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MMORPGs have countless aspects worth studying. I could probably devote my entire life to learning about the socio-technical issues floating around this fairly recent gaming phenomenon. Unfortunately, I have not the time nor motivation to do so. Instead, I've taken a few topics and provided some quick overviews. For all of the blurbs, I've chosen to focus on World of Warcraft (WoW), as it is the most popular of the MMORPGs and the only one I have personal experience with.

Objectives of Gameplay
Before getting into some of the more in-depth topics, I thought it might be appropriate to explain how these kind of games work, for anyone who might not be familiar. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia's entry for World of Warcraft:

As with other MMORPGs, people control a character avatar within a persistent game world, exploring the landscape, fighting monsters, performing quests, building skills, and interacting with NPCs, as well as other players. The game rewards success with money, items, experience and reputation, all of which in turn allow players to improve their skill and power. Players can level up their characters from level one to level 60, level 70 if they have The Burning Crusade expansion.

And below are some clips taken from YouTube that might help you visualize the process. The first is an official trailer from Blizzard. For the rest, I intentionally avoided videos with music, cinema scenes and fast camera cuts. This is what the game is. This is what people do, for hours upon hours upon hours, leveling up for new weapons, abilities, and places to explore. Once you get to the higher levels, you can slay other players as well, but it doesn't look much more exciting than other kinds of gameplay.

Motivations for Playing
Recently, Nick Yee, administrator of the Daedalus Project,set out to find the answer to the question, "What exactly drives people to play these games?". He asked players to "read through a set of motivations [generated from earlier findings] and pick the one that was most important to them". I'm not sure if the survey was open to unique responses, but the list seemed to be pretty comprehensive, and I don't think this would be cause for any significant inaccuracies. Below is a chart of the findings.

As you can see in the chart above, progress appears to be the most motivating aspect of play. Based on my experience, I couldn't agree more. The reward system is ingenious. At any given point, there is always a desirable skill or weapon that's only 2-5 levels away. It seems so close, and it makes playing an extra five hours (on top of the eight you've already played that weekend) completely feasible. And, guess what? As soon as you obtain your goal, there's another equally appealing treat dangling in front of your face and it's just as close. Progress is, by far, the most addictive aspect of WoW in my mind, and I believe that was the intention when the game was designed.

At first, I was a little surprised to see how highly socialization scored. But after realizing that it was only applicable for females and seeing some other research online, it made a little more sense. See the "Playing with Romantic Partners and Family Members" section.

Gender Composition
According to the Daedalus Project, the real-life gender distribution of WoW is 84% male v. 16% female. I didn't find the numbers particularly surprising, as I probably would have estimated an 85:15 or 80:20 ratio myself. I assume that the figures were calculated either from account holders' subscription information (which, not seeing any obvious incentive to lie, I think would be very accurate) or from surveying a large sample of players. In either case, I originally believed the statistics wholeheartedly. Then, I came across this article, claiming that Blizzard representatives assert that only 5% of the WoW population is female. These folks, more than anyone else, should know the ratio, but I (along with the author of the blog post) am a little skeptical. Considering the undisputed rise in female gamers, described in this NBC write-up, and my own beliefs coming into this assignment, I think 5% is too low. Maybe the blog post is inaccurate. Maybe the Blizzard representative didn't know his facts. Maybe the definitions of what constitutes a gamer were inconsistent. In any case, I'm leaning toward the Daedalus Project's work. I found quite a few YouTube videos, some being part of a series, proclaiming the presence of females in MMORPGs. At this point, I believe the stereotype that video games are solely for males is fading. Males still make up the majority, of course, but it's understood that the number of female players are increasing significantly and may someday even out the ratio.

 

Playing with Romantic Partners and Family Members
The Daedalus Project estimates that about 60% of female players and 16% of male players play the game with real-life romantic partners. The study also asserts that 40% of female players and 35% of male players play with family members.

I think the appeal of playing with those who share a real-life relationship is fairly obvious. Rather than being limited to interaction with people who, in most cases, the player will only communicate to through a digital medium, players can enhance existing relationships (romantic or family-based) they have with people they can interact with directly. While this post argues that, in some ways, meeting people through MMORPGs is more efficient and successful than in real-world situations, I believe that even the most hardcore of gamers would prefer real-life, face-to-face, human interaction over something mediated by a digital world. Also, playing with real-life peers, partners and family-members is more socially acceptable, because there is some form of human interaction that exists, so I believe this also makes players more likely to engage in the game with these people.

I also found it interesting that in both situations (romantic and family-based), females were more inclined to participate with other players they know in real-life. After thinking it through, it didn't take long to see why these statistics make sense. While the population of females in the gaming world is rapidly growing, the old gender roles are still prominent in society. It isn't as common for girls to start playing video games at an early age as it is for boys. Whether the reason for this is biological or dependent on the upbringing of the children (I'm guessing a combination of both), young females just aren't as inclined to be playing video games. I think that if they aren't introduced to video games early in life, they are less likely to play them later on for the same familiar reasons that most gamers play (progress, immersion, exploration, etc.). They need something else to spark their interest. As mentioned in the "Motivations for Playing" section, this is socialization. I think many females are introduced to gaming by males in their lives, whether boyfriends, husbands, brothers, fathers, or sons. Several may develop deeper interests in the games after they start playing, but the reason many start is, I believe, a social one.

Memorable Gameplay
According to the Daedalus Project, the most memorable experiences players retained fell into the following categories:

Achievements
----Team
----PvP
----Solitary

The Trek

Relationships
----Random Acts of Kindness
----Romantic Relationships
----Friendships

Death
----The Memorable Wipe
----Guild Death
----Role-Played Funeral
----RL Death of Player

Misc.
----Role-Playing
----Meeting Guild IRL
----The Initial Euphoria

There are plenty of things to expound upon here, but of all the memorable experiences, I found the most interesting to be online funerals, specifically honoring those who have died in real-life...

My reaction to this video was confusing. On one hand, I thought it was ridiculous and cheesy, but on the other, it was possibly more moving than any real-life funeral I've ever attended (not that that's a high number). After experiencing this "funeral", I think I give more credit to those claiming that online communities can decently substitute, in some forms, actual human interaction. Although the circumstances under which their relationships developed are rather inhuman, it seems that there are genuine emotions connecting the individuals. But, with the good, apparently so come the bad. I also found this clip of a guild holding another funeral honoring a real-life death, then the ambush that followed.

Worth Studying?
I think we're getting to the point where it's almost necessary to study MMORPGs. These games are hugely popular in today's culture, and I have a feeling that they won't be going away any time in the near future. Not being an advocate of a society where individuals devote more time to online communities than they do to the physical ones around them, I can't say that I see a lot of good coming from this research, though. Learning what kind of games are most addictive so companies like Blizzard can make more profit isn't something I find to be particularly beneficial to society. Even with studies like comparing the relationship of age and status in digital v. physical environments, there is surely interesting and beneficial information to be extracted, but I feel that it will mostly help us move toward more submersion into digital environments. And yes, there's something good to be said for this (distance learning, perhaps?), but I don't know how much.

Stereotypes v. Research
I think that most stereotypes are derived from some form of the truth. Stereotype: Girls don't play video games. Yes, female players are on the rise, and they may be in equal numbers with males before too long. However, because this stereotype was, at one point in time, completely true, the change is a process, and we're not there yet. There's still some truth to it. Stereotype: Gamers are asocial geeks that stay cloistered up in their basements all day, never interacting with humans. When single-player console games were the only thing available, yes, this was the case. I don't think there were Super Mario Bros. 2 parties happening everywhere in the late 80's, and hardcore gamers probably were social outcasts. Now, however, gaming is becoming a more social activity. As mentioned earlier in the post, many players are interacting with people they know physically and many start relationships (friendly and romantic) over the internet that, in several ways, resemble traditional relationships. Still, they are typically alone in the physical sense. So, once again, I think the stereotype is fading, but still has roots in truth. I think, for the most part, this is a reoccurring trend (partially true stereotypes) but there are some cases that are absolutely factual - children who play video games are overweight.

So, I've discussed MMORPGs quite a bit. How do I feel about them personally? Well, I've seen them from both third and first-person perspectives. For about two months, I was mildly hooked on WoW before finally cutting it off cold-turkey. I've experienced the appeal, the addictive nature, and the enlightenment giving it up, and I don't plan to play any MMORPGs anytime in the near future. I think this article sums up my thoughts pretty well. The games require huge investments of time and offer nothing in return. They are evil.

Playstation 3


XBox 360


iPod


Helio Ocean


Overall, I think they're all well-made and pretty impressive pieces of advertising. A polymorphous swiss-army-octopus-speaker-city creature, an 80-foot tall ogre with a furry hoodie, Paul McCartney dancing through a tripped out, inverted vector-spawning city with his mandolin, and a collection of metallic, party-planning robots sending messages on their equally shiny, holograph-producing new phones. Definitely a ton of creativity and probably even more money going into these commercials.

But, while they do stand out among practically all of the competition, these advertisements are somewhat predictable. Each clip is representing some huge new technology in the marketplace, and it's not particularly surprising when they try to embody/exaggerate the cutting-edge appeal of their products. If you would have asked me a year ago how I thought Sony and Microsoft would go about advertising their new consoles, I probably wouldn't have been able to give you all the details, and I might have left out the part about an urban medieval war and waves of arrows sailing through the city sky. However, I could have told you that each of the multi-billion dollar companies would be dumping an absurd amount of resources into their marketing campaigns, probably utilizing the best multimedia software and developers that they could get their hands on.

Now, take a look at some of Apple's iPhone commercials below.







A little different of a vibe, right? Minimalist, chill (visually and aurally), and no cgi. Unlike the first set of ads, the iPhone commercials don't depict the product in any kind of unrealistic light or behaving in any extraordinary manner. There's narrative in the background describing a fairly plausible situation that potential iPhone owners might find themselves in. The hands then react accordingly to the scenario, demonstrating some of the more impressive (but, by no means, mind-blowing) functionalities of the product. It's completely straightforward - "This is the iPhone. This is what it can do." - and as far as technical production goes, it couldn't be much more simple. With a nice camera, a greenscreen, and an iPhone, it would be reasonable to assume that an undergraduate college student could have put the commercial together for some medium-sized course project in a couple of days. Yet it works so well, and in my opinion, it was a brilliant marketing move.

A huge part of Apple's fairly recent success can be attributed to the company's devotion to simplicity. Its products have comparatively few buttons, ports and plugs. They're clean, stylish and intuitive. Apple really fosters the notion that technology is for everyone, and products should be easy to use regardless of technical background. The iPhone is no exception. In fact, it's one of the shining examples of this theory.

The commercials do a lovely job of demonstrating the ease of using the iPhone. They show how quickly and effortlessly users can navigate through the system and accomplish whatever goals that might spontaneously arise (sharing photos with friends, getting directions to the nearest seafood restaurant, etc.). They're pushing the idea that in our busy and unpredictable lives, the iPhone can provide us with rhyme and reason. It gives us all the technologies we might need right at the tips of our fingers, so easily accessible that we'll never miss a beat. There's a lot going on in these ads, but everything feels calm, smooth and in control (largely due to the music, the hands' efficient use of the iPhone, and strategic cuts).

And who can take advantage of this hip new technology? Well, as alluded to before and as implied by the exclusion of any human beings (save a pair of hands) in the commercials, nobody's left out- the iPhone is for everyone. And this philosophy works nicely with the minimalistic style that Apple's so inclined to - no people or words (save the very end where the product name appears) interrupting the audiences attention - just the product, in plain site, available for everyone.

First thing's first. Let's establish exactly what we're talking about here. DRM is an acronym for "Digital Rights Management". "What's that mean?" you ask? I think About.com does a splendid job of explaining the term in a concise and understandable manner:

DRM is used by digital copyright owners to control who gets to access and copy their work. In particular, DRM gives programmers, musicians and movie artists some ability to remote control how people can install, listen to, view, and duplicate digital files. Although DRM is a broad term describing many different technical formats, it always involves some form of digital padlock on the file. These padlocks are called "licensed encryption keys" (intricate mathematical codes) that prevent just anyone from using or copying the file. People who pay for these licensed encryption keys are given the unlock codes to use the file for themselves, but are usually prevented from then sharing that file with other people.

Alright, so we know what DRM means, but now you might be curious of exactly how the technology is affecting our lives. Referring back to About.com (because it does an exceptional job of summarizing the subject), DRM is present in any of the following situations:

• You are using a WMA file;
• You are using an ACC file;
• You need specific software or specific music player hardware to play the file;
• You are limited to how many times you can download;
• You are limited in number of hours/days you can download;
• The number of different computers you can download to is limited;
• The number of times you can burn a CD is limited;
• You need a special password and/or logon ID before you can play the file;
• You need to reply to confirmation emails before you can play the file.

(Note: For this blog post and tomorrow's debate, we'll be focusing primarily on DRM's effect on music, as it is the area experiencing the most impact.) If you listen to music on a regular basis (as most of us do), it's difficult to avoid contact with DRM. And odds are you've been furious, or at least frustrated, with some of the limitations it's placed on your media. I think we can all agree that few of the items included on the above list cause us to jump up ecstatically and shout for joy. They're mostly just irritating and inconvenient.

Worst of all, DRM is incredibly ineffective and doesn't even come close to accomplishing its purpose (controlling access to, limiting uses of digital works, essentially protecting the illegal duplication of copyrighted material). There are plenty of well-known ways around DRM's, but those aren't even necessary for many people to obtain illegal copies of music. It only takes one individual to buy and rip a CD or crack a DRM, and then he/she can make it available to the rest of the Internet for free download. The organizations and companies promoting DRM are concerned with pirates, but this tech-savvy group still has a bag full of tricks to bypass the technology. Really, the people being punished most severely are those who legitimately purchase music. They might not even understand why they can't burn their newly purchased audio tracks to a CD or play them in their brand new Zune.

There's certainly no shortage of arguments against DRM, and I could go on for quite a while. However, because we've limited (for the sake of time and ease) tomorrow's debate to one main "offensive" argument per group, I'll direct your attention to that for the rest of this post...

In current practice, DRM usually translates to customers being bound to the company from which they've purchased music. Being Penn State students, most of us are aware that downloading from Ruckus, Napster or Apple's iStore will get you files that can only be played through the system that provided them. As mentioned before, this is hugely restrictive to customers. Just spent $12 on a new album from Apple's iStore and now you want to burn to to a CD to play in your car? Think again. That's a big no-no in the DRM world. Perhaps you downloaded a few tracks from Napster on your living room PC, and tonight at the party you're throwing, you want to play those tracks on the Mac you keep in your basement. Well, unfortunately Macs don't support Napster, so it looks like you're out of luck again. See where this is going? The trend is moving toward buying into a company rather than the music they provide. During a time when (almost) everyone is moving toward consolidation and universal standards, DRM's are tearing them apart.

There's going to be a point where people simply won't take any more. Those who used to purchase all their music legally are starting to resort to piracy and cracking DRM's, because the limitations are going too far. Organizations can't expect customers to continue to tolerate all of these imposed regulations, telling them what they can or cannot do with music that they legitimately purchased. Regardless of how much effort and money DRM-supporting organizations throw into the problem, it's not going to work. Music is a huge part of people's lives, and now that we've grown accustomed to certain freedoms with multimedia, there's no going back. As soon as everyone realizes this, we'll all be better off.

In preparation for this blog post, I ran a quick study of Facebook profiles. I looked at my own account, along with the accounts of ten friends. The collection of peers I chose to study consisted entirely of juniors at Penn State, but I believe the group is comprised of a fairly diverse set of individuals as far as social networking goes. When looking over accounts/profiles, I primarily analyzed the availability, detail and accuracy of a variety of fields (address, phone number, screen name, specific activities), the nature of photos (profile and otherwise), connections with other friends (inside and outside of the individual’s networks), and the privacy restrictions for non-friends. My findings were interesting, but mostly confirmed beliefs I had already held about how my peers approached information security in the social networking world.

A graphical depiction of the field results is shown below. Most of the labels should be self-explanatory, but I'll clarify the last three to make sure we're on the same page. By "Specific Address", I mean that the individual gave his/her exact place of residence - 747 East Beaver Ave., Apartment 301, State College, PA. "General Address" refers to the inclusion of the individual's city or even building, but not the precise mailing address - Happy Valley, Schultz Hall. "Specific Activities" are clubs, groups or organization that the individual belongs to that would probably enable viewers to find him/her at a particular meeting or event - SOMA, Gamma Tau Phi. It is also notable that all the information provided in the analyzed profiles appears to be completely accurate.

Now that we're all cleared up, here's the graph!

Quite obviously, nobody seems to feel threatened by the idea of friends (or non-friends) knowing his/her screen name. This makes complete sense to me. Facebook is far more revealing than most instant messaging systems, so if the viewer can already see that highly informative profile and send messages through Facebook, what's the big deal if they can communicate via AIM, too? If somebody starts spamming or harassing an individual with instant messages, all the victim needs to do is block the unwanted "buddy", and the problem is solved (unless, of course, they continue to make dozens of new names). As you might expect, I, too, have included my screen name on my Facebook profile.

When it comes to phone numbers, not many people were willing to publish their information online. I think these results can be attributed to the fact that it's not so easy to stop someone from harassing others on the phone. If the harasser wanted to call twenty times a day, it's not as easy an issue to deal with as IM attacks. On the other hand, having your phone number publicly available can be a huge convenience. I (and presumably four others from the ten surveyed) find cell phones to be one of the most efficient means of communication, and if there's an emergency or group project (which is always the case with IST) that requires immediate attention, making my phone number available on Facebook allows people to get in touch quickly. If I ever had to deal with constant unwanted phone calls and needed to change my number, I would probably keep it off Facebook. Until then, I'm not too concerned.

Specific addresses were the least available of all the fields, while general addresses were one of the most popular. I think most people feel safe saying, "I live in this area". They probably get a sense of security from knowing that any potential predators won't know exactly where to look, so there's a feeling of anonymity. Displaying a mailing address, on the other hand, is often perceived as a big Internet no-no. What these people are probably overlooking is the fact that potential predators don't need Facebook to find out where users live. Between people-finding websites, phone books, and our very own Penn State student/faculty directory, it's absurdly easy to find anyone's address. If people were aware of how simple the process was, they probably wouldn't care so much about including their addresses on Facebook.

Last, we have specific activities. Sixty percent of the surveyed individuals included information about clubs or groups they're involved with. They probably think that this is completely harmless. However, on the off-chance that some online predator couldn't find an individual's address using one of the other numerous methods, this might do the trick. Armed with a photo of the individual (we'll touch on this more in a bit) and the time and place of a meeting that he/she will likely attend, it wouldn't be particularly hard to follow that person back to his/her place of residence. But most people probably haven't given this much consideration (or don't find it likely enough to care about), so few take any measure to hide this kind of information. As with everything else mentioned so far, I don't personally have a problem posting this information online.

Moving on to photos. I found that for profile pictures, 20% of the individuals surveyed used a graphic or image that was not at all representative of their physical selves (one example is visible below, it's actually part of Kent Rogowski's inside-out teddy bear project - not really relevant to this post, but it's very cool). The other 80% used leisurely photographs that weren't really offensive or exceptional in any way.

Non-profile pictures were a slightly different story. People's albums were composed primarily of leisurely photographs of themselves and friends (conveniently linking to their profiles and thus to more pictures), and 60% of albums contained at least one (but usually more) "questionable" picture involving alcohol and/or scenarios that, for a variety of reasons, the individuals probably wouldn't want to share with parents or potential employers. So, most people are posting images that they definitely wouldn't want to share with everybody, but they don't seem to be overly concerned (otherwise, the photos would have been removed or untagged).

To verify the assumption that immediately came to mind, I created a new Facebook account, added it to both the Penn State and State College networks, and then tried to view the profiles of the ten individuals I was studying. As I had expected, nine of the ten individuals (like myself) had their profiles set to be hidden from any non-friends, regardless of network. This allows them to filter which people can even peak at the information and photographs posted online. If someone's good enough to be a Facebook friend, they can most likely see everything, but this checkpoint lets users ensure that nobody will be seeing the "private stuff" without permission (well,  actually, there is an exception, but just hold that thought for a moment).

Overall, I think this is a very effective security system. It guarantees that uninvited viewers won't be able to check into any of the information or pictures posted by the individual, and it protects the individual from being checked into by "authorities". The only slight downfall (which was a alluded to in the last paragraph) to be concerned with is that a viewer could still see pictures of a non-friend if the non-friend is in an album of one of the viewer's friends. The best you can do is untag yourselves from the pictures, which will at least prevent your name from being displayed as a link to your profile. But, if the picture is up on someone else's account, then there's not much else you can do. This is the biggest security problem I see with Facebook. I think a reasonable solution would be to provide a convenient button that requests that the user who posted the picture remove it from his/her album. Of course, this wouldn't guarantee that he/she would actually remove the photo, but it might diminish the problem significantly.

Finally, the friend count. I found the average number of Penn State friends to be 261 and the average number of total friends to be 386. The minimum number of total friends any of the individuals had was 117, while the maximum was 1320. The median number of total friends was 311.

I didn't make any mind-blowing revelations involving the number of friends various individuals had, but I did find that those with a very high number of total friends tended to have less personal information available and more privacy precautions. Those with a small number of friends tended to be more open with their information. I believe the reason for this is that users with a large number of friends (1320 in one case) don't know the people they're connected to all that well, so they aren't as trusting. Individuals with fewer friends probably know most of their friends fairly well and feel comfortable sharing information with them.

As many know by now, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has been leading a rather vicious attack on pirating over the past few years. By "pirating", I'm referring to the violation of intellectual property laws via the downloading and/or sharing of copyrighted music. By "vicious attack", I mean suing thousands of individuals (regardless of whether they own a computer...or have a pulse) for $750 or more per illegal download.

Digression
{

Recently, the RIAA has taken some much-deserved heat for charging such outrageous figures, and record labels are being required to "disclose their expenses-per-download" in order to rationalize the severity of these charges. As a result, offenders are now being encouraged by the RIAA to settle out of court for significantly lesser (but still excessive) charges. This approach is obviously beneficial for the individuals being sued, but it also diminishes the likelihood that the association will need to continue defending its widely disapproved behavior in court.

}
End Digression

The RIAA’s bullying continued (and still continues). Occasionally an important court case arises. Somebody decides to take the risk of being trampled and oppose the juggernaut, or the organization tries to push its powers even further over the line. In either case, the RIAA typically comes out on top.

But!

As the RIAA becomes more and more out of control, the association and the labels it represents seem to be experiencing more and more conflict…

Some artists have begun encouraging their listeners to use bittorrents and other means of pirating music to spite greedy labels and the RIAA,

EMI Records has threatened to discontinue funding to the RIAA (not because it is morally opposed to the RIAA, but because current piracy-fighting tactics aren’t working),

and perhaps the most impressive blow to the recording industry and the RIAA was Radiohead’s decision to ditch their label and release their new album (In Rainbows) independently, letting fans set the price of the music. If you thought the collection of tracks was worth 12 cents, then you paid 12 cents. The band trusted fans to be fair, and fans met the expectation. Radiohead pulled in $6-$10 million on initial album sales. Most artists, who usually make less than a dollar per album sale, can’t even compare to these kinds of earnings. Radiohead has proven that artists don’t need the backing of billion-dollar record labels to be successful, and when the giants (Universal, EMI, BMG, Warner, etc.) realize this, they should be motivated to change their behaviors and behaviors of the RIAA. This new concept of fairness just might eliminate a big part of the pirating problem. Who would have thought you could catch more flies with honey than vinegar?

With so much discontent being expressed and with so many novel ideas about music distribution floating around, some may have expected the RIAA to start working on innovative and less aggressive anti-piracy tactics that might result in happier customers, artists and labels…

Not so much the case.

In fact, it seems the RIAA is striving to be even more rigid and unsympathetic than ever. The association has recently announced the continuation of its College Deterrence Campaign into 2008 and the welcoming of former FBI Principal to command the West Coast Anti-Piracy Unit. I was somewhat surprised (but not really that much) to read this on my news feed, so I thought it would be a worthwhile topic to investigate for my first directed blog post concerning tradition v. non-traditional news coverage.

While I did come across a fair amount of non-traditional sources covering the recent actions of the RIAA, I had a difficult time finding any reporting by more formal/traditional sources. Below are the two that I settled on.

Traditional:
“RIAA Lawsuit Names 36 Students” by the Virginia Tech’s Collegiate Times

Non-Traditional:
“The RIAA Speaks – And It Gets Worse” by Don Reisinger on C|Net Blogs

My first impression of both of these pieces was that they were credible. Both articles make specific references/citations and any opinions are typically supported by facts. The non-traditional source (Don Reisinger’s blog) actually offers significantly more evidence (going so far as to provide the entire transcript of his interview with the spokesperson of the RIAA) than the school newspaper, and despite the newspaper’s affiliation with a university, I still feel more trusting of the non-traditional source. My opinion may be influenced by the length and depth of the blog (which is much longer and more thoughtful than the newspaper), the writing style (the blog being more eloquent), or by the assumption that Don Reisinger is an older, more experienced individual than the writer of the Virginia Tech Collegiate Times’ article (who I assume to be around my age). In any case, I find the articles to be trustworthy.

Concerning bias, I feel that the Collegiate Times’ article is completely impartial. Actually, I don’t believe there is a single opinion expressed in the entire writing. Don Reisinger’s blog, on the other hand, definitely expresses some of the writer’s opinions. When personal beliefs do appear, Reisinger usually supports them with direct quotes from the RIAA spokeswoman or by citing other legitimate sources. So, while the non-traditional blog undeniably conveys more of the writer’s ideas, I don’t feel that the bias leads to significant, if any, distortions of the truth.

The primary motivation of both sources, I believe, is attracting readers and providing the regular audiences with content that they find interesting and relevant. In these cases, the writers are attempting to intrigue/satisfy readers by informing them of significant happenings in the world of file-sharing that they (the readers) might find relevant. For the blog, most readers are probably fairly young (15-30, I would guess), computer savvy and may very well download music illegally. For the Collegiate Times, readers are primarily college students who have been personally sued by the RIAA, know someone who has been sued by the RIAA, or at least have been involved in a recent discussion about what’s happening to classmates because of illegal downloading. In either case, the RIAA’s approach to the violation of intellectual property laws is likely a topic on the minds of readers.

The content of the pieces is hugely determined by the audience and the medium.

Reisinger’s blog is targeting a larger, slightly more diverse audience. Therefore, he typically focuses on addressing the big concerns that effect a higher percent of readers. He takes a rather complex topic and summarizes it in such a way that readers can easily grasp the important ideas to be taken from the event. Because readers can choose to go elsewhere on the Internet to get information, writing style is important. Reisinger's blog is very readable, sometimes sarcastic/funny, and sometimes a little aggressive. It has a personality. This makes his piece more desirable, which is very necessary when publishing on the Internet, where readers have a lot of options available to them.

In contrast, Virginia Tech’s Collegiate Times is addressing a very narrow audience. Rather than focusing on the RIAA’s behavior on a larger scale, the writer primarily sticks to the effects on Virginia Tech students and how the college is handling the situation. Unlike Reisinger's blog, the Collegiate Times doesn't have to worry so much about competition. Few organizations would cover the topic with such a specific focus on Virginia Tech's situation, so as long as the newspaper delivers the facts, there will probably be a fairly high demand.

Traditional and non-traditional news sources both have a place in society at this point in time, but I have a feeling that the widely spanning traditional ones will be fading out pretty quickly. Organizations that put out locally relevant content (like the Collegiate Times) could hang around for quite a while, because such specifically targeted news would be hard to find elsewhere. Exactly how we'll receive this news, whether by conventional newspaper, online articles, or some new technology, remains to be seen, but I think the idea will endure. As for the non-traditional sources (like blogging), I think they have some growing to do on the whole, but they're maturing nicely.