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Last Blog Post: Global social media: China

The “Great Firewall” is a term that I am only became more familiarized with after I visited China a few years ago as when I travelled to China that time and tried to check on new feeds on my Facebook and Instagram, I was denied access. Only then I knew it’s because of Internet censorship practices of the Chinese state with the Great Firewall (GFW), a vast internet surveillance and content-control system that prevents people in China from accessing certain websites and pages (Solon 2017).

The GFW aims to block content that is critical of the Chinese government or that covers controversial political events, for instance, Tiananmen Square protest (Solon 2017). Many foreign websites and apps such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and et cetera are blocked by China to necessarily intercept the information that it considered is harmful to the country from coming in and flowing out. With banning the global tech giants or strictly regulated, the GFW has fostered an economy that promotes homegrown Chinese tech companies (Fried 2020).

Particularly, Sina Weibo is the China’s Twitter, being the country’s most popular microblogging site, with 430 million active users monthly compared to Twitter which has about 326 million (Ren 2018). TikTok is another largest and fastest-growing global social media platforms spun out of China, allow users to generate short video contents. Unsurprisingly, China’s platforms are heavily moderated, and the experience of being online in China has gradually changed. The government got savvier, and more aggressive, about using the GFW to determine whether certain sensitive words or phrases are contained in the images or texts (Wang 2020). List of banned words and images increased, articles and post that managed to be posted got removed quickly. Perhaps the most devastating form of China’s censorship is physical. Authorities have silenced numerous leading writers, rights lawyers and activists who served as the conscience of the nation which I would describe their actions as depriving the freedom of speech in the name of self-regulation laws.

Such GFW scaling behaviors were justified by Deibert (2010), affirming that there is a need for worldwide movement of citizens and policy-makes to “protect the Internet as an open global source of information” (Yang & Liu 2014, p. 250). From this perspective, it is relatable as if the Internet user are given the complete freedom to post anything on web, it could cause a chaos and social issues sometimes. Nevertheless, to the extent of China’s GFW, it’s a controversial issue of whether the Internet censorship is controlling and over-limiting its citizen behaviors and movements on the Internet.

For the international community, Beijing’s cyber-policy is a sign of the challenge that a more powerful China presents to the liberal world order, which prioritises values such as freedom of speech. It also reflects the paradox inherent in China’s efforts to promote itself as a champion of globalisation, while simultaneously advocating a model of internet sovereignty and closing its cyber-world to information and investment from abroad.  — The Guardian (2018)     

Sounds like it’s the end of it fellas! If we’re having this class on campus, I’m sure not much of us would want to be late or absent even it’s early morning class as we’re gonna miss out the fun discussions and conversations having around in this unit. It’s a joy having this online class and read the comments that flood out every time too! Good luck and be safe you all~

References

Fried 2020, ‘How to Get Around the Great Firewall of China’, URL: https://toomanyadapters.com/get-around-great-firewall-china/.

Ren, Y 2018, ‘Know Your Chinese Social Media’, URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/fashion/china-social-media-weibo-wechat.html.

Solon, O 2017, ‘China cracks down on VPNs, making it harder to circumvent Great Firewall’, URL: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/china-vpn-cleanup-great-firewall-censorship.

The Guardian 2018, ‘The great firewall of China: Xi Jinping’s internet shutdown’, URL: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/29/the-great-firewall-of-china-xi-jinpings-internet-shutdown.

Wang, Y 2020, ‘In China, the ‘Great Firewall’ Is Changing a Generation’, URL: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/01/china-great-firewall-generation-405385.

Yang, Q & Liu, Y 2014, ‘What’s on the other side of the great firewall? Chinese Web users’ motivations for bypassing the Internet censorship’, Computers in human behavior, vol. 37, pp. 249-257.

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Week 11: Global Social Media;China

The last topic for Digital Communities! Social Media and China pairs up well either negatively or positively. Let’s look back on China’s background and why they are so “conservative” in certain areas. In 1949, the Chinese Civil War ended with the communist party in control of majority of Mainland China. The late Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong established People's Republic of China that is still known as it is till now.  During his time, the Party had governmental control over citizens' personal lives, and the communes were formed. The people's commune  was the highest of three administrative levels in rural areas of the People’s Republic of China during the period from 1958 to 1983 when they were replaced by townships. Communes, the largest collective units, were divided in turn into production brigades and production teams. The communes had governmental, political, and economic functions during the Cultural Revolution  The people's commune was commonly known for the collective activities within them, including labor and meal preparation, which allowed for workers to share local welfare. Of course, all of these were gradually disbanded once Chairman Mao passed away. 

China being a communist state, still had one issue they couldn’t stray from which is controlling their people. 

The Great Firewall of China is the mixture of legislative and technical steps imposed by the People's Republic of China to domestically control the Internet. Its position in China's internet censorship is to block access and slow down cross-border internet traffic to selected foreign websites.

From its founding in 1949 until late 1978, the People's Republic of China was a Soviet-style centrally planned economy. Following Mao's death in 1976 and the consequent end of the Cultural Revolution, China was in leadership of Deng Xiaoping. The political and ideological foundation of the GFW Project is considered to be a favourite saying of Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s, "If you open the window, both fresh air and flies will be blown in". The statement is linked to a time of China's economic reform that became known as the' socialist market economy.' The reform, which superseded the Cultural Revolution's political philosophies, led China towards a market economy and opened up the market for foreign investors. Nonetheless, despite the economic independence of the Communist Party of China, the ideals and political ideas of other unwelcome philosophies had to be secured by "swatting flies"

Initial measures to regulate Internet use were taken by the Ministry of Public Security in 1997, when it released detailed regulations regulating its use. 

Key Sections of Article 4-6 ;

“Individuals are prohibited from using the Internet to: harm national security; disclose state secrets; or injure the interests of the state or society. Users are prohibited from using the Internet to create, replicate, retrieve, or transmit information that incites resistance to the PRC Constitution, laws, or administrative regulations; promoting the overthrow of the government or socialist system; undermining national unification; distorting the truth, spreading rumors, or destroying social order; or providing sexually suggestive material or encouraging gambling, violence, or murder. Users are prohibited from engaging in activities that harm the security of computer information networks and from using networks or changing network resources without prior approval” 

The Communist Party of China feared in 1998 that the China Democracy Party (CDP) might establish a strong new network that would not be able to be managed by the party elites. The CDP, followed by arrests and incarceration, was banned immediately. The GFW project was launched the same year. The first phase of the project took eight years to complete and was finished in 2006.In 2006, the second portion began and ended in 2008. On 6 December 2002, a four-day inaugural "Comprehensive Exhibition on Chinese Information System" was attended by 300 people in charge of the GFW project from 31 provinces and cities across China. Several Western high-tech devices, including Internet protection, video surveillance and human face recognition, were purchased at the exhibition. It is estimated that in this gigantic project, about 30,000-50,000 police were working.

The GFW in Hong Kong

China's special administrative regions (SARs) such as Hong Kong and Macau are not affected by the firewall, as SARs have their own governmental and legal structures and thus enjoy a high degree of autonomy, as described in the one country two systems" theory. Although recently, it seemed that China's Great Firewall, the massive apparatus that limits the country's internet, was coming down on Hong Kong. As part of a controversial new national security law, the Hong Kong government unveiled extended police powers, enabling police to censor online speech and compel internet service providers to hand over user information and shut down platforms.

Social Media channels could now be used against demonstrators who have relied on digital tools over the last year to mobilise protests. Political parties have already dissolved and previously vocal activists have left social media quietly, although old tweets have been removed by others.

To conclude, although GFW seems like it’s affecting most of the Chinese people including SARs, their citizens seems to find other ways to access the internet like Chinese celebrities using VPN to access Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Besides that, China made social media “Tik Tok” seems to be doing better than others and it is one of the top apps at the moment. There's no need for Twitch for Chinese netizens. They can use Douyu or Huya at home, only two additional beneficiaries of the Great Firewall.

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Week 9: Fandom

Undoubtedly, most of us are a fan of something and so do i. In terms of celebrities, i am a huge fan of Jackie Chan and Benedict Cumberbatch and whereas in terms of TV drama, i am a huge die-hard fan of “How I Met Your Mother” and “Sherlock”. Besides outlining the definition of Fandom, its pros and cons and my concluding sentence, i will share with everyone about my experience being a fan of those mentioned celebrities and TV drama.

Jackie Chan

I believe most of us know who is Jackie Chan although some 00′s might not familiar with him since i am a 90′s who grew up watching Jackie Chan’s filmography. Although Jackie Chan’s film is predominantly Cantonese-spoken, the funny fact is that the first Jackie Chan’s movie i watched was “Rush Hour”, one of the movies that made him successful in the US market and was English-spoken. Well, i dare to say i have watched almost 90% of his filmography although i outgrew him ever since Benedict Cumberbatch toppled up my idol list.

 Furthermore, despite Jackie Chan has gained in huge popularity worldwide for almost half century, one of the incidents about fandom that had traumatized him was that 2 Japanese girls who appeared to be his die-hard fans committed suicide by running towards the railway and getting hit by train as soon as they knew that Jackie Chan was married and during the 80′s, there was a group of Japanese girls forming a fan club entitled “Stay Single For Jackie”. Whaaatt!!!.

Since then, Jackie Chan settled down his wife and child in the US to prevent those paparazzo from pestering his personal life.

Benedict Cumberbatch

Yeap, because of him i had to outgrow my childhood idol, Jackie Chan. To be honest, i seldom watch any movies starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the only reason why i knew him was ‘Sherlock’ season 1. It was exactly 10 years ago when i was still a wimpy pupil awaiting to take UPSR and Netflix did not even exist then, my cousin bought me a ‘Sherlock’ season 1 DVD from the UK during his typical European summer break and since then, i was obsessed with English culture and started to work hard on my English language and now, i am proud to say that i am able to watch any English sitcoms and movies without referring to subtitles and sarcastically, i still rely on English subtitle whenever i watch dramas and movies since i need to learn some specific phrases (Crime, fiction and documentary) and even American and British slangs. Therefore, instead of my English teacher, Benedict Cumberbatch was a motivator for me to learn English. 

How I Met Your Mother

One of my favorite US sitcoms that helps me to improve my English and frankly speaking, i watched it only because of Cobie Smulders but gradually, i fell in love with this sitcom. This sitcom basically depicts the life of a bunch of adults who met each other in New York and soon they all became good friends and some among them became an engaged couple (Lily and Marshall) and even ex-couple (Ted and Robin), followed by each episode has different story plot which has interconnection to others and basically reflects upon our life journey (From unknown to known, followed by outgrow and meet new things). That is how our life should be: Live at the moment, accept the unknown, let bygone be bygone and embrace the future.

Sherlock

Once again, i watched it only because of Benedict Cumberbatch. Well, basically this television series is quite derailed from the original novel. I have a whole set of Sherlock Holmes novel as my collection but now i can barely even remember the story of every series. Sorry earthlings, for the whole series of 4 (television series) i cant make sense of the association between each episode since it is too hard to fathom (scientific and psychological). Under my impression, i know that Jim Moriaty was the final big boss (villain) of the whole series, every series revolves around the rivalry between Sherlock and Jim Moriaty. Too hard to digest the story plot.

Definition of fandom   (Jenkin et al. 2009; cited in Grinnell College n.d.)

Fandom is a term which describes communities built around a shared enjoyment of an aspect of popular culture, such as books, movies, TV shows, bands, sports or sports teams, etc. Fandom is an example of participatory cultures. Participatory cultures involve fans acting not only as consumers but also as producers and creators of some form of creative media. Though most fan cultures, including sports fans and fans of music groups, have elements of participatory culture, media fandom in particular encourages creative expression and artistic production by its participants.

A participatory culture more specifically as one that consists of:

Relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement

Strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others

Some type of informal mentorship in which the most experienced members pass along their knowledge to novices

Members who believe their contributions matter

Members who feel some degree of social connection with one another and care about other members’ opinions about their contributions.

pros of fandom:   (Environmental-Conscience n.d.)

You learn to deal with emotional highs and lows

Fandom is a great way to learn how to deal with emotional swings. Since you will experience many losses and wins, you will be on an emotional rollercoaster once in a while and through those experiences, chances are that you will also be able to deal with your emotions in a much easier way.

Controlling our emotions is not only important for fandom, it is crucial in various parts of our life and therefore, being a fan can also indirectly help you to succeed in life in general.

Feeling of community

One important upside of being a fan is that you can experience a real sense of community. If you are in a sports stadium or at a concert of your favorite band, you will have many people around you that have similar interests and you can really feel like a valued member of a group.

Especially if you are a rather shy person who has difficulties to connect to other people, fandom can give you the opportunity to hang out with other people who will accept you as who you actually are.

Fandom gives you the opportunity to hang out with like-minded people

Another advantage of being a fan is that you will often hang out with like-minded people who have quite similar interests and attitudes towards life. In fact, if you join a fan club, chances are that you will be able to make really good friends over time, which may even last for a lifetime. Hence, if you currently looking to make new friends, chances are that fandom may give you a great opportunity to do so.

Cons of fandom:         (Environmental-Conscience n.d.)

Being a fan can be exhausting

Apart from the many advantages of being a fan, it can also have serious downsides. One disadvantage of being a fan is that it can become quite exhausting in the long run. You will live through many highs and lows and some people are simply not able to deal with those emotional swings. Moreover, driving to away games on a regular basis can be quite demanding and can cost you quite a lot of time and money.

Fandom can lead to conflicts among family and friends

In extreme cases, fandom can even lead to conflicts between family members or friends. If your friends support different clubs, chances are that there will be conflicts sooner or later since everyone thinks his or her club is the best. In the worst case, friendships may even cease to exist due to rivalries related to fandom.

Social media hate

In our current state of the world, information can be spread on social media by everyone of us. Unfortunately, those channels are also used by people who actively try to hate against members of other fan clubs or players from other teams. In fact, many comments on social media are quite insulting and you may become victim to those haters yourself if you are not careful.

Conclusion

Fandom is a polarizing topic to argue since it has a mixture of pros and cons. Practicing a good fandom can bring benefits to our life in terms of emotional association and in pursuit of happiness. However, toxic fandom can lead to severe aftermaths such as distress, social security problem and extremism. In my opinion, fandom can be indulged but not to be immersed. 

List of references:

Grinnell College n.d.,��FANDOM AND PARTICIPATORY CULTURE, Grinnell College,viewed 11 November 2020,

<https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultural-theory-and-theorists/fandom-and-participatory-culture/>.

Environmental-Conscience n.d.,  Pros and Cons of Being a Fan, Environmental-Conscience, viewed 11 November 2020,

<https://environmental-conscience.com/being-a-fan-pros-cons/>

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Week 10: Social Gaming

Social Gaming - The most popular topic of this era which is the digital age we live. This sentence, or similar ones, you've definitely read and heard it, hundreds of times. It is true that we live in a digital age, and in our daily lives, the use of technology and technological appliances has been increasingly increasing in recent decades, particularly in the last several years.

I am an avid gamer myself, especially first person or third person shooting games. I used to borrow my brother’s computer just to play games on it, although i have to admit, i’m not that good at it but i still enjoy it for the sake of passing time. In 2018, Player’s Unknown Battleground Mobile was introduced. I have heard of the PC ones before but I couldn’t play it because the game had to be bought and i needed a gaming computer or at least a laptop with a better graphics card to run it. Downloaded the game on my phone and gave it a go (It was free). Played hard like I was training for a competition (I know delusional). I was kind of good at it (?). 

I’m the second one, hid my username for privacy purposes hehe

This game is crazily addictive, especially when you have a group of friends to play with. Sometimes, i muster up the courage to turn on voice chat when i’m playing with strangers. The first thing they will say is “wow, you are girl?” which had me thinking is it wrong for a girl to play PUBGM? In the first place, gaming isn’t just made for boys. It’s so stereotypical for people to think that girls should just stick to dolls, make up etc. Besides that, they will assume that girls are noob players (Newbie, newb, noob, nub, or n00b is a slang term for a novice or newcomer, or somebody inexperienced in a profession or activity). To be honest, there are many professional girl streamers of PUBGM. I always watch their streams and gameplay. Sometimes, they even play better than other guy players. For example, Alice is a professional PUBGM player from Indonesia under Bigetron Red Aliens (BTR). She is the fifth member of the roster and has represented them at several major events. Alice is often look up to by many girls who wish to be like her. She proves that being a girl doesn’t not make you a ‘noob’ in gaming. 

To conclude, we shouldn’t discriminate genders in gaming. Gaming is made for anyone and everyone to enjoy.

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Week 9: Fandom

Fandom! Everyone of us are at least a big fan of something. Back in 2009, I used to be a BIG BIG fan of Kpop (Still am but not so much). A little cringe but we used to fight over idols and how they belong to us etc. 

Me thinking back about it now

Just a quick explanation. So what is a fandom?  According to Cambridge Dictionary, a fandom is a the state of being a fan of someone or something, especially a very enthusiastic one. As I was part of a few fandoms, I used to attend concerts held in Singapore and Malaysia. I would at least attend one each year. I would spend on light sticks and merchandises. 

Gotta flex my concert days

Coldplay Concert, still a very big fan of theirs!

Kpop Concerts (Bigbang, 2NE1, GDragon)

But how far can we actually be fans of these groups? Have you ever heard of “Sasaeng Fans”? Sasaeng fans are crazy and overly obsessed fans. They follow KPOP groups EVERYWHERE (literally everywhere, even into their hotel rooms). Sometimes, they even do extreme stuff which doesn’t even show love to their favourite groups. Like slitting their wrists if their idol is dating someone or chasing their idol’s vehicles which is extremely dangerous.

Here is an example of Sasaeng fans of BTS.

In my opinion, we should never forget that celebrities are human too. Why is there a need to go overboard when you are a fan of someone? There are better ways to support someone like watching their music videos or listening to their music, commenting sweet messages on their social media etc. There isn’t need follow your favourite idol 24/7 to show your love for them. It’s just creepy!

Besides that, when we are part of a fandom, we should refrain from toxicity. We shouldn’t forget that we are all in for the same reason which is to support group/person that we like. 

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Public Health: Ebola in 2014 & COVID-19 today -  different virus, 6 years apart, but similar misinformation. Who to blame - social media or humanity?

Initially, I wanted to write about Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak happened in 2014, in West-African countries. The purpose is to comparatively examine the role of social media during the 2014 epidemic to current pandemic. However, the interesting discovery is in fact the trend of false information during both outbreaks.

By comparing the false information that I personally read on COVID-19 this year, the false information that spread rapidly in 2014 during EVD outbreak was undoubtedly similar. The only difference is false information on COVID-19 spreads on a global scale which intensify the disruption and complication of pandemic responses. As Guterres (2020), the Secretary-General of United Nations have put it, “Our common enemy is #COVID19 but our enemy is also an “infodemic” of misinformation”, where “Infodemic” refers the excessive spread of misleading and fabricated news regarding the pandemic (WHO, 2020).

The 3 similar false information surfaced during the outbreaks are:

1.     Virus treatment and preventive measures

2.     The virus is a scam

3.     The virus is lab-made

First misinformation is about the virus’ treatment and preventive measures. When EVD hit the West African countries, the healthcare system and authorities are faced with the spread of false information on the virus treatment and preventive measures. Among it is drinking onions helps in preventing Ebola contraction (Adebimpe et al., 2015). Does this sound familiar?! Oh, definitely because it hit home several months ago. There was a rumor circulating on social media stating that by placing slices of onion around the house will absorb the virus and prevents contracting COVID-19 (Bernama, 2020).

Another misinformation is that the virus is a scam. In Liberia, citizens highly doubt the existence of Ebola mainly due to the distrust in government. According to them, the government is using outbreak to earn profit from its people by selling the vaccines. Furthermore, there are other diseases such as Malaria and Cholera that displays similar symptoms which increases their doubt about Ebola (VICENews, 2014). Today, in 2020 amid COVID-19 outbreak, Indonesians in East Java also believes that COVID-19 is a hoax to embezzle public funds. Worse, they believe it is a scheme for hospitals and doctors to sell body parts (Dursin, 2020).

Thirdly is on the origin of the virus. As if other rumors are not frightening and disruptive enough, the situation in one of the Ebola-hit countries, Democratic Republic of the Congo, was worsened by another rumor about Ebola as a government-made virus to exterminate the people of Beni (Spinney, 2019). In 2020, as COVID-19 was declared as pandemic in March, conspiracy theories surfaced on Internet about the origin of the virus. Again, COVID-19 was believed to be artificially manufactured by the government with secret agenda although Science have proven that the virus originated from animals (Mian and Khan, 2020).

These three similar misinformation during two different outbreaks that happened 6 years apart is an interesting discovery, but I am equally bothered by the question “how do this misinformation even start?”. And, as I reflect further, it is clear that although the technology evolves, humanity somehow failed to advance with time. Regardless of the technological modernity and advancements, human still lack knowledge, common sense and the ability to distinguish between facts and rumors. Many heavily criticize and blame social media platforms for the spread of false information that we forget that these platforms are merely tools for communication. The hand and the mind that is controlling the tool is us.

Perhaps we should take a step back to develop, empower and equip the humanity with knowledge and critical thinking ability, rather than focusing entirely on developing the tools – because tools without correct handling is still futile, like rearranging deck chairs on Titanic.

Cheers! ☺️

References

ADEBIMPE, W. O., ADEYEMI, D. H., FAREMI, A., OJO, J. O. & EFUNTOYE, A. E. 2015. The relevance of the social networking media in Ebola virus disease prevention and control in Southwestern Nigeria. PanAfrican Medical Journal, 22, 1 - 4

BERNAMA. 2020. Onions to fight flu? Deputy minister scoffs but says it won’t hurt [Online]. Free Malaysia Today. Available: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2020/01/18/onions-to-fight-flu-deputy-minister-scoffs-but-says-it-wont-hurt/ [Accessed 24 October 2020].

DURSIN, K. 2020. Hoax stories hamper Indonesia’s Covid-19 fight [Online]. Bangkok Post. Available: https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1946480/hoax-stories-hamper-indonesias-covid-19-fight[Accessed 24 October 2020].

GUTERRES, A. 2020. In: @ANTONIOGUTERRES (ed.). Twitter.

MIAN, A. & KHAN, S. 2020. Coronavirus: the spread of misinformation BMC Medicine.

SPINNEY, L. 2019. Fighting Ebola is hard. In Congo, fake news makes it harder [Online]. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Available: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/01/fighting-ebola-hard-congo-fake-news-makes-it-harder [Accessed 24 October 2020].

The Fight Against Ebola (Full Length), 2014. Video Documentary. Directed by VICENEWS.

WHO. 2020. Immunizing the public against misinformation [Online]. World Health Organization. Available: https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/immunizing-the-public-against-misinformation [Accessed 24 October 2020].

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Crowdsourcing: Malaysian health professionals debunk medical myths & misinformation on Twitter #MedTweetMY

What are the chances that you and I have innovative ideas or information to solve social problems? Greatly high. And what are the chances that our ideas will never see the light of day? Equally high. However, could we innovate and resolve problems if we ever come together and assemble ideas? As Bob the Builder says, yes, we can.

The common issue among us is not lacking the ability to innovate but we lack knowledge and resources to innovate or generate problem-solving solutions. However, it is possible if we come together to assemble different ideas and share different information to create the knowledge needed for innovation in the process known as “crowdsourcing” (TEDx, 2015).

For the past few weeks, we spoke on what have social media and Internet in general enabled us to do. Connectivity among the community is easier and quicker that we have become the networked individuals with 24/7 network connection. Also, the portability element of new media allows independent communication without reliance to locality (Siapera, 2012).

With such advancements, crowdsourcing is now easier, and it is evident with numerous crowdsourcing platforms across the internet. On these platforms, the community is connected to those with similar views, expertise or professions and join forces to create valuable outcomes despite different locations (Ford, 2012). For instance, Designhill is platform to customize website designs, or TrendWatching, for business owners to monitor the ever-changing consumer trends (Darwin, 2019).

In Malaysia, health professionals gathered on Twitter under the hashtag #MedTweetMY and through a Twitter account, MedTweetMY Official, to debunk medical myths which is considerably a critical issue here. The health professionals include Nephrologist, General Surgeon, Dietitian, Obstetrician-Gynecologist and more. 

These professionals fight against the promotion pseudoscience products, harmful and ridiculously miraculous multi-cure products that offers instant cure to chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer or kidney failure. Apart from that, they wrestle against anti-vaccines community that spreads false allegations and unnecessary fear of vaccines. With the increasing spread of myths and misinformation, the health professionals claim that their presence on social media is critical to disseminate accurate information and to counter false information because the community’s health is at stake (Amalina, 2019).

On Twitter, these health professionals are able to reach a wider audience due to Twitter’s public posts or accounts’ visibility to anyone, including non-registered visitors. It is further enhanced by the hashtag feature that links any associated posts together (Bruns et al., 2012). With the hashtag #MedTweetMY, visitors are able to read the health-related posts posted by real health professional apart from the retweets by the official Twitter account.

(An eye doctor rebuking the misinformation on eye-drops curing myopic, cataract and glaucoma)

(An ObGyn Trainee debunking myth on consuming durian with other foods)

(A Nephrologist’s link to her YouTube video talking on myths of medication’s side effects on kidneys)

In this case, there is no new innovation provided by the medical professionals, but we are seeing the crowdsourcing of health information to tackle the increasing problem of medical myth and misinformation among the citizens. Initially, it seemed impossible to be solved since most medical myths are perceived more as a culture and that eradicates belief or trust in scientifically proven treatments. However, today, as different information and knowledge from various medical fields are gathered under one hashtag, the community’s knowledge and awareness are increasing, and they are able to make wiser decisions about their health.

References

AMALINA, C. B. N. 2019. My fight against medical myths and fake news on social media [Online]. Imperial College London. Available: https://wwwf.imperial.ac.uk/blog/imperial-medicine/2019/12/16/my-fight-against-medical-myths-and-fake-news-on-social-media/ [Accessed 30 October 2020].

BRUNS, A., BURGEES, J., CRAWFORD, K. & SHAW, F. 2012. #qldfloods and @QPSMedia: Crisis Communication on Twitter in the 2011 South East Queensland Floods.

DARWIN, C. 2019. Top 10 Best Crowdsourcing Sites of 2020 for Your Business [Online]. Designhill. Available: https://www.designhill.com/design-blog/best-crowdsourcing-sites-for-your-business/ [Accessed 30 October 2020].

FORD, H. 2012. Crowd Wisdom. Index on Censorship, 41, 33 - 39.

SIAPERA, E. 2012. Understanding New Media, Los Angeles, Sage.

TEDX, T. 2015. Crowdsourcing Innovation: Changing the world one idea at a time | Rob Wilmot | TEDxKraków

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(Week 8: Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding) How has social media become the backbone of Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding

Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding has been a thing since long ago where the fist crowdsourcing happened in 1714, when the British government invited tenders for the “Longitude Prize.” The prize was endowed with 20,000 Pounds and was to be awarded to someone who could develop a reliable method of calculating the longitude of a vessel while being at the sea (Crowdsourcing from its beginning to the present, 2018). The first successful crowdfunding can be recorded back in 1997 when a British rock band funded their reunion tour through online donations from fans (The history of crowdfunding, 2020). 

Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding has seen more successful attempts with the help of social media. Let’s take a look at some examples of how social media helped in crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. 

Coca-cola’s “Share-a-Coke” 

Share a coke campaign was a crowdsourcing campaign that was launched by coca-cola in 2011 starting in Australia. The campaign was a huge success with coca-cola making full use social media marketing by introducing the #ShareaCoke hastag which saw 500,000 photos shared in the first year of the campaign and coca-cola also gained 25 million new followers on Facebook that year (Tarver, 2019). Customers can also share a virtual cola with family friends through their site on Facebook but the site has now been closed after the campaign ended. The marketing director of coca-cola Lucie Austin said that they intentionally seeded the campaign with opinion leaders and influencers to get them to them lead the conversation and encourage others to seek out “Share a Coke” for themselves. Celebrities were picking up the bottles and talking about them without any formal connection to us. Pretty much immediately, they knew they were on to something (Moye, 2016). 

Starbucks’ White Cup contest

In 2014, Starbucks launched the White Cup Contest on social media. The contest encourages customers in the United States and Canada to decorate  Starbucks cup with customized art, take a photo of it, and then submit the design through social media using #WhiteCupContest. Starbucks said that they were inspired by the creativity they sees throughout the Starbucks social community with cup art that’s been posted on Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest that people are already experimenting with different mediums, and Starbucks suggests they should “turn up the volume” on their creativity with this contest (Starbucks Invites You to Decorate its Iconic White Cup, 2014). In the first three weeks, starbucks had already received almost 4000 submissions on social media with the tag #WhiteCupContest which we can assumer they sold at least 4000 cups of coffee in the first 3 weeks of the campaign (Starbucks Announces the Winner of its White Cup Contest, 2014). 

GoFundMe campaigns

Launched in 2010, GoFundMe is a for-profit crowdfunding website designed to help people in their supported countries raise fund for various causes such as education, medical, emergency financial help and various other reasons by utilizing shares on social media such as Facebook and Twitter which is a function in the website (About GoFundMe, 2020). Through this website, many have successfully accomplished their goals with crowdfunding, one example being Madi’s Treasure Box which has already raised $43,591 in over a month with the goal of donating multicultural crayons and books to schools in an effort to promote diversity. Another example being Free Laundry Friends which povides free laundry at local laundromats, serving the most underserved communities being affected by COVID-19 suing 100% of the fund, the campaign saw $25,672 money raised over the original goal of $25,000. More successful GoFundMe campaigns can be found in Success Stories of GoFundMe page. 

Conclusion

As one can see, social media has greatly helped many crowdsourcing and crowdfunding campaigns as it is a place where everyone is virtually connected and everyone can be updated almost instantly when these campaigns are organized. 

[chantalllll]

Week 7: Public Health and Social Media

Social media has greatly affected public health by allowing various communities to spread information, share information and even change the way we experience and learn about important health issues around the world. Think about the way it can propel conversation about public health topics such as obesity, mental health problems, depression, eating disorders and even worldwide pandemics. 

Schillinger et al. 2020 claims that during the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has been described by some as the source of a toxic “infodemic” and considered by others as an emerging tool for public health.

Social media can serve as a contagion, vector, inoculant, surveillance, disease control and mitigation and even treatment. For example, it can be used by industries to serve as a medium through which risky behaviors are enabled and associated diseases transmitted. But it can also be used for real-time surveillance related to incident diseases and predict emerging trends.

Today, I’ll be talking about how social media influences public health, the spread of misinformation and the pros and cons of social media when being used by communities facing mental illnesses. 

Example: MOH/KKM Malaysia (Ministry of Health Malaysia has an active Twitter account that they use to provide current updates about COVID-19 in Malaysia. 

In my opinion, this crossover between social media and public health that in today’s society is actually beneficial and important for several reasons such as: 

Handling public crises such as pandemics, epidemics and global health issues

Rapidly transferring information en masse to the public in a quick, easy and accessible way (no more referring to complex websites when you can just search Facebook or Twitter) 

Allowing supportive communities to be formed centered around certain illnesses 

Social Media’s Role in Handling The Pandemic

Social platforms are more popular than traditional news sources nowadays with over 1 billion monthly users on Instagram and 200 million daily users on Snapchat (Constine 2020). Usage of social media worldwide has skyrocketed during the pandemic since the majority of the community is self-isolating and need online connections to stay informed more than ever. 

(Source: GlobalWebIndex March 2020 survey of US and UK internet users indicates that about 25% of respondents saying they check social media more often because of COVID-19/coronavirus. All age groups have increased usage of social media too)

These platforms know their power and have thus taken action to spread vital information and act as new forms of emergency broadcast systems during this pandemic. 

Here are examples of how social media such as YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat have been used to share information and connect people during the Covid 19 pandemic. 

Bloomberg Quick Take explains on YouTube how to spot fake news about the Coronavirus

Instagram puts a new call-out on top of its home feed, thus embracing its new role as a news source. This call-out links to the WHO official website (REF HERE)

Snapchat is also highlighting health information shared by its Discover partners, including NBC’s Stay Tuned, Sky News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNN and NowThis. (REF HERE)

Keep reading

[chantalllll]

Week 8: Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding

I’ll upload a poster when I find the time!

Here comes the topic i dread to write about because i’m not good at it nor i’ve read a lot on.

Crowdsourcing ; Crowdsourcing involves obtaining work, information, or opinions from a large group of people who submit their data via the Internet, social media, and smartphone apps. People involved in crowdsourcing sometimes work as paid freelancers, while others perform small tasks on a voluntary basis

Crowdfunding ; Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.

These are examples of Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding;

1. Oculus Rift

Remember those cool  tech looking virtual reality goggles?

Back in 2013, the developer started a crowdfunding page using Kick Starter (Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity). They were raising funds to turn their idea into reality which was a great success. It’s aim was to take virtual reality into accessible home gaming dimension. More than $2.4 million was raised for their $250K campaign.

2. LEGO We all (most of us) played with LEGO when we were younger. Recently, they started out a crowdsourcing platform for people to submit their ideas and creations. Consumers are also able to vote and offer feedback for ideas submitted. Any idea that has received over 10,000 votes is reviewed by LEGO. If a submitter’s idea is selected, he gets to work with the LEGO team to make his idea a reality and also gets royalties on sales. The platform not only supports new idea generation, but it also enables LEGO to validate a demand for such ideas. One of the most notable sets to date is the Beatles “Yellow Submarine” set.

3. PepsiCo  Pepsi or Cola? (Comment your pick :p) Anyways, PepsiCo occasionally solicits input from consumers on varying products, such as the time they asked customers to share their favorite new potato chip flavor for the company’s Lay’s brand. This ‘Do Us a Flavor’ campaign debuted in 2012 after the market share started to decline among the millennial crowd. An astonishing 14 million submissions were raked in. The winner? Cheesy Garlic Bread. An 8% increase in sales followed this clever crowdsourcing innovation campaign.

Why is crowdfunding & crowdsourcing good? These are the best ways to follow through if you are start up company with not much funding in the first place. Innovators are allowed to innovate before producing the products itself. You can pitch your ideas to consumers, if they find it interest, they will probably donate for that item to be produced and be put into the market. This gives creative innovators are chance to showcase their inventions and actually see the people do wanna buy their products.

If you are interested in creating a crowdsourcing & crowdfunding page, here are some websites that are reliable;

The 6 Top Crowdfunding Platforms of 2020

Indiegogo: Best Overall

SeedInvest Technology: Best for Startups

Mightycause: Best for Nonprofits

StartEngine: Best for Investing

GoFundMe: Best for Individuals

Patreon: Best for Creative Professionals

Source: Investopedia

[chantalllll]

Week 7: Public Health and Social Media

Sorry no fancy poster because i don’t have time to edit :’)

Nowadays, social media plays a big part in our modern day society. News, updates, informations on issues are being passed on through social media. It’s the fastest medium of communication compared to newspapers or magazines. Unfortunately, this is where false news come about. Especially with the current hot issue, COVID19, people are spreading fake news and informations which makes others believe in them. These stuff spreads like wild fire. 

Is social media effective to circulate public health matters like COVID19?

In my opinion, yes but also no. During this few weeks, Malaysia’s COVID19 cases are inclining rapidly which also means fake news are spreading more and more. If you are from Kuching, you’ve probably seen this photo (Attached Below) spreading around in these few days

It has been clarified that this list is fake. But how are we suppose to stop it from spreading? It’s impossible. Once someone send this out then another person forwards it, the next person will also forward and this chain will go on and on. It’s ridiculous. No matter how many times the Health Ministry have informed us to make sure we don’t spread any fake news, there still be that person who is too “free”. I always think of this false news being spread around like the game called ‘Chinese Whisper’. Let me explain to you what this game is. Players form a line or circle, and the first player comes up with a message and whispers it to the ear of the second person in the line. The second player repeats the message to the third player, and so on. When the last player is reached, they announce the message they heard to the entire group. The first person then compares the original message with the final version. Although the objective is to pass around the message without it becoming garbled along the way, part of the enjoyment is that, regardless, this usually ends up happening. Errors typically accumulate in the retellings, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly from that of the first player, usually with amusing or humorous effect. Reasons for changes include anxiousness or impatience, erroneous corrections, and the difficult-to-understand mechanism of whispering.

For example,  Person A to B: “Eh, you know i heard this person MIGHT have COVID19. He was at this cafe the other day” Person B:”OMG, really?!”   Then Person B meets Person C Person B to C: “This guy, he was at this Cafe, apparently he HAS COVID19″ Person C will start telling Person D then the stories start evolving. 

See how this goes? How one word can change a whole sentence? To Conclude, we should always be careful with what we share on social media. Don’t cause panic. We should take note that the official statement from our Health Ministry only comes out at certain times. Find reliable sources, stop spreading fake news!

[chantalllll]

Week 6: Activism & Protest

What is activism?

Activism is the doctrine or practice of vigorous action or involvement as a means of achieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations or protests. 

Let me list down a few activism & protest that is currently happening in our world.

1. The top story & current one ; The 2020 Thai Protest

Thailand, a country who was under 90 years of the military reign due to elected government being overthrown constantly. The direct causes of the protest is mainly due to the dissolution of the pro-democracy Future Forward Party. FFP was received well by progressives and youths. It was short-lived when it was dissolved by the Constitutional Court. FFP members were not happy as the regime were corrupted and one of the members were involved in the 1MDB scandal. Other causes of this protest includes abortion rights, authoritarianism in Thai Schools, education reform, labour rights, military reform, monopolies and women’s rights. 

2. Hong Kong Protests : Anti-Extradition Law Movement Amendment Bill Movement

Ever since 2019 till now, the protest that was triggered by the introduction of the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill by the HK Government where the bill will allow extradition to jurisdictions with which HK did not have extradition agreements, including mainland China and Taiwan. This led to HK residents fearing that they will have to abide by the legal system of mainland China, to keep in short, lesser freedom and civil rights.

3. Black Lives Matter (BLM)

BLM is a social movement formed on 13th July 2017. It is known international but mainly in the United States. BLM was formed to protest against incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against black people. The popularity of BLM has rapidly grown over time. It is more known as of 2020 due to the increasing police brutality and racial violence against black people. Does social media play an important role in activism?

Yes, i strongly believe social media plays an important. I mean without social media, how do we make things “loud”. (Also i just found out BLM was created 7 years ago through social media...) We can take for example, in the Thai Protest, the Thai youths used various hashtags on Twitter & TikTok to speak up. One of it is #โตแล้วเลือกเองได้ “We are grown-ups and can choose for ourselves” which was directed to the current Thai King, Vajiralongkorn who issued a royal announcement urging people to vote for “good people”. Besides they also used; 1. Protests at Chulalongkorn University used #เสาหลักจะไม่หักอีกต่อไป (lit. The pillar will not be broken longer; an analogy to the university's tagline as “the pillar of the land.”)                                                                                                 2. Protests at Triam Udom Suksa School used #เกียมอุดมไม่ก้มหัวให้เผด็จการ (lit. Triam Udom doesn't bow to dictatorship)                                                            3.Protests at Srinakharinwirot University (SWU) used #มศว คนรุ่นเปลี่ยน (lit. SWU generation of change)

(Source: Wikipedia)

But, does activism lasts? Will it still continue to go on?

There are two sides to this. As you can see, the Hong Kong protest has been going on for nearly a year plus. The youths and supporters are still heads on. They won’t stop until they get what they want. On the other hand, for social movements like BLM, although it’s popularity is increasing over time, it only pops out a few times a year. Nowadays, you don’t really see people posting or sharing on BLM. The movement is still there fighting for their rights but there isn’t much on it on social medias than it was few months ago. It is quite hard to fight for what is right, eventually people will go on with their lives as they don’t see much results although it is still at the back of their minds.

To conclude, activism is a good way to fight for what is right. We should help to educate others on activism, to not be afraid for what we stand for. We should put ourselves out there but also ensure we have our facts right before going against something.

[chantalllll]

Week 5:Political Engagement

In this week’s topic, I’ll be touching on social media together with Malaysian Politics, an ongoing crisis of Malaysia. What is being written are purely opinions and views. I have to stress on this as Malaysian Politics is pretty controversial. However, as a Malaysian Citizen, a Rakyat & anak Malaysia, we all have the freedom of speech and expression (to a certain extend of course) as stated in our Constitution. First of all, why is social media paired up politics?  In this modern age, social media plays an important role especially in politics. These social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter are used for political processes and activities. Political processes and activities includes political organisations, political values, global politics and political corruptions. Social media is extremely powerful as it can change ones views or opinions against someone or a party. This is the reason why the use of social media in election processes, global conflict, and extreme politics, diplomacy around the world has become less private and susceptive to the public perception. Besides that, social media is one of the fastest platform where news are spread or passed on to people but also at times, may give out false information creating rumours that might spread like wild fire.

With the current state of Malaysian politics, it’s clearly chaotic and confusing.  Politicians jumping ships and the forming of a new government just 21 months after the 2018 Malaysian general election. Now, the talk of the town where by Anwar has enough numbers to form yet another new government. Before this, I wasn’t aware of our Malaysia politics but ever since 2018, it has become an interesting hot topic.  Also, it is time for my generation to step up and be aware of the current situation. This is where social media plays a huge role in my generation. My generation is not known to read newspapers to keep up with current issues. That’s why, politicians are taking advantage of social media to bring up issues or get their message out there. Their followers will do the work of spreading it and liking. If a post has a great impact, it can be used and emphasised again and thus give the senders great publicity without actually doing a great deal themselves. 

One good example we can take is Syed Saddiq. Syed, an ambitious young man was previously Mahathir’s side kick and also ‘youth strategy’. Syed, the representative of the younger generation had a very strong influence on social media. He is exceptionally active on Twitter. With over 1 million followers, he frequently writes tweets and made videos, spreading messages or bringing up real issues. Recently, he formed a new party ‘MUDA’, that represents the younger generations. Social media played an important role in helping him gain support for his new party. But of course, he was heavily criticised by a few ministers as being disrespectful to the elders which I find it funny cause we were taught that we, as younger generation are the “masa depan negara” (The future of our country). As a follower on twitter, he was often condemn for the simplest tweets. As long as he lives and breathes, people will find fault in him. Probably because they see him as an influencer and they rather not take him seriously.  Another example on how great social media and politics are when paired together is through Malaysia’s infamous prime minister, DS Najib Razak. His catch phrase “Boss ku” made him gain popularity, literally masking the fact that he was involved in the 1MDB controversy. He was also active on twitter, tweeting out the silliest tweets, making fun of people and just all in all being a “comedian”. He knew the only way to back his popularity is through social media and that is still his current strategy. Young people nowadays love these kind of contents am i right?  To conclude, our younger generation should step up and not be afraid to voice their opinions. We should also start being aware of our Malaysia politics. As we are known to be the “Digital Generation”, social media will be a good starting point to learn about politics (although we should always ensure the things stated are true). This country’s well being and future is in our hands. We should ensure democracy lives. 

PS: If you are 21 and above, please do sign up as a voter! Although, the future seems bleak but we need to exercise our rights. If most parties are incompetent, at least vote for the better one out of all :) 

Excuse the typos if i made any

[chantalllll]

Week 4:Is Tumblr a blog or a social network site?

Hello! Welcome to my first ever post on Tumblr ( Although I had Tumblr few years back, it was a little too complicated for me too handle, probably cause I wasn’t a social media addict yet!) Let’s jump straight to the main point of this post!

First of all, in order for us to know whether tumblr is a blog or a social network website, we need to understand what is this platform called Tumblr. Based on my research on this website (Thank you Mr.Google), Tumblr (Pronounced “tumbler”) is an American owned website that was created in 2007. The founder and former CEO, David Karp had an interest in tumblelogs which are short-form blogs. He had this idea of creating Tumblr, a blogging platform because no one else had the idea of creating a tumblelogging platform. As of today, there are over 400 million users on Tumblr. 

For those who are lazy to read, check out the video attached below on “What is Tumblr?”;

I guess i kind of answered the “is tumblr a blog?” part right? If not, let me clarify, YES tumblr is a blog! A blog is normally written in an informal or conversational style. Tumblr lets you create your own original content, post up photographs, video clips, links, voice out opinions and also reblog someone else’s content. You can even customise your tumblr page like any other blogging website. 

But is it a social networking site? Although Tumblr is not established as social network site, it does have strong social component. What actually defines “a social network”? Let me give you an easy comparison, between a well-known social networking website, Facebook.

Facebook 

You write posts

You communicate with friends

You read posts

You view images, videos and links

Tumblr

You ALSO write posts

You ALSO communicate with friends and even strangers (Isn’t that creating a social networking space?)

You ALSO read posts

You ALSO view images, videos, links

Comparing both, they are very much alike. So, how is it not a social network?

To conclude, Tumblr is very much a blog at the same time a social networking site. Kind of like Facebook and Twitter put together. You know, write rants or voice out opinions simultaneously we communicate with friends and strangers alike. At least on Tumblr, you don’t get tweet limits or random Aunties/Uncles judging your posts!