Sociological concepts and perspectives from the media Essay

Sociological concepts and perspectives from the media - Essay Example Author and date: Jimmy Wales, 1 March 2011 Source: Guardian online newspaper at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/01/plagiarism-education-web-wiki-follies The central issue in this article is the problem of people using the web to find and copy material from and passing it off as their own in their academic works, in other words, the problem of plagiarism using web-based sources. It is shown that new online tools are now being used to detect such incidents. The Internet is blamed for fostering â€Å"a cut-and-paste culture of uncritical plagiarism†. The problem is particularly evident among school and university students who copy material directly from sites such as Wikipedia. Two such cases of plagiarism are mentioned involving prominent people. In the first, the German defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was found to have plagiarised parts of his PhD from the University of Bayreuth, and consequently resigned. In the second, Saif Gaddafi is mentioned as possibly also having plagiarised his PhD thesis at the London School of Economics. These cases were exposed using specially created wikis on a site named PlagiPedia to handle the large-scale collaborative effort. They used Google Docs earlier but it was found to be only suitable for small group collaboration. The first case took two weeks of effort led by the university â€Å"to identify the specific sections from this thesis that were lifted straight from other sources†. Over 40,000 comments and twelve hundred pages of details of the accusations were compiled. The media and computing professor at the university remarked how fast the revocation decision had been reached. Similar tools are also now available for exposing plagiarism in the media following the unveiling of a ‘churn engine’ called churnalism.com by Britain’s Media Standards Trust. Press releases can now be checked to find out â€Å"the extent to which they have been recycled, verbatim, in on line news articles†. The possibilities brought about by the new online tools are likened to the revolutions currently taking place in the Middle East in which sites such as Twitter and Facebook are playing significant roles. Whereas previously there were typically small committees of experts checking for plagiarism, it is now possible to allow larger collaborative efforts, which are far more effective. However, as pointed out, while such sites can help to initiate activism, ultimately it is the network of people who really know each other face-to-face that bring about the change. This articles highlights two points. Firstly, the ease with which people can plagiarism using web-based sources and secondly, the newer collaboration tools that now make it possible to detect issues of plagiarism. The first shows a modern form of deviance whereby people can get easy access to information and also think they can easily get away with it. The second demonstrates the powerful potential of online collaboration, which is a form of social interaction. In both cases, the Internet plays the central role as the medium of global information and communication. The issue also highlights the need to rethink educational practices and mass media reporting processes. Either plagiarism should be detected more readily to stamp out the practice or the seriousness of the issue should be seen as lending support for completely replacing coursework with exams. Article 2: Youth Culture

Ethics Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 9

Ethics - Assignment Example The idea of isolation and possibly being hated by fellow students pains her very much making her at times to yell loudly and burst into tears. The teacher’s first suspect on the Denise case of the dead rat seemed to be a provoking kid and seem not to care much since she just looks very comfortable when the teacher glances at her. The information needed to resolve this dilemma is the reasons that could be the motive behind such mistreatment to Denise. The dilemma would only be solved when the key reasons as appear to why this harsh handling of Denise continues by the fellow students. The first solution is to seek on how to bridge the information gap by finding the right facts that would have played a role towards the mistreatment of Denise. This would unearth the core issues quickly. However, Johns, McGrath & Mathur (2008) indicate that striking an adequate information balance is difficult due to varying divergent views of each character. Unethical teacher behavior would provide the environment for poor behaviors amongst the students. There should be strict restrictions and punishments towards awkward behavior like putting dead rat into another student’s locker. This will instill discipline and order amongst the student. However, a few cases of such kind would still appear. Unethical teacher behavior would make it impossible to implement the solution. According to Paul (2012), there should be interactive sessions, for the students to interact freely and associate with each other with courage and confidence. A talk should be undertaken with the whole students’ fraternity to elaborate on the key significance of being each other’s brother’s keepers and the essence of peaceful coexisting