Thanksgiving Dinner at Purdue Dining Court

The Asian Games Controversy and New Media

Many Americans might not notice, but the 2010 Asian Games in China, also known as the "Asian Olympics", have brought up a huge controversy and tension among Taiwan, China, and South Korea over the past week. Not only CNN but also the major newspapers such as The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times reported the incident and the following debates and Taiwanese people's fury.

According to the newspapers, Taiwanese Taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-Chun was disqualified after she was leading the bout 9-0 against a Vietnamese Taekwondo athlete because the judges believed she wore illegal socks that had two more sensor panels.

The biggest controversy was that both athletes passed the inspection before the bout began, and the inspectors proved that all the equipment on both athletes were allowed in Asian Games. However, after Yang got 9 points in a row, the bout was halted by a Chinese official and a Korean official because they suspected that there was something wrong with the socks Yang was wearing. After a discussion, they ruled that Yang was disqualified.

Later, as more and more videos got uploaded to YouTube, including this one, Taiwanese people became furious and wanted the Taiwanese government to seek justice. To make things worse, Korean officials and Chinese officials never gave an explanation of why Yang passed the pre-bout inspection but got disqualified after she led by 9 points, and according to CNN again on Nov. 18, South Korean officials published a statement accusing Taiwan and Yang of "a shocking act of deception."

As many people could imagine, the statement triggered the anger of Taiwanese people and brought up the tension that has long been developed for decades among Taiwan, China, and South Korea.

So how does this incident have anything to do with new media? First of all, I received the news not from television or newspapers but from Facebook newsfeed. It's not the first time I got major news from new media. Last summer, I checked my Facebook right before I went to work, and guess what I saw on my friends' Facebook statuses? Michael Jackson's death! The same thing happened when the earthquake hit Haiti. Again in last week, I learned about the deadly fire that killed 42 people in Shanghai because of Facebook.

Looking back at the Asian Games incident, one of the reasons why people responded so quickly to the disqualification of Yang was Facebook and other social media outlets. Take me for instance, I don't follow Taiwan news everyday, so if it weren't because of Facebook, I might still have no idea what's going on. But thanks to Facebook and Twitter, I catch up with the news right after it got published.

New media not only helps to spread the story faster but also generates fury among Taiwanese people around the world in a much more efficient way than it ever did. (Yeah...some people from other countries might hate Facebook for this reason.) Two days after the disqualification, I saw a Facebook group advocating fair treatment and justice. And this CNN article was recommended by more than 15,000 Facebook users within three days.

The results are both good and bad. One of the good results was that the widely shared anger made related officials apologize and even resign. On the other hand, it was easy for some people to perceive the incident as a great excuse to break out their anger in an inappropriate manner. Take a Facebook link that shared by many of my friend for example. A Taiwanese local politician burned Korean flags and threw imported kimchi (traditional Korean vegetable) on the ground in public. To my surprise, I saw so many comments that hail the politician who burned Korean flags.

Being a frequent user of Facebook and other social media outlets, I say new media brought us into this smallest global village of all time, but it also made a lot of things more intense. I'm not saying the inappropriate behavior of burning other country's flags would not happen if there was no new media in the society, but simply looking at the statuses of many Taiwanese Facebook users, it is easy for us to exaggerate people's emotions, their patriotism, and the antipathy to China and South Korea.

It is always good to know immediately what's happening at the other side of the world, but we should be smart users of new media at the same time.

(Picture retrieved from BBC.com)

I thought mine was mine not yours?

I read an interesting article, What's Mine Isn't Yours, the other day, and it gave me a chance to rethink about who controls my data. Should it be Facebook? Google? Or me?

This article reminded me of what my friend told me a while ago. My friend decided to quit using Facebook because using Facebook is addicting and time-consuming. However, he regreted doing so after a few years, and he decided to come back. To his surprise, he did not have to rebuild anything on his page. Everything was just like how it used to be when he quit. What does this mean? No matter what we do, our info, our pictures, and our friend list are always there. Just like this article said, "Facebook, in other words, is a Roach Motel for your social graph- your data checks in, but unless Mark Zuckerberg approves it, it can never leave."

Keeping all the users' data can be viewed as saving our time to rebuild everything when we accidentally delete all our information or when someone wants to come back to Facebook. But what about my email address and my friends'?

I think Google did a good job informing its users of how we will never be able to erase anything that we import to Facebook today. Many people might be aware of the consequences already, but others like me would never know if no one tells us. Although Google is being criticized of its intention by doing so, I view such action as protecting users' rights of their data.

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Midterm Elections and Hyper-local News Sites

As the midterm election is the highlight for today and the past few days, I noticed something interesting on the online-only news sites. And here I use TBD.com as an example of the online-only news site since there are way too many sites that feature so many different angles of the elections.

To begin with, I noticed TBD featured related news with the elections not only in the DC area but also from other nearby places such as Virginia and Maryland, although TBD is a well-known hyper-local news site. As other news sites, TBD provides its readers with the most updated information. On its homepage, the most updated votes from these areas are displayed on the top so it's the first thing that readers noticed. The news of Martin O'Malley won another term as maryland governor popped out when I was reading other news, and I personally thought TBD did a good job in providing its readers the most recent update or result of the elections.

I was also surprised to find live videos about the elections from TBD TV. When I clicked on it, I expected to see already-made videos. However, I found myself surprised by TBD again because I was watching a live coverage featuring the elections results and the analysis. I then paid close attention to see if TBD used other channels' videos to put together their own, but I realized TBD had its own staff, anchors, and reporters from Maryland and Virginia. The professional conversations between the anchor and the reporters made me feel like I was watching ABC news, instead of an online-only news site.

In conclusion, I think TBD covered the election well because it not only efficiently provided the most recent updates of the elections but also provided a live TV channel to bring audience from their homes to Maryland, Virginia, and the DC area to listen to the winners' speeches. Of course, people can always argue that TBD did not provide elections results from other major cities. However, being hyper-local is the direction that TBD took when it first launched, and that's also what made them different from national TV channels. In my opinion, if you are looking for a great coverage of the elections from the DC areas and the nearby places, TBD definitely is one of my top choices.