Blog 9 - Introduction- First Entry for Web Essay

This particular portion will appear when you first view the web essay, the introduction, so to speak.I wanted to keep this portion short because my objective is just to give an intro and clearly state the purpose of the web essay. I wantedmost of the information to remain on the other pages accessible to the user by links. I also did not want the reader to lose interest by overdoing the introduction.


RESEARCH QUESTION: How is the internet changing the future in the subject of child abduction?

Child abduction is defined as the kidnapping of a child or baby by an older person (definition taken from wikipedia). Every year there are about 800,000 children reported missing. Of the 800,000 children , approximately 69,000 are abducted. In this technological age, more efforts have been concentrated on helping locate these missing or abducted children by using the internet as a resource. My goal for this web essay is to help make users aware of the changing future in child abduction: the optimistic efforts, and the dangers as well.

Reflection on MySpace Suicide

Ultimately, what happened to Megan Meier was a tragedy. However, I dont think anything can be done legally. It's sad but true. How do you regulate the internet? Because the Drews and the other parties involved did not physically harm Megan Meier, there can be nothing done legally. It doesn't excuse the fact that to taunt and "verbally attack" this child was wrong, but there is nothing to be done legally.

Reflection 2

Reading the Friend Game by Lauren Collins was interesting. It was also somewhat disturbing. The thought of adults being behind and supporting that kind of behavior is unbelieveable. Teens fight, and sometimes these fights get dramatic, but in no way should what happened to Megan Meier be condoned in any way. What the Drews did was very cruel and it puts a negative outlook online communitites like MySpace. But in that case, what could MySpace have possibly done to prevent this from happening? Perhaps they might ask for a form of identification when opening an account. being that myspace valuse privacy, would that be an invasion of privacy? In this case, the people that were involved should have thought clearly and carefully about what they were doing instead of plating with the mind and emotions of such a fragile CHILD. The point of adults condoning this behavior towards a child is baffling to me.

Reflection 1

I enjoyed watching the Disney video on YouTube.What a creative idea! and the thought behind it was very clever. The irony of it all is a movie like that is actually legally protected. The issue of copyright is quite controversial. From how long a copyright lasts to what can be copyriighted, it's very tricky! Because people are always having new ideas and from those ideas other ideas emerge, I believe copyright is something that is always going to be changing.

Website Layout

The layout I will most likely be using is the partial network structure type. By using this layout, users will be able to navigate to where they want to go in my essay, and not necessarily follow chronological order. This particular layout is also beneficial because i can link the organizations that i mention in my essay into my website, so that users can access these sites, if desired.

As far as the section titles, I don't have a concrete title names just yet, but I wanted to go with a little something like this:

On the main page, I would like to do a brief introduction on the purpose of my essay. I'll keep it to a short paragraph, as the tutorial says, "Keep it simple"! It will talk about the influence of the internet on child abduction. I hope to cover and what my goal is for making this site.

The different sections I am thinking about doing is:

Section #1- The content on this page will address the potential threats posed to children on the internet. There are news articles, where I will draw some of my information from, and these articles will be linked on that page.

Section #2-

Wikipedia Entry

My Wikipedia username is Maracot. Unfortunately, I have been away for Spring Break and was not able to post and monitor my entry before coming back, but i have posted it, and so far, its still there :)

It can be found here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abduction

and the my contribution was the portion title Child abduction and the Internet. What i wrote is as follows:
Child abduction and the Internet

The internet has become both a danger and an aid in the subject of child abduction. It is a place where online predators can communicate with potential victims. 1 in 25 youth receive sexual solicitations that included attempts to contact the youth offline.[2]

Because of the threat these predators pose, there have also been efforts to use the internet as a resource to prevenchild abduction or to help the families of those who have been abducted.

Organizations have set up websites where uers can go to gain knowledge or contribute help to stopping child abduction. Among these are the organizations Enough is Enough and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which have partnered with the online community Myspace to help keep the internet a safe place for children. In addtion to donating new database technology to Sentinel Tech[3] that enables websites to locate, remove and block convicted sex offenders, Myspace is also a sponsor of Enough Is Enough 's Internet Safety 101:Empowering Parents Program.

Myspace also features pages and groups dedicated to helping find missing children.

In external links, I also added the links for Enough is enough and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Hopefully my addition stays up there, but if it doesn't I have learned from this experience that the information that we put on the internet is very important because it is viewable by anyone. Which is why wikipedia takes entries so seriously, and has strict guidelines for what can be posted.

Wikipedia Assignment

Since the focus of my research project is how the internet has changed child abduction and how the internet helps find missing children, I thought that focusing on a popular networking website, like Myspace might be beneficial.

Currently on Wikipedia, Myspace is comprised of about 17 headings explaining thoroughly what the website is about. I plan to add a heading to the entry, particularly under Child Safety. I am not quite sure what I'm going to title the heading yet. Probably something along the lines of Myspace and Missing Children. The sources I will use for my entry will be news articles found on the internet explaining partnerships and what Myspace has done to help make the networking websites, like itself, or the internet in general,be a safer place for children.

For example, Myspace and Sentinel Tech donated new database technology to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help with their online safet investigations. The article is available on the website for The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I have included the link:http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/NewsEventServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=3045

Myspace has also formed a partnership with a non profit organization called Enough is Enough, whose main priority is to make the internet safer for children. They deal with child pornography, child stalking, and sexual predation on the internet. The article is available on the organization's website:http://www.enough.org/inside.php?id=13BGG1DG8


I am still getting the hang of the posting process on Wikipedia though, but I'm sure I'll get it! :)