This week’s discussion focused on digital media and its control over information. The provided powerpoint stated that Cold War military research demanded secrecy and topdown control regarding information exchanged and produced by the United States. As a result there has been a revolution in control over information and in the ways we understand authority. An example that was mentioned is primary sources and documents which used to require specialized credentials to obtain, and now can be accessed via computer research. The discussion shifted to the ability to edit and alter information in order to support an argument. This claim was supported by Civil War documents which have been used in the argument that the cause of the war was states rights and economic freedom, rather than exclusively supporting slavery. One report we referred to was that of Dr. Lewis Steiner, written in September of 1862 in Frederick, MD, which has been used to make the claim that 3,000 black slaves fought in the confederate army. Although there is factual evidence of slaves fighting within confederate armies, typically alongside their masters this was likely due to pressure on the part of the family which owned them. Slaves at this time were abused, physically and emotionally, and many were either coerced or simply forced to join their masters in battle. I do recognize that their could’ve been a relationship between a master and a slave, similar to friendship, but the key aspect of this dynamic is that one owned, beat, and mistreated the other. An example was discussed of a slave who took his master home after he had been injured and then went back and continued to fight for the confederate army. I believe it is highly unlikely that he did this through his own motivation but was likely given the choice to fight and potentially live or not fight and die. This is not to say that the all Northerners were exempt from racist ideologies and strived for racial equality, as we discussed in class at first slaves were not allowed to serve as soldiers.

Reviewing these documents and the discussion which occurred in class argued that while we as a generation have better access to information than our parents did, having to sift through various sources, we also are subject to the presence of inaccurate information and people presenting their opinions as fact. Most young adults receive their news from twitter, and while this fact may horrify the older generations, twitter has consistently provided news articles and drawn attention to pressing issues, more so than major news outlets. I find myself checking twitter prior to the New York Times and Washington Post when I hear of a major shooting or incident, mainly because I can find everyone’s opinion, not just articles filtered by press organizations. This also is reflected in items such as textbooks (primarily history), which are filled with inaccurate information and frequently leave out major events. I was fortunate to grow up in an eclectic home which encouraged the exchange of knowledge, but I found that the things we discussed at home were rarely mentioned in class with our teachers or in our textbooks (the source of authority on information). We barely discussed Native American history which was absent from most history books, there was no mention of the Arab uprisings in 2011 in my high school history classes, and even while attending George Mason University I attended a World History course which focused exclusively on European history. This blatant neglect of non-eurocentric history is a significant downside of the established authority of information and results in students receiving an inadequate education, as well as feeling alienated in the classroom. Supplemental resources are accessible online but students shouldn’t have to teach themselves on major historical events in, for example, a world history class.