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Livestreaming and Parasocial Relationships

Video gaming in and of itself is a social activity, as people have digital citizenship within video gaming itself, and specific games and aspects of games (Hardwick 2022). Gaming is made even more social through the live streaming of games, particularly on sites such as Twitch.tv. On this site, many people stream games, but these same people “stream” their lives, in cooking, chatting, music and art streams, all on one platform. A sense of community is often fostered through these live streams, with a built-in, synchronous chat function (Leith 2021), as well as through other platforms like Discord (a social platform which hosts “channels” to have discussions on) and social media such as Twitter and Facebook (Kowert & Daniel 2021).

This fostering of a sense of community can lead to things such as parasocial relationships; a person (viewer) forms what they think of as a relationship through having an emotional connection with another person (performer, in this case streamers) that is not reciprocated (Kowert & Daniel 2021; Leith 2021; McLaughlin & Wohn 2021). These are generally made through parasocial interactions, as while the relationship itself isn’t reciprocated, some interaction is, as streamers read chat messages viewers leave, and thank subscribers and donators (Wulf, Schneider & Queck 2021).

This potential interaction shows a shift away from what was generally thought of as a one-sided relationship to a “one-and-a-half” sided relationship, as there is now chance for community members to be interacted with by the performer that was not once possible, through the aforementioned synchronicity of livestreaming (Kowert & Daniel 2021).

One popular streamer, who was once the most subscribed-to streamer on Twitch.tv, Ludwig Ahgren (Twitch All-time Streamers With Most Active Subscribers 2022), has been outspoken about how he perceives parasocial interactions. In talking about the phenomenon in his YouTube video I Am Not Your Friend (which you can watch in the embedded video above!), he states “I have 1 million subscribers, but I don’t know 1 million people… I don’t think I even know all my Facebook friends” (Ludwig 2020). He goes on to say viewers “shouldn’t form a relationship with me; at the end of the day, I’m entertainment… I don’t care about you, because I don’t know you – [and] I can’t”. In the same video, he includes footage of fellow streamer, Jschlatt, also talking about his view on parasocial relationships. Jschlatt said “[viewers] are a number for me… I don’t love you. And when I see relationships being formed like this that are just so one-sided in nature, I can’t help but feel kinda concerned,” (Ludwig 2020).

From this you can see that some other streamers have similar views to Ludwig on parasocial relationships; he believes that parasocial relationships can “be a bit dangerous” and that it’s worth “at least being cognisant that they exist in the first place, and maybe revaluating [a viewer’s] interest in things… instead of working on relationships with people that you’re never really gonna hang out with and can’t care about you” (Ludwig 2020).

I regularly watch streamers, namely Ludwig, moistcr1tikal, CYR, and have seen them all interact with the chat while streaming, and have heard of many instances of parasocial relationships with all of them, as well as seen people in chat talking with them as if they know them personally. As Ludwig says, I think that there are dangers to the parasocial relationship, especially when monetary value is given by viewers to support the streamer – but it’s interesting to watch from afar nonetheless.

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Written for Week 10: Gaming Communities, Social Gaming and Live Streaming

References:

Hardwick, T 2022, ‘Week 10 Social Gaming Guest Lecture’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, Modules via Canvas, Swinburne University of Technology, 08 May, viewed 09 May 2022.

Kowert, R & Daniel, E 2021, ‘The one-and-a-half sided parasocial relationship: The curious case of live streaming’, Computers in Human Behavior Reports, vol. 4, p. 100150.

Leith, AP 2021, ‘Parasocial cues: The ubiquity of parasocial relationships on Twitch’, Communication Monographs, vol. 88, no. 1, Routledge, pp. 111–129.

Ludwig 2020, I Am Not Your Friend, viewed 9 May 2022, .

McLaughlin, C & Wohn, DY 2021, ‘Predictors of parasocial interaction and relationships in live streaming’, Convergence, vol. 27, no. 6, SAGE Publications Ltd, pp. 1714–1734.

‘Twitch All-time Streamers With Most Active Subscribers’ 2022, TwitchTracker, viewed 9 May 2022, .

Wulf, T, Schneider, FM & Queck, J 2021, ‘Exploring Viewers’ Experiences of Parasocial Interactions with Videogame Streamers on Twitch’, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers  140 Huguenot Street, 3rd Floor New Rochelle, NY 10801 USA, viewed 9 May 2022, .

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Instagram Filters, Snapchat Dysmorphia and Cosmetic Procedures

Filters are fun; I spent many moments in my youth playing with the Augmented Reality filters on Snapchat with my friends, trying out the new technology together and often laughing about what it did to our faces. However, they are not just for fun. For many people, the use of beauty filters that are hosted on Instagram and Snapchat, as well as through apps such as FaceTune, can (and has) led to many issues, such as what is being deemed as “Snapchat Dysmorphia”. This phenomenon is relatively new, and refers to people who become familiar with the edited, filtered versions of themselves and are brought to requesting procedures so they can regularly resemble their digital, selfie-self (Hunt 2019; Miller 2022; Milothridis 2020).

According to cosmetic doctors such as Tijion Esho, while patients used to bring in photos of celebrities that they wished to emulate in their physical appearance, they now regularly bring in photos of themselves (Hunt 2019; Milothridis 2020), often with “fuller lips, bigger eyes, or a thinner nose”, as is in-style for beauty at the moment, and thus seen in the filters (Milothridis 2020).

Above is an interesting video to facial surgery - in it, the surgeon says "people are slamming the concept of Facetune... and filters. If someone if bringing in a micro-optimised version of their own face, that's a healthier body image place to start from than bringing in the image of a celebrity" (Click video to see this quote!)

This is an issue for many reasons. For one, in a 2017 study, it was found that people only realised a photo was edited 60-65 per cent of the time (Hunt 2019). This editing of images on social media can create “unrealistic expectations of what is normal”, and lower the self-esteem of those who don’t use these editing methods, or recognise them (Hunt 2019). Secondly, while filters and selfie-editing do not inherently have any effect on a person, it is clear that is it leading to action in getting cosmetic procedures done, whether it be fillers, botox, or plastic surgery. Over several years, members of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery association have been surveyed. In 2015, 42% of surgeons reported that patients’ motivation was to look better in selfies (Milothridis 2020). This number has gone up over the years, with 55% reporting this in 2017 (Milothridis 2020), 75% in 2019 (New Stats 2019 AAFPRS Annual Survey 2020), and 77% in 2021 (2021 Statistics & Trends Released 2022).

Personally, I don’t really take selfies too often; but when I do, it’s not really with filters. When I used filters previously, as I mentioned, it was usually the funny ones, as a sort of social aspect with my friends. Luckily for me, it never really messed with my perception of self too much, as is evidently not the case for many people nowadays.  

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Written for Week 9: Digital Citizenship and Software literacy: Instagram Filters

References:

‘2021 Statistics & Trends Released’ 2022, American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, viewed 9 May 2022, .

Hunt, E 2019, ‘Faking it: how selfie dysmorphia is driving people to seek surgery’, The Guardian, 23 January, Guardian News & Media Limited, London (UK), United Kingdom, p. 8.

Miller, L 2022, ‘Week 9 Face Filters Guest Lecture’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, Modules via Canvas, Swinburne University of Technology, 08 May, viewed 08 May 2022.

Milothridis, P 2020, ‘The Elective Nature of Cosmetic Medicine’, in P Milothridis (ed.), Cosmetic Patient Selection and Psychosocial Background: A Clinical Guide to Post-operative Satisfaction, Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 1–9, viewed 9 May 2022, .

‘New Stats 2019 AAFPRS Annual Survey’ 2020, American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, viewed 9 May 2022, .

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Elective Cosmetic Surgery and Celebrities on Visual Social Media

Elective cosmetic surgery is an industry that is growing at a rampant rate, with the number of cosmetic procedures increasing 279% since 1997 (Sood, Quintal & Phau 2017). A large part of this is the “larger cultural shift toward an appreciation for a curvier ideal body” (Hunter et al. 2021, p. 238), which, for many women, is naturally not attainable, and risky to try and achieve (Hunter et al. 2021).  

There are many reasons that people may choose to seek surgery; for example, under the halo effect, good-looking individuals are thought of more positive in society, and are associated with positive characteristics, such as intelligence, competence and trustworthiness, which can motivate others to associate with them (Sood, Quintal & Phau 2017). Another reason people may choose to seek cosmetic surgery is from comparing their appearance to others, and thus becoming more conscious of their own body image, as they feel pressured to fit into the ideals of physical beauty (Sood, Quintal & Phau 2017).

There is also a link between social media and celebrity culture, and women’s intention to get elective cosmetic surgery (Sood, Quintal & Phau 2017). Kim Kardashian is a good celebrity example of the new curvy body ideal, with her waist-hip-ratio of 0.60-0.66 (Hunter et al. 2021), especially as she too has had elective cosmetic surgery. She hosts 308 million followers on her Instagram alone (Kim Kardashian (@kimkardashian) is on Instagram n.d.), suggesting that there are many people who follow her that may wish to achieve a body similar to hers, especially due to the aforementioned comparison women do amongst each other.

Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, whose bodies are often unachievable without cosmetic surgery, provide a reminder of the most desired shape of the female body to audiences (who may be followers, or from advertising campaigns and news articles that are posted elsewhere) (Kinnally & Van Vonderen 2014). Moreover, research into body image perception has shown that women who consume “more media that perpetuate the ideal body types are likely to develop the attitude that body shape… is an important social value… and even seek cosmetic surgery in an attempt to achieve [this] media standard” (Kinnally & Van Vonderen 2014, p. 216). This can lead to unhealthy relationships with many women and their own bodies, as they feel the need to change it in order to fit in more with societies standards.

There have been times for me, personally, that I’ve looked down on my own body and considered that I would like it more with some kind of cosmetic surgery. However, I know that this would likely lead to more body-image issues for myself, and I also cannot financially give into the idea of getting it, so I’ve never thought too seriously about it. However, I can definitely see the appeal that many other women do; especially when so much social value is placed on physical body and visual perception from others.

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Written for Week 8: Digital Citizenship and health education: Body modification on Visual Social Media

References:

Hunter, EA, Kluck, AS, Ramon, AE, Ruff, E & Dario, J 2021, ‘The Curvy Ideal Silhouette Scale: Measuring Cultural Differences in the Body Shape Ideals of Young U.S. Women’, Sex Roles, vol. 84, no. 3, pp. 238–251.

Kim Kardashian (@kimkardashian) is on Instagram n.d., viewed 7 May 2022, .

Kinnally, W & Van Vonderen, KE 2014, ‘Body Image and the Role of Television: Clarifying and Modelling the Effect of Television on Body Dissatisfaction’, Journal of Creative Communications, vol. 9, no. 3, SAGE Publications India, pp. 215–233.

Sood, A, Quintal, V & Phau, I 2017, ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians: Consumers’ Intention to Engage in Cosmetic Surgery’, Journal of Promotion Management, vol. 23, no. 2, Routledge, pp. 185–206.

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An example of Facebook silencing BLM activity, as referenced in my last post!

So here's what Marky Mark at Facebook didn't want America and the world to see👇

Censorship. Tyranny. And a lil' drop of exploitative racism because (when a black person doesn't agree with the Establishment's agenda or calls them out) these billionaires must 'remind' FREE black people to fall in line and do as they (the oligarchs) want with tactics like shaming, labelling, harassing and full out censoring.

They've never cared, they only want to use and control and sadly they've managed to do this for the most part. Black people are simply stepping stones for them to reach the peak of ultimate power and control over the masses (censorship of opponents, dismantling police/security systems, unconstitutional health mandates, displacement of demographics through mass illegal immigration etc). It truly is crazy in the eyes of the rest of us watching from the outside🙆

There's a huge difference between believing black lives matter and supporting BLM org. (a tool for Mark Zuck and others in his rich club). These two concepts are actually fully separate.

Is it obvious now? Because it totally should be 🤷

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Facebook Governance and it's Controversies During a Peak of the Black Lives Matter movements

Governance of Social Media is a sticky issue. With Facebook having 2.912 billion monthly active users, 66% of which access the site daily (The Latest Facebook Stats: Everything You Need to Know — DataReportal – Global Digital Insights, 2022), it would make sense to govern such a large user base with strict rules and harsh penalties, as is the case for rules and laws within countries. However, it has its own jurisdiction, and countries often struggle with managing how this fits in with their own laws and Codes (Leaver 2021).

Facebook has a large impact on social life, as it is how many people keep in contact with others. Particularly during global lockdowns and restrictions caused by COVID-19, “social interactions shift online, [and] governance of online interactions by internet corporations shape []relationships with social, political, cultural and economic consequences beyond the platform’s boundaries” (Schwarz 2019). However, in recent years, increased attention has been given to Facebook’s “role in mediating and amplifying old and new forms of abuse, hate, and discrimination” (Matamoros-Fernández & Farkas 2021). This was particularly seen during the major uproar of Black Lives Matter during 2020 and 2021.

Facebook has since been criticised for “not protecting the victims of police brutality [such as George Floyd] and their loves ones from viral hate, disinformation and racist victim-blaming” (Guynn 2021). Many people came across posters that were outright racist, flooding into comment sections and newsfeeds, even of those in mourning. – I know personally I saw many, and I barely use Facebook at all, but it was a good chance to binge the friend list of people. Of 137 posts that were found to be spreading this viral hate, only “25… were no longer available by Jan 8, the last time Avaaz [a human rights group] reviewed them” (Guynn 2021).

Issues also stem from how Facebook is moderated within groups; this is generally thought to be outside Facebook’s own jurisdiction, as these groups have moderators and their own group rules (Carman 2020). Groups such as “Boss-Moms” and “Hozier 24/7” came under fire during the peak of the BLM movement for regularly deleting what the moderators claim is “political content” which goes against the group’s rules, leading to many members calling quits and leaving; usually not before “screenshot[ting] everything” so that they can let others know of the drama within the group (Carman 2020).

While these often go unchecked, and I’m sure many of us have witnessed at least some kind of racist comments/posts on Facebook, as I know I have, there has been much controversy of Facebook actually applying its rules and offences in order to ban and suspend accounts that are loud in their support for Black Lives Matter movements (Sign the Petition n.d.). Action needs to be taken to ensure that this racism on Facebook does not continue to run rampant without consequence.

Please consider taking time to sign the Change.Org petition here or look at the Australian Parliament’s E-Petitions to do a small part in making a change!

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Written for Week 7: Digital Citizenship and Conflict: Social Media Governance

References:

Carman, A 2020, ‘Facebook groups are falling apart over Black Lives Matter posts’, The Verge, viewed 2 May 2022, .

Guynn, J 2021, ‘Racist falsehoods about George Floyd, Jacob Blake and Breonna Taylor are still on Facebook, Avaaz report finds’, USA TODAY, viewed 2 May 2022, .

Leaver, T 2021, ‘Going Dark: How Google and Facebook Fought the Australian News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code’, M/C Journal, vol. 24, no. 2, viewed 2 May 2022, .

Matamoros-Fernández, A & Farkas, J 2021, ‘Racism, Hate Speech, and Social Media: A Systematic Review and Critique’, Television & New Media, vol. 22, no. 2, SAGE Publications, pp. 205–224.

Schwarz, O 2019, ‘Facebook Rules: Structures of Governance in Digital Capitalism and the Control of Generalized Social Capital’, Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 36, no. 4, SAGE Publications Ltd, pp. 117–141.

‘Sign the Petition’ n.d., Change.org, viewed 2 May 2022, .

The Latest Facebook Stats: Everything You Need to Know — DataReportal – Global Digital Insights 2022, viewed 2 May 2022, .

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Social Aspects of Slow Fashion

Slow fashion is the "antipode to fast-fashion" (Lai et al. 2017, p. 82), with the clothing often having qualities such as longer product life cycle, emphasis of quality, often high prices and increased consciousness from producers and consumers (Ting et al. 2021).

While many people’s minds jump to environmental aspects that affect and are the result of fast fashion, such as the enormous amounts of raw materials used, pollution in production and after, the large carbon footprint and the high amount of waste (Brewer 2019), social aspects are also key to understanding the detriments of fast fashion. The social aspect generally looks at the working conditions and working environment within garment factories, where many workers are often crammed into small spaces, with the buildings often not being structurally sound. Just thorough the nature of clothes-making, workers are exposed to toxic dyes and chemicals like alum, copper sulphate, potassium dichromate and tanning acid (Minney 2016).

A case study that looks at how workers lack so much social rights is in the Rana Plaza tragedy of 2013. It involved the collapse of an 8-story garment factory, which killed at least 1,132 people, and injured over 2,500 more. The event wasn't entirely unprecedented, as the day before, the lower floors were closed as cracks in the structure of the building were found. According to Land et al (2019), some workers were absent, but some are so incredibly reliant on their low wages that they ignored these life-threatening conditions, if they even heard of them.

These events aren't as infrequent as you may think, though. Only 6 months prior to this incident, 112 workers lost their lives from being trapped inside a burning fashion factory, not far from Rana Plaza. In the time since that Rana incident, 109 more accidents have been recorded (Goodwin 2021).

What slow fashion is trying to do is increase the rights for workers, so that they are not risking their lives every time they clock in for work. The working conditions need to be elevated, and slow fashion aims to not support fast fashion and this high level of production that leads to the risking of lives.

Personally, I support slow fashion by buying first hand only a couple times a year, if that. When I do buy clothes, it's in person and I generally buy second hand from op-shops, as opposed to online-only retailers. I know this doesn't come without it's own critiques as well, but I believe it's at least worth making some kind of effort, personally. Additionally, when I do buy first hand, I do research on the brand beforehand using apps like Baptist World Aid Australia's iPhone app to look up stores' ethicality ratings, as well as do some further research, as there is varying information out there. I only ever spend money in stores that have a B- or higher equivalent rating.

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Written for Week 6: Digital Citizenship Case Study: Social Media Influencers and the slow fashion movement

References:

Brewer, MK 2019, ‘Slow Fashion in a Fast Fashion World: Promoting Sustainability and Responsibility’, Laws, vol. 8, no. 4, MDPI AG, p. 24–.

Chi, T, Gerard, J, Yu, Y & Wang, Y 2021, ‘A study of U.S. consumers’ intention to purchase slow fashion apparel: understanding the key determinants’, International journal of fashion design, technology and education, vol. 14, no. 1, Taylor & Francis, pp. 101–112.

Lai, Z, Henninger, CE & Alevizou, PJ 2017, ‘An Exploration of Consumers’ Perceptions Towards Sustainable Fashion – A Qualitative Study in the UK’, Sustainability in Fashion, Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 81–101.

Land, A & Zakaria, R 2019, Rana Plaza collapse, its aftermath, and future implications for sustainability, SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals, London.

Minney, S 2016, Slow fashion : aesthetics meets ethics, New Internationalist, Oxford.

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#AusPol and Hashtag Publics

#AusPol is an interesting example for digital citizenship, as it covers so many areas. First, it’s important to understand what #auspol is; it’s short for Australian Politics, and is most often used by “political junkies” for commentary and rumour spreading (Bogle, 2016). Looking back at the topics covered in Week 1, we can see that hashtag publics are an example of micro-publics and digital communities. These digital communities allow people to feel a sense of digital citizenship within a platform. In the case of AusPol, these people belong to the digital community surrounding the discussion of Australian politics, and are digital citizens of this community within the platform of Twitter (Milne, 2022). The way that #auspol integrates so many aspects of digital community, citizenship, and publics, as well as the fact that it is so consistently engaged with, makes it an intriguing case study.

The first mention of #auspol regarding Australian politics reigns from June 1 2010, and since then it has been claimed by Australian’s to discuss current national politics. The hashtag really took off Sept 7, 2010, in which 241 tweets were sent using the hashtag, with 1,569 and 1562 on the days following (Bogle, 2016). The hashtag is often used, according by Bruns, by a “handful of very active users… who are using the hashtag to engage with each other… debating with each other, talking to each other about Australian politics”. The way in which these people use the hashtag show that they are creating their own digital community, of which they belong to as digital citizens. They belong to this public sphere by engaging with the hashtag, whether that in a voiced way every day for some people, or by more passively reading through and possibly “liking” some of the tweet’s made by others in the community.

If one was looking at Twitter users identified as Australian who use the hashtag, of which there are 2.8 million, then they’d be looking at the “9,000 or so tweets a day with the hashtag throughout the year” (Bogle, 2016). “It’s very much consistently the most visible, [and] most active hashtag in Australia” said Alex Bruns, a professor of media and communication at the Queensland University of Technology, who has been tracking the use of #auspol for a number of years (Bogle, 2016). From this, you can see that it is quite a large digital community, one that is quite reliably active too.

Hashtag publics are not limited to just #auspol, nor are they limited to the singular platform of Twitter; however, because of the way Twitter has been designed (with its heavy reliance on hashtags), it is the most common place to see these hashtag publics. Many other common hashtags exist, and as outlined by Rambukkana (2015), these include #tahir, #winning, #FirstWorldProblems, #isthenipplepolitical, #BlackLivesMatter, and #rapedneverreported. This shows the diversity of topics discussed via these hashtag publics, which can range from friendly and casual discussions, to “hashtag activism” and “hashtag uprisings” (Rambukkana 2015, p. 4), and really displays that “the hashtag-mediated public sphere is not one thing and resists any singular characterization” (Rambukkana 2015, p. 4).

Personally, I don’t engage with hashtag publics, as while I have an account for Twitter, I’ve never really bothered using it; the app gets opened for less than 5 minutes every month on my phone, and it’s generally just because I’ve accidentally clicked on a notification. However, it definitely receives a strong sense of engagement, and enables a large range of discussion to happen, both nationally and internationally through the digital citizenship and communities it fosters.

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Written for Week 5: What is Digital Citizenship? Hashtag publics, political engagement and activism

References:

Bogle, A 2016, #auspol: The Twitter tag that Australia can't do without, Mashable, viewed 28 March 2022,

Milne, E 2022, ‘Week 5 Digital Citizenship Lecture’, MDA20009-Digital Communities, Learning materials via Canvas, Swinburne University of Technology, 27 March 2022, viewed 28 March 2022.

Rambukkana, N 2015, Hashtag Publics: The Power and Politics of Discursive Networks, Peter Lang AG International Academic Publishers, New York.

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Married at First Sight and Reality TV Contributing to Important Social Discussion

Reality is an interesting genre of television, as it’s consistently winning ratings, however also being surveyed as people’s least favourite entertainment genre. It’s often defined as a docusoap, where ordinary people are engaged in unscripted action and interaction.

Fandoms can form from these shows, and much discussion occurs online surrounding not only the people on the show, but the topics that come up within the show. By discussing reality TV, “the ‘political’ [is] triggered thus creating spaces whereby active audiences [are] transformed into deliberating publics by bridging their knowledge, identities and experiences to society (Graham & Hajru, 2011). These discussions are largely driven by the personal experiences of those involved in the discussion, and thus the participants are able to speak as experts about many topics (Graham & Hajru, 2011).

Currently, important discussion is currently occurring surrounding the new Married at First Sight season, in which one of the participants’ nudes are shared around non-consensually. Following the airing of this episode, the NSW Police has become involved in the issue, and much discussion has been brought up online regarding the sharing of revenge porn, with many users on websites such as Twitter discussing the ethical and legal issues of this incident, as well as the consequences that follow this episode (Mitchell, 2022). Some people have even started a petition which has been marked as “Victorious” after gaining 123,993 supporters in the span of 7 days. (Joyce, 2022).

Not only has discussion centred around revenge porn and the issues regarding this in general, but much discussion has also come up regarding the ethicality of this; as it is a legal issue, and not just interpersonal conflict, people from Twitter as well as psychologist Sharon Draper have considered whether such a complex issue “should be dealt with off-air”, “in due course by the correct people” (Mitchell, 2022). It’s “easy to think of instances where reality TV participants’ well-being… is neglected on a reality show” (Wyatt & Bunton, 2012), and this brings into question whether directors and producers of this genre have a duty of care for their participants, and if they should withhold from airing some content, despite the waivers and contracts the participants have to sign.

Personally, I don’t watch much TV at all, let alone reality TV; however, I do think that it does open up important discussion points to groups that may not otherwise normally engage in this kind of discussion, so it is actually quite valuable. I also think that producers of these shows have a duty of care for the participants on the show, and more should be done to protect them and care for them, rather than publicising every aspect of their lives for stakeholders’ own selfish monetary gain.

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Written for Week 4: Digital community and Fandom: Reality TV case study

References:

Graham, T. & Hajru, A 2011, Reality TV as a trigger of everyday political talk in the net-based public sphere, European journal of communication (London), vol. 26, no. 1, SAGE Publications, London, England, pp. 18–32.

Joyce, P 2022, The E-Safety Commissioner To Commence Action Against Olivia Frazer For Image-Based Abuse, Change.org, viewed 25 March 2022, <https://www.change.org/p/the-e-safety-commissioner-to-commence-action-against-olivia-frazer-for-image-based-abuse/u/30340611>.

Mitchell, T, 2022, ‘The MAFS nude photo scandal is bad, but what will happen now?’, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 March, viewed 25 March 2022, <https://www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/the-mafs-nude-photo-scandal-is-bad-but-what-will-happen-now-20220321-p5a6jm.html>.

Wyatt, WN & Bunton, K 2012, The ethics of reality TV : a philosophical examination, Continuum, New York, N.Y.

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Digital Communities and the Death of Tumblr

Digital communities are all about communities made from natural will, through an online, digital method. They “come together on the basis of sharing information, ideas, feelings and desires” (Siapera, 2012, p. 194). Tumblr, one of many blogging sites available (think Wordpress, Quora, Wix, among many others), is well known for hosting a “variety of creator content, such as fanart, photography, political advocacy, gifs, and short fiction… renowned for its progressive community” (Sands 2018). This is largely thanks to David Karp, the founder of Tumblr, wanting to “set up a blog but didn’t think that the traditional, long-form formats like WordPress were the right fit” since he “had all these cool videos, links and projects that [he] wanted to put out there… [he] wanted something different.” (Siegel, 2019). The site and blog-form was made on the basis of digital community flourishing. Tumblr’s usage of reposting (“reblogging”) and allowing users to both comment and add onto others’ posts was unique, and made it easier for this sense of community to grow.

In 2010, Tumblr was landing 100 million impressions every month, and by the end of the year, it had reached 3 billion (Siegel, 2019). Obviously a very large community with many sub-communities, the digital community here was thriving. However, over the years, partly as a result of ownership changes, Tumblr’s community has shrunk. There was one major event that’s repercussions has shaped Tumblr since: in November 2018, the iOS app was removed from the Apple App Store, as there was child pornography identified on the platform (Sung 2019). The following month, an announcement was made that all adult content would be banned from December 17, 2018.

The website reportedly went from 521 million monthly page views in December 2018, to just 437 million the following month. By February 2019, “Tumblr only received 369 million page views. That comes out to 151 million fewer page views, or a 29 percent drop” (Sung, 2019) in just 3 months. This was, obviously a massive drop off of its user base. Nowadays, Tumblr is receiving around 300 million visits a month, with just 308 million in December 2021 (tumblr.com 2022), a drop off of 41% in just 3 years.

However, Tumblr didn’t just lose its user base just from the removal of NSFW content on its site. When it was acquired by Yahoo in 2017, it was “widely regarded as a bad idea by everyone involved” (Nugent 2020), partly because Yahoo didn’t understand the Tumblr culture, aversion to advertising, and made some changes that changed the site from a fun online space free from institutional influence, coercion, or surveillance to one that felt much more corporate and cold. Vex (2019) sums up this idea quite succinctly, saying that the internet is “no longer a space for communities, the internet is for corporations. The pervasiveness of surveillance capitalism attempts to increasingly monitor and link every step we take online to our personal data” (Vex, 2019).

Speaking from my own personal experience, I was an avid Tumblr user during “peak Tumblr”, 2012-2015 (Nugent 2020), however stopped using it so frequently after Yahoo bought Tumblr, as many of my favourite bloggers stopped posting quite so frequently. I still used it occasionally, but even more people left following the infamous porn purge of 2018, which left no sense of community for me, so I left as well. While I wasn’t following porn accounts, and that wasn’t our goal on Tumblr, the sense of community for many was lost by the prioritisation of being advertiser-friendly, and not listening to many users’ needs.

While there are still, clearly from the above statistics, many users who remain on Tumblr, the community size has significantly shrunk. It is also not an entirely open space, with censorship involved and self-expression now limited, as most websites were before Tumblr’s purge and ownership changes. What made it a particularly welcoming website for many, as Tumblr was well known for its “progressive community” (Sands 2018) has changed, and Tumblr is not so different to many other sites. However, Tumblr’s features of direct-messaging, reblogging and adding to people’s posts (and thus their thoughts), and the ability to find more of what you’re interested in through their algorithms recommending posts, there are still digital communities that exist on the site to this day, however far more limited than 10 years ago.

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Written for Week 4: Digital community and Fandom: Reality TV case study

References:

Blog (n.d.), Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, viewed 19 March 2022.

Milne, E 2022, ‘Week 3 Tumblr Case Study Lecture’, MDA20009-Digital Communities, Learning materials via Canvas, Swinburne University of Technology, 14 March 2022, viewed 14 March 2022.

Nugent, C 2020, TikTok is Just Peak Tumblr, Medium, viewed 14 March 2022, @caseynugent/tiktok-is-just-peak-tumblr-9966d9ee4245>

Sands, M 2018 Tumblocalypse: Where Tumblr And Its Users Are Headed After The Ban, viewed 19 March 2022,

Siapera, E 2012 ‘Socialities and social media’, in Introduction to New Media, pp 191-208.

Siegel, R 2019, Tumblr once sold for $1.1 billion. The owner of WordPress just bought the site for a fraction of that., The Washington Post, viewed 20 March 2022, < https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/13/tumblr-once-sold-billion-owner-wordpress-just-bought-site-fraction-that/>

Sung, M 2019, Tumblr loses almost a third of its users after banning porn, SeaMashable, viewed 20 March 2022,

tumblr.com Traffic Analytics, 2022, similarweb, viewed 20 March 2022,

Vex, A 2019 Tumblr porn Eulogy. Porn Studies, 6:3, 359-362