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Trolling & Social Media Conflict

This blog is used strictly for educational purposes only. No copyright infringement intended.

What is TROLLING?

Online trolls are most similar to the playground fighters you meet at school. These people often deliberately cause disputes and struggles on social media and forums by saying the least sensitive and offensive words (Panda Security Mediacenter, n.d.).

The purpose of the troll is to stimulate the emotional reactions of other online users for their own entertainment purposes. Trolling is defined as a hostile interaction between online users, often involving insults and defamation (Computer Business Review, 2019).Trolling can also be done on sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Facebook became particularly fierce when domestic or international events occurred. Accessing a conservative or free Facebook page is like typing a text in a boxing match. There is a constant stream of controversy, and opinions that both parties want to extract from each other often appear in the topic. There are many people who do trolling  because they think it is interesting. In fact, is NOT. It is not considered, cruel, harmful, and can lead to serious consequences, such as frustration, self-harm, and even forcing those who have experienced trolls to contemplate or attempt to commit suicide and leave family and friends to coexist with the consequences.

One of the example that trolling lead to death is “Sulli’s death”. In 14 October 2019, Sulli, a K-pop celebrity was found death in her home. She suicides because her cannot  accept any trolling anymore. From what i found from the news, i notice that she had been trolling by those trolls at least 6-8 years. Besides than that, after hours of Sulli’s death, there was a troll asked Girl’s Day star Minah, ‘do you want to go next, you b****’.

Social media is a great way to interact with the world around you and a great way for brands and companies to interact with their users. Not letting those trolls make a mess of social networking sites.In my opinion, there must be some laws that can delay the trolls, no matter what size they write to the victim. This may prevents more suicide or injury from being caused by the online trolling.

References

Panda Security Mediacenter. (n.d.). What is an online troll? What do you need to know about it?. [online] Available at: https://www.pandasecurity.com/mediacenter/security/what-is-an-online-troll/

Computer Business Review. (2019). What is trolling? - Computer Business Review. [online] Available at: https://www.cbronline.com/what-is/what-is-trolling-4941741/#2

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Social Gaming

On this week’s blog, we’re looking into the topic of social gaming!

Over the years, technology has advanced so rapidly, even the essence of gaming itself has been slowly evolving into one of the biggest industry in the world today. From games that require people to be physically there, to games that can be played through a virtual environment, with other users from across the world, the gaming industry has come a long way. With such an ease of access to technologies as such, social gaming is pretty much available to most people. 

But what is social gaming?

Well, according to Collins Dictionary (n.d.), social gaming is the activity of playing games online with other users of the same online group. This could mean gaming both competitively or casually.

So, how can social gaming affect one’s life?

For one, like it or not, it will affect your social life. As social gaming involves other people, it’s rather obvious that we will most likely meet new online friends who share the same interests in a certain game. This in turn, will help in improving social skills as you involve yourself into a certain gaming community. 

Furthermore, social gaming also helps boosting creativity. Roston (2019) stated that as users play games such as minecraft, a life / survival simulation where the entire basis of the game is to create new worlds and structures (houses, shelter, farm, etc.) as well as to hunt for food for survivability, would help in boosting creativity in players. 

Aside from social interactions and boosting creativity, gaming has also crept its way into military purposes. The video above shows how the U.S military have been using simulations to train their troops. This is a big step in military as these troops will not be injured during trainings as before (Stilwell 2016).

However…

Just like everything in life, gaming too, has its bad. Without moderation, gaming can be addictive. In 2015, it was reported that a Taiwanese man died after a 3-day binge on a game he was addicted to (Hunt 2015). Wroten (2014) wrote that (pun intended), there is a co-relation between social media likes and gaming, the satisfaction from gaming would release endorphins - a group of hormones within the brain and nervous system that functions to relieve stress and pain, which in turn, would produce a feeling euphoria. This feeling of euphoric can be addictive which would make social gaming so much more dangerous if not moderated. Sadly, this isn’t the only case revolving around gaming and deaths. Video below talks about the 10 gamers who died playing video games. 

Yikes. That was rough.. 

But let’s lighten up things with the future of gaming industry.

Now that the gaming industry has come this far, where can they go from here? Well, the thing about the gaming industry is that it is ever-changing. Years ago, playing games is seen as a bad thing. Today, professional E-sports players are earning hundred of thousands literally through their fingertips. With this, fandom communities too, play a role. By watching their favorite players competing through tournaments, they would too, involve themselves into the games played by their favorite players. This would greatly benefit the companies developing the games as they earn millions of dollars through these games. As these games keep getting developed, more and more tournaments will surface, with new game ideas and new competitive scenes.

Though, some gaming companies are starting to abuse their reputation by instilling the idea of “loot boxes” in games. Loot boxes in gaming, is the current major problem in the gaming industries. These loot boxes are random rewards featuring cosmetic items that players can obtain by a percentage of chances (Freedman 2019). These loot boxes are slowly turning in a problem as it promotes the same theory as gambling. Game companies such as EA are well-known for their use of loot boxes as well as DLCs that encourages players to pay more as they play. 

So, what happens next?

All in all, we will never know the direction of where the gaming industry is headed towards, but social gaming as a whole shouldn’t be seen with a negative remark as they are beneficial to us as individuals and a society if used moderately. 

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Weekly Topic: Global Social Media: CHINA

Today, China has the world’s only internet companies that can match America’s in ambition and reach.

The Chinese Internet ecosystem

There are a lot of unique technology in China since China is the most high-tech country in the world. One of the famous unique technology in China are the Chinese internet ecosystem. The Chinese internet ecosystem are unique because it has their own platform. For instance, instead of using WhatsApp, China are using WeChat and Tencent QQ, instead of using TikTok, China are using Douyin, instead of using Facebook and Twitter China are using Sina Weibo (Ho et al. 2019). The reason why china has their own internet ecosystem is because it is easy for their government to control their people and the government do not want their people to be influenced by other country such as U.S.

Is China’s AI technology the answer to the future?

China’s artificial intelligence technology might be the answer for leading the innovative world. According to Jing & Dai (2018), china has invested in artificial intelligence such as cloud and big data, smart cars, quantum and high-performance computing, leading electronic materials, strategies technologies, smart robotics and smart medical devices. The development of artificial intelligence (AI) or technologies which perform tasks that are characteristic of human intelligence such as understand language, recognising objects and sound has been one of China’s national strategies. However, Trumps gets into a trade fight with China which he wants to make sure he is not penalising Chinese companies but also working to actively support US companies facing increased competition from China. In my opinion, yes China’s AI technology is the answer to the future. For example, China is using Artificial Technology in classroom which can detect student’s attention. 

Is the Social Credit System a way to instil good behaviour and provide safety to citizens? At what cost?

Based on Ma (2018), social credit system is a system where the government of China plans to rank all its citizens based on their social credit by 2020 and to monitor the behaviour of its enormous populations. The purpose of the system is to keep trust is good and breaking trust is bad. In addition, people can be rewarded and punished according to their scores. The scores can increase, and decrease based on how the person behave.

If the scores is less than 400, there will be punishment like banning citizens from flying and getting the train which the government restricting their travel, throttling the internet speeds, banning their children from entering the best schools, prevent the citizen form getting the best jobs, keeping out the citizen from the best hotels for the citizen to released stress, getting the dog away from the citizen, citizen named publicly named as bad.

If the scores is more than 400, the citizen of China will be rewarded like get a discount on energy bills, rent without deposit, get better interest rates at the bank, get a free holidays in the best hotel in china and there is a list for a good citizen which reportedly get citizens more matches on dating websites. (Ma 2018)

Is the Social Credit System a way to instil good behaviour and provide safety to citizen in China? In my opinion, it depends because it a way to instil good behaviour and provide safety to citizen in China but it can be not accurate because it measured by the system  and where citizen in China are more high-tech where the system can be hacked. Besides, the perks of being a good citizen are less than being bad citizen.

In conclusion, China has unique ways to control their people in order to develop good behaviour for their citizen.

References List

Ho, CK, Soo, Z, Deng, I 2018, China’s internet ecosystem model increasingly being copied globally, South China Morning Post, viewed on 21 November 2019, https://www.scmp.com/tech/enterprises/article/2155155/chinas-internet-ecosystem-model-increasingly-being-copied-globally>.

Jing, M & Dai, S 2018, Here’s what China is doing to boost it artificial intelligence capabilities, South China Morning Post, viewed on 21 November 2019, <https://www.scmp.com/tech/science-research/article/2145568/can-trumps-ai-summit-match-chinas-ambitious-strategic-plan>.

Ma, A 2018, China has started ranking citizens with a creepy ‘social credit’ system, - here’s what you can do wrong and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you, Business Insider, viewed on 21 November 2019, <https://www.businessinsider.my/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4/?r=US&IR=T>.

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Weekly Topic: What is Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding? Are they the same?

In era filled with fake news, what effect can this have on crowdsourced information? Can crowdsourcing actually overtake traditional funding mechanism for the creative industries? In times of need (social and political), can social media movement like #Pulangmengundi (Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding transportation to mobilize youths to vote benefit communities?

What is crowdsourcing?

According to Hargrave (2019), crowdsourcing is people who works which involving work information or opinion from a large group of people who submit their data on the internet such as the social media and smartphones application. It is a task on the voluntary basis or sometimes freelancers will get paid by participating in the crowdsourcing. For example, Waze is the traffic application, which encourage the drivers to reports on the traffic, accidents or incident which provide the real-time updated information to the application users.

What is crowdfunding?

Based on Smith (2019), crowdfunding is the process of raising funding online. In the vast networks like social media, crowdfunding can make use of the easy accessibilities on social media. Besides, in social media, the crowdfunding websites can easily bring the investor and entrepreneurs together which has potential to increase entrepreneurship by expanding the pool of investors beyond the traditional circle of owners, relatives and venture capabilities.  For example, of crowdfunding websites are Kickstarter and IndieGoGo has attract hundreds of thousand people invest in the huge project. There are three types of crowdfunding which Is donation-based crowdfunding, reward-based crowdfunding and equity-based crowdfunding (Miller, 2019). Donation based crowdfunding is a campaign in which there is no financial return to the investor or contributors. For example, of fundraising is for disaster relief, charities, non-profit and medical bills. On the other hand, reward-based crowdfunding involved individual contributing to the business in exchange for reward for example the product or the services the company offer, however there is no financial or equity return. This approach is popular option in platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Lastly, the equity-based crowdfunding is the campaign that allows the contributors to become part-owners of the company by trading capital for equity shares. The contributors will receive a share of the profits in the form of dividend and distributions.

In era filled with fake news, what effect can this have on crowdsourced information?

In the era of modern technology, there are a lot of fake news going viral on social media where most people love to believe it without further investigation. Besides, crowdsourced are still in investigation to prevent more fake news. The effect on crowdsourced are people will believe the false news in social media like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit and more. However, there is advantages of crowdsourcing for company and organization which it can benefit the organization to engage people across the enterprise, it can cultivate a culture of innovation, combat disruption with employee brainpower, invite customers to contribute ideas and embrace new methods of driving growths through innovation (Tucker 2019). However, there is also disadvantages which crowdsourcing can be subjective or error-prone which it can be time-consuming, and it can be relatively costly where human need to be paid (Marcus et al. 2013)

Can crowdsourcing actually overtake traditional funding mechanism for the creative industries?

In my opinion, crowdsourcing can overtake traditional funding mechanism for the creatives industries because crowdsourcing is more widely use in the internet and social media where more people can access to the internet rather than traditional funding mechanism.

In times of need (social and political), can social media movement like #Pulangmengundi (Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding transportation to mobilize youths to vote benefit communities?

In my opinion, social media movement like #Pulangmengundi can be a crowdsourcing and crowdfunding transportation to mobilize youths to vote. Crowdfunding has created an easier online platform for people to access funds and in the event such as #Pulangmengundi, there was a lot of tweets where people want to assist other people (in-term of financial) who studies or work at other countries to come back home and vote for the election day in Malaysia. However, it is also connected with crowdsourcing where people can give their information to strangers who want to assist them in term of financial.

In conclusion, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding are inter related with one another and both aspect can be a social and business interaction.

References List

Hargrave, M 2019, Crowdsourcing, Investopedia, viewed on 30 October 2019, < https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdsourcing.asp>. 

Miller, Z 2019, Which type of crowdfunding should you choose for your business, The Balance, viewed on 30 October 2019, <https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-type-of-crowdfunding-to-choose-for-business-985191>.

Sethi, J. R 2019, How citizen investigators can collaborate on crowdsourced fact-checking, viewed on 30 October 2019, < https://theconversation.com/how-citizen-investigators-can-collaborate-on-crowdsourced-fact-checking-76890>.

Smith, T 2019, Crowdfunding,Investopedia, viewed on 30 October 2019, < https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdfunding.asp>.

Tucker, B. R 2017, How Crowdsourcing Can Enhance Innovation Performance, Forbes,<https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbtucker/2017/06/16/how-crowdsourcing-can-enhance-innovation-performance/#38bd00ee54df>.

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SOCIAL MEDIA AND CHINA

Alright everybody here’s the last post for this blog and this week I will be talking specifically about China and their social media platforms. So let’s jump into it!

China has experienced rapid rates of growth in their internet platforms where trends are constantly changing even overnight. China is also known to be one countries that possesses the most high tech economy in the world, deriving the Chinese internet ecosystem. China has a population of 1,4 billion where it has a community of internet users amounting to 772 million people forming the largest community on the internet in the whole world.

In terms of the internet platforms in China, Tencent operates the largest social media platform in the country known as WeChat which has more than a billion active users. The three companies Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent Holdings holds majority of the internet platforms known as BAT where they have expanded their online reach, reaching a market value of over US $1trillion. Chinese companies have expanded vastly through the concept of E-commerce and social networking to increase and enhance their customer base allowing users to partake in buying deals offered for groups, (Ho, Soo & Deng 2018).

Is China’s AI technology the answer to the future?

The governing body of China has made extensive efforts especially in the inculcation of Artificial Intelligence to make China as the world’s principal Artificial innovation center by the year 2023 and has made noticeable progress towards this goal. China as an economy will be able to obtain a strong hold in the international market and also give the biggest three companies in China, Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu an even higher boost in terms of market power and profitability. China has already invested extensive amounts on smart cars, cloud and big data which all falls under the concept of Artificial Intelligence indicating that Artificial intelligence will indefinitely be the future of the Chinese economy, (Webb 2018).

Is the Social Credit System a way to instill good behavior and provide safety to citizens? At what cost?

As mentioned before, with a population of 1.3 billion, China plans to adopt a system of face recognition that is able to identify people within three seconds with a percentage of 90 for accuracy. China has adopted a system of mass surveillance in the economy where they track the activity of users through mobile applications through social credit systems in order to monitor the people of the country. The government body and official military departments have even gone far as using drones in the shape of birds to spy and keep tabs on certain people. These drones are designed in such a way to look like actual doves by creating the identical flapping of a bird’s wings for instance. These drones are designed with an inbuilt GPS system along with cameras and a data link antenna to facilitate satellite communication. According to statistics it was reported that China had invested in the installation of over 200 million surveillance cameras, causing a rise in issues of privacy, as they even installed cameras in schools to monitor whether students were paying attention.

The facial recognition technology in China was adopted at two checkpoints t borders to check the appearance of the visitors along with the information of their travel and informs customs officers in case of any suspicious activities. Officials in Chinese airports also use facial recognition to match the luggage of the passengers in case of lost baggages or security concerns, (Jiaquan 2018).

it is clear that China is extreme when it comes to security concerns but the extent of it is at question as it can be considered as an extensive invasion of privacy and can cause discomfort to the people.

References

Ho, C., Soo, Z and Deng, I, 2018, “China’s internet ecosystem model increasingly being copied globally”, South China Morning Post, viewed 25th November 2019, <https://www.scmp.com/tech/enterprises/article/2155155/chinas-internet-ecosystem-model-increasingly-being-copied-globally>

Webb, A, 2018, “China is leading in Artificial Intelligence and American Businesses should take note”, Inc.com, viewed 25th November 2019, <https://www.inc.com/magazine/201809/amy-webb/china-artificial-intelligence.html>

Jiaquan, Z, 2018, “Drones, facial recognition and a social credit system: 10 ways China watches its citizens”, viewed 25th November 2019, <https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2157883/drones-facial-recognition-and-social-credit-system-10-ways-china>

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Are Gaming Communities becoming more toxic for some women, LGBT communities, ethnic minorities?

Okay everybody! Here’s the topic for this week! Let’s get real about gaming communities!

As of recent years, the notion of playing games online and interacting with strangers across the world has affected and impacted upon interactions between people all around the world. In terms of gaming, players allocate themselves names as players prefer remaining anonymous. Players involved in gaming communities are bound to make real connections with other players they are involved in games, creating online friendships that may last them a lifetime, (plus.mana 2016). 

There are various instances where online gaming has displayed toxic behavior. According to certain studies conducted it was found that the behavioral aspects of certain players drastically change when they play games where they target certain insults at each other. Almost 60 percent of players are bullied during online games on basis of being female, gay or black. Sexism is a prominent issue among gaming communities where female players face insults or degradation of character during gaming. Most female players chose to ignore such situations whereas some players prefer to publicize such situations, (Schneider 2019). 

Video games as a concept has revolved drastically over the years, Games as a service which are referred to as a broad class of online games provide in game content based on revenue model on a continuous basis such as Fortnite, Clash of Clans. 

Games as such involves the spending of money as they are designed in such a way for users to purchase these games as it involves the spending of money generally in small amounts in order to access the virtual items in the game. The main issue at this point in the context of online gaming regulations is the measures implemented for consumer protection which has lacked transparency in some in game purchases or transactions. According to studies conducted some in game purchasing options can pose as predatory as it may have been viewed as a gambling of products. This was because some in game purchases held back required information about the true cost of the activity for players in the long term. This may indicate the exploitation of gamers up to some extent with regards to the monetization of vide games between members of the gaming community which includes the developers themselves, (King et al., 2019). 

The Gaming industry values at a $120 billion which is mainly driven by the notion of live video game streaming. The gaming industry now does not just involve people purchasing games to play by themselves but there is also a growing sub sector in the gaming communities that prefer to watch other people play games through streaming platforms, (Tenbarge 2019). 

In general terms the purpose of these game communities is to play games through interacting with each other where it allows gamers to adopt to different roles, gender, various identities. Despite the discussion on the toxicity of gaming communities I believe that gaming does not lead to violence, a shooting game will not persuade any one to go shoot someone in real life. In addition, the issue of making money out of gaming, it is not the only industry that people make money out of, take the beauty industry for example, beauty influencers on instagram are paid to advertise products regardless of their credibility which is quite the same, social media platforms have now evolved to a platform where people can make money from. 

Alright y’all! Thats it for this week’s blog post! Hope y’all enjoyed it! Stay tuned for more next week!

References 

Plus.mana, 2016, “Is the Gaming Community a Toxic Environment?”, viewed 15th November 2019, <https://plusmana.com/is-the-gaming-community-a-toxic-environment/>

Schneider, K, 2019, DW.com, “How to deal with a toxic gaming culture”,viewed 15th November 2019, <https://www.dw.com/en/how-to-deal-with-a-toxic-gaming-culture/a-50075300>

King, D., Delfabbro, P., Gainsbury, S., Dreier, M., Greer, N. and Billieux, J, 2019, “Unfair Play? Video games as exploitative monetized services: An examination of game patents from a consumer protection perspective”, Computers in Human Behaior, 101, pp. 131- 143, viewed 15th November 2019, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.07.017>

Tenbarge, K, 2019, “ Gamers say they’re earning more money on Facebook’s streaming platform than on Twitch and YouTube”, Business Insider Malaysia, viewed 15th November 2019, <https://www.businessinsider.my/gamers-earn-more-money-facebook-gaming-twitch-youtube-mixer-streaming-2019-10/?r=US&IR=T>

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Fandom and Fan Activism

Alright everybody! A little late but still fabulous, here’s the topic for this week’s post; Fandom and Fan Activism!

In any context, it is safe to say that we are all fans of something where someone is obsessed with a popular star, pop singer, basketball player, vlogger etc. Similarly, fandom acts as an alternate social community allowing fans with the same preferences to collaborate and interact with each other. 

I have always been a die hard fan of Taylor Swift, so lets talk about Swifties! Taylor Swift has been known as one of the most famous artists in the music industry and Swifties are known as her loyal fanbase as a social group. Whenever you think of Taylor swift, you imagine a country girl with the curls and the voice and us singing along to her infamous ‘Love story’ thinking about our high school crushes. The Swifties not only communicate offline through concerts and meet and greets but on online platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. Individually most fans have subscribed to various channels representing her to be up to date on her latest news and whereabouts. 

Not my best preference but lets move on to ‘Beliebers’ where his fan base assume that all his songs are perfection and are ‘bops’ and they start online wars with fans of the infamous One Direction. Fans of Justin Bieber of Belibers go as far as sending death threats to people who post negative comments about him or dislike his music. A very extreme form of fandom was seen was when his fans cut themselves or self harmed when they learnt about his weed usage. 

Another example of an extreme form of fandom is where a tragic incident took place in Mendoza Godoy Cruz where a child committed suicide while listening to Linkin Park just a week after Chester Bennington hung himself, where the boy mimicked the same by hanging himself from a roof hook, (Lefler 2018). 

There are positive impacts of of fan communities in society. Fans share the same fundamental psychological, social and cultural premises and consequences where they construct their own culture from content appropriated through mass media which allows fan to reshape them to satisfy their own line of interests. In general terms, many fandoms are formed around the concept of teen media such as Twilight, The Fault in our Stars . Fandoms allow  fans to feel more involved through such fandoms to express themselves on an emotional level. Often these are considered to be quite performative fandoms where people express themselves more. It allows fans to feel a better sensef belonging as they are able to be identified among a larger community and provide a sense of identification within a larger community which is a psychological need for all humans which is apparent in fan groups. 

Studies have shown that being identified with a sports team has shown to act as a tool to battle depression and estrangement where it allows them to be involved in discussions, common conversations to not succumb to peer pressure. Music fans have the benefit of dopamine which is released from their favorite music. Cosplay fans also benefits in ways of self appreciation and forming a sense of self confidence where a study revealed that cosplay fans are all about the initial excitement about how good they were going to look wearing costumes, (Sloat 2015). 

Lastly fan activism is another ongoing trend that is popular among teens as of recent years. One such example is the Harry Potter Alliance, which was established in the year 2005 by an activist named Andrew Slack, who was inspired by the student activist organization Dumbledore’s Army in the Harry Potter narratives. This community claims to mobilize over 100,000 young people across the States not exclusively. Harry Potter fans to work for diverse causes including literacy, equality and human rights. 

Invisible child is another community formed around a movie about rough cut documents on the civil war in Uganda which mainly focuses around the hardships faced by child soldiers in the Lord’s Resistance Army. Compared to HPA where it focuses on building on popular culture texts and existing fan community, this organization was created for an activist goal. 

Therefore, fan and fandom, fan activism can be a really good thing for teens to get involved in if they use and adopt to it the right way, rather than getting too obsessed and causing themselves any harm due to an extreme amount of dedication towards a particular fandom. 

References 

Sloat, S, 2015, “Science Explains...Why Being a Fan is Good for you”, Inverse.com, viewed 3rd November 2019, <https://www.inverse.com/article/7120-science-explains-why-being-a-fan-is-good-for-you>

Lefler, R, 2018, “What’s Toxic Fandom, and What Creates It?”, Reel Rundown, viewed 3rd November 2019, <https://reelrundown.com/misc/5-Factors-that-Can-Cause-Toxic-Fandom-to-Arise>

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Crowdsourcing and Crowdsourcing

Alright y’all for this weeks topic we will be focusing on the topic of crowdfunding and crowdsourcing. 

So what exactly is crowd funding? For those you have no inkling on what it is; crowd funding has become an upcoming and well known concept in the recent years. Crowd funding extends to a much greater boundary than just collecting or raising money for the public. In simpler terms non profit organizations uses the theme of crowd funding in order to gather donations, it is also referred to as online fundraising or fund raising on social media platforms. On the other hand, individuals also use the concept of fund raising on pages such as Gofundme, in order to raise funds for themselves or a friend or a family member for various personal issues such as money needed for treatment, (Thorpe 2018).  

The notion of crowdfunding has created an easier platform for people to access funds. Specially the use of internet, allows potential people to appeal to a wider audience easily. Crowdfunding is quite a potential alternative as it allows the contribution of funds in small amounts by anyone for a chosen cause or project and the relative sponsors of the project will have less anchorage. Looking further into the notion of crowdfunding it possesses a certain amount of uncertainly as there is a lack of the existence of agreements along with the concerns of hacking and misuse of information on the internet. However, despite these disadvantages the notion of crowdfunding provides young people especially the opportunity to create and go forth with projects that lack the necessary resources and capital. Through the receiving of funds, from individuals that are interested in contributing they are able to establish their career and also avoid the financial risks that comes from starting up a new business for instance, (Europe Parliamentary Research Service Blog 2016).

Crowdsourcing on the other hand is quite similar to the notion of outsourcing but instead of allowing another organization to take control over your business processes, it allows you to rely on people of the public to be innovative, collect information. There are various instances when famous newspapers companies such as the Guardian uses footage taken by a person in their articles or news. Official channels of communication are disregarded nowadays as people rely more on information obtained through crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing in basic terms is used for the fast gathering or collecting of information in times of crisis nowadays, (Good Rebels 2018). 

Crowdsourcing includes all aspects of both social and business interactions and it has altered the way in which research is conducted, markets are analyzed. Governments also use crowdsourcing as a way of creating empowerment among their citizens and allowing people to build their voice, (Crowdsourcing week 2019).

That’s it for todays blog y’all! Hope y’all enjoyed, stay tuned for next weeks blog post! <3

References 

Thorpe, D, 2018, “What is Crowdfunding?”, Forbes, viewed 2nd November 2019, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/devinthorpe/2018/06/25/what-is-crowdfunding/#4d315d6465c5>

Europe Parliamentary Research Service Blog, 2016, “Crowdfunding and Crowdsourcing in the Cultural and Creative Sectors”, viewed 2nd November 2019, <https://epthinktank.eu/2016/02/24/crowdsourcing-and-crowdfunding-in-the-cultural-and-creative-sectors/>

Good Rebels, 2018, “Why crowdsourcing should be part of your creative strategy?”, Good Rebels, viewed 2nd November 2019, <https://www.goodrebels.com/why-crowdsourcing-should-be-part-of-your-creative-strategy/>

Crowdsourcing week, 2019, “What is Crowdsourcing?”, Crowdsourcing week, viewed 2nd November 2019, <https://crowdsourcingweek.com/what-is-crowdsourcing/>

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Does Internet/Social Media Governance work?

Let me begin this weeks blog by explaining what social media governance is. The concept of social media extends to broader limits where it includes the notion of politics and social media where it refers to the usage of social media in an appropriate and congruous manner. 

So what is online trolling?

Trolling or being trolled is a common occurence on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, which we all as social media users in this generation have come across or has faced. Online trolling refers to the intentional act of creating or writing hateful, controversial and insulting comments targeted at another person with the intention of creating an argument or provoking a certain reaction from the person being targeted. Nowadays, there are various forms of trolling that occurs on different social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, which we all have come across or faced as prominent social media users, (Moreau 2019). One of the most common platforms where online trolling is visible is Youtube. It is a platform that has emerged and become more and more eminent especially for bloggers or influences or in other terms YouTubers. YouTube is known for reflecting scandalous comments on any popular video that is trending where people or users spread hate comments. 

Facebook on the other hand also displays various forms of trolling especially n cases of the occurring of international or national events, making such situations more intensive. This has caused arguments to rise back and forth and endless comments to continue in threads, (Hanson 2018). There was a case of where an internet troll posting comments mocking the death of teenagers including a girl who has been hit by a train. Sean Duffy posted a youtube video following the death of a girl Natasha named ‘Tasha the Tank Engine’. He was sentenced to an anti social prohibit for a period of five years preventing him from gaining access to any social media platforms, (Morris 2011). 

It is true that internet trolling has caused major negative effects to the society we live in today. But also there are better forms of internet trolling such as reviews on certain tourist attractions, restaurants, which helps people to be more knowledgeable and aware of things and new places and get first hand information about a place before visiting there for example. 

One of the most common topics that people perform trolling is on the grounds of religion, politics, sexuality issues. Issues such as gender fluidity, bullying, depression and Islamaphobia are the most common ones which have sparked public outcry on social media platforms. Especially with the occurence of the Easter Sunday Bombing attacks in Sri Lanka, there was a widespread hate that was being promoted by anti Muslims on social media on Facebook especially which caused many Sri Lankan Muslim users to deactivate their profiles in order to avoid being targets of online abuse.

References 

Moreau, E, 2019, “Internet Trolling: How do you spot a Real Troll?”, Lifewire, viewed 25th October 2019, <https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-internet-trolling-3485891>

Hanson, J, 2018, “Trolls and their impact on Social Media”, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, viewed 25th October 2019, <https://unlcms.unl.edu/engineering/james-hanson/trolls-and-their-impact-social-media>

Morris, S, 2011, “Internet trolls jailed after mocking deaths of teenagers”, The Guardian, viewed 25th October 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/sep/13/internet-troll-jailed-mocking-teenagers

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DIGITAL ACTIVISM

As a prominent social media user I myself have come across various petitions present in social media platforms that I have participated in or signed up for. Lets begin with defining what activism actually is; activism in general terms refer to the act of taking action in favor of required change on social terms. Acts of activism indefinitely occurs in many forms and is often related to ways in which societies can change through social, economical and environmental impacts fo example, (Permanent Culture now). The notion of protesting is quite similar to activism but the concept of activism does not involve or promote and encourage violence or death whereas, protests can be quite violent and turn out to be endangering to the lives of protestors as well. 

Ever since the surge in the use of social media platforms internationally, many forms of activism is seen on the various social media platforms as of recent years. Last year marked the fifth anniversary of the introduction of the hashtag #Blacklivesmatter which has been a prominent concept in the formation of various protests and activism in the years that followed. Along with this particular hashtag various others hashtags came into play such as #MeToo which gave rise to controversy and also an increase in the use of social media platforms for activism and engagement in political terms,( Anderson et al, 2018). It can be advantageous thing to use online activism to bring about change in the various issues we face nowadays. Greenpeace for example which aims to eliminate the damage done to the environment through targeting the major corporations that causes the most damage to the environment through pollution for example. The group 350.org was created to gather environmental activists where they encouraged to participate in online campaigns which were organized in opposition to coal or gas projects to encourage societies and communities to achieve cleaner environment and reduce environmental damage. 

Now lets talk about the notion of online activism, where the voices of the people have been brought forwards through social media. Online activism allows potential activists to engage and increase the overall strength of their networks, appeal. Online activism allows a certain amount of confidentiality when compared to protesting which is performed out in the open in front of a larger audience on the streets, or in shopping malls in the form of riots for example. Despite the advantages of online activism as shown above, the notion of online activism may create “social stereotypes” such as environmentalists or feminists which may even lead to them being arrested due to breach of certain laws derived through the usage of social media platforms for acts of activism, (Ghobadi 2018). 

In my opinion, the concept of online activism can be used in both good and bad ways. If used the right way it can bring about vast changes on political, social and economic grounds, within legal obligations and online activist parties should make it an aim to not create violence among groups and send out the wrong message instead attempt to reach their goal peacefully. 

References 

Permanent culture now, “Introduction to Activism”, viewed 8th October 2019, <https://www.permanentculturenow.com/what-is-activism/>

Anderson, M, Toor, S, Rainie, L and Smith, A, 2018, “Activism in the Social Media Age”, viewed 8th October 2019, <https://www.pewinternet.org/2018/07/11/activism-in-the-social-media-age/>

Ghobadi, S, 2018, “Going viral: what social media activists need to know”, viewed 8th October 2019, <http://theconversation.com/going-viral-what-social-media-activists-need-to-know-96043>

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Politics and Social Media

The concept of politics in itself is aligned with various public outcries in the resent years, where the involvement of politics with social media has acted as a catalyst to controversial issues. When talking about politics, I believe that, it is in fact associated with the governance factor. Governance in general terms is derived from the notion of politics. This is because governance itself is the act of exercising one’s power or authority under certain conditions or situations, (Marques 2013). 

As we all know there are various prominent and political figures on social media platforms such as Barack Obama, Donald Trump for instance, which influences social media platforms and its users such as Twitter. Despite the statement above politics does not just revolve around governing, but also bringing about changes and providing aid in helping resolve conflicts that occur in economies. In a way the usage of social media has definitely changed the way in which campaigns for politics are conducted, and how politicians appeal to the people. 

The availability of social media has allowed participating political candidates to be more accessible to their voters and also has provided them with the opportunity publish content that could go viral within minutes reaching a larger audience or rather billions of people on an international platform. 

The existence of social media platforms has also allowed political candidates to directly advertise themselves at zero costs and make their marketing campaigns more prominent through the use of business sponsors and viral hashtags. Even the use of memes is a popular trend among politicians as it is used as a way to appeal to the humor factor of the users and allow it go viral in order to increase their online presence. They even have the opportunity to customize their message to appeal to the various audiences that they want to appeal to, (Murse 2019). Another way in which social media has aided alterations to the political industry is the high speed at which news is published on social media platforms such as facebook and Instagram. People or social media users are able to gain access to the latest news or even poll results faster than it reaches news channels or reporters. This can be considered as advantageous as now people are more informed of the events happening around the world. However, despite this it can be quite harmful. For example; the recent Easter bombing attacks that took place in Sri Lanka caused a massive nationwide public outcry as an official letter was released which stated that the Sri Lankan government had prior knowledge of the attacks was released. This letter went viral within a matter of hours and caused chaos on the streets, anger and hate comments to be spread on various social media platforms without proper knowledge of the validity of that particular document, which led to a nationwide social media blackout as it was the only way to prevent the letter going viral any further. 

Therefore, it is evident that the involvement of politics in social media platforms should only be used for the mere purpose of advertising political campaigns and nothing more, as if certain documents or statements go in to the wrong hands, it could go viral and create massive damage to a society. 

When talking about social movements such as the Me too movement, Black lives matter, I personally believe that it should not involve politics. This is because all these movements revolve around topics of taboo, issues of controversy and sensitive issues which will be not have the desired results if politics is involved. However, if used in the right way such political movements can be used to bring about change, for example; the fastest political movements that are being conducted in Europe are based on current economic conditions and issues and is highly dedicated to building a better society for the people of that country, (Faruqi 2015). 

#bloglife #mda20009 #digitialcommunities #weeklycontent #politics

References

Marques, E, 2013, “Government, political actors and governance in urban policies in Brazil and Sao Paulo: concepts for a future research agenda”, Brazilian Political Science Review, 7(3), viewed 7th October 2019, <http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1981-38212013000300001>

Murse, T, 2019, “How Social Media has changed Politics”, Thoughtco, viewed 7th October 2019, <https://www.thoughtco.com/how-social-media-has-changed-politics-3367534>

Faruqi, O, 2015, “Strong Social Movements are the future of political change, not just parties”, The Guardian, viewed 7th October 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/04/strong-social-movements-are-the-future-of-political-change-not-just-parties>

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Is Tumblr a blog or social networking site?

Blogs in general are formulated to allow users to reflect on their self expression through their content, and is lengthy when compared to other social networking sites. Blogs at current have revolved and expanded into various different themes such as news and entertainment blogs, food and beauty blogs which are the most trending. Blogging also allows users to be emotionally vulnerable by articulating and conveying an illness they maybe having, something they are trying to overcome or is currently going though such as depression, suicidal thoughts, or even abuse. since the majority of users in Tumblr are of the young generation it is more likely to highlight teenage issues, controversial topics and also taboo topic which will be brought up that may or may not be sensitive. 

When considering the concept of Tumblr, it can be considered both as a social networking site and a blog. Regarding the elements that constitute Tumblr, it revolves around the inclusion of imagery and visuals along with the the upcoming and the overriding use of GIFS along with hashtags that are trending, (Honeysett). Tumblr also involves users being able to explore their line of interests such as pop culture, art, fashion and beauty trends. On the other hand, Tumblr also allows its users to blog about topics that they are passionate about, or of controversy including trending topics. 

What sets off Tumblr from other social networking sites is that it creates a platform for its users to share content that may not be accepted or allowed through other platforms, where they can talk about taboo topics such as sex addiction, substance use, anxiety, and so on. Tumblr also provides a prominent feature which allows Tumblr users to contain their anonymity in order to maintain the confidentiality level to some extent. 

According to an article by Moreau (2019), Tumblr can be regarded as both a social networking site and a blogging platform. 

In consideration to the above stated facts, it is evident that Tumblr involves both. As a Tumblr user, you are provided both with the opportunity of only using it for the purpose of social networking or blogging or even a mix of both which will allow users to use Tumblr as a platform to the maximum level. Tumblr provides users to share, like and post about the things you love, just like other social media platforms such as Pinterest, Instagram. Along with multiple image posts, Tumblr also allows text posts which will allow users to blog about certain topics that are usually lengthy which depicts a blogging experience. Tumblr also allows the content of its users to go viral within seconds through the use of trending hashtags such as #beachbum, #ootdfashion. Therefore, it can be said that Tumblr is in fact both a blogging and social media platform. 

References 

Honeysett, A,  “Tumblr: The Social Media Platform you should be using”, The Muse, viewed 24th September 2019, <https://www.themuse.com/advice/tumblr-the-social-media-platform-you-should-be-using>

Moreau, E, 2019, “How to use Tumblr for Blogging and Social Networking”, Lifewire, viewed 24th September 2019, <https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-use-tumblr-4049305>