socially-emma-blog

[socially-emma-blog]

Politics and Social Media Presentation!

https://prezi.com/view/v7MlESIUTG6pNpu2dVU2/ 

[socially-emma-blog]

[socially-emma-blog]

Social Media and China

China has an extensive history of online censorship. They have created firewalls that block users within the country of accessing certain sites for various reasons. This also means they have developed numerous new sites or smartphone apps to compensate.

In 2012, China was considered by outside countries to have the ‘Great Firewall of China’, a pun implying that they have a big tendency to block sites. Even globally major social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook cannot be accessed within the country. Google is also notably blocked on Chinese internet as well as thousands of sites containing pornographic or ‘illegal’ (via the government’s discretion) material. VPN’s are not illegal to have or host in the country. They façade user information, allowing them to access sites that they may not be able to view usually, but they still have to be registered with authorities, thus making them pointless. To over-compensate for the extreme banning of major sites, there is a 429 billion dollar online development industry in China, compared to that of America’s 298 billion. They have essentially created apps that mimick or perhaps ‘rip off’ other non-accessible apps. Replacing Twitter there is ‘Weibo’, replacing Facebook Messenger there is ‘QQ’ and replacing Whatsapp is ‘WeChat’. WeChat specifically is a widely used app in the country that not only allows social networking but also facilitates e-commerce.

These apps and sites keep Chinese Online users in a highly concentrated ‘Chinese’ space therefore disallowing much Western influence. In turn, this results in Chinese celebrities having an enormous amount of followers and support as they are the main (and sometimes only) source of fame and entertainment.

Aside from outright denying access to certain websites, online activity is heavily policed by government agencies and users are limited as to what they can or cannot talk about. The Chinese Government employ approximately 50 thousand people to scrounge the internet to identify ‘controversial’ content, most importantly any anti-authority content. Users are censored and unable to voice any negative opinions on the Chinese Government. Due to the strict communist governmental structure, expressing this kind of freedom of speech could even lead to citizens being prosecuted. Even something as small as comparing ‘Winnie the Pooh’ to leader Xi Jinping online is punishable and all imagery has been banned. Speaking negatively or even believing negatively about the Chinese government is actually culturally uncommon anyway. However, those that really want to do so have developed certain almost cryptic languages meant to be unidentifiable to the regular online user.

https://bluenotes.anz.com/media/368728/China_Social_Media_revolution_red_570x905_570x904.jpg\

[socially-emma-blog]

Social Gaming: Playing the Crowd

The idea of ‘playing’ has been around since the dawn of time and is scientifically proven to be a crucial part of one’s development. It helps with gross motor skills, problem solving, creativity and social skills. Since the world entered the digital age, more and more people have transitioned from real-life play to technological play; specifically gaming.

Even the term gaming has become exclusively specific to playing video games. Some of these games can be played solo and the character interaction is done through ‘bots’ designed for the storyline of the game. However, the perpetuation of online communities has seen more and more games feature or even solely rely on users playing with other users. This relates to the sociological dimension of gaming as opposed to the aesthetic or technological dimensions.

Roger Caillois analyses different types of play in his work ‘Play and Games’ published in 1961. These include ‘Agon’ (competition), ‘Alea’ (chance), ‘Mimicry’ (simulation) and ‘Ilinx’ (vertigo). Even though these were conceptualized before the digital age, it still closely relates to today’s gaming world.

Agon games such as ‘League of Legends’ has seen a whole new market open with very real money to be made. These games have become viewed now as a competitive sport as soccer or football is. Leagues and competitions have been created in which winners are rewarded monetarily. In 2016, the League of Legends World Championship prize pool was upwards of 5 million dollars. One game that has specifically and most recently taken over the gaming market is ‘Fortnite’; a competitive game based off of killing other users that you are connected with from all over the world. This game has become exceptionally popular over livestreaming websites such as ‘Twitch’. Notable streamer and credited as the best Fortnite player is Tyler Blevins or ‘Ninja’, with a suspected income of 6 figures monthly. Fortnite allows users to speak to eachother over their microphones and often this can result in some harassment and some may consider the community to be ‘toxic’. So far though, the positives seem to outweigh the negatives. Mainstream media is now more and more treating gaming as more of a respectable hobby or career and acknowledging the immense skill that goes into it. Perhaps this is because of the revenue that the community has been acquiring over the past decade.

Mimicry games can include Role Playing games or ‘RPG’s’ from as fantastical as ‘World of Warcraft’ to as ‘life-like’ as games like ‘Second Life’. Second Life is a free play game and uncertain as there is no prescribed outcome of the game. You are free to create an avatar that is a projection or illusion of who you may want to be. The game allows and encourages you to interact with others, adding a huge social element to the game. During it’s conception, it was highly anticipated to be a new method of social networking yet the façade of one’s avatar created a disconnect between users. The illusion detaches people from reality which is the appeal for many, yet is also seen as unhealthy or unnecessary to others. The anonymity behind creating a persona from the ground up can even be dangerous as you can never be sure who you are really interacting with.

https://www.esportsearnings.com/tournaments

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/ninja-tyler-blevins-twitch-subscribers-fortnite-drake-youtube-2018-3?r=US&IR=T

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Second-Life-fail-Was-it-too-advanced-for-its-time-It-could-have-been-Facebook-iTunes-app-store-Coursera-Bitcoin-all-in-one

[socially-emma-blog]

Public Health Campaigns and Communities

A benefit of social networks bringing people together is that ability to connect with people on the other side of the world, yet still living a very relatable life. For some, having an illness (mental or physical) can be confusing, scary or isolating. Joining communities online of real people in the same situation can provide people with information, resources and support. There are also many educational sites online that people can look to when trying to decipher what they’re feeling and why. ‘Social media brings a new dimension to health care as it offers a medium to be used by the public, patients, and health professionals to communicate about health issues with the possibility of potentially improving health outcomes’(Moorhead, et al. 2014).

There are countless pages and networked publics that afford people to post about their personal illnesses, particularly on platforms like facebook or tumblr. Important discourse can take place on these sites that connect individuals to share their experiences. People are able to talk to others on subjects such as their symptoms to methods of emotional or physical management pertinent to their illness. These Online Health Publics can be very helpful for people.

Something which is also helpful yet can be very harmful too is sites like ‘WebMD’ in which you describe your symptoms and find a ‘diagnosis’. Sites like this and similar contribute to the ‘cyberchondria’ phenomena, stressing people out as they self diagnose themselves. According to Pew Research Centre, around 83% of online users seek out health information online (2011).

Social Networks can also raise awareness about certain illnesses and promote campaigns that raise money for them. A notable example is the Movember campaign in which men grow facial hair (specifically a moustache) to raise awareness on male related illnesses and they can be sponsored to raise money for the cause. Whilst being a very well known movement, it has also been criticized for having a ‘clicktivism’ affect as there’s usually minimal involvement. On a more personal level, people can raise money for themselves or their families as they experience life-threatening illnesses. Sites like ‘Gofundme’ and ‘YouCaring’ are popular for this. Unfortunatley this can be abused though; for example, 26 year old Australian blogger Belle Gibson fooled the media into thinking she has terminal cancer and cured it through a change in diet. She scammed thousands of dollars from unsuspecting good Samaritans.

http://www.pewresearch.org/

[socially-emma-blog]

Crowd Sourcing in Times of Crisis

Online crowd sourcing provides a channel of communication for emergency services to collect information during states of emergency. These often provide real time data that can be useful to find missing persons, locate the area of crisis and alert people of evacuations. The method works best on a distributed network system with active participation of networked publics.

Traditional media such as radio and TV have always reported on important emergencies, often live. This used to be the main go-to for information and resources but the accessibility of the internet has afforded real people to share what’s happening in that very moment. The 2009 Black Saturday Bush Fires devastated regional Victoria, claiming the lives of 173 people, injuring over 400 and destroying the homes of many families. This time of crisis saw many online users sharing useful information and alerting loved ones of their whereabouts. Specifically twitter and facebook were used heavily for this reason at this time. The CFA twitter account was very active at this time, posting immediate updates that were shared by thousands online. Social networking sites that may have been seen as unimportant at one time were now very valuable and even saving lives. With people having to evacuate homes, it was not as easy to access traditional technology such as a TV or radio, but majority have phones with internet access allowing them to still stay connected.

In recent years, facebook has introduced their ‘safety check’ feature in which they provide users with the option to select if they are ‘safe’ during certain times of emergency such as the 2015 Nepal earthquakes. What is a well intended feature still appeared controversial as some users would abuse it when they were not actually in the affected area, minimizing the effectiveness and validity of it. This also comes off as quite disrespectful to those impacted. With the negatives aside, facebook has over 2.19 billion users so it only makes sense for them to employ some kind of global crisis resource. Perhaps in the future, the feature may be refined or new ones will be introduced to be more effective.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/

http://www.nma.gov.au/online_features/defining_moments/featured/black-saturday-bushfires

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2016/08/31/are-you-safe-facebooks-safety-check-and-the-future-of-emergency-management/

[socially-emma-blog]

Trolling and Social Media Conflict

Trolling and cyberbullying have been a hot topic in the media for the last decade. Traditional media often seem to treat the two as synonymous but they are actually quite different. Trolling is offensive but done for entertainment or amusement purposes whereas cyberbullying intends to cause harm with it’s offense.

Cyberbullying seems to attempt to mimic traditional ‘in-person’ bullying yet the physical disconnect has made it into it’s own concept. Although realistically, everything that is put online can possibly be seen by everyone, cyberbullying can be as public as posting a targeted facebook status or as private as sending an abusive direct message. Both of these forms have a different impact as the public humiliation is hurtful and the private abuse can be isolating. The definition of bullying also comes into play as harassment has to be consistent and harmful to be considered as such. Swedish Psychology professor Dan Olewus defines bullying as having the three elements of aggression, repetition and imbalance in power. This encompasses a widely portrayed view of bullying as one with physical or social power belittling one with less or none. So one-off acts of aggression should not be considered bullying. This is pertinent when it comes to defining cyberbullying too.

70% of 18-24 year olds report witnessing online harassment while 40% of all online users report experiencing it. Although cyberbullying is such a prevalent issue amongst youth, researcher Danah Boyd finds that teens do tend to find face-to-face bullying as more of an issue when it occurs.

Trolling on the other hand is a different phenomena, that does not intend to offend on a personal level out of malice, but offend/provoke in general for entertainment purposes. Notable sites for trolling to occur are usually forum structured sites such as reddit or 4chan that allow users to create discussions on whatevery they’d like. In 2012, dominant reddit user ‘Violentacrez’ was exposed for being controversial and perverse in the content he encouraged on the site. Real name Michael Brutsch, he was known for creating threads on the site such as ‘/jailbait’ and ‘/picsofdeadkids’. Brutsch and other users found amusement in these threads as they were free to post outrageous content. At the time reddit had little to no restrictions on what could be featured on the site, but unsurprisingly they deleted the problematic threads and have enforced somewhat stricter rules. This was seen as a good move by the general public, but devoted reddit users saw it as an infringement on their freedom of speech and lost respect for the site.

boyd, d. (2014) ‘Bullying: Is the Media Amplifying Meanness and Cruelty?’, in It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, pp 128-52.

McCosker, A. (2016) 'Managing Digital Citizenship: Cyber Safety as Three Layers of Control', Chapter 1, Negotiating Digital Citizenship: Control, Contest and Culture, (forthcoming, 2016, Rowman & Littlefield Int., London) Draft.

McCosker, A. (2014) ‘Trolling as Provocation: Youtube's Agonistic Publics’, Convergence  

[socially-emma-blog]

Activism and Protest

The introduction of the World Wide Web affords a vast reach to a greater audience in comparison to traditional media. This is obviously needed when it comes to promoting a cause, but does showing support Online actually affect what happens OFFline?

The ability for social media to bring together likeminded people is impressive and can be a great way to build communities. It’s also very easy to access pages and groups that provide resources to facilitate change in the world. In the case of Facebook, ‘liking’ a page that suggests action takes no effort at all, but actually acting on something does. This is where ‘slacktivism’ comes in; a term that was colloquial but now is even defined in the Oxford Dictionary as ‘The practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online petitions, characterized as involving very little effort or commitment.’ The term ‘clicktivism’ is also almost synonymous with slacktivism as it also refers to the use of social networking to perpetuate the support of a cause.

The Arab Springs is a notable movement that was backed heavily by networked publics online. The Tunisian uprising began when a man set himself on fire in front of the government building as a sign of protest against the repressive and corrupt government. Social media played a key role in the protests as it was used to raise awareness and organize rallies. The megaphone-like affect that social media had, spread the movement to countries such as Egypt as well. Protestors took to the internet to have their voices heard. However this is unfortunately a way for the corrupt authorities to easily be aware of what was being said and who was saying it, resulting in multiple arrests. Corrupt governments also caught on to the notion of social media having the ability to influence the masses and began using it to spread bias misinformation, painting them in a better light. Aside from those using social media as a tool to share their lived experiences and promote protesting opportunities, the more fortunate outsiders displayed more of a clicktivism approach to the issue. It proved much easier for those in non-oppressive countries to show support by clicking a ‘like’ button or share articles rather than taking action offline. Raising awareness is definitely important, but that’s all social networking seemed to be useful for in the situation. All-in-all, it seemed to hinder activist’s efforts as much as it helped them.

With approximately 47% of the world using the internet, gathering a community of people wanting to facilitate change isn’t the issue; it’s actually changing anything that is. The disconnect from the physical world means that perhaps the most worthwhile thing one can do online is as simple as signing a petition. In fairness though, the digital age is still very new in the grand scheme of things and perhaps in the future we may see more effective methods of protesting online.

https://www.npr.org/2011/12/17/143897126/the-arab-spring-a-year-of-revolution

https://www.wired.com/2016/01/social-media-made-the-arab-spring-but-couldnt-save-it/

http://www.journalism.org/2012/11/28/role-social-media-arab-uprisings/

[socially-emma-blog]

Amen to that, Willam. (x)

[socially-emma-blog]

Digital Citizenship and Political Engagment

A decade ago it was very uncommon and even unusual for politicians to use social media. Nowadays it’s one of, if not the most effective tool for their campaigns and keeping in touch with their supporters.

2009 saw John Edwards announcing his candidacy in an online video, a first for the world of politics. Since then, it is expected of politicians to be active on social media. It’s a powerful way to spread an agenda/message and gauge the perspective of potential voters. In turn it also impacts the political landscape as the public can make their opinions known and advocate for change in a public sphere. This puts pressure on politicians for a response. Even though politicians can control what they present, there’s no control over the posts of the public or the impact of their posts.

Some politicians use their social media in a professional manner. And some use it in more unprofessional manner. Those who are a little less up tight on their social media seem to become more popular amongst the public, especially younger audiences, because they seem more relatable. Maybe even more ‘human’. Often their memes goes viral-

The media can also paint a negative or positive light of politicians depending on their bias. The media’s desire to please it’s most influential person, Rupert Murdoch, really dictates what circulates out there. His control used to be the main source of information when more traditional media was the norm. But with user based digital networks, any one has the power to spread information and even sometimes reach larger audiences. This also somewhat immortalises the actions of politicians as it’s safe to assume that everything you put out on the internet is there forever, even if you delete it. Political scandals, political stuff-ups, etc. can be recorded on the internet and accessed by anyone at anytime.

The digital age has definitely put more pressure on politicians to watch what they do or say. Good for the public, bad for the politicians.  

[socially-emma-blog]

The Cambridge Analytica scandal is a huge deal. It has major implications for how far personal data can spread from social media to private individuals and companies, and it brings up questions about what people are using this data for, as well as if their intent is malicious.

To catch people up (I’m copying some of this wholesale from the article because it’s complicated and I don’t want to fuck it up): 

Cambridge Analytica acquired personal psychological data of about 50 million people from researcher Aleksandr Kogan. He gathered that info through a personality quiz app that mined information from those who downloaded the app and their friends. Cambridge Analytica created 30 million profiles about voters using this information.

Cambridge Analytica worked with the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, the Brexit “Leave” campaign, and Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign (prior to working with Trump in the general). Kushner would brag about his connection to Cambridge Analytica. Rebekah Mercer sits on the board of Cambridge Analytica, and her father Robert Mercer invested heavily in the company. Both have ties to Steve Bannon and have helped fund and shape Breitbart.

The CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, has bragged about blackmailing and bribing public officials around the world, and was recently suspended from the company.

This is all to say that Facebook is in a lot of trouble for being so cavalier about this data being improperly obtained, and Cambridge Analytica is currently being investigated by the FTC, UK authorities, and potentially Congress.

Like I said, this is a huge deal.

[socially-emma-blog]

Is tumblr a blog or a social network site?

Blogging sites such as Blogger (launched 1999) and social networking sites like Myspace (launched 2003) really brought a new sense of interactivity to the world wide web in their respective ways. Tumblr (launched 2007) is perhaps a happy medium of the two, being a blogging site that relies on user’s sense of community. Instead of just shouting into the void like a traditional blogging site, on tumblr other’s will shout back.

Tumblr’s biggest feature is the ability to follow other blogs. Almost like a subscription feature that you would see on sites like Youtube. Posts from blogs that you follow appear on your dashboard and keep you connected with likeminded people/blogs. This gives users a customized experience as, for the most part, they are able to cater their dashboard to their specific taste.

From the dashboard there is also the affordance to ‘reblog’ a post onto your own blog. The reach of posts on Tumblr is interesting as it relies on a chain reaction of one user reblogging from another user and so on, so forth. Although the idea of a post going ‘viral’ is not unique to tumblr, the way in which it is done is. These bridging ties give posts then have the potential to reach a huge audience of users that don’t even follow you. It just depends on the online publics engagement. This mixes the tradition of blogging with a more involved experience like a social networking site.  

Tumblr has a ‘like economy’ just like other social sites such as facebook or Instagram. The amount or reblogs or likes a post gets appears as ‘notes’ and the more notes a post gets the more it is considered ‘successful’. Successful posts weed out the small blogs from the bigger blogs as being ‘tumblr famous’ is a phenomena on the site. Being tumblr famous gave you social and cultural capital on the website, and a minority would transfer that into the real world or other social networking sites.

Virtual communities are formed this way, the more that users interact with each other or each other’s content. ‘Virtual communities are social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on […] public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace.’ (Howard Rheingold, 1995). A big part of tumblr is ‘fandoms’- communities dedicated to a specific aspect of pop culture. Fandom blogs are some of the most connected communities on the site, affording a platform for users to relate with people all over the world that share the same interests. This often starts legitimate friendships with users on a personal level, yet there is still a majority of users that remain anonymous. Unlike facebook, tumblr does not rely on creating a personal profile. Perhaps the anonymous users see the site as more of a blog yet the users that are open about who they are engage with tumblr as more of a social networking site.

Blog or social network site, tumblr appears to be a highly interactive website where users can tailor their experience. It seems to be both however, creating a unique platform.

[socially-emma-blog]

zuck takes the stand