Yeah, so you mean the campaign ads his campaign paid to have embedded into platsation / xbox games?

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE49EAGL20081015

“TARGETED AUDIENCE

Obama’s video game ads are targeted at a more finely targeted group of potential voters.

The in-game ads are delivered to players through 18 games, ranging from “Guitar Hero 3″ and “The Incredible Hulk” to sports titles like “NASCAR 09,” “NBA Live 08″ and “NFL Tour.”
“

With that said however, I’ve read Obama’s speech and to me it doesn’t seem like he’s directly attacking social media. In my opinion, it seems like he’s trying to send a message to the students that they should learn how to *filter* true and untrue (or better yet, useful and useless) information generated from applications like twitter, Facebook, blogs, and the likes. With all these mediums of communication available to us today, some can easily become a distraction.

Anyone can create a blog and post their own opinions on it, which is a *great* thing, but as an educated individual you should be able to recognize which posts/articles have value and which are complete nonsense. For instance, I was going through my Facebook news feed (where I clicked through to this article) and found a similar article to this which was entitled “Obama not an Apple fan”. Now, while the title is catchy, it doesn’t necessarily hold any truth just because Obama made the statement about iPods and iPads being distractive… wouldn’t you agree? I completely hate Windows Mobile (not Windows Phone), but I certainly don’t hate Microsoft because of it. Get what I mean?

Anyway, I don’t want to make this post any longer than it should be. In conclusion, I agree with Obama’s message that people should learn how to better filter content based on value, but I also agree that he could have sent that message in a better way

@wordscolliding – great way to add a funny twist to this
@Rias – I believe we’re trying to say the same thing here
@fatin – Opinions are a great thing to have. Stay true to yours
@Craig – Those are great points you made!

Since we’re very communicative and political our people are much more likely to express their opinion once they discover the world of blogs and free broadcasting. In addition to that since our people are not used to distinguishing real from fake content they’re also more likely to fall for conspiracy theories and “untrue” information.

Fatin, Gaith, I know you guys don’t speak German but Germany’s well-known “Spiegel Online” magazine has also commented on Obama’s speech, with the same arguments as I did yesterday:
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,693958,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal-to-noise_ratio

Allowing millions or even billions of people to use the exact same tools to get their message out seems like a great idea, but it creates the illusion that all those opinions carry the same weight. Which is obviously untrue. Some opinions are more valuable and more useful than others, and on the internet it can be very difficult to tell the difference. When you factor in the tendency of young people to automatically assume that the most radical and most anti-establishment commentators are in the right, it can become a big problem.

Note, I’m only talking about the US. Y’all foreigners are on your own :p

I’m afraid we won’t agree here and as everyone’s entitled to his own opinion on how to read a text I guess we’ll leave it at that

Salam
Rias

how can he criticize something he does know how it works?
he can not use an iPad? which is made for dummies?
maybe he is still using IE 5.5 lol

thanks

You also need to put his words into context as listing them one by one the way you did it decouples them from their meaning in relation to the remaining text.

This is the basics you learn in communication classes and even at school when analyzing media text and speeches – see the context. Even in linguistics “context” has brought huge advancements to the understanding of a language and nowadays you can’t and shouldn’t comment on a text without putting it into the context of its writer/speaker, the environment, the time and the audience and other factors.

He is not criticizing all of social media at all. He is talking about media entities, such as blogs that publish news that don’t always tell the truth. He is not saying that *all* blogs are bad or that social media is bad. In fact he is not even mentioning the word “social media” and he is not even generalizing anything.
He is telling his audience that the media environment has changed into something that enables anyone to publish news, be it via his blog or a talk radio outlet and that this is bombarding people with information.
Obama tells the students that their education will teach them how to distinguish between true and false claims and information.
He is also specifically mentioning the term “political horse race”, meaning that the fact that anyone can publish information has lead to anyone being able to publish true or false information about politicians as well.

I hope I made it clear this time. If not then feel free to respond to my claims without repeating your previous listing of statements that were drawn out of context.

Thanks!

2–You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments

3–He bemoaned the fact that “some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction,” in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets.

1– the world “modern media”
2– ” ” ” “24/7 media environment that bombards”
3– ” ” ” “blogs and talk radio outlets”

i read your link carefully ,i think there is no dual meaning for the word “Media ”
whatever it is , radio,blogs, tv & so !!! i think that is clear & GAITH did not misunderstood the points .

this is a definition for social media for the persons who does not yet know :

*Social media are works of user-created video, audio, text or multimedia that are published and shared in a social environment, such as a blog …

*Any website or web service that utilizes a ‘social’ or ‘Web 2.0′ philosophy. This includes blogs, social networks, social news .

*Any website or web service that utilizes a ‘social’ or ‘Web 2.0′ philosophy. This includes blogs, social networks, social news .

go to Google type ” define social media” you ll get a huge list !

thank you

So again, he’s only telling the students what’s true. The development of the media world (among them: information overload, media using information as a political horse race etc.) have brought huge challenges with them and they can only be solved through proper education.
Read the article I linked to in my previous comment, it’s all said in there.

the bombardment coming from social media?

AFP: He bemoaned the fact that “some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction,” in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets.

Blogs are social media right?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hcoyG-Ck3-VwZB7fqpUFXbffoObg

So there is nothing wrong about that – he’s right about what he says and I think you might have misunderstood the point of his speech.