Week 4-GU Library Catalouge, Databases, and Internet Searches

Topic for Essay

Choosing a topic to write an essay on has been pretty challenging. There are so many key areas in New Communication Technology that can be discussed about. After much consideration, I fianlly narrowed it down to 3 areas. Media Law, Media Ethics or Media Law and Ethics

From the textbook, Media law is basically common law. Media content usually is subjected to laws that regulate defamation, privacy and copyright. There is also the corporations law and Trade Practices Act that binds commercial media operators. There is also law that restircts ownership of media assest by foreigners as well as those that restricts cross-media ownership.

Media Ethics, however, deals with what is deemed acceptable and what is not. There are bascially 3 approaches to thinking about ethics as wriiten in the texbook, namely Deontology, Teleology and Virtue Ethics. Then, there is the institutionalisation of ethics as well as ethics and public relations.

Then, there is also Media Law and Ethics which deals with the relationship between both of them.

I would probably go for Media Ethics though as it seems much more interesting then the rest. We shall see how it goes...

Scavenger Hunt

1. What is the weight of the world's biggest pumpkin?
Ans: 1,502 lbs by Ron Wallace.
http://www.altavista.com/
http://www.49abcnews.com/news/2006/oct/09/worlds_heaviest_pumpkin_weighed/

2. What is the best way (quickest, most reliable) to contact Grant Hackett?
Ans: The Australian incumbent Telco,Telstra, is Australians largest ISP
(internet service provider). It is called BigPond, which is advertising famous Australian people such as Grant as members of their on line blogging community, called Big Blog. You can leave comments etc for Grant so this may be the best way to communicate.
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://granthackett.bigblog.com.au/index.do

3. What is the length of a giraffe's tongue?
Ans: Can reach lengths of 18inches.
http://www.altavista.com/
http://www.angelfire.com/ks3/merickson/Animalia.html

4. How would you define the word 'ontology'? In your own words, what does it really mean ?
Ans: The study or concern about what kinds of things exist-what entities there are in the universe. It means the comprehension of the existence of stuff such as technology.
http://www.icerocket.com/
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci212702,00.html

5. What was David Cronenberg's first feature film?
Ans: "Transfer" in 1966.
http://www.icerocket.com/
http://www.northernstars.ca/directorsal/cronenbergbio.html

6. When was the original 'Hacker's Manifesto' written?
Ans: Shortly after the author's arrest on January 8, 1986.
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/media112/hacker.htm

7. Why do all phone numbers in Hollywood films start with '555'?
Ans: To prevent real subscribers being harassed by members of the public trying out the numbers quoted on the screen.
http://www.altavista.com/
http://www.omegarobot.com/article/555.html

8. What is the cheapest form of travel from Crete to Rhodes?
Ans: Both are islands in Greece. There is a normal ferry service that travels between the two island and it would be the cheapest mode.(There are also super ferries which cost twice more than normal ferries and comparable to an economy flight ticket).

http://www.yahoo.com/
http://www.greektravel.com/

9. What song was top of the Australian Pop Charts this week in 1965?
Ans: " I'll never find another you" by The Seekers.
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://www2.blogger.com/9.%20What%20song%20was%20top%20of%20the%20Australian%20Pop%20Charts%20this%20week%20in%201965?
http://www.onmc.iinet.net.au/topspot/1965.htm

10. Which Brisbane band includes Stephen Stockwell on keyboards and vocals?
Ans: Black Assassins
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://www.brisbanewritersfestival.com.au/2005/content/standard.asp?name=StockwellS

What is a search engine?
Ans: "A program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found."
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/s/search_engine.html

How do search engines rank the stuff they find on the internet?
Ans: They are ranked in order of relevancy.
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://websearch.about.com/od/enginesanddirectories/a/searchengine.htm

Who, or What, makes one page (that you might get in your search results) more useful than another one, so that it is put at the top of your search results?
Ans: Relevance scores are given to each document that is found from the query. These scores reflect the number of times a search term appears. For example, "if it appears in the title, if it appears at the beginning of the document, and if all the search terms are near each other". Search engines usually use alphabetical order at some point in their display algorithm.
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://www.webreference.com/content/search/how.html


What are some of your favourite search engines? why do you like one more than others?
Ans: I usually use Yahoo! or Google to do my searches on the Internet. Firsty, it is the most commonly used search engines by many people. It also allows me to find the relevant information I need most of the time.


Can you find some current news stories about search engines? (for example, Google has been in the technology news a bit lately).
Ans: Yes. Stories such as "The freedom to disallow speech in Cyberspace", "Search Engine Text Ads Aren't Going Away Anytime soon" and "Google says Paid Links OK, but they may punish you" can be found at the following website.
http://www.yahoo.com/

http://www.netscape.com/tag/search+engines

There are many other interesting stories posted there so take a look and expand your knowledge.

These are 2 other websites you can look at for news on search engines.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6107048.html

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,58971,00.html

Have fun and enjoy... :)