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Digital Reflection 2

For our second digital reflection, I decided to incorporate Never Alone, anonymity, and data without context as my three core concepts. I felt like the concepts we were able to choose from this time around were a little more difficult, simply because they were either too different or too similar, at least for me. This brought me to look at some of our topics in a bit of a different light in order to tie them in. I specifically included a different approach to the idea of anonymity than the one we had gone over in class.  Never Alone : The entire purpose behind the creation of this game was to teach people about the Iñupiat culture, and maintain the culture in a modern way. As I designed this piece I decided to put a lot of my focus on maintaining the integrity of the game's design as possible. I pulled a png directly from the game for the girl and her fox, focusing my efforts on creating a loyal setting for the adventurers. Throughout the game, there is a dark border around...

Inclusive Game Design - Part Two

Part 1: This game opens with calming music and a clear story. As each level is passed, new educational content is unlocked which explains the game and the Iñupiat cultural ties. These educational videos (referred to as Cultural Insights in-game) are under two minutes in length, which fits the pacing of the gameplay itself. This makes for a smooth transition between learning and playing, keeping the audience involved. As the game progresses, the story continually grows and moves forward as the player does. This stylistic choice is directly tied to the Iñupiat style of storytelling, and conveys the importance placed on these stories. Part 2: Before I even began playing this game I explored the menu a bit, and was thrilled to discover how many languages this game is available in! Another section of the menu led me to content that appears to unlock as you progress through the story. This content consisted of multiple educational videos detailing the way the importance of the Iñupiat...

Gaming Scorecard - League of Legends

Progressive Updates: 8.25/10 *My scoring was based off of the information I was able to find between 2009 and 2016.* 6.5/10 Character Design: -Many of the animal/abstract designs are clearly male champions, a continuous pattern through 2016. -Over time, the ratio of  Euro-White to other more diverse options became more balanced (ratio counts included abstract and covered champions as ‘diverse’ options). -The final Female to Male ratio as of 2016 was 33/58, meaning there were nearly twice as many male champions available as female champions. 2009-10: Vast majority white Completely faceless (male only) Female champions have similarly gentle features A few vibrant/primary skin colors Euro-White/Spectrum Ratio (skin tone): 13/13 Male/Female Ratio: 9/17 Total: 26 Champions Introduced* *2 (2009), 24 (2010) 2011: Animal champions introduced (all but one are male) First Disabled (Blind) Champion Slight variations of skin tone introduced Fir...

Social Media Surveillance and Law Enforcement

Part 1: This article opens by shedding light on the pressure that government departments have undergone to use social media as a form of surveillance. With this new ability to screen people's online activity has come many positive preventative actions, which have quite literally saved lives. The downside to this social surveillance is rooted in the way this research is conducted. This process threatens Fourth Amendment rights, which protect against unreasonable search and seizure by the government. Social media has been manually filtered for a long time, leaving the door open to biased searches. These searches are only now starting to be automated. Because the online space is so new, there is a significant learning curve in order to understand the nuances of the medium. Part 2: Online culture operates differently than that of the physical world. Social media lists our connections solely as 'friends' while in reality there are many levels and types of relationships between...

Weapons of Math Destruction

Part 1: This article opens by painting the image of the general bias involved in bank loaning before the introduction of FICO scores. Once FICO scores were introduced, many people who could never borrow before were suddenly able to take part in this process. Predigest ideologies no longer stood in the way of financing. However, this concept has been taken and warped into e-scores which are compiled from information such as search history and location, assigning values to different demographics. These e-scores determine what ads different groups of people see, bringing back the inherent difference in opportunity that FICO had brought us out of. According to the article, the effort to protect the privacy of individuals' FICO scores has driven class, race, and gender boundaries deeper than ever. Part 2: I've had many conversations about credit scores with my previous partner. He and his family are Puerto Rican, and while I prioritize raising my credit score quite a bit, he didn...

#Ferguson

Part 1: This article opens with a description of the shooting of Michael Brown, and the social reaction it inspired. Within a month #ferguson had been shared over 8 million times on Twitter alone. After this, the reading starts to delve into what kind of social research can be done on a topic such as this through the platform of Twitter. While social media is a great way to spread information, it comes with inherent bias, that only builds as it is shared person to person. As the article explained, many related posts were shared without #ferguson. Ignoring those would mean ignoring another very real piece of the Ferguson puzzle. Continuing on, the article discusses the risks of hashtag activism. The benefits of awareness, and the downfall of swift replacement movements pushing one another aside. The article closes out by recognizing that the internet alone is not enough of a reliable platform to understand every angle of these social movements. Part 2: The complications involved in ...