that has been very interesting because it was not something that I was very well versed in and I did not know a lot about so the more that we learn about the ways that our privacy is being shared with many companies and even the FBI is scary and one of those social media platforms that take our information is TikTok and there has been a lot of feedback online. 

Through stable change which is a value of the first amendment people can actively pursue and push for a change in different media platforms one change that has been highly talked about the last year is the banning of TikTok in America and a recent poll done by The Washington Post claims that 41% of Americans would be for banning of TikTok in the US. People are allowed to have this opinion and conduct these studies because of the values of the first amendment and the ways that their speech is protected. 

What is the Supreme Court?

The Supreme Court is one of the most influential and the most powerful in the entirety of the world. Many other countries and legislative systems have mimicked and used the same process that the Supreme Court uses to make decisions in the country, which shows that it is the most powerful Court in the world. One thing that I learned about the Supreme Court that I didn't already know was that the average time of service on the Supreme Court is 16 years and it said in the video that it could be even more than that many presidencies after the president that inducted them into the Supreme Court. There are upwards of 7,000 cases that are sent to the Supreme Court yearly and the Supreme Court looks at each and every one of them and deems them important enough to be viewed and debated by the Supreme Court or not.

 

One thing that I found very interesting was that one of the justices talked about how every single one of those requests gets looked at by a supreme court member and that's unlike any other court in the world because they have the option to take court case that they want and they can review every single one of them with their own eyes and not just hear about the important ones. 

Probably the most surprising thing that I learned throughout the videos was that there may be things in the news that are super important and that they should have opinions on but the Supreme Court cannot do anything with that information like the president or Congress can unless there is a written report. That is surprising to me because if the Supreme Court is one of the most powerful courts in the world then sometimes they would have to wait for a very long time to make a decision compared to the president or Congress can come to a decision fairly quickly compared to the Supreme Court. This video helped me change the way I think about the Supreme Court because I used to think that they had all the power that they wanted and that they can make any decision at any time but there's a lot more that goes into it and they are very methodical in the ways that they make decisions and it's much more thought out and planned 

Privacy Issues in Media Today

When we learned about the major privacy laws there were many things that were very concerning when it came to media privacy and the ways that media takes your information constantly. Learning about the Shrink-wrap contract and the Click-wrap contract was very interesting because you now have an open mind to where contracts are started in media and technology. 

A shrink-wrap contract is when you open a package and remove the wrapping from the package then read or see the contract that is in the package. I think this affects me and my parents a lot because I know when I get/receive a package that I never look at the paper in the box because I think it is useless information. There is actually a lot of information that is super important, when you throw out that paper you are throwing out your contract for owning that item. 

The click-wrap contract is much more dangerous when it comes to your media security. A Click-Wrap contract is when you see all the words of the terms of service agreement and words, which can be thousands upon thousands of words that no one reads. When we agree to those terms of service, we agree to the media services to use our media and take our information to better recommend ads and even have the opportunity to use our pictures in different promotions and or to give our information to the government. 

The government should not be allowing these companies to take and use our information, instead, they buy the information from the companies and use it to learn more about us. The government should not be partaking in buying our information rather they should be protecting our privacy by making it easier to know what we are getting ourselves into in the terms of services. Media companies confuse the people by putting so many words in the terms and conditions, so the government could change the law to make it to that there is a summary of the information. We could be protecting ourselves better by not posting everything about ourselves online and being more careful about what we do put on the internet. 

My Top 5 Sources of News and Information

 Nowadays the News is everywhere and many different brands and companies report the news to the masses. While people search for places that share unbiased news so that can be the most informed. I have also searched for that as well and believe that there are some places where I get information.

1. The New York Times

While the New York Times does have a small left-leaning bias, it is a good place to get a lot of facts about different news stories and current events. The New York Times is very influential and no matter where you are everyone knows about the Times. The Times has a set of rules that the writers must abide by when it comes to writing articles so for that reason it is a good source of information because you know that there will be unbiased statistics and information before they go into interpreting that information. 

2. ESPN 

I am always viewing and watching sports and that is one thing that I am very passionate about for that reason, I see a lot of media and news relating to sports on ESPN. ESPN is the place to find the most information in the sports world, whether that is trades and contracts, or information about players and what they stand for. ESPN always has breaking news and recaps from what happened the night before in the sports world which is great for those who care about sports but don't have the time to watch every game, like myself and many others. 

3. Google News

As a college student, I am on my computer every day. My preferred browser is Google so whether I knew it or not I had been exposed to Google News for a very long time. This news site is helpful because it is very easily accessible and helps you find articles from different biases or sites that you may want to read. They also do a good job of reporting breaking news to the masses through their site. You can see those breaking news articles because they show up on your computer as notifications and you can choose to read them with just a click of a button. 

4. WSOC-TV

I have been living in the Charlotte area for the last 12 years so whenever my family needed information on local news we would turn to Channel 9 WSOC-TV. Local news stations are nice because they show you the facts without showing any bias in what they say. WSOC always did great with breaking news in our charlotte area and did a good job at showing both heartwarming stories and stories that needed to be reported on at that moment. There were always reporters out at the scene of the interviews and crime scenes to get the best information and be the best reporters to the watchers of their channel. When you go on their website it shows important stories that the people in Charlotte need to know. 

5. Fox News

Throughout my life both my parents loved to watch Fox News to get their news and information so when I would be spending time with my family this would be on in the background. Now since I'm in college, my parents will inform me about any news that they find as important and the things that they send me are always on Fox News. Fox News is a right-leaning news source which is good because when you see a left-leaning news station you can compare the information that you are getting from both sites on the topic at hand. Fox news is always reporting and debating with other people so they have information that no other site would have just based on the interviews that they conduct.