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The best thing about quitting Facebook, I have discovered, has been the platform’s increasingly frantic efforts to win me back. It has been two months since I last checked my feed, during which time Facebook has sent me notifications I didn’t sign up for, informing me every time someone posts, and invited me to attend locally organised focus groups. Ignoring these overtures has given me at least as much pleasure as checking the site ever did.

Of course, I am anthropomorphising a machine; no one is in charge of all this. But the small satisfaction of imagining the behemoth scratching its head and wondering how anyone can resist the invitation to get sucked back in is immense. As is this: the sense of new acres of mind opening up.

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Yin Zhaoyang (Chinese, b. 1970), Tiananmen Square – Dizzy, 2007. Oil and glitter on canvas, 100 x 100 cm.

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Week 11: Global social media practice: case study China

Imagine yourself at the new art deco cafe down the road and your slice of fruit toast with vegan butter and fermented jam (yeah that's a real thing) comes out looking super yum. You take your iPhone 7 out and go to take a photo (or 10) of this delightful dish. You go to share this amazing treasure with the world (of your 400 followers) on Instagram and suddenly you’re confronted with this screen 

(Theta Box 2017)

How will you show everyone your food?! More importantly, how will you see any pictures of other peoples foods!

This is the reality of social media in China (okay I understand my example was a little ridiculous but you get the point).

As of May 2018, more than 8,000 domain names are blocked in mainland China, including Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and Youtube.  (SLC 2018)

The earlier scenario I gave was a bit absurd, however, the censorship of the internet presents a real and serious threat to the freedom of the Chinese people. By censoring the internet, the government (Communist Party of China) effectively controls what information the public is able to access, including the deadly Tiananmen Square protests and massacre of 1989. (Thien 2017). To maintain this censorship, China will regularly ban any keywords or numbers that may relate to the massacre, with families of the victims even placed under house arrest during the massacres anniversaries, forced to mourn in private in order to control what information about the massacre is spread. (Ng 2014)

China has several social media platforms available for citizens, with the most popular being WeChat. WeChat is basically every social media site combined and then put on steroids. WeChat has over 900 million active daily users, with Chinese users spending an average of 70 minutes on WeChat per day. WeChat is not only for posting photos and updates, it has an online shopping feature, news feature, and can be used as a digital wallet. (Lam 2017)

It seems as though this app can do anything, but it is not immune to the censorship of the Chinese government, with accounts regularly getting banned for “controversial” content. (Ng 2014).

Greatfire is a group of anonymous activists who monitor and challenge Chinese internet censorship and offers Chinese citizens virtual private networks (VPNs) to workaround the blocked websites. Citizens are not only restricted to what content they can view online, but also what they can share. Protesters will often use VPNs to bypass the restrictions, to raise awareness about the Chineses regimes. (GreatFire.org 2018)

In response to Chiu, Lin and Silverman's (2013, p 1) claim that "Social media is exploding worldwide, and China is leading the way.” I disagree. A country that restricts freedom of speech and systematically restrains information from their citizens are not leaders in my eyes.

References:

Chiu, C, Lin, D and Silverman, A 2012, 'China's social-media boom', McKinsey and Company, 1 May 2013

GreatFire.org 2018, GreatFire.org English Version, viewed 24 May, 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT1dO5oekso>.

Ng, J 2014, "64 Tiananmen-Related Words China Is Blocking Online Today", Wall Street Journal, viewed 24 May, 2018, <https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/06/04/64-tiananmen-related-words-china-is-blocking-today/>.

Ng, J 2018, "Blurred Lines: The Ambiguity of Censorship on China’s Top Messaging App", Wall Street Journal, viewed 24 May, 2018, <https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/08/15/the-ambiguity-of-censorship-on-chinas-top-messaging-app-wechat/>.

Lam, R 2017, "The Best Guide to Chinese Consumer Behavior on WeChat (2017)", Dragon Social, viewed 24 May, 2018, <https://www.dragonsocial.net/blog/best-guide-chinese-consumer-behavior-wechat-2017/>.

SLC Team 2018, "List of Websites and Apps Blocked in China [Updated April 2018]", Startup Living China, viewed 24 May, 2018, <http://startuplivingchina.com/list-websites-apps-blocked-china/>.

Theta Box 2017, Fix Sorry there was a problem with your request-Instagram Error in Android|Tablet, viewed 24 May, 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkGX28M-rD4>.

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How The #Great #Firewall Of #China Works [ #INFOGRAPHIC ]

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From 2004 to 2007, an anthropologist named Tom Boellstorff inhabited Second Life as an embedded ethnographer, naming his avatar Tom Bukowski and building himself a home and office called Ethnographia. His immersive approach was anchored by the premise that the world of Second Life is just as “real” as any other, and that he was justified in studying Second Life on “its own terms” rather than feeling obligated to understand people’s virtual identities primarily in terms of their offline lives. His book Coming of Age in Second Life, titled in homage to Margaret Mead’s classic, documents the texture of the platform’s digital culture. He finds that making “small talk about lag [streaming delays in SL] is like talking about the weather in RL,” and interviews an avatar named Wendy, whose creator always makes her go to sleep before she logs out. “So the actual world is Wendy’s dream, until she wakes up again in Second Life?,” Boellstorff recalls asking her, and then: “I could have sworn a smile passed across Wendy’s … face as she said, ‘Yup. Indeed.’ ”

On Second Life’s still-loyal base, and the ‘future of the internet’.

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Fucking becky

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Week 10: Social gaming: playing the crowd

What is social gaming? I’m embarrassed as a gamer to say that I thought this term encompassed all online games… but apparently not. Social gaming was phrased after games that exist on social media sites, specifically Facebook. They were a huge thing in the early days of Facebook, but don’t really have the same significance on the modern Facebook. After Facebook was launched in 2007, gaming quickly became one of the most popular activities on the site. One of the most popular games was “Scrabulous”. The Scrabulous website was created in 2005 and joined the Facebook network in 2007. The game was based on the popular board game Scrabble by two commerce graduates who loved the original and felt as though people should have a way to play the game for free. Once the game was available on Facebook, it amassed more than 500,000 players daily. Scrabulous (now Lexulous after Hasbro filed for copyright lawsuit) continues to be a popular online game and has been developed into a smartphone app. Other game developers noticed the success of Scrabulous, and games like Farmville and CandyCrush were born out of this popularity. These games not only contributed to the success of Facebook but recognised how anyone could be a gamer, even your slightly annoying aunty who STILL won’t stop sending you some weird poker requests.

Why were these games so popular? And how did they differ from other games? Nick O'Neill identified 5 different factors of a social game:-

Turn-based – Social games enable users to take turns. Not every social game uses this function but it is frequent in the genre.

Awareness of others’ actions in games – Visible and live feed of your friends progress in the game, providing a social context.

Casual gaming – Social gaming is not generally as serious as “hardcore” gaming. Social gaming is for the average user and not for someone who plans on playing 24 hours a day.. But does have this possibility if you get addicted

Multiplayer – Allows uses to play with or against others, or involves some form of multiplayer feature. Many of these games allowed for “collaboration”, encouraging users to connect with friends, asking for “materials” to finish a level, or visit their farms to harvest their virtual crops.

Based on Social Platforms – Games are situated on a social networking site and use the features of the site such as notifications and sharing.

(O’Neill 2008)

Now that I have a better understanding of what social gaming is, I can say with confidence that they’re slightly annoying, but some developers have turned these addicting games into real-world change. buildOn is an international nonprofit organization that runs youth service afterschool programs in the United States and builds schools in developing countries. In 2011 buildOn partnered with Sojo Studios and 14 other not-for-profits to develop the social game “Wetopia”. The free game allowed users to play for a good cause, in which players could contribute funds to several organisations supporting worldwide issues, including poverty and violence. The app led to providing:

1,000,000 days of school for kids in Haiti

7,000,000 litres of clean, safe drinking water in Haiti

700,000 hot meals for children in need

45,000 meals for children in Las Vegas

32,000 hours of nutrition and literacy programs for U.S. students

9,000 papaya and moringa trees

6,500 coats, shoes, and shirts for children around the world

4,000 books for elementary school children

3,400 vitamins for children

1,000 medical check-ups for children in New York and Haiti

(Swallow 2013)

References:

O'Neill, N 2008, "What Exactly are Social Games?", AdWeek, viewed 19 May, 2018, <http://www.adweek.com/digital/social-games/>.

Swallow, E 2013, "How Social Games Are Changing the World", Forbes, viewed 21 May, 2018, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericaswallow/2013/03/23/social-games/#75b0d524377e>.

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Thanks to everyone who responded to the call to help people with blood cancer, during World’s Greatest Shave 2016! You can still help - donate today!

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It’s Movember, Man!

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Week 9: Public health campaigns & communities

How my online support group helped me with my illness.

Communities and help groups formed around supporting others with shared illnesses is not a new concept, however, online platforms including Facebook communities and blogs have given users a safe, private and anonymous space to confide in. Anthony McCosker and Raya Darcy discuss this in their article “Living with cancer” which describes how these online spaces have been used by people to self-document their illnesses whilst connecting with others.

I have lived with chronic eczema my entire life. From my childhood to young adulthood it would cycle between a bad flare up and then disappear after a couple of weeks of steroid ointments and antibiotics. After moving to Melbourne in 2016 and starting University, my dyshidrotic eczema decided it was not going back in hiding. And it really sucked. Uncountable amounts of expensive trips to the doctors/dermatologists, multiple medications, creams, ointments, treatments and information lead to me feeling .. honestly just worn out and shit. My eczema affects me not only physically, but emotionally. I wore cotton gloves to University to stop the weeping from my hands, and it got to the point where the pain from my inflamed and cracked hands stopped me from being able to write or even type. I can say from a first-hand account, you never feel more alone than when you’re experiencing something that no one else around you is. After being bluntly told by my doctor that nothing would help and that I would have to learn to deal with it, I turned to the online community for support. I first found the r/eczema group on Reddit after seeing a post from the subreddit on the front page. I quickly subscribed and soon after sharing my own experiences and concerns I was invited to a private Facebook page for eczema “warriors”. The community encouraged me not to give up on finding a treatment that worked for me and shared similar stories to what I was experiencing.

 Deborah S Chung and Sujin Kim in their article “Blogging activity among cancer patients and their companions: Uses, gratifications, and predictors of outcomes” emphasized the importance of these online communities and support networks, as they act as a tool for “emotional management” and “information sharing” (Chung & Kim 2008, p. 303). From their study which examined cancer patients’ and their companions’ social media usage, they found that by using social media as an “outlet” for information, problem-solving and emotional management allowed the patients’ allowed the patients’ “ways to manage their physical and psychological stress from their condition” (Chung & Kim 2008, p. 304). 

From my own experiences, I can definitely agree with their findings, however, I do find that some people tend to be attracted to these groups to preach their alternative treatments which could potentially lead to false information being spread. I’m sorry but I don’t think only eating green foods and rice is going to “cure” my eczema.. (yes I was actually told to try this)...

All in all - this community which I have been welcomed to has definitely improved my mental health and actually lead me to find a dermatologist willing to try another treatment for me. I am half-way through my UVB light therapy and I am so happy with how it’s going - and after sharing my experience I felt happy to know that I also inspired others to do the same.

References:-

Chung, D & Kim, S 2007, "Blogging activity among cancer patients and their companions: Uses, gratifications, and predictors of outcomes", Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 297-306.

McCosker, A & Darcy, R 2013, "LIVING WITH CANCER", Information, Communication & Society, vol. 16, no. 8, pp. 1266-1285.

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“Surviving high school” now has a whole new meaning

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Week 8: Crowd sourcing in times of crisis

When thinking about crowdsourcing, many people may imagine crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter or Gofundme. From the rise of social media platforms and new technologies, crowdsourcing has become a powerful tool for organizing and preparing the public in times of crisis, and it is rapidly gaining recognition as an important source of information during crisis situations. (Schimak, Havlik, Pielorz 2015, p 56). Crowdsourcing is a term used to describe the process of getting work or funding from a large group of people, and to collaborate ideas, skills and participation to help accomplish a goal, facilitate change or mobilise action (Goodrich 2013). So what does crowdsourcing in times of crisis specifically look like? Some common types of crowdsourcing include crisis mapping, “is a way of visually presenting, analysing and managing data and statistics, primarily through the use of maps” (Poblet, Casanovas 2012) which is used to highlight key areas during a crisis; communities using social media to spread instantaneous information about areas at risk during a crisis, seen used in the 2017 California bushfires through the twitter hashtag #wildfire; and real time updates through apps such as Waze which was also used during the California bushfires to allow users to provide and receive live updates to the public about road closures, fires and other conditions.

But one of the most innovative ways by far has to be the humanitarian drone missions. 

The Humanitarian drone mission is a collaborative effort between iRevolution and Techchange which provides drone training to people from over 155 countries through online learning. iRevolution believes that drones are able to play an important role in risk management during crisis situations. Drones were used in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 and also used in Haiti following Hurricane Sandy in 2012. So why are drones being seen as such an important tool during crisis issues? Well, they provide a unique view from above that previously costly satellite images could only afford. These images can be shared with thousands of people through micro mappers, which allows users to comb through the high-resolution images to find important information, such as people in floods, plane debris during the search for missing flight MH370.  Drones will also be used for micro-transportation, providing affected areas with necessities.

Overall, I am excited to see how far this technology will go and hope that we continue to look for unique and innovative ways to crowdsource.

References:-

Goodrich, R,  Business News Daily 2013, "What is Crowdsourcing?", viewed 2 May, 2018, <https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4025-what-is-crowdsourcing.html>.

Poblet, M & Casanovas, P 2012, "Crowdsourced crisis mapping: how it works and why it matters", The Conversation, viewed 2 May, 2018, <https://theconversation.com/crowdsourced-crisis-mapping-how-it-works-and-why-it-matters-7014>.

Schimak, G, Havlik, D & Pielorz, J 2015, "Crowdsourcing in Crisis and Disaster Management – Challenges and Considerations", IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, pp. 56-70.

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