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# 8 - Social media in China

Last week's Digital Communities focus was on the expansion of social media throughout China. We looked at some of the myths about the media in China, and some of the ways that social media is taking China by storm.

I was surprised to learn recently that social media use in China rivals that of Western countries, with Chinese youth being some of the most social media connected people in the world. This is definitely not in line with the stereotype of China's media censorship being a ruling force in the lives of Chinese citizens.

China's massive population are not generally antagonistic toward the Government censorship, even while they acknowledge it exists. Through moderating the debate about censorship--rather than denying that censorship exists, or silencing those that speak out about it (at least generally)--the People's Republic of China (PRC) actually maintains a better monopoly of public opinion than they could through harsher means. It is arguably for this reason that the PRC has allowed for the development of a Chinese version of Facebook, Twitter and many other massive, Western social media platforms.

Arguably, censorship is only really effective when its invisible, and certainly only when its not so repulsive to the censored that it demands a revolution. Through providing alternatives to the Western-controlled platforms, China ensures that it's own people do not have a huge incentive to push for the media freedoms that are generally allowed in the West, as well as in India, Nepal, and many of China's other neighbouring nations.

However, the Achilles’ heel of the PRC's own policy around social media is that a lot of media freedom and power has been returned to the Chinese people, in a trickle of small victories.

Chinese social media users regularly adopt codewords for discussion of censored, off-limit topics, and these are changed regularly to avoid detection by PRC authorities. It is clear that people in China do, in fact, want the freedom to talk about what they want: with social media, this is becoming easier, and gradually more common to do this with larger groups and audiences.

Smartphones are all-popular, while linking smartphones to the free wifi in malls and other public spaces is common practice in China, as is carrying a portable powerbank to make sure one is never left without a working phone.

While China's mainstream media is Party owned, Party operated and Party controlled, there is also a lot of freedom and innovation in the areas of new media technologies. These powers, overall, will be much harder for the PRC government to reclaim, if they ever wish to, than they were to gradually relinquish back to the people.

The wave of “always on” connectivity in the West over the last decade is just as present in China, and this similarity is bound to lead to more cultural sharing between China and the West, despite the current structured separation. 

Social media in China is so popular that it is impossible to regulate with any of the efficacy of regulating mainstream media. Meanwhile, the people themselves will continue to carefully to protect themselves from accusations of outright anti-Party "propaganda", coding and recoding regularly, while they wait patiently for wider media freedom to take hold... hopefully, it won’t be long <3

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#7 - Social gaming: playing the crowd

According to new media researcher Cesar Albarran-Torres, there are three dimensions to online gaming. These are: the sociological dimension, the aesthetic dimension, and the technical dimension. The sociological dimension includes the experience of social play that defines the online gaming experience; the aesthetic dimension includes the simulative design that contributes to the immersive atmosphere in online game worlds; and the technical dimension includes the visible and aural communication of the game concept through increasingly vivid mediums.

There’s so much happening in the world of online gaming, it’s actually hard to keep up. It’s a cliché, but the games of today really do seem like they’ve jumped right out of a sci-fi movie. Although there is so much to discuss in terms of sociality and new cultural practices, I want to focus on the technology behind it all first.

Does anyone remember Avalon? If you don’t, I’ll remind you… 

Set in the future, the premise of the 2001 sci-fi is a world where augmented reality technology has evolved to the point that online gaming can be as real to the senses as reality is. Unfortunately, overplaying the highly addictive game Avalon (the film’s namesake) has left many people braindead, and the game has been made illegal. Many still use the game illegally, with the most highly skilled players making their illegal incomes through the game. Those highly skilled players that transcend the usual levels reach a (virtual) place in which they can choose to remain indefinitely, becoming “Unreturned”. The film depicts the concept of a virtual reality that is more real than real, posing the inevitable question, what is real?

Ok, now back on Earth… although our technology is a little behind Avalon, we are heading that way really fast. The technology of sci-fi movies has moved to your local Samsung shop… (OK, they have some glitches... but it’s on the way!!)

The technology is important because, arguably, it’s the basis for the cultural practices. Marshall McLuhan said, "The Medium is the Message", and we can only wonder what he’d say about an audio-visual media device being actually worn on our heads!

The other McLuhan classic, the notion of the ��global village”, is also important in understanding online gaming technologies, and leads more toward the cultural implications of online gaming. The augmentation of “reality” through increasingly convincing virtual worlds is staring us straight in the face it’s unique consistency of experience: real reality doesn’t have the same texture in different parts of the world, but the cross-national, cross-cultural, augmented realities of online video games do have the same texture, no matter where you physically are while you play.

In stepping into a cross-national, cross-cultural world, online gamers are free to express themselves in new ways. These online game worlds are not anarchical, however, but actually representations of new forms of cross-national and cross-cultural governance. 

Media scholars De Zwart and Humphreys state: 

“EVE is a carefully constructed and maintained game environment, and the players accept the conceit that they operate in a lawless future of space piracy and  sabotage. In fact, CCP prescribes the limits of player behaviour but attempts to do so with a nearly invisible regulatory hand.”

Online games transcend national, cultural, and geographical boundaries, but the culture and community that they offer ‘one and all’ is distinct. As online gaming crosses the augmented reality frontier in front of us, it may be too early to spot the significance of the message in the wonder of the medium. 

Reference: Melissa de Zwart & Sal Humphreys (2014) ‘The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online' Cultural Studies Review

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Avalon, 2001

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#6 - Public Health Campaigns and Communities

Milner, R. M. (2012) ‘To Write Love Through the Indie Imaginary: The Narrative Argument of a Mediated Movement’, Continuum, 26:3, 423-435This week in MediaLand, we're looking at Public Health Campaigns and Communities... in the Digi-sphere, of course.

Firstly, thanks for reading... I'm a bit late with this post as I pretty much fell down the rabbit hole of the dark side of online  "health" communities. But I'll get to that in a bit...

The rising popularity of online public health campaign and communities may be attributed to the ease of assess afforded by the internet, and the potential for connections with a much wider group that physical proximity could ever allow.

Of the three main indicators for community-- shared location, shared perspectives, and social ties-- it is the feature of shared perspectives which is often challenged by illness. People suffering from serious illness may experience that they suddenly do not share the same outlook or perspectives as members of their regular communities. This isolation can make the experience of illness that much harder.

Maintaining contact with one’s existing community—like friends and family— is extremely important during times of illness, but reaching out to a supportive community on the basis of sharing perspectives with them also makes a lot of sense.

The social research indicates that experiencing community is not about having people around us… it’s about the experience of sharing something meaningful with those around us – activities, interests, perspectives on the world. Potentially, strong communities can be formed through the mutual experience of suffering from an illness or disease.

In the case of physical illness, doctors may advise their patients to seek out support groups. Cancer support groups, for example, can be extremely helpful for those who are suffering from cancer. For mental illnesses such as addition, groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous help people suffering from addiction to feel connected.

In both cases, the emphasis in on achieving a community connection with people experiencing similar health problems. Feeling connected through these communities help alleviate the feeling of isolation: of going through something which no-one else can really understand.

The affordances of digital platforms—like the fact they transcend temporal proximity of users— makes them unique community gathering points for individuals dealing with physical and mental illness. For those that cannot get to a physical support group, online support groups can be truly invaluable.

There is also the potential for online "support groups" to go off in *questionable* directions.

'To Write Love on Her Arms' (TWLOHA) is a "social-justice nonprofit combating suicide, self-infliction, addiction and depression" (Milner, 2012). TWLOHA "combats" these mental health issues through providing a pivotal centre for youth culture; holding concerts which feature music, poetry and inspirational talks; and other social initiative.  TWLOHA has also been commodified; it is now an 'indie' brand in it's own right, fashionable distant from it's primary, social cause.

The adaptation of support groups for online, social frameworks is a contentious issue. Despite the clear appeal, there is the drawback that online groups often lose direction, or having a vague outline to begin with.

It is argued that, "If the sense of belonging is enough to encourage someone struggling, or to lead someone to talk to a friend or call a hotline, then the social imaginary [of TWLOHA] is producing very real results." (Milner, 2012)

But there is the problem: anyone can lead an online support group. It can also be hard to moderate support groups--particularly those directed for mental health-- to keep them directed at, well, support.

I recently came across a "support group" for anorexia nervosa sufferers while researching public health. The forum was a pro-anorexia group in disguise, promoting itself in such a way that parents of young sufferers would, from a glance, believe that the purpose of the site was to support healthy eating.

The content of this forum was shocking. Girls who were on the verge of hospitalisation for their illness appealed to the group for tips, desperate to stay out of hospital so they wouldn't be forced to eat or gain weight. They were supporting each other through 'inspirational' photos that showed skeletal bodies; tips on how to feel full, and abate the cramps that come from extreme food deprivation; and group commitments to not eat for days at a time.

There are many, many groups like this, that exist through the digital affordances of social media. As shown in the TWLOHA example, even those initiatives that have a pro-health intention can be hard to contain to their initial purpose. Although there are many advantages to the increasing trend for online health communities, their comparative lack of structure, lack of professionalism and lack of moderation are issues that will need to be addressed if they are to function as true alternatives to offline support.

Reference: Milner, R. M. (2012) ‘To Write Love Through the Indie Imaginary: The Narrative Argument of a Mediated Movement’, Continuum, 26:3, 423-435

#mda20009

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It’s so intensely sad... the very dark side of online “support” groups. 

This is the article I was talking about last week! 

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#5 - Crowdsourcing and crisis

The use of social media, particularly Twitter, has become a routine part of emergency situation management in Australia, according to the national social media manager for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Ping Lo.

In the last decade, social media coverage of emergency situations has become the norm, both as a means for personal communication between effected people, and as a means for transmitting more broadcast-style information to wider networks.

With social media becoming ever more popular, it certainly makes sense for governments and other organisations to make use of social media in crisis situations. After all, accurate information is a hot commodity. 

The sheer mass of social media users makes these platforms the go-to for up-to-date information in a crisis, as users are also producers in the social media sphere, making everyone a source of information.

With social media, a massive benefit in times of crisis (and general news-worthy-ness) is that up-to-date content is not dependant on having a actual reporter on the ground. The potential benefits from this feature are phenomenal. At one point during flooding in Queensland (QLD), Australia, the flood-warning information coming in from mobile users via social media was considered to be possibly *more* relevant than the offical warnings.

During the QLD floods in 2011, Twitter users adopted the use of the hashtag "qldfloods" to signpost their Tweets as relevant to the crisis. During the peak of the emergency, there were between 14,000 and 16,000 tweets pet hour using the 'qldfloods' hashtag, according to Queensland University of Technology Associate Professor Axel Bruns.

Aside from the features of the platforms-- such as the hashtag, which was invaluable in the QLD floods example-- there are other, embedded advantages of social media platforms and mobile devices for use in times of crisis.

There is the benefit of accessibility; most people in Australia have access to some sort of portable, digital divide from which to access social media content, and these devices--along with portable power banks-- can be used even when electricity is out, due to flooding or other natural disasters.

There is also the benefit of portability; such devices are by nature portable, and can be used by displaced people to communicate their whereabouts and wellbeing. Further benefits are sharability, as important information can be shared effortlessly through social media, and searchability, which allows users to locate the up-to-date information posted by other users so easily via 'search' functions.

It is clear from the 2011 floods example that the QLD community was willing to become involved in the crisis in a meaningful way, allowing others to benefit from their direct experience. The use of social media as a tool for crisis management is a emerging area of research, but this example is one of the clearest demonstrations of the potential benefit of social media as a news source in times of crisis.

Resources (for the interested...)

https://riskfrontiers.com/pdf/flooding_facebook.pdf

http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2011/04/05/3182906.htm

Executive Summary: ‘#qldfloods and @QPSMedia: Crisis Communication on Twitter in the 2011 South East Queensland Floods’, pp 7-10. Bruns, A., Burgess, J., Crawford, K., Shaw, F. (2012)

Posetti, J. & Lo, P. (2012) 'The Twitterisation of ABCs Emergency & Disaster Communication'

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#mda20009 

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#4 - Cyber-bullying and trolling

(… and just being a bit of a sh++ online)

‘Bullying’ is an often misused term. Nowadays, journalists, media and even governments play a part in the rhetoric surrounding bullying, while the new, global wave of concern about ‘cyberbullying’ muddies the definition even further.

Is it a form of ‘bullying’ to Comment on a peer’s Facebook picture in a mean way? According to the news, definitely (Roberts, 2017; Ogilvie, 2017). In Australia, the Fair Work Commissioner has even stated that unFriending someone on Facebook can be a form of bullying (Ogilvie, 2017).

It seems that ‘cyber-bullying’, as a label, can be thrown at just about any non-supportive comment or action, facilitated by digital media. One of the issues with this approach is that, while all that hype is on very little, actual instances of definite bullying—online and offline—can be assimilated into the discourse, but not really dealt with as seriously as they should be.

Media theorists don’t accept a standard definition of bullying as it applies in the Digital Era. Generally, however, a basic definition of bullying can be simply adapted to incorporate any bullying done through digital media platforms—rather than ‘cyber-bullying’, as a term, losing any connection with the standalone term, ‘bullying’.

Swedish psychologist Dan Olweus’s definition of bullying is the most commonly accepted. He argued that for an act to be ‘bullying’, it required three key components: aggression, repetition, and power imbalance (boyd, 2014)

To quote dana boyd, “Accepting Olweus’s definition means recognizing that individual acts of harassment or one-off fights are not bullying.”

So, that one, mean comment about that one photo was not really bullying. Just a part of life online.

News about ‘cyber-bullying’ will also use the term interchangeably with the term, ‘trolling’. (Gayle, 2017; Roberts 2017). Again, there is a huge discrepancy between the academic use of this term and the way it is used by journalists in a buzzword frenzy.

An academic approach may be along the lines of, “Digital domains are inherently agonistic, never free of antagonism and conflict” (McCosker, 2016).

Meanwhile, parents just want their kids to be SAFE while using World-Wide interactive content platforms.

Our own use of the terms ‘trolling’ and ‘cyber-bulling’ could be part of the problem. But whether citizens are the cause of the media frenzy, or vice versa, we are all certainly a part of it now.

When we hear about a kid who commits suicide because of being ‘cyber-bullied’ on Facebook, and a new Government initiative to control that platform as if that will fix the core of the problem, we all need to use our intelligence and look a little deeper.

The hype around ‘cyber-bullying’—as if bullying has sprung out of the ground due to new media affordances— is a distraction from the issues at hand.

In reality, racism, sexism and all types of hurtful discrimination are not new. Physical, verbal and emotional violence are not new. The only new things are some of the platforms which give actual bullies more power across space and time, and the visibility of bullying and violence as huge problems in our culture.

Most ‘cyber-bulling’—as defined by the sheer mass of public and media colloquial usage— is probably not keeping the so-called ‘victims’ up at night. Meanwhile, there are a lot of people who suffer very seriously from being bullied, harrassed and abused. We need to curb the hysteria that masks, rather than highlights, the real struggle that some people face with real bullies and other aggressors, both online and offline.

References and further reading links:

McCosker, A. 2016. ‘Managing Digital Citizenship: Cyber Safety as Three Layers of Control’, Chapter 1: Negotiating Digital Citizenship: Control, Contest and Culture.

boyd, d. 2014. ‘It’s complicated: the social lives of networked teens’, Chapter 5: Bullying. Is social media amplifying meanness and cruelty?

Gayle, D. (2017). Facebook is the worst social network for bullying with 19-year-old BOYS the most common victims. [online] Mail Online. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2294023/Facebook-worst-social-network-bullying-New-survey-shows-youngsters-targeted-online-else.html

Ogilvie, F. (2017). 'Unfriending' on Facebook can amount to bullying, Fair Work Commission says. [online] ABC News. Available at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-25/fair-work-commission-finds-unfriending-on-facebook-can-bullying/6805484

Roberts, S. (2017). Girl gets perfect revenge on Facebook bullies who trolled her bikini photo. [online] The Sun. Available at: https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/224080/this-girl-got-the-perfect-revenge-on-the-facebook-bullies-who-trolled-her-bikini-photo/

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#3 - Social media, protest and activism

I confess, I used to be a bit of a digital activism cynic. The term "slacktivism" seemed pretty apt to me; I had seen friends Like pages to 'support' causes that they really couldn't care less about in 'real life', and these Pages seemed suspiciously popular, while the issues seemed to stay relatively unaddressed.

I had the impression that the whole thing was a kind of moralistic popularity contest, where the winner was the social media user who appeared to care the most about... whatever cause.

Now, after seeing a lot of examples showing how social media activism really can make waves, I'm reconsidering.

The saving of the Palace Theatre in St Kilda, Melbourne, was achieved almost exclusively by the efforts on the Facebook page, "Save The Palace". The court heard information about the number of Likes on the Facebook Page from a leading social media analyst, and subsequently ruled that the venue was culturally significant and could not be destroyed.

On a larger scale, social media was also instrumental to the uprising known as the Arab Spring. Using social media, many citizens in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Iraq spoke out against their nation's regimes and posted video and photo content for the world to see.

In 2011, YouTube made a political decision to allow video footage from Syria to appear on the social media platform even if the footage was "shocking", or otherwise against YouTube's usual content guidelines. It was decided that the desperate need for news information about the situation is Syria was more important than protecting YouTubers from the potentially disturbing imagery. YouTube's policy was reworked to make an exception for Syrian content. In this case, YouTube acted for the activists. (But that's not to say they had to, or they alway will.)

I'm not a cynic anymore. I have been awed by the real power demonstrated by some online movements, with many of these having clear links to actual change and progress on important community issues-- even global issues. But the way forward is complicated, because the platforms for social activation through digital platforms-- Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and others -- are not neutral.

Social media companies are corporations with financial and political investments and motives. Data about political views and engagement is valuable, like any other data. Besides, I don't see Western corporations being negatively affected by an uprising in the Middle East... but what of the (hypothetical) Indigenous Spring in Australia or America, for example? Or an actual Tibetan Uprising in China’s disputed southern territory? Perhaps, those wouldn't be so well accommodated by YouTube...

Despite the amazing ways that individuals can use-- are are using!-- established social media platforms for activism, the political views and aims of our chosen platforms are invisible containers that shape what we can and cannot do on social media; which posts get the attention of the masses, and which are never pushed very far; and who can and cannot use social media to say what they want, and be a digital activist at all.

Resources: Lafi Youmans, W. & York, J. (2012) ‘Social Media and Activists Toolkit’, Journal of Communication, pp 315-329.

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#2 - Social media and political engagement

"The [poll] numbers weren’t just a poor guide for election night — they were an off-ramp away from what was actually happening."  Jim Rutenberg, November 9, 2016. New York Times online.

Technologies have been moving mankind closer toward instant, universal communication for a few centuries. I know we all take it for granted, but its really quite impressive, how fast its all happened (in the scheme of things).

Firstly, the telegraph and the telephone allowed for long distance communication from a set location to another; then, the radio allowed for the first broadcasts; and, about a century later, the internet was invented. Just a few short decades after that, and here we are...  

The "world-wide web" has made it possible for a huge number of people to become independent 'broadcasters', and it's exciting! But is 'the world' actually interested in our personal broadcasts? Real-time, play-by-plays of out moment-to-moment reality?

Well, no. Not really.

Unless you are, say, the President of the United States of America. If you're him, then yes, the world is interested.

Candidate, President Elect and, now, President Donald Trump. He has over 27 million Twitter followers and is known to post exactly what's on his mind.

In these strange times, the slippery world of politics can be suddenly sent spinning by a few mindless words.

Trump uses social media to dodge the usual media channels and instantaneously reach a massive audience.

Trump's rise to most powerful position on the planet has shocked a lot of people, to put it lightly. And it seems that social media has had some part in it.  

But should it? Do the flippant comments of the President really belong on social media? Let alone, the sensitive workings of international politics?

Some people would answer a emphatic, "NO THEY DON'T!".

(By the way, I'm just here to chat about it.)

House of Cards creator, Beau Willimon, recently made a series of Tweets that pointed to some emerging issues around the new President's social media habit.

If we’re really at the point where social media is a window into State affairs, available to all...

Maybe it has gone too far... ?

Comments? Notes?

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#mda20009

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Digital Communities: No. 1

Is Tumblr a blog or a social network site?

When I think of a blog vs. a social networking site, a factor which separates the two, for me, is visibility. A social networking platform will often have many different settings that the user may tweak to customise who can see what, whereas my impression of blogs is that they are open to the world. With this in mind, my personal impression was that the openness of Tumblr set it apart from social media, and defined it as a blogging site. The very fact that anyone can read this post is very blog-like, on first impressions.

But first impressions can be deceiving, and the layers of Tumblr are emerging as I explore the site. Tumblr has many elements that go far beyond usual blogging practices, including definitive social networking features such as instant messaging, commenting, ‘heart’-ing, re-blogging and hashtagging. These features allow users to form and participate in social networking, connecting to other users from around the world through Tumblr. For example, hashtags are used to connect our posts to others with a similar theme, thereby connecting users with similar interests— a clear indicator of the site’s function as a social networking platform.

Social media theorist Eugenia Siapera (2012) suggests that a distinctive feature of social networking sites is that the user picks and chooses the content that interests them personally, as well as how it appears. This principle is imbedded into Tumblr, with the Dashboard featuring content mainly from Follow-ed users, alongside other potentially interesting content that has been suggested (primarily) based on the user profile. Furthermore, Tumblr users can customise the way their own page appears to other users through themes, pages, Avatar and background pictures, and various types of posts.

The way in which Tumblr functions to group, connect and mediate communication between users with shared interests sets it apart from being ‘just a blog’, and defines it as a social media platform. I’m inclined to think that the practice of blogging on Tumblr has been able to develop so rapidly on the basis of many imbedded, familiar, social media features. The various opportunities for personalisation and instant communication that underpin the structure of Tumblr are everyday social media norms, almost invisible in their familiarity.

Siapera, E. (2012) ‘Socialities and Social Media’, in Introduction to New Media, pp 191-208.

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About me

I’m Tara, a media student just trying to break out of my filter bubble.