Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Majority of University of Maryland Students are Unaware of Human Trafficking in Maryland.

The United States alone accounts for approximately 17,500 victims of trafficking (Gozdziak & Collet, 2005). Not only is it vital to understand that anyone could become a victim of Human Trafficking, but also the fact that it is prevalent in the United States, specifically Maryland. Many believe that human trafficking only occurs in places such as Europe because of Hollywood films like Taken. 

I conducted a survey with participants from the University of Maryland and the survey reveals that students believe human trafficking in Maryland isn't prevalent but that it is prevalent in countries like Italy, France, and Russia. 

Prevalence of Human Trafficking in Maryland Increases Greatly.

It is happening in our own backyards, yet too many people are unaware. The law is being broken, yet no one seems to realize. Human Trafficking is an extremely serious crime, yet there are too many people who do not even know what it is. Human trafficking can be defined as the recruitment or transfer of people by force, abduction or deception.

These individuals are used for the purpose of exploitation (Belser, 2005). It involves the sale of someone to go work in a factory without pay (Belser, 2005). It also includes other forms of forced labor, sexual slavery, and the removal of organs for other uses (Laczko, 2002)

Every one should be concerned with human trafficking because women and children aren't the only ones affected.

While it is true that most victims of human trafficking are young women and children, there are many other groups of people still currently suffering.  It was found that approximately thirty-five percent of those currently being trafficked are male (Feingold, 2005). The reason for this is thought to be that young men are most useful to complete physical labor tasks. As a result, women are sold for sexual uses while men are sold to help in factories (Feingold, 2005). It is clear that women should not be the only people educated about Human Trafficking and its detrimental consequences.
(Flickr Creative Commons)

Short-term consequences for victims of human trafficking include suicidal thoughts and behaviors, drug and alcohol abuse. 

There are a multitude of short-term consequences that occur due to the existence of human trafficking in the United States. A majority of those involved report broken bones, gastrointestinal problems such as digestion issues, and dermatological issues such as severe skin rashes (Zimmerman et al., 2003). It was found that most women who are sex workers reported having between ten to twenty-five clients per night, unprotected. 

As a result, many have experienced complications due to having abortions (Zimmerman et al., 2003).  Mentally, six out of nine of those interviewed had suicidal thoughts and behaviors (Zimmerman et al., 2003).

Not only is mental and physical health severely damaged due to human trafficking, but social wellbeing is negatively impacted as well. A majority of trafficking victims who have been reintegrated into normal daily life have reported having little to no contact with anyone but their kidnapper. Most are confined to small spaces where they only eat, sleep and work (Zimmerman et al., 2003).

It was also found that drastic changes in behavior were seen due to being trafficked. Women especially reported drug and alcohol use to cope with their living and work situations as trafficked individuals (Zimmerman et al., 2003). They stated they never used drugs or abused alcohol before being kidnapped and sold for work (Zimmerman et al., 2003).

A University of Maryland Research Assistant and PHD Student in the Criminal Justice Department says his research on human trafficking reveals that countries could eliminate human trafficking entirely.


Boe Jeing, Human Trafficking Expert

Long-term Consequences for victims of human trafficking include sickness and the inability to return back into normal life.

Unfortunately, not everyone can be recovered from human trafficking. As a result, not all individuals are fortunate enough to be rescued and reintegrated back into normal life. For the most part, those that kidnap individuals for the purpose of exploitation are doing so to make a profit. 

As a result, a majority of these people will not allow their victims to return back to daily life (Zimmerman et al., 2003). If they become useless in the factories, they are sold to other jobs such as maids in homes or sex slaves to pimps (Zimmerman et al., 2003).

Sometimes the health complications that would be considered short-term in every day life becomes more detrimental due the environment that the victims are living in. For example, the living conditions are so terrible for the victims of human trafficking, that small sicknesses such as a high fever have a much larger effect on their immune system as opposed to someone who is not being trafficked (Zimmerman et al., 2003).

Increased awareness and new government legislation programs are being established in order to stop human trafficking.

The United States Government is currently taking steps to demolish Human Trafficking in America. More research is being compiled to understand the true severity of the situation. Some initiatives that have been taken include the enactment and amendment of legislation, police training programs, the intensification of legal proceedings against those found guilty of trafficking, and the establishment of investigation units to find and help victims of this vicious crime (Brukert & Colette, 2002). 

Continued awareness is essential to ensure that the citizens of Maryland are aware of these crimes and can stay safe. The government also needs to continue their research to further improve the obtained statistics about human trafficking, where it occurs, and its severity (Aronowitz, 2009).

Works Referenced (APA)

Aronowitz, A. A. (2009). Human trafficking, human misery: The global trade in human beings. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Belser, P. (2005). Forced labour and human trafficking: Estimating the profits. Available at SSRN 1838403.

Bruckert, C., & Parent, C. (2002). Trafficking in human beings and organized crime: A literature review. Research and Evaluation Branch, Community, Contract and Aboriginal Policing Services Directorate, Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Feingold, D. A. (2005). Human trafficking. Foreign Policy, 26-32.
Gozdziak, E. M., & Collett, E. A. (2005). Research on human trafficking in North America: A review of literature. International Migration43(1-2), 99-128.


Zimmerman, C., Yun, K., Shvab, I., Watts, C., & Trappolin, L. (2003). The health risks and consequences of trafficking in women and adolescents: findings from a European study. Including: human rights analysis of health and trafficking and principles for promoting the health rights of trafficked women.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

United States social media trends for news is rising and is consistent among other top countries. Even though digital news and visual journalism is on the rise people still prefer their news in text and the overall traditional news media. Eric 9 & Chloe 43

Digital news is increasing but it is still far from surpassing the traditional news media. More than one-third of all countries combined use a single source each week on their smartphones compared with 30% on a desktop or laptop. Less than 20% of all users that have smartphones are actually using them for news apps. 84% of smartphone and tablet users use TV News, while 45% of tablet users are reading the newspaper compared to only 40% of smartphone users. 40% of tablet users use radio news as another source while just 35% of smartphone users are using radio news as another media outlet. Smartphone and tablet users have similar statistics when it comes to users using other media outlets for news. Although digital news is increasing, it is still a long way away from replacing the traditional news media.
 
  Most users primarily consume news in text throughout all countries because of technical problems and small screens.

United States social media trends for news is rising and is consistent among other top countries Facebook and Youtube are significantly the most popular social media sites for news and for use in general. 
Brazil is the leader in sharing news via email or social network, but the United States is the number four country with 35 percent. It is clear the United States gets news online, and their top brands are Yahoo, local newspapers, and Fox News. 35 percent of people get news on at least two digital devices, and 12 percent use three or more devices. While mobile is not the main way of accessing online news yet (the U.S. rate is 17 percent), this number is certainly rising.

 Fun News is Just as Popular as Entertainment News across Countries.
One may think that people just want to look at serious news, to learn about topics they think would be helpful to their daily lives. This study shows that fun and entertainment news are both types of news that people enjoy. In the U.S. 16% of people like fun news and 15% of people like entertainment news. Across the countries, these percentages are very close together, with a slight edge to fun news. Journalists should consider this market of users when sharing news.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

An online internet research study shows Twitter users use Twitter to find or spread news rather than for social media purposes. Almost all of Twitter's trending topics are news headlines.

"What is Twitter, a Social Network or a News Media?" The goal of this work is to study to better understand the popularity of Twitter and the transformation of Twitter since its development up until the present day. 

The study focuses on the "topological characteristics of Twitter and its power as a new medium of information sharing." This is the first quantitative study on the entire Twittersphere. Twitter allows physicists, sociologists, and linguists to study human behavior. The study is broken up in to various sections; The basics of twitter, comparing the PageRank algorithm and ranking of retweets, and overall user popularity.

Headline news is responsible for nearly 90% of trending topics.
No matter how many followers you have, any retweeted tweet can reach up to 1,000 users. "Once retweeted, a tweet gets retweeted almost instantly on next hops, signifying fast diffusion of information after the 1st retweet."Twitter regularly tracks phrases, words, and hashtags that are mentioned the most and posts them in a category titled "trending topics."Trending topics represent the issues that draw the most attention during that day. Most trending topics start because of a hashtag, and a hashtag allows user to start and/or follow a thread of discussion.



There was no correlation between influence and the amount of followers someone has. However, there is a relationship between the amount of followers you have and the amount you tweet. 
The number of followers alone does not reflect the influence a user exerts when the user’s tweet is retweeted many times "or is simply followed by other influential people: it is not a comprehensive measure." The number of tweets increases by an order of magnitude as the number of followings goes over 5, 000. As of 2009 there were only 40 users with more than a million followers. All of these users are either celebrities or mass media.

Twitter is a source for information rather than a social networking site.
The study shows that nearly 70% of users are not followed by any of the people they follow on twitter. Researchers believe the reason for this is because these users are using twitter for information and not for a social networking site. Contact between similar people occurs at a higher rate than among people that are different from each other.

The number of retweets for a certain tweet is a measure of the tweet’s popularity and in turn of the tweet writer’s popularity. 
Trending topics rise quickly in popularity and eventually end. Retweeting is an effective way to transfer and relay information to people in your geographic location. The tweets of top trending topics are reflective on the temporal behavior of trending topics and user participation. These findings suggest that Twitter is efficient at spreading news and I do agree that twitter spreads news quickly but it does not spread news effectively. These findings do reflect on one way how users use Twitter. But I disagree with the fact that most users use Twitter as a source for information rather than a social networking site. 

However if you do want to find out information fast and you don't have a lot of time to read I think twitter is the best source. I was shocked when I learned that the amount of followers you have doesn't necessarily reflect the amount of influence you have. I would think most celebrities would be responsible for most peoples opinions. I also was surprised to learn that the more followers you have the more you tweet. I follow a lot of musicians, and sports figures and it seems as if they tweet the least. As twitter grows I am sure that more and more research studies will be conducted.

Interactivity





Friday, September 19, 2014

Technology's Impact on Education

Technology's Impact on Education


The visualization I found is titled “Technology’s Impact on Education” and does a good job at explaining how much professors use technology in their classrooms. It also shows students study habits, the devices they own, and how much of a distraction technology is in the classroom. The visualization reveals that students are becoming increasingly unengaged in lectures because professors rely on technology instead of actually teaching. It also shows how education is breaking the barriers of a classroom because students more students are deciding to take online courses each year.

The number shows that almost all professors are incorporating social media in their teaching. I was surprised to learn that seventy percent of students use a digital device to take notes rather than taking notes by hand. Eighty-six percent of students claim to study better with tablets, which is shocking to me because I feel like it would be completely opposite. I was also surprised to learn that most students have a printer.


The visualization is very appealing to the eye and I like that the use of numbers. The most important thing about the visualization is that it gets the point across that technology has effected education in a positive way. The visualization also highlights that technology isn’t too much of a distraction, which I think is the most important thing.