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Week 10: Digital citizenship and conflict: Social media governance

The Australian Government’s eSafety Commissioner (2015) makes the point that everyone who uses the internet is considered a digital citizen. Furthermore, a ‘good’ digital citizen has been defined as “a person with the skills and knowledge to effectively use digital technologies in a positive way to participate in society, communicate with others, and create and consume digital content” (eSafety, 2020). This said, one of the most persistent issues with the social media experience and digital citizenship is online safety, in particular the threat of online bullying and harassment. The past decade has seen a surge in harassment towards girls and women online, aimed particularly at women of colour, feminists and queer women (Marwick & Caplan, 2018). Plan International (2020) found that over half of the 14,000 girls and young women they surveyed had experienced online harassment in some form.

Movements that serve to demonise and oppress female voices within industries long considered to be male-dominated have gained traction amongst anti-feminist communities. In the case of Gamergate, female game journalists and developers were the target of vicious, ongoing attacks perpetrated by predominantly cisgender, heterosexual men’s rights activists (Marwick & Caplan, 2018). The men posting the abuse treat it as a ‘game’, using anonymous forum sites like 4chan to share evidence of their owns, in a way encouraging a culture of one-upmanship (TEDx Talks, 2012).

The House of Representatives (2021) has proposed a new Online Safety Bill, designed to improve and promote online safety by implementing new measures to prevent acts of cyberbullying and online abuse (p. 3-4). The document also outlines potential new guidelines for complaints systems, the removal of sensitive, violent or sexual content and data collection. The bill has yet to be passed, partially due to potential privacy and censorship concerns present in the current draft (Wilson, 2021; Stardust, 2021).

SOURCES:

eSafety Office. (2013, February 25). Digital citizens guide [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/120654240

eSafety Commissioner. (2020). Best practice framework for online safety education. https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-10/eSafety%20Overview.pdf

House of Representatives. (2021). Online safety act 2021. The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/r6680_first-reps/toc_pdf/21022b01.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf

Marwick, A. E., & Caplan, R. (2018). Drinking male tears: language, the manosphere, and networked harassment. Feminist Media Studies, 18(4), 543-559. DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2018.1450568

Plan International. (2020). Free to be online? Girls' and young women's experiences of online harassment. https://www.plan.org.au/publications/free-to-be-online/

Stardust, Z. Z. (2021, February 18). A new online safety bill could allow censorship of anyone who engages with sexual content on the internet. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/a-new-online-safety-bill-could-allow-censorship-of-anyone-who-engages-with-sexual-content-on-the-internet-154739

TEDx Talks. (2012, December 5). Anita Sarkeesian at TEDxWomen 2012 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZAxwsg9J9Q

Wilson, C. (2021, May 5). Online overhaul: here are all the ways the government wants to change how you use technology. Crikey. https://www.crikey.com.au/2021/05/05/online-overhaul-here-are-all-the-ways-the-government-wants-to-change-how-you-use-technology/

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Week 9: Social media influencers and the slow fashion movement

With people trying to live more environmentally sustainable lives, the demand for sustainable and “slow” fashion has grown. Citing a now-deleted 2015 piece by the IISD, Lai et al. (2017) describe sustainable fashion as “goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants” (p. 83). The concept of slow fashion expands on this, noting that in addition to environmental factors, ethical working conditions should also be factored in (Chi et al., 2021). In contrast, fast fashion places emphasis on consumption, being easy to sell and even easier to mass produce (Lai et al., 2017). It could be argued that at least some part of the 9 million tons of clothing and related textile waste that ends up in US landfills (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2018) is a result of fast fashion production and consumption.

Fashion influencers use social media to promote and advocate for the adoption of the slow fashion movement. There's a number of different accounts providing information on the slave labour practices prevalent in the fast fashion industry and campaigning for better treatment of workers (Remember Who Made Them, n.d.), encouraging the upcycling of used clothes and thrifting (nevereverpayretail, n.d.), encouraging users to share their own upcycled outfits using the #oootd hashtag (Venetia La Manna, n.d.) and providing a used clothing exchange service (Big Sister Swap, n.d.), . Accounts like these combine the typical content of fashion influencers with informative content that sheds light on important issues relevant to fashion.

SOURCES:

Big Sister Swap [@bigsisterswap]. (n.d.). Posts [Instagram profile]. Instagram. Retrieved May 29, 2021, from https://www.instagram.com/bigsisterswap/

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, 14(1), 101-112. DOI: 10.1080/17543266.2021.1872714

Lai, Z., Henninger, C. E. & Alevizou, P. J. (2017). An exploration of consumers’ perceptions towards sustainable fashion – a qualitative study in the UK. In C. E. Henninger, P. Alevizou, H. Goworek, & D. Ryding (Eds.), Sustainability in fashion (pp 81-101). Palgrave.

nevereverpayretail [@nevereverpayretail]. (n.d.). Posts [Instagram profile]. Instagram. Retrieved May 29, 2021, from https://www.instagram.com/nevereverpayretail/

Remember Who Made Them [@rememberwhomadethem]. (n.d.). Posts [Instagram profile]. Instagram. Retrieved May 29, 2021, from https://www.instagram.com/rememberwhomadethem/

United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2018). Nondurable goods: Product specific data. https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/nondurable-goods-product-specific-data#ClothingandFootwear

Venetia La Manna [@venetialamanna]. (n.d.). Posts [Instagram profile]. Instagram. Retrieved May 29, 2021, from https://www.instagram.com/venetialamanna/

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Week 8: Gaming communities, social gaming and live streaming

Social gaming has been (and still is) a massive part of the greater games industry. From Blizzard’s early MMOs Warcraft and Starcraft, browser-based games like Habbo Hotel, Facebook’s Ville games and more conventional online multiplayer modes, they have successfully managed to build their own communities full of dedicated fans. As social gaming has exploded, so too has live streaming. Game streaming sites like Twitch and YouTube have created a new generation of human and virtual online celebrities with large followings, regularly seeing tens of thousands of views per video, even more for larger channels.

Currently, the big trend in online gaming is the ‘Battle Royale’ genre, dominated by shooters like Fortnite, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Call of Duty: Warzone, and more family-friendly games like Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout and Tetris 99. These games draw big numbers in terms of both player base and streaming views. Fortnite especially has firmly cemented its place in popular culture. The game has amassed a user base of 350 million as of May last year (Fortnite, 2020), and its stylised, cartoon aesthetic made it an instant hit with children. It gained popularity through Twitch streamers like Ninja, and spawned countless memes, re-popularised dance moves and featured in films such as Avengers: Endgame and Unhinged (Borte, 2020) in various capacities.

A much more recent development in online live streaming and multi-platform entertainment is the rise of VTubers - streamers who use virtual avatars (Vicente, 2021). They have seen massive success in Japan, but rose to mainstream prominence outside of the country when talent agency Hololive launched a group of English-language streamers in September of 2020 (Cover Corporation, 2020). In less than 2 months, HololiveEN streamer Gawr Gura had already amassed over 1 million YouTube subscribers (Cover Corporation, 2020), and as of May 2021, that number sits at 2.5 million, making her one of the most popular VTubers worldwide.

SOURCES:

Aisarin. (2020, September 13). Gawr Gura - Ride on Time (Cover) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jOmvTsWqGs

Borte, D. (2020). Unhinged [Film]. Ingenious Media; Solstice Studios.

Cover Corporation. (2020, September 9). At long last, VTuber group "Hololive English" is set to debut! [Press release]. https://cover-corp.com/news/detail/20200909/

Cover Corporation. (2020, November 16). VTuber office "Hololive Production", VTuber "Shirakami Fubuki", "Inugami Korone", "Gawr Gura" has exceeded 1 million YouTube channel subscribers! [Press release, Japanese]. https://cover-corp.com/news/detail/20201109

Fortnite [@FortniteGame]. (2020, May 7). Fortnite now has over 350 million registered players! In April, players spent over 3.2 billion hours in game. [Video attached][Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/FortniteGame/status/1258079550321446912?s=20

Saint Paul Media. (2019, May 29). Thor and Korg play Fortnite Scene in Avengers Endgame | Noobmaster69 | [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1_2k_sNrHI

Vicente, V. (2021, April 18). What is a VTuber?. HowToGeek. https://www.howtogeek.com/720841/what-is-a-vtuber/

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Week 7: Digital citizenship and software literacy: Instagram filters

Originally, Instagram filters were little more than basic post-processing presets that vignetted and tinted posts. Now, the concept of filters has expanded to encompass those and newer Snapchat-inspired AR and face augmentation filters available to users posting Stories. They can be as simple as a beautification filter or as elaborate and over-the-top as a filter that re-moulds your entire face into the shape of a snail. The concept of AR filters was explored by Rettberg (2014), using the analogy of a coffee filter to describe how undesirable elements are blocked out, whilst leaving the desired elements intact (p. 21). This explanation is somewhat relevant following on from week 6’s topic of influencers and body dysmorphia, as similar issues have arisen out of the persistent use of beautification filters in influencers’ Stories.

Augmented reality technology is constantly evolving and becoming more accessible to a mass audience. Facebook gives users the means to create and import their own face filters with their own Spark AR software, and share them with a user base of hundreds of millions, on top of the preset filters Instagram already provides its users.

Coy-Dibley (2016) coined the term “Digital Dysmorphia”, describing it as “the altering of supposedly undesirable parts of the self through modifying and fixing the visual and virtual appearance of an individual’s self through various apps” (p. 2). Looking at Instagram's beauty filters, they serve various functions from smoothing out imperfections and hiding marks to digitally accentuating parts of the face. In reference to last week's discussion, it could be argued that just like the regular page posts from influencers, their use of beauty filters on Stories help perpetuate heteronormative ideals of feminine beauty. Other AR apps that bank on the idea of the "desirable" body image include Perfect365 and Skinny Camera (Coy-Dibley, 2016).

SOURCES:

Coy-Dibley, I. (2016). “Digitized Dysmorphia” of the female body: the re/disfigurement of the image. Palgrave Communications, Article 16040. https://doi.org/10.1057/palcomms.2016.40

Rettberg, J.W. (2014). Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137476661_2

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Week 6: Digital citizenship and health education: Body modification on visual social media

The Instagram empire that influencers like the Kardashian & Jenner families have carved for themselves has seen countless others try and follow in their footsteps. The pursuit for that perfect “Gram-worthy” aesthetic has seen aspiring and established influencers undergoing cosmetic surgery to accentuate aspects of their bodies. As a result, the cosmetic surgery industry turns multi-billion dollar profits each year, with estimates placing potential annual profits as high as US$60 billion by the mid-2020s (Fortune Business Insights, 2021). Outside of physical body modifications, factors such as the idea of aesthetic labour and templates, sexualisation of influencers’ posts and the adoption of sites like OnlyFans has led to the establishment and perpetuation of the ‘porn chic’ aesthetic (Lynch, 2012; Drenten et al., 2019).

Marwick (2013) raises the point that Instagram users are required to engage in forms of unpaid labour and personal marketing to build and maintain their brand (p. 191). In the case of influencers, they engage predominantly in sexualised labour, reinforcing heteronormative standards of feminine sexuality (Duffy, 2017; Drenten et al., 2019) through choice of suggestive clothing, poses and bodily enhancements, forming a public image with soft-porn influences. With paid adult photo hosting sites like OnlyFans gaining traction, influencers now simultaneously engage in paid and unpaid sexualised labour, charging for nude photo sets that don’t meet Instagram’s community guidelines while using Instagram to market their page. In a sense, creators are using pornified imagery to sell users actual pornographic content.

The constant stream of content that promotes unattainable body standards or products designed to promote body positivity sold through a sexualised lens can have harmful effects on those viewing it. In the past decade, links have been drawn between regular viewing of the content of these influencers and increased rates of body dissatisfaction, particularly in young women (Wiederhold, 2019). Research conducted with Australian and American women between 18-25 found that participants who more regularly used Instagram were more likely to self-objectify (Fardouly et al., 2018).

SOURCES:

Globe News Wire. (2020, May 28). Cosmetic Surgery Market 2021 Size & Share | Market worth USD 66.96 billion with 3.6% CAGR by 2026. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/02/03/2168846/0/en/Cosmetic-Surgery-Market-2021-Size-Share-Market-worth-USD-66-96-billion-with-3-6-CAGR-by-2026.html

Drenten, J., Gurrieri, L., & Tyler, M. (2020). Sexualized labour in digital culture: Instagram influencers, porn chic and the monetization of attention. Gender, Work & Organization, 27(1), 41–66. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/10.1111/gwao.12354

Marwick, A. E. (2013). Status Update : Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age. Yale University Press. http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/ZTAwMHh3d19fNjYwMDU3X19BTg2?sid=23ec84df-ab45-4c76-a0fd-b10266614574@sdc-v-sessmgr03&vid=0&format=EB&lpid=lp_21&rid=0

Wiederhold, B. K. (2019). Instagram: becoming a worldwide problem?. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 22(9), 567-568. http://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2019.29160.bkw

Fardouly, J., Willburger, B. K., Vartanian, L. R. (2018). Instagram use and young women’s body image concerns and self-objectification: Testing mediational pathways. New Media & Society, 20(4), 1380-1395. doi:10.1177/1461444817694499

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Week 5: Digital citizenship and political engagement

In recent years, social media has become an invaluable asset in the amplification of important issues in the public sphere. Focusing on politics for this post, the past 5 years has seen an explosion of users weighing in on policies, party ideologies and politicians themselves online.

The idea of digital citizenship and its ties to political discourse has been widely debated and discussed. Vromen (2017) argues that social media now allows digital citizens to “prioritise personalisation and sharing” in regards to political discussions (p. 3). Alternatively, it has been posited that digital citizens are “a subject of power and constraints wielded by states and institutions” (Vivienne et al., 2016, p. 4). With social media, digital citizens are given the means to form, discuss and reinforce their own and others’ political ideals. In Australia, umbrella hashtags like #auspol and #springst and more specific hashtags that rely somewhat on an individual’s political stance like #scottythefuckwit or #dictatordan see regular activity, particularly after pressers or parliament sittings.

Overseas, social media has been a crucial element in electoral campaigns, most prominently in the US Presidential elections. In an examination of the social media campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the lead-up to the 2016 elections, Enli (2017) observed that:

Social media is contributing to a shift in the power relation between the politicians and their campaigns and the mainstream media and the journalists, because the politicians now have access to the means of production as well as efficient and direct distribution channels. (p. 53)

This quote is especially true in the case of Donald Trump. Throughout his election campaigns and his term in office, Trump basically turned his personal/presidential Twitter account into an unfiltered publicity machine, posting attacks on "fake news" media outlets and his opposition dozens of times a day, ensuring constant relevance and guaranteed engagement from supporters and opponents alike. The dynamic between Trump and his audience demonstrates elements of both Vromen and Vivienne's ideas of digital citizenship, with Trump himself placing emphasis on sharing his ideals, and his audience serving as subjects to his power as candidate and president.

SOURCES:

McCosker, A., Vivienne, S., & Johns, A. (2016). Negotiating Digital Citizenship : Control, Contest and Culture. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE0MTMyNDJfX0FO0?sid=625c6a9a-b9be-4c08-9b9e-d868106d8262@sdc-v-sessmgr03&vid=0&format=EB&lpid=lp_1&rid=0

Vromen, A. (2017). Digital Citizenship and Political Engagement: The Challenge from Online Campaigning and Advocacy Organisations. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/10.1057/978-1-137-48865-7_1

Enli, G. (2017). Twitter as arena for the authentic outsider: exploring the social media campaigns of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election. European Journal of Communication, 32(1), 50-61. https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/doi/full/10.1177/0267323116682802

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Week 4: Digital communities and fandom: Reality television

Just starting off by saying I'm VERY behind on these posts, and I'll be getting more out through the week.

From music contests to social experiments, house flipping to court cases, reality television has been a mainstay of network lineups for decades, to the point where some channels are dedicated to just playing shows of certain subgenres. With reference to an article by Holmes (2004, p. 214), L’Hoiry (2019) posits that “The introduction of Reality TV shows at the turn of the twenty-first century such as Big Brother and Pop Idol was the beginning of a rapid paradigm shift which began to restructure the “interface between industry, text and audience”. These shows were a cultural milestone, capitalising on the advent of the Internet and skyrocketing mobile phone sales by allowing viewers to influence the outcome of the shows, and providing plenty of discussion-worthy content in the process.

Reality television is even more relevant in the pop culture landscape now compared to two decades ago, thanks to social media. New and revived formats carry with them large, devoted fanbases, and social media allows fans to react in the moment and interact with other fans. Hashtags for series like RuPaul's Drag Race, Married at First Sight and the most recent revival of Big Brother Australia will often end up either charting or topping out the trending tags on sites like Twitter on the nights they air.

More importantly, fanbases can also use these platforms to discuss relevant social issues. In the case of Drag Race, it "regularly confronts homophobia and other forms of bigotry and oppression, and it often incorporates the milestones of American LGBTQ social, cultural and political history into its episodes" (Brennan & Gudelunas, 2017, p. 2). A study examining political discussions within fan forums for Big Brother and Wife Swap found that "Though participants came to discuss reality TV, during the course of those discussions, the ‘political’ was triggered thus creating spaces whereby active audiences transformed into deliberating publics by bridging their knowledge, identities and experiences to society" (Graham & Hajru, 2011, p. 27).

Regardless of people's stance on the genre as a whole, it's hard to deny the impact reality TV has in cultivating digital communities and sparking conversation about important topics.

REFERENCES:

Holmes, S. (2004). ‘But this time you choose!’: Approaching the ‘interactive’ audience in reality TV. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 7(2), 213–231. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/10.1177/1367877904043238

L'Hoiry, X. (2019). Love Island, social media, and sousveillance : new pathways of challenging realism in reality TV. Frontiers in Sociology, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2019.00059

Brennan, N., & Gudelunas, D. (2017). Drag culture, global participation and RuPaul’s Drag Race. In N. Brennan, D. Gudelunas (Eds.), RuPaul’s Drag Race and the shifting visibility of drag culture (pp. 1-11). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/10.1007/978-3-319-50618-0_1

Graham, T., & Hajru, A. (2011). Reality TV as a trigger of everyday political talk in the net-based public sphere. European Journal of Communication, 26(1), 18–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323110394858

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How does tumblr function as a digital community?

McCracken, A. (2020). a tumblr book: platform and cultures. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11537055.

"Amanda Brennan: Tumblr is where people go to share the things they are most passionate about... Here you connect over the thing you love the most and you don’t need to be who you are on the outside. You can be more anonymous, you can really embrace your interests, you can connect over that."

For the past 14 years, Tumblr has been a platform for individuals to come together and share their interests in a more personal manner, as the above quote suggests. The site allows for a greater amount of user anonymity when compared to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, which are a lot more public and open.

Community has always been a key motivator in the success of the site, allowing its users to find blogs, share content, and engage with fanbases and micro-communities tailored to their interests, through methods like hash-tagging and the dashboard.

In addition, it can be used as a platform for activism, bringing light to issues within marginalised communities that may be met with discriminatory responses, or otherwise just swept under the rug on any other social media site.

Keller, J. (2019). "Oh, she's a tumblr feminist": Exploring the platform vernacular of girls' social media feminisms. Social Media + Society Volume: 5 issue: 3, 2019.

"Even in the past when I have experienced [sexism], I don’t really feel like putting it on Twitter because I just feel like I’ll be attacked for it. And actually, I want to put it out here so people know this stuff is going on, but I don’t want to do it to have about three of four guys replying you’re a liar, you’re a whore, like, that’s not what I want. I’d rather just not say anything... I might put it on Tumblr because I feel very anonymous on Tumblr and I like that... Even though it’s quite anonymous on Twitter, I just feel like on Tumblr, just nobody knows who anybody is."

Tumblr's sense of anonymity has also allowed users to discuss personal issues in a space where they can do so more freely compared to other sites. With sites like Facebook and Twitter being very focused on sharing to a mass public audience, there comes a very real risk of discrimination and bullying associated with sharing information about sensitive subject matters, as discussed in the quote above.