Can you imagine a world without advertising? We'd probably all feel much more confident and more satisfied. Cultural capital is a term that I had never heard of. It had never crossed my mind that some advertisements could leave me feeling culturally deprived, or that I might develop an obsession for certain commodities and they call it commodity fetishism. Interesting stuff...I'm much more aware of the effects of advertising on society now than I was before this semester.

The "Digital Divide" is a term that I had never heard of before this year and I think it's a fascinating one, too. There have been times when I think that it'd be awesome to escape completely from digital technology. Isn't that ironic coming from someone whose major Digital Technology & Culture. I've imagined moving somewhere, like a small beach community, or to a cabin in the mountains and living (at least for a while) without a computer, cell phone, and even television. I've read about families who have intentionally tried to live without electronic communication for a certain period of time, and found that it was really difficult. But there are millions of people in the world who have no concept of what it's like to live in a technological world. Is the digital divide getting wider, or is it narrowing? When I see really young children (like 1 year olds) taking their parents phones and playing games, I think it may be narrowing, but I've never been to places like Haiti. I thought it was pretty cool that MIT computer and Nicholas Negroponte developed the program One Laptop Per Child whose goal is to make computers available to underprivileged children in poor area. The thought is that these children would then become computer literate and teach their families. The idea behind this initiative is that "if participation in a global network beomes recognized the "haves" as a requisite for democratic participation in everyday life, it becomes the responsibility of those with access to transfer or dissiminate the technology to those who do not have the means to buy into it for themselves" (Sturken 236) I think that's an awesome program...maybe not truly altruistic, but still pretty cool.

I hadn't really thought too much about copies, ownership and copyright before taking this class. Copyright is an interesting subject. When I think of it in terms of work that I've produced, or people I'm close to, it would really piss me off to have someone reproduce it, especially if they were making a profit on it. My daughter is an artist. She posts her creations on her business Facebook page. Recently she found out that one of her Facebook friends was copying her work and selling at lower prices. Needless to say, she was furious! She immediately "de-friended" the person. I can't think of anything I've produced that someone would want to copy, but I know the feeling of working hard on a project, and I'm pretty sure that I'd feel the same way if in the same situation. On the flip side, I've tried to imagine a world without reproductions or copies. I cant, it's impossible. And honestly, I think it'd be pretty boring.