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Global social media: case study China

China has the world’s most operational social media population, with 91 percent of respondents saying they visited a social media site in the previous six months, compared with 30 percent in Japan, 67 percent in the United States, and 70 percent in South Korea (McKinsey & Company, 2017).China is among the most profoundly connected population on earth, and the smartphone revolution has seen this connectivity grow fast in recent years, more than in many Western countries(BJUI, 2017). China boasts the most Internet users in the world but blocks Facebook and Twitter, the most popular social networks. That’s encouraged domestic copycat networks from emerging and dominating the Chinese market. Sina Weibo and Renren are thriving equivalent social media sites  used by  millions of Chinese daily (The Daily Dot, 2017)

The Great Firewall of China is a very technically sophisticated internet censorship system and is in action all over the country. 
China has one of the highest number of web users in the world. China also has one of the most controlled internets, with processes engaged in making certain that its citizens cannot read about sensitive issues nor themselves post material the government believes to be threatening.
 (openDemocracy, 2017)The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
 are the responsible body for filtering and censorship of online information.The number of internet users in China is extraordinary, and there is only so much that they can do to contain ‘challenging’ internet content.  It also means that more Chinese citizens will gain the technical ability to find a means to bypass filtering methods (openDemocracy, 2017).

The link below provides a tool to see if a domain name is censored in china and allows you to view the domain via a Chinese proxy server.

http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org

Chinese Internet users are actively engaging in social media—especially home-grown social media platforms. Domestic social media platforms differ in various ways from Western platforms.Companies should learn how Chinese consumers use social media and take advantage of the platforms to manage consumer research and introduce new products (BJUI, 2017).

Social media has become deeply integrated into people’s lives and some have more friends online than off.As China’s population moves online, consumer behavior shifts. Numerous companies have failed to recognize the shifts in their marketing strategies. Social media has grown to become the shared commons where Chinese consumers offer opinions, ask for advice, and discuss brands. Ignoring the Internet could be considered a lost opportunity in the past, but in China today, ignoring social media is a business risk (Thomas Crampton, 2017).

  References:

 BJUI. (2017). The Social Media Revolution in Chinese Urology - BJUI. [online] Available at: http://www.bjuinternational.com/bjui-blog/the-social-media-revolution-in-chinese-urology/ [Accessed 26 Jan. 2017].

 McKinsey & Company. (2017). China’s social-media boom. [online] Available at: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/chinas-social-media-boom [Accessed 26 Jan. 2017].

 openDemocracy. (2017). The Great Firewall of China. [online] Available at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/china-correspondent/great-firewall-of-china [Accessed 26 Jan. 2017].

 The Daily Dot. (2017). Charting the Chinese social media revolution. [online] Available at: http://www.dailydot.com/news/chinese-social-media-revolution/ [Accessed 26 Jan. 2017].

 Thomas Crampton. (2017). Thomas Crampton – Social Media in China: The Same, but Different. [online] Available at: http://thomascrampton.com/china/social-media-china-business-review/ [Accessed 26 Jan. 2017].

[astiffblog-blog]

China has its own thriving social media sites

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Social media revolution in China

[astiffblog-blog]

Thanks for such an informative blog. China has always been ahead and ontop of everything. I have no doubt that they believe what they are doing is correct.The question is how far you go to protect people from the world and reality.

Week 11: Global social media: Case study China.

This week explores China and how it uses social media because it is mostly cut off from Western sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia. Although the Great Firewall of China does its job of keeping Western social networking sites blocked, China’s attempts to censor the internet just produces more creative ways for their citizens to combat it (Huang 2014). Whenever a government blocks or cracks down on ‘inappropriate’ content, another site will become available, it is just the nature of the internet (Willis 2011). The internet has facilitated China’s move to online communication and social networking.

Wherever there is an internet connection and the will to communicate social media and networking sites will form, China is no different, home-grown social media sites are always being created to keep up with the demand (Crampton 2011). This lack of Facebook and Twitter seems to have fostered an ever expanding domain of social media sites that are unique to China, because it was made by Chinese individuals for the Chinese people (Crampton 2011). Social media sites in China are so popular that some sites like QZONE have more active users (monthly) than the entire population of the United States.

China is a country that has undergone a huge amount of change over its recent history and online social networking sites are playing a large part in developing a new identity for China (Willis 2011). Over 70 percent of people on social media are young people under 30, social media is facilitating the younger generations need to figure out who they are as individuals (DLDconference 2013). So social media is allowing the exploration of self which we in the West take for granted, but for China’s youth this is really the first big shift away from government sanctioned thinking.  

Another key difference between China and other countries, is the greater influence social media has on their purchasing decisions and trends (Chiu, Lin & Silverman 2012). When a product gets positive reviews or produces positive discussions, individuals said they were more likely to buy that product than another (Chiu, Lin & Silverman 2012). This trend is a manifestations of China’s cultural values and beliefs, when a product, person or place has the approval of friends or family it becomes more important to the individual than another thing that lacks approval (Chiu, Lin & Silverman 2012). China is shaping its own unique social media domain which is free from outside competitors, which has allowed them to make the internet, social media and networking essentially their own.

Reference List

Chiu, C, Lin, D & Silverman, A 2012, China’s social-media boom, McKinsey & Company, viewed 10 January 2017, <http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/chinas-social-media-boom>.

Crampton, T 2011, ‘Social media in Chine: The same but different, China Business Review, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 28 - 31, viewed 10 January 2017, <http://thomascrampton.com/china/social-media-china-business-review/>.

DLDconference 2013, DLD13 - How Social Media is changing China and Asia, 7 February, viewed 12 January 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG3z2ucaR6A>.

Haung, H 2014, Social Media Genera in Urban China A Study of Social Media Use and Addiction among Adolescents, Springer, Berlin.

‘Top Social Networks in China [image] 2014, Social Media Today, viewed 10 January 2017, <http://was-sg.wascdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Top-social-networks-in-China-active-users.png>.

Wallis, C 2011, ‘New Media Practices in China: Youth Patterns, Processes, and Politics’, International Journal of Communication, vol. 5, pp. 406 - 436, viewed 11 January 2017 <http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/698/530>.

[astiffblog-blog]

With so much cyberbullying around, maybe China are actually doing the correct thing. Food for thought ....Loved your views.

Week 11

Global social media: case study China

Wow, what a task the China Government sets itself. 

Thinking back on the reading and working in IT I cannot fathom how a human-powered workforce could really be responsible for deleting posts by users. I am not sure if I am bothered by the amount of time it must take for this workforce to do their job, the sheer amount of data that they must trawl through or the Government ensuring that people’s opinions and thoughts aren’t freely expressed. Maybe it is my Australian culture that rings the alarm bells - where is the freedom of speech. 

After writing the above, I am suddenly brought back to reality. This is China, not Australia. Now I am going, to be honest here I work in IT, in a school, where we block facebook.  I have a range of tech-savvy students as well as not-so tech savvy student, I can block IPs and DNS to the cows come home, the reality is - if they want to access a site, they will find a way. So, from my experiences, I think that there is a range of extremely skilled individuals residing in China and I am sure that they have the skills to hack the system. Another example is NetFlix, I know individuals accessing the US site for years when NetFlix used geo-blocking, they found another way. That being said, China is continually evolving their technology to address these issues - a bit like a game of cat and mouse. 

Getting back on topic, though.. why do China feel the need to censor their social media sites? Better yet, block sites such as Facebook - one of the world’s leading social media site. In some ways, they are restricting the spread of digital communities to people living only in China? 

That being said, the interviews provided in the learning materials were quite interesting. For example, the vast e-commerce and consumerism in Asia when compared to common everyday internet giants well known in the western world. Maybe these defined digital communities that hold strong similarities has a ripple effect. Are they like family and friends, role models and sharing behaviours and culture such as fashion. Maybe our western world diversity is causing us to branch out and be more unique, while the eastern world is coming together… this week made me really examine and think about our social media differences. 

[astiffblog-blog]

Must say, it looks like fun!

[astiffblog-blog]

A good description of Farmville, Zuma Blitz, Words with Friends, Mafia Wars and World of Warcraft. 

[astiffblog-blog]

Lots of valuable information in this blog for a reader like myself with no prior knowledge of social gaming. Your point about taking people out of their real world is what I am sure attracts most to this idea.

Week 10 – Social Gaming: Playing the Crowd

This week we explored a topic close to my own heart, computer gaming. More specifically the social gaming in the digital realm. This week’s readings examined the rules, social norms, legal contracts and conflicts. Social gaming involves people connection around the world on a game platform to not only to play the game but primarily to communicate with like-minded individuals and to belong to a community peers. When individuals come together there is inevitable conflict, disagreements that must be negotiated (De Zwart & Humphries 2014). These conflicts require the establishment of rules and community norms, plus a way to mediate difference of opinions and if required punishments for infringements. This conflicts add to the dynamic environment as well as shows how the players are socially entwined with the game and the games community. Social games involve a complicated social structures with tangible interpersonal interactions (Waddell & Peng 2014). These social gaming platforms are hubs for social connections, exchanges and mutual enjoyment for players.

The social gaming environment partly remove the player from real life through recreating themselves in a digital representations known as avatars. These avatars create an alter ego which the player can express and explore themselves in ways that that feel they cannot in real life. The avatar and how they play the game are extension of the person usually not seen in real life (Eklund 2015). In the game the rules of nature and social norms are warped or considerable different to real life. For example, the game may be set on a space ship or in a medieval village. Where a player can die but come back to life again and again; or have the special ability such as flight, super strength, magical powers or special weapons. The social gaming world allows partial separation from the real world to create sense of freedom from the daily grind and an artistic outlet, but the two worlds are inexorably connected. They are both based on how human interact socially, how people compete and cooperate with others to achieve their goals (Waddell & Peng 2014).

Social gaming has its roots in role playing games designed by university students in England and the USA in the early 1970’S. Based on the board game Dungeons and Dragons, the first social games were known as Multi-use dungeons (MUDs) (Indvik 2012). These MUDs appeared in the late 1970’s and were text based with very simple graphic. The first commercial online game was Island of Kesmai released in 1988, followed by Ultima Online in 1997, Everquest in 1999 and World of Warcraft in 2004 (Hachman 2011). These games have evolved with the players needs to explore themselves and new ways of connecting with other like-minded people. Today there are thousands of online games that provide a social platform for billions of people to connect and interact in a game environment with people around the world, anytime of the day from the comfort of their own homes. Thanks for reading, see you next week.  

Island of Kesmai (2008) <https://youtu.be/gZgEtoOBr0k>

References

Ckmogo 2008, Island of Kesmai, viewed 17 January 2017, <https://youtu.be/gZgEtoOBr0k>

De Zwart, M & Humphreys, S 2014,’ The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online’, Cultural Studies Review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 77-99.

Eklund, L, 2015, ‘Bridging the online / offline divide: The example of digital gaming’. Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 53, pp. 527-536. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2014.06.018

Hachman, M 2011, Infographic: A Massive History of Multiplayer Online Gaming, PC Mag, viewed 16 January 2017, <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390917,00.asp>.

Indvik, L 2012, The Fascinating History of Online Role-Playing Games, Mashable Australia, viewed 16 January 2017, <http://mashable.com/2012/11/14/mmorpgs-history/#YrBIIWTDhsqQ>.

Waddell, J & Peng, W 2014, ‘Does it matter with whom you slay? The effects of competition, cooperation and relationship type among video game players’. Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 38, pp. 331–338. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2014.06.017

[astiffblog-blog]

Interesting hearing from someone who is linked to a gamer. Reading your perspective was informative. I am sure it can sometimes be difficult as that must be a totally different world that he is in. Enjoyed your blog.

Week 10: Social gaming: Playing the crowd.

Online Gaming Community - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8hdFdTSLu8

This week my tumblr blog will look at the social communities formed around online gaming, which although I am not a part of, I have been introduced to these sites through my partner. He is an avid gammer who has immersed himself in this digital world. I have observed that there is a real feeling of community within the gaming sphere, so much so that there are special chat sites that have been designed to facilitate an individuals ability to play with their friends. Or the group they have created to play competitively with. There are strong bonds between the people who play together online.

In the MMORPG universes it is extremely common for individuals to form groups known as Guilds which help them complete quests, gain experience and so on (Cheng-Cheih & Jyh-Shen 2012). While also making friends and sharing up to date information about the game and real life, when the deaths occurred at dreamworld the first time I heard about it was through my partners online gaming buddies who had been watching the news that morning. So online games can affect the real world through the information shared between members of a group or certain sites.

The strong cultural ties and friendships that arise due to online games may be linked back to the Clark and Chalmer’s (1998) theory of the extended mind. Individuals playing MMORPG’s use ‘I’ and ‘me’ to describe their actions in the game, they do not differentiate between themselves and their character (Crawford 2013). So rather than the online gaming community being separate to an individuals life, it has now become integrated into people’s lives and social interactions (Crawford 2013). However, this extremely personal attachment to ones character or quest can lead individuals  to take the actions of others personally so tempers can flare extremely quickly (e.g. RAGE QUIT). 

Lots of things can make individuals angry in regards to games but from observing my partner I have found that cheaters (along with noobs) are some of the most loathed individuals. And recently online games have changed their rules in order to combat cheaters, Dota 2 and Overwatch have made the penalties greater if you are caught cheating. Cheat multiple times and you can have your access blocked to these sites, however if you were really desperate you could buy the game again however it might deter most would be cheaters.

Dota rules for tournaments - http://gamebattles.majorleaguegaming.com/pc/dota-2/tournament/5v5-dota-2-team-challenge/rules

Online gaming is whatever you want it to be like much of the internet, it can be a waste of time, source of income, escape… anything, just remember that you are interacting with other human beings so be aware.

Reference List

Cheng-Chieh, H &Chiou JS 2012, The effects of a player’s network centrality on resource accessibility, game enjoyment, and continuance intention: A study on online gaming communities, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 75 - 84.

Crawford, G 2013, Online Gaming in Context, Taylor and Francis, New York.

de Zwart, M & Humphreys, S 2014, ‘The Lawless Frontie of Deep Space” Code as Law in EVE Online’, Cultural Studies Review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 77 - 99.

Steam 2014, viewed 10 January 2017, <http://steamcommunity.com/>.

[astiffblog-blog]

Enjoyed reading your blog as I go as far as a game on my phone! Loved hearing from someone who experiences social gaming themselves.

Week 10 Social Gaming!

Gaming - ok I will admit it, I have an active World of Warcraft account - don’t judge! But my blog post this week will explore not only the content but my experiences and thoughts about the game. 

To me, gaming is an outlet. To forget the stresses of the day, week, month or year. I just am a little Mage Dwarf roaming around completing quests and learning skills. As much as I would like to think that I am disconnected from the big wide world, I could not be more wrong. I am more connected when playing the game that if I was reading a book. 

So I am an avid participant in ‘multi-user dungeons’ (MUDs) and multiple online role-playing games.. so what really does this mean. I mean that within the game, there is a range of mini-networks named guilds. I join a guild and this becomes your network. The congratulate you when reaching milestones, provide advice to achieve goals and help out when needed. Sound familiar? I guess it has it own Facebook. The inbuilt chat on the game is a virtual community. Which in some ways leads to lasting friendships outside of the game. 

Just like any other community, there are rules and expectations. Some guilds are more relaxed than others, welcoming new people (referred to as ‘noobs’) they will assist and transfer in-game currency to help them progress quickly. Other guilds are focused on producing goods such as wool, armor, pets and will be continually increasing their stocks, fierce and long-time players may be a part of an elite guild designed for ‘raiding’ where special pieces of equipment and other rewards are received when a team of players working together defeats a boss. 

I do admit, that I feel a sense of security with my online community, however, I have no idea who they are, what they do or like… maybe that is the magic of online gaming, I treat is anonymity as a positive. 

[astiffblog-blog]

Beware of those who are too focused with polishing and beautifying their outer shells. They lack true substance to understand that genuine beauty is reflected from the heart that resides inside.

Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

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Found this so interesting!

Politics & Civic Cultures

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The art of the selfie...beneficial or destructive?

[astiffblog-blog]

Visual communities and social imaging

Photography has always been fundamental to social media. Let’s take Facebook for a start, where in the beginning your profile picture was everything.But then photographs and social media took on a life of their own – people felt the necessity to record everything in film. So much so that going out didn’t really happen lest you woke up the next day to find you’d been tagged in a number of photos. Each one as similar and tasteless as the next (Hjorth, 2011).

Photographs used to be something to cherish. Gone are the days when families sat around looking through photos and having wonderful memories. Now, with Instagram, photography has become the authentic medium of social communication (Adweek,2017). Posting pictures online is a form of status display. We never downgrade our status and post pictures of our miserable selves with captions like "Here's me eating a can of tuna fish because I'm broke," or "Here's me alone on my birthday." The worlds of Facebook and Instagram are unassuming and filtered moments of perfection, a curated hyper-reality that reality has a hard time keeping up with (Hjorth, 2011). 

A real kodak moment! 

Our photographic status updates are almost always a way to raise our standing in the eyes of our friends and co-workers, which always means raising our status relative to theirs or even above theirs (AdWeek, 2017). When pictures become nothing but an emblem and the public exhibition of our personal brand, it's not an accident that envy and negativity follow.It would be wonderful if people could be happy for others when they see their pictures. Supposedly two out of three people are able to escape the achievement-envy trap. Maybe we can all learn to see the bigger picture and until we do I feel the value of photographs in social media is abused (AdWeek,2017).

Networked visuality has been used to comprehend the way imaging has developed into a fundamental part of the formation and maintenance of social networks (Hjorth, 2011). The rise of the selfie – usually defined as an arms-length mobile phone camera self-portrait shared via social media – is an obvious part of the upsurge of pervasive photography and social imaging. It involves new interactions with the cult of celebrity (Selfie city, 2014). With every selfie Kim Kardashian posts on Instagram, her 46.2 million followers become better acquainted with her physique than with their own.Selfies don’t degrade society any more than certain music, programs or websites, but they do highlight the self in a society that would benefit from emphasizing the collective. The age in which we live could use fewer booties and duckfaces and more face-to-face communication (Villanovan, 2017).

Take a look at 25 selfies fans took with celebrities which verifies the role and strength of a selfie.

http://au.complex.com/style/2013/04/25-hilarious-selfies-fans-took-with-celebrities/

Social media needs to find a way to champion good photography and people need to upload fewer photographs of themselves stumbling home after a night out (Social Media Today, 2017).

References:

AdWeek. (2017). How Social Media Has Changed the Camera—and Photography—Forever. [online] Available at: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/how-social-media-has-changed-camera-and-photography-forever-172320 [Accessed 26 Jan. 2017].

Hjorth, L 2011, ‘Mobile specters of intimacy: the gendered role of mobile technologies in love – past, present and future’, in R, Ling & S, Campbell (eds) The Mobile Communication Research Series: Volume II, Mobile Communication: Bringing Us Together or Tearing Us Apart? Transaction Books Edison, NJ , pp. 37-60.

Social Media Today. (2017). Is Social Media Destroying the Art of Photography?. [online] Available at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/social-media-destroying-art-photography [Accessed 26 Jan. 2017].

Villanovan. (2017). Selfies and the role they play in popular culture. [online] Available at: http://www.villanovan.com/news/view.php/1013979/Selfies-and-the-role-they-play-in-popula [Accessed 26 Jan. 2017].

[astiffblog-blog]

So true are your thoughts about young girls posting photos of themselves that in the long run can be damaging. Enjoyed this blog .

Week 9

Week 9- Visual Communities and Social Imaging

Oh how photography has developed and changed over time. Personal photography used to involve family albums, pixie photos and baby books (Swinburne Online, 2016). Photography today represents something so different. Photos are now collected or displayed for ourselves and shared with others as a way of personal communication (Swinburne Online, 2016)

Sadly, although I probably practice photography the same way, I still collect photos for the purpose of photo albums, I believe that a lot of the reason we are so disconnected from one another I that we are sharing photos across social media and mobile devices as opposed to sitting with family and looking back on shared memories.

As discussed throughout the unit ‘publics can be re makers and redistributors, with tools such as tagging and sharing images are widespread and searchable (Swinburne online, 2016). In other words, when young girls make poor choices to post or send inappropriate or intimate photos of themselves, it’s online forever, it can be saved by whomever, shared, copied or reused.

The selfie culture sickens me, again, although I do it myself. I like to think traditionally and the way people display themselves saddens me. The word ‘selfie’ is a reminder of the untraditional, digitally addicted, superficial world we live in.

S&id �\r�e�

[astiffblog-blog]

I never used to know what YouTube was till recently, nor was I interested. Since learning of its existence(lol), I love it and use it not only for social aspects and news but also in my studies. Great blog, I enjoyed reading it.

MDA20009: A Letter into Visual Communities and Social Imaging.

Dear Sir

Research into the social and visual aspects of digital communities has shown the importance of sharing images and videos as to communicate and connect with others. More importantly, the social media platform, YouTube, has changed the way people share and view such visual content and has contributed to creating what’s known today as a participatory culture.

While YouTube is a user-generated platform, it has been considered one of the most revolutionary forms of social media which allow individuals to upload and share visual content which can be viewed by audiences across the world for free (Crick, 2016). According to Burgess and Green (2013), YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steven Chen and Jawed Karim, and was launched in 2005 only to later be acquired by Google in 2006 for the sum of 1.65 billion… technically if you can find a niche in the world of social media it will most likely rear the heads of large corporations which will happily buy your product. Nevertheless, YouTube has since taken the world by storm, and in 2011 it was host to approximately 3 billion videos which continue to grow, exponentially, to this very day (Eastman and Ferguson, 2012, p. 134).

With recent research into the impacts of YouTube on cultures, Crick (2016) argues that YouTube has changed how cultures communicate and receive information through its implementation and integration into the worldwide web. And that it has led to the divergence of traditional broadcasting methods by enabling people to participate in the world of media (Crick, 2016) through the ability to generating their own content. While visual content is provided by a diverse range of individuals and groups which including professionals and armatures from all over the world, it has enabled many cultures to share and communicate with each other by removing boundaries that were once experienced in a broadcast culture. For it could be said that up until the mid-90s many people across the world were nothing more that receivers of information that was broadcasted by media corporations on fixed channels within their own nations and under the guidelines of their governments (Bingle, 2012, pp. 40-66). It also meant that the visual world was largely based around TV and cinema which was defined by one’s own culture and whereby citizens did not participate in the creation or production of such things (Bingle, 2012). And that it wasn’t until the mid-90s that world began to embrace and utilize visual content through the use of digital technology and the worldwide web, creating a global village and greater access to other cultures.

Nevertheless, as social media took hold of the Twenty-First Century, mainstream media began to converge with YouTube. As suggested by Eastman and Ferguson “user-generated content is unique, and it competes for the attention of audiences who might otherwise watch other forms of television. While for viewers battling boredom, it is an easier way for viewers to find something entertaining on [YouTube] than on regular television” (Eastman & Ferguson, 2016, p. 136-137). This has meant that YouTube has now become a popular source for viewers of such visual content, forcing mainstream media to integrate with such a platform. Because of this, YouTube now contains streams of channels which consist of a mix of professional and amateur videos created by different individuals and groups. What’s even more interesting, such visual content has now been reduced to short clips and has created what is commonly known as a “clip culture” (Eastman & Ferguson, 2016, p. 136). Be as it may, people’s attention spans have reduced and are drawn to such YouTube clips because it provides them with the ability to view that which interests them directly, and removes the painstaking wait for adverts and unwanted content that so often comes with broadcast television (Mateo, 2006). This is in contrast to the 90s and when people’s attention was largely held for hours by the television and the broadcast of TV shows complied with endless amounts of adverts.

However, YouTube has ignited people’s interests, curiosity, and imagination whereby individuals regularly participate in the creation of content which pertains to every aspect of the physical world. And that people are drawn to its various affordances that it provides. For instance, those who create and share videos are provided with personal accounts that allow individuals to use pseudonymous names as to retain anonymity. Secondly, individuals can upload and edit as many videos as they want and whereby time restrictions are not applicable. Thirdly,  individuals can create a community through communicating and connecting with viewers through such videos and discussion threads. And finally, the creator is also provided with the means to manage their accounts, content, and community through various tools and privacy options, such as deleting comments or content and blocking viewers (Digital Unite, 2017). While on the other hand, viewers have the option to search YouTube freely for videos of interests and regularly interact with the creators by commenting on videos, or simply, become part of a social network by following the creator or channels (Digital Unite, 2017). YouTube also allows viewers to share content through hyperlinks and embedding content into other realms of social media (Burgess and Green, 2013, p. 1). It also provides viewers with a window into the world and other cultures, new forms of entertainment and news as well as access to vast amounts of information.

Upon reflection, it can be said that the 90s were a pivotal time in history whereby the world was embracing digital technology and finding its feet in relation to the worldwide web. And that a broadcast culture still largely remained until the late 1990s. However, the development of social media and the platform YouTube in the Twenty-First Century revolutionized the way we view and share visual content by transforming many broadcast cultures to participatory ones. 

On a more personal note, and as a viewer, I have come to like YouTube very much, and in many ways, it has provided one with the ability to research and learn vast amounts of information as to gain a better understanding of the world around me.

Yours Sincerely

Miss D. Halliday.

References:

Bignell, J 2012, An introduction to television studies, Routledge, New York: NY.

Burgess, J., and Green, J 2012, YouTube: Online video and participatory culture, Polity press, United States America.

Crick, M 2016, Power, surveillance, and culture in YouTube™’s digital sphere, IGI Global, United States.

Digital Unite 2017, what is YouTube?, digitalunite.com, viewed 24 January 2017, <https://www.digitalunite.com/guides/tv-video/what-youtube>

Eastman, S.T., and Ferguson, D.A 2012, Media programming: Strategies and practices, Cengage Learning, Boston: United States America.

Oana 2015, Retro ad campaigns for social networking platforms: YouTube [Image], Top design Mag, viewed 2 December 2016, <http://www.topdesignmag.com/retro-ad-campaigns-for-social-networking-platforms/>.  

Mateo, S 2006, Clip culture, The economist, 27 April, viewed 24 January 2017, <http://www.economist.com/node/6863616>.

[astiffblog-blog]

Reading how you used to use a physical camera with film brings back to me memories of those days and how evolved it has all become. Social media and just the taking of the photos has transformed since then. What does the future hold? Great read.

Week 9 :)

Visual Communities and Social Imaging…

Reflecting on this week’s content, I think I am taken back to when I was a child. I had a fascination with cameras. Maybe it was the old polaroid camera my sister owned that was thrown in the toy box or the toy video camera I received for Christmas, either way, I was hooked. So much so, that when my grandmother purchased a new camera and film, I begged to use it all the time. I loved the sounds, the flash and of course like most children used the film very quickly. It was then the long way for the developer to produce my masterpieces. I certainly would never win any accolades for my efforts. Being very nostalgic, I will continue on. 

Personal photography, certainly interested in the changing definition! Moved from the traditional family portraits to include the individual photography commonly known as “selfies”. I can’t help but remember the fascination with photography (as I described above!) that I had and relate it to my experiences. For example, I work in education, specifically in the IT area and I see kids daily with their iPads creating funny photos and movies. The technology is much more instant than when I was a child! What I am concerned with is the rise of the younger and younger generations in social media platforms. They all have Snapchat and Facebook and know that “selfies” are cool and fun. But as with the rise of social media, these photos can be damming to reputations in both professional and social standings. The once photos that were shoved in the back of family photo albums are now being shared, screenshotted and saved. How can we control this? How can we protect our privacy, How do we teach ourselves and kids about using photographs and social media appropriately? It is an area we constantly focus on in my school. I particularly worry about the perception that Snapchat is safe. This false sense of security welcomes inappropriate photos to be sent, with the user believing they will permanently disappear after 10 seconds. The reality is, that there is a server in the cloud potentially saving these possibly harmful photos. Or the receiver using third party apps to later exploit and humiliate the sender. 

After my long negative rant, I will acknowledge that images and social media can also be very positive. Photos can be vibrant, eye-catching and informative to the reader - so when used correctly can facilitate identify and build a social network.