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Week 11-Global Social Media

I am reflecting back to week 9 which talked about public health campaigns and the communities that make these campaigns possible. Public health campaigns in Australia have been shaped with the use of our internet, because our internet is so easily accessible we are able to connect multiple others and information at the click of a button.

Also the amount of influential people that we have in Australia helps increasingly to spread awareness through social media of these campaigns and health drives. Our role models and influential people are widely recognised through the use of social media as well, this means that we recognise all of these role models through social media and the works that they do are on display for all to see.

For example, it is very easy to gain reach of a particular campaign such as the ice bucket challenge which promotes ALS disease. This is because with the use of a video we are able to see it all over our social media sites and platforms and are able to share this information with others ever so increasingly easily.

If I was from China and I was trying to promote public health campaigns it would be so much different and harder to succeed. This is because China’s government is set up so differently not allowing their people to access the internet in the same ways that people from Australia can for example.

In China there is internet censorship which stops people from interacting with one another. This means that they can’t access popular sites including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Google and YouTube have also been blocked for Chinese users.

This alone makes it very difficult to promote a public health campaign because there is no way for someone to share videos and opinions with others through the main feeds of distribution (Facebook, Twitter , YouTube). Also it would make it very hard to have as many role models and people that are influential in China due to the limited access they give to their people.

This is why it would be nearly impossible for someone to share a public health campaign that isn’t administered by the Chinese Government. This is however what the Chinese government wants, they want to control what their people see and hear which is why they have given their people limited ways of connecting with each other.

I personally use networked media to connect with my friends and family to share things that are happening in my life and so I can see what is happening in their lives as well. With the use of networked media, I am also able to remain connected and interested in current issues and campaigns that are happening not only in Australia but throughout the world which strengthens and creates my own opinions on certain subjects. This allows us all to have our own say on matters and contribute to society in positive and meaningful ways.

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Week 10-Social Gaming: Playing the Crowd.

Game played: http://www.molleindustria.org/everydaythesamedream/everydaythesamedream.html

 I played a game on mollieindustria.org called ‘Every day the same dream’. This game is about a man who makes up in the morning in his house and begins his daily morning routine, he then goes to work and as the man sits down he wakes back up in his bed, hence why the game is called every day the same dream 

However, there is an alternative to sitting down at your desk every day. If you choose to walk past your desk you can continue to the rooftop exit of the building at which you work. From there you can walk to the rooftop edge and choose to jump and commit suicide. As this action is done you wake up back in the same bed.

The game tries to replicate the generic business man’s life by focusing how black and white their lives are. This is done with the black and white colouring of the game. Also The business man has no face which gives him no identity, especially when he enters his office and the workers there are identical to him. There is no sign of love and affection with his family as he has no time to spend with them because his work consumes his time. The game also implies that as a business man with a 9-5 job it can be depressing and make life boring indicating suicide as something that these people think about and have done.

It is a very explicit interpretation of a corporate worker and is taken to extremities and doesn’t actually portray that lifestyle truthfully but only focuses on stereotypes and assumptions.

If this game was different it would not be the same dream every day and it would have a completely different tone and meaning behind it. It wouldn’t talk about how boring a corporate worker’s life is and focus upon how every day is different.

Just like in the readings from digital communities it seems that there is always a source of conflict that appears when individuals play games. This is due to social interactions through the game in how they communicate and also depending on the game that they are playing. A competitiveness seems to appear which makes individuals turn on each other in a way that is not constructive. All in all there needs to be a change in the way that people interact with others through video games because there is much harassment in video gaming.

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Week 9-Public Health Campaigns & Communities

Public health campaigns within communities are very important for spreading awareness about a certain cause, illness, organisation or event and what better way to do that than through the internet. Especially because “around 83% of internet users seek health information online (Pew, 2011).

Morehead said that a “large portion of digital health practices involve the sharing and curation of health information content through social channels (Morehead, et al., 2013).

This means that the main way that public health campaigns are established and recognised is through the use of digital communities.

An example of a public health campaign is the ALS ice bucket challenge. The ALS ice bucket challenge is a challenge that was spread virally in 2014 that involved dumping a bucket of water with ice in it on your head. This was done to raise awareness and fundraise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis which is also known as motor neuron disease.

Many individuals began to take part in the challenge and recognising the reason for doing the challenge which raised awareness and education on the matter, it also helped to raise money towards battling and finding a cure for motor neuron disease.

Many role models and respected individuals took part in the challenge including Chris Pratt, Lebron James and Bill Gates just to name a few. Because the challenge was able to reach such influential people, it then meant that there was an increase in exposure and awareness towards the public health campaign.

Another example of a public health campaign through digital communities was the R U OK? campaign which involved individuals nominating other individuals to post a digital message on a social platform which talked about suicide and explained that it was ok to talk about their situation to overcome depression.

Overall it appears that digital media and communities are vital to promoting public health campaigns because they gather the most exposure through online usage. Almost every one is connected to the internet which means they can see these campaigns and support them if they can relate to the issue. It can be said that the use of online digital communities is only responsible for positive impacts towards public health campaigns that aim to bring every one together to support a major cause and eliminate the issue from the public to make the world a better and more liveable place for all.

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Week 8- Crowdsourcing in A Time of Crisis

Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining information or input into a task or project by enlisting the services of a large number of people, either paid or unpaid, typically via the internet. 

Crowdsourcing in times of crisis relates to coming together as a community online to help work towards a goal. For example, in a past event known as the Haiti earthquake which affected around 3 million people, this saw thousands of people die, get injured lose their homes and infrastructure.

Because of this event crowdsourcing was vital in the repairmen of Haiti and its people. This is because crowdsourcing involved people donating their tie and money to the cause through the internet and spreading awareness of the situation to others to help increase the help that Haiti and its people needed.

Crowdsourcing is therefore a very important and popular tool used in times of crisis and also in general. Crowdsourcing is able to bring large groups of people together for a common cause, it can initiate fundraising and awareness, and also help to overcome these public issues in crises.

Just as crowdsourcing is good, it can also be used negatively in some cases. For example in recent years Vegemite released a new cream cheese vegemite spread. The product at the time was nameless and Vegemite decided to crowd source by letting the general public decide upon the name for the new product in which Vegemite would pick the best name. The chosen name was ‘iSnack 2.0’ which the general public hated and was seen as a marketing failure which involved the use of crowd sourcing.

Then again crowd sourcing can be worsened by people standing together for a common cause which is to most of society seen as a negative cause. This almost starts to look like radicalism in a certain way.

Overall the use of crowdsourcing has had a very positive impact on our society especially in times of crisis when we are all needed to come together as one to support our fellow citizens in rebuilding, strengthening and prospering.

Because in the end it only takes a small group of people to create something that others can support and follow a well which turns into a strong connection of individuals helping support a particular event in  a time of crisis for the great or good  

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Digital Citizenship-Week 7 Trolling & Social Media Conflict.

Most of the world is connected to the internet and within that social media as well. This means that the most of the world is connected to online media including messages, photos and videos. The reason for the mass connection to the internet is due to the fact that it is overall a positive thing where individuals can connect, share and become informed through connections and relationships with other people. 

But as there is a good side to everything, there is also a bad side to everything. In this case online social media also entails cyber bullying, trolling, harassment and collaboration. Trolling is known as posting inflammatory or inappropriate messages or comments for the purpose of upsetting other users and provoking a response. Harassment is aggressive pressure or intimidation. Finally collaboration is defined as the action of working with someone to produce something.

All of the above defined themes are a result of cyber bullying which is also known as online bullying. Online bullying is conducted very easily and allows individuals to communicate with other users in a negative way to hurt or verbally abuse or threaten someone. This is done through our social media platforms including Facebook and other texting applications and also by texting in general.  

What is deadly serious about the matter is the fact that the result of cyber bullying is in certain cases suicide. When someone is bullied online and they have no one to seek refuge from the hate speech they attempt suicide because the bullying is too much for them. It should be noted also that the bullying online is usually available for all to see and is not a private matter, this then adds to the burn because it becomes humiliating for the recipient.

Just as easily it is to cyber bully, it is also easy to fight back against these hateful acts. Individuals can easily respond back to the bullying behaviour and stand with others who are being bullied to negate the effects. Also these online social media applications have administrators who try to combat the negative forums upon review. Individuals can also block other users who they don’t want to associate with anymore which directly stops the personal attacks.

It should be known that these attempts cannot stop online cyber bullying altogether but simply try to make it a friendlier environment for everyone. The only way cyber bullying can be eradicated is if we educate ourselves on what is morally right and put ourselves in the individuals’ shoes to better understand the effects that our behaviour has on other people.

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Digital Citizenship Part 2

In todays modern era we are surrounded by conflict and individual rights and opinions. It appears that people are stronger and more involve in creating action and making changes in society based on their beliefs and values. This directly relates to activism and protest in todays society.

 Activism has recently become a way of raising opinions for issues amongst individuals. A common outcome of activism is also protest, protesting is an action taken deriving from reacting to a particular aspect in society.

 Activism is supposed to be a positive social campaign but these days it is turning into propaganda on the internet which is force-fed to individuals to see the particular persons views. This is because when someone has an opinion they tend to make everyone else aware of their issue. The problem is that most of these opinions are not as significant to others as they are to the person arguing it.

 These issues to the individual are not worthy of protest or activism amongst a community because they are confronting through social media. Countless posts and publishments that swamp someone’s digital devices.

 The big issues are seen on the news coming from our leaders and role models. Due to the amount of freedom we have in speech some people seem to overuse their vocal freedom by forcing their own opinions on others and out casting them socially. Examples of this include taking feminism to extremes which become misconstrued with the true reasons for feminism, feminism is protested and communicated incorrectly to be illustrated as women being better than men, not all the time but in certain cases. But that is not what feminism means, it stands for equality which begs the question why not call it equality instead of a descendant of the word female?

 Through digital media we express our concerns to others in the hope that they will feel the same way, or we will shame them and bully them into agreeing with us. Even if the majority disagrees with them, this is because we feel strong and powerful through digital media and that we have a social influence to others. Activism and protest need to be for everyone and people should have the right to believe and stand for what they want without the aggressive influence of someone else. This is because we live in a time of free will and spirit with new ways to express ourselves as digital citizens and also physical citizens.

Prezi Presentation: https://prezi.com/p/aamunaqa-q4n/

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Digital Citizenship

Digital citizenship is a term for the ways we all participate in society through digital, mobile and social media technologies.

A digital citizen can also refer to someone who utilizes information technology to then engage in social, political and governmental talks. At this point in time we are subject to all of these things through our social media and there is almost no way around not being susceptible to these current social and political events. They are delivered through our leaders, role models and friends who have an opinion on certain matters whether that be something we agree with or not.

Our own individual opinion is something that I believe provokes a response to these social and political posts. We then naturally voice our own opinion on the matter and usually get a response from other individuals, thus the cycle repeats. 

When the information that we read about certain political, social and governmental issues are posted from leaders and people with high credibility, it can make us believe that the information that they are expressing is 100% true. This is usually not the case and the reason for their inaccurate or not wholesome truth is due to their own opinion that they want others to react in the same way to them. This is one of the problems with misconstrued information from our leaders and role models.

Another aspect of digital citizenship is the fact that we are governed in our digital activities. This means that our activities through our digital sources are controlled in one way or another. This could mean if someone was to voice an opinion that is not favoured it can be manipulated or deleted to stop an opinion from gaining traction or causing an upset. It is seen as a radical expression and can be silenced if governments disapprove.

This directly relates to the ‘appropriate use of technology and social media’ that the government wants and expects from digital citizens. But as digital citizens should we not have the right to have our own voices heard and not silenced when we feel that we should? That is the problem with being considered a digital citizen, as individuals and governments have different opinions. At the end of the day, the people with the power and authority will control the opinions they choose so.

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Is Tumblr a blog or a social network site?

Tumblr is comprised of text, photos, gifs and other forms of media which are formatted into a type of feed that users can read through and share with others just like what other social media networking sites use. This alone leads Tumblr to be perceived as a social networking site.

Then again the argument can go the other way and draw on Tumblr’s unique difference to other social networking sites which is its blog posting with titles, links and referencing. The easy action of following other personal pages which are others unique ‘spaces’ or what Tumblr likes to call blogs.

I believe that Tumblr is a social networking site as much as it is a blog posting site. This is because Tumblr helps individuals to connect with each other and share information as well as allowing individuals to express themselves through blog posting.

I also think that the two terms can be blended together and the differences can become insignificant because to some user there is no difference between the two. This is because similar to Facebook it is identified as a social networking site but users can also create posts which is similar to what Tumblr offers in their posting as well.

It appears that Tumblr has tried to create their own identity by mainly focusing on personal expression via blogging. This may be why Tumblr believes they aren’t just a social networking site. But then again to others they are seen as similar to these other social networking sites. Time is beginning to tell whether they really are different to the other big social networks by their growing rate of users.

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