exploringdigitalcommunities-blog

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

Didn’t realise the “blocking” of apps was so instantaneous. That’s frightening!! What an amazing thing that travellers are advised to pre-prepare themselves for this app detox and sort out emails beforehand etc. Crazy

This is a great video explaining why the social networks we use every day is blocked in China. 

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

Weibo, China’s MySpace for today, has a similar look to the old style versions of Facebook...

https://thenextweb.com/asia/2012/10/19/sina-weibo-begins-rolling-out-attractive-redesign-with-selective-sharing-feature/

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

Global social media practice: case study china…

China’s in the midst of a “social-media boom”, “leading the way” in the “explosion” of digital communication across our world. McKinsey reports in their 2012 survey of people living in Chinese cities that 95 percent of them are “registered on a social-media site” and 91 percent had “visited” a social media site in the six months previous (Chiu, et al. p1).

China’s social media is “very similar” to what we can see and engage with “throughout the rest of the world” but their apps or platforms are “slightly different” (GO-Globe p1), considering the sites Google and its babies – YouTube and Gmail, Twitter and Facebook all have access blocks turned on. On their side of this wall, WeChat is China’s answer to WhatsApp, Weibo and Qzone are blogging sites… QQ is China’s answer to messenger and Renren, formerly named “Xiaonei, which meant ‘On Campus’”, is much like facebook in its infancy (Renren p1).

According to the Australian Business Insider, Qzone is the third most popular social media site in the whole world with 712 million users in total (Ballve p1). “Media conglomerate” Tencent Holdings owns Qzone which is “similar to myspace” where users can make “web pages for posting updates…” (Chiu, et al. p3). Considering, outside of china, we can download their apps (when they can’t download our western apps), then in a way they are closing a gap in the market for those still lamenting the loss of MySpace in the rest of the world. I know people that have a sense of nostalgia for their first experience with a social media platform – MySpace – and they would love to experience something similar again. This could be a close substitute.

Microblog, Weibo has attempted to “empower…citizens to challenge state authority in China” but the technology has failed to engage the users in politically charged blogging. The Chinese government has used the internet for its own advantage, monitoring all social media for security, but there have been “no major social or political controvers[ies]” (Wang p29). How much that differs to our digital society where political parties promote themselves on social media with instant feedback from the public’s comments, people support causes by sharing posts and applying profile frames, the list goes on… Arguably, you could say China’s population’s rejection of the opportunity of political blogging was a waste of resources when their views could have been heard in a democratic forum. There are nearly 1.4 billion people in the country, it can’t be easy for citizens to air their grievances and be heard easily. Weibo’s political opportunity for discussions seems like this could have given the people with opinions normally hidden under the billions, a voice. However, sometimes the open slather of social media publication, as we know in the western world, can be misused as we see with our society’s trolling. There will always be someone who uses something wrong if you give them the opportunity. So I guess, with political publications on social media whether that be in China or here, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

In our western world and the rest of Asia, fresh news off the press yesterday revealed that “Facebook still [didn’t] know what user data Cambridge Analytica actually had” (Wagner, et al. p1). The bright side I see with china’s population cut off from the rest of the billion facebook users worldwide is that they haven’t had to worry if their data was caught up in this scandal that “collected the personal data of as many as 87 million Facebook users” internationally (Wagner, et al. p1). This data scare was next level in comparison to China’s laws where the government can monitor all action of the major social media. Yes, they can see what’s going on, but the data, unlike Cambridge Analytica’s antics, is not stolen from the sites.

References…

·       GO-Globe, Social media in China, now and the future, Blog, GO-Globe, https://www.go-globe.com/blog/social-media-china-now-and-future/

·       Renren, China's leading Real Name Social Networking Platform, Renen Inc, http://www.renren-inc.com/en/product/

·       Chiu C, Lin D, Silverman A, 2012, China’s social-media boom, McKinsey & Company.

·       Wagner K and Schleifer T, 2018, Facebook still doesn’t know what user data Cambridge Analytica actually had, Recode, https://www.recode.net/2018/5/29/17384806/facebook-coo-sheryl-sandberg-cto-mike-schroepfer-code-conference-trump-cambridge-analytica

·       Ballve M, 2013, Our List Of The World's Largest Social Networks Shows How Video, Messages, And China Are Taking Over The Social Web, The Insider, Business Insider Australia.

·       Wang W, 2015, REMAKING GUANGZHOU: GEO-IDENTITY AND PLACE-MAKING ON SINA WEIBO, Queensland University of Technology, Media International Australia.

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

“I didn’t know much more about this firewall than the fact that you can’t access Facebook from within China and from the outside, I thought China’s firewall was a political move to isolate their people and control their views of the Government”

From @celiessocialworld...

This was also my ignorant view of the situation...

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

Social gaming: playing the crowd…

Online social gamers are a growing community of people and a “small subgroup” of those “video gamers [are]seemingly ‘addicted’”. But “although video game addiction”, which is not a “new phenomenon”, is increasing amongst adolescents and young adults, I am not one of these addicted gamers. I’ve been playing app games since about 2010 with my second iPod, but more recently have engaged in the “current generation of games” with an “online component” and optional opportunities to chat (Van Rooij, et al. p1).

I am an occasional participant in a few mobile phone based online games that have social components. 8 Ball Pool is one of those (you can also play via facebook) with a function where you can chat from a series of pre-prepared phrases with your opponent whether they be a friend or stranger. It’s not a function that I utilise.

Often this feature can be uncomfortable as there are sometimes people who will incessantly message, always men, wanting a reply back. As someone who isn’t interested, I always have ignored that and luckily I’ve never had to involve myself in any “resolution of disputes” in this said “online environment”. It does make me wonder, how “complex” the “social norms of [the app’s] community” are and whether this is a common experience (Suzor, et al. p1)…

I believe this social chat feature is unnecessary. It is, firstly, partly distracting whilst trying to take a shot with your cue. Secondly, you can only choose the pre-prepared phrases so you could never ever make further contact and exchange details with the stranger/opponent – pretty pointless. Thirdly, the lack of limit on the amount of messages that can be posted is annoying and some of the choices involving love and attraction you can choose are inappropriate, especially when children can play this game for free on their ipads etc.

But, bringing up policing in yet another blog, “online multiplayer games are exemplary cases” where there’s “overlapping rule sets”. Guidelines “negotiated” in this “digital era” are not publicised; it’s a “lawless frontier”, or has the façade of one (Zwart, et al. p1). I ask as a player of 8 Ball Pool who has no idea of the community standards or how to find them, how would anyone know where to report players that they felt were violating rules when the laws of the game are not made obvious within the app?

References…

·       App Store, 8 Ball Pool TM, App Store Preview, Apple, https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/8-ball-pool/id543186831?mt=8

·       Suzor N and Woodford D, 2013, Evaluating Consent and Legitimacy amongst Shifting Community Norms: an EVE Online Case Study, Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, vol 6, Queensland University of Technology, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation.

·       Zwart M and Humphreys S, 2014, The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online, Cultural Studies Review, Vol 20.

·       Van Rooij A, Schoenmakers T, Vermulst A, van den Eijnden R and van de Mheen D, 2010, Online video game addiction: identification of addicted adolescent gamers, Addiction Research Report, Society for the Study of Addiction, IVO Addiction Research Institute, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

A ripper cartoon reblogged from @digi-tal-communities There’s a fine line between google searching genuine advice from professionals wanting to make information more accessible to people who cant afford going to the doctor and listening to unqualified wellness bloggers.

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

Public Health Campaigns and Communities...

There’s a fine line on the internet between clever, educated people sharing helpful health advice and people who are passionate but have no qualifications at all. Health and wellness on the internet is a MINDFIELD and only made worse with social media…

Pew Research released 16 percent of people seeking health advice online tried to find people with issues in common and 26 percent found and consumed the accounts of others. These reviews or blogs of personal experiences are stretching beyond traditional chat room forums.

As Kathy Farrell spoke about in our lecture, since health professions realised the “potentials for public engagement with health and wellbeing issues via social media” (Burgess, et al. p2) it has become “characterised by ‘Wellness’”, an umbrella term for “fitness, happiness, success, achievements, milestones, healthiness” etc… There’s an undeniable link between wellness and Instagram especially as it’s a visual platform that aligns well with body image. This flows into seeing the bodies of athletes, social media influencers and being marketed health foods by people with perfect teeth… or me. I work for a heath food brand and run their social media marketing. Our circle of people we follow and that follow us are very ‘beautiful’ people; people that promote wellness with healthy eating and exercise, especially yoga. Often these people really love what they do but they are unqualified and that’s undeniably problematic.

At one point or another, we’ve all consulted Dr Google but there’s another MD in town; Dr Insta… It’s a clever “new dimension to health care” to use Instagram; a fresh, contemporary, vibrant, attractive “medium to be used by the public…and health professionals”. With Instagram, it’s very easy to “communicate about health issues” and sure, there’s a “possibility of potentially improving health outcomes” if used by qualified, ‘blue ticked’ health professionals… but guess what??? Following the last few blogs’ themes, people are misusing Instagram for health and wellness purposes. Who would have thought? #misuse (Moorhead, et al p1)

Googling ‘instagram health advice’ brings up the attached account as the first result. This is “digital media exploiting the resources of patients themselves” in action (Hejlesen et al. p1). Rafael is simply a fitness keen, vegan man claiming to have "health” advice. How dangerous is that from someone who’s not a doctor, nor a dietitian??? But take a look at his following, too. 25 and a half THOUSAND people hanging off every word of his “tips”. Fake news alert! That’s a lot of gullible people in the insta wellness bubble, we’ve got a problem.

References…

·       Pew Research, 2012, Peer to Peer Healthcare, CHCF Health Survey, Pew Research Center.

·       Rafael, 2018, plantsforfit, Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/plantsforfit/?hl=en

·       Moorhead A, Hazlett D, Harrison L, Carroll J, Irwin A and Hoving C, 2013, A New Dimension of Health Care: Systematic Review of the Uses, Benefits, and Limitations of Social Media for Health Communication, Journal of Medical Internet Research, JMIR Publications.

·       Burgess J, Cassidy E, Light B, 2013, DEEPLY SUPERFICIAL DIGITAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT? THE CASE OF TWITTER AND MOVEMBER 2013, Selected Papers of Internet Research, AOIR

·       Hejlesen O, Plougmann S, Ege B, Larsen O, Bek T and Cavan D, 2001, Using the internet in patient-centred diabetes care for communication, education, and decision support, Studies in health technology and informatics.

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

http://go.globe.com.ph/articles/gadgets-and-games/2018/january/facebook-turns-14-this-year-here-are-all-the-times-it-killed-the-social-media-game.html

Facebook in action in times of crises...

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

More like how much curiosity and research do I need to identify whether something is a nugget of fake news or not??????? 

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

“ However, you also get those people on Facebook that use this tool, marking themselves safe from a crisis they are nowhere near, as a form of a joke. This always disgusts me; I mean, there actually are people dying and getting injured in these kinds of situations, and I think marking yourself safe despite having no relation to the incident is purely insensitive, and therefore this is one fault of these emergency features.”

A quote and image shared from @viadigitalcommunication about crowd sourcing. One I love, great minds think alike because I had something very similar to say during this discussion. 

The crisis response features have the potential, but while there are misusers in this world, they’re flawed.

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

Crowd sourcing in times of crisis...

Social media capabilities are growing and evolving where they’re becoming not just about showing one another who you are and what you’re doing but painting a broader picture of what’s going on and affecting the broader community. An impressive way people are using digital communities to help their causes is crowd sourcing; a “practice employed by many types of organisations that makes use of the internet to harness the time, energy, and talents of individuals who are” or are not necessarily directly connected (Shepherd p1).

It’s a digital practice of “moving jobs abroad to reduce labour costs”, which means, people, groups, companies outsource to digital citizens that are on the ground and have connected to their network. Then they can share information freely and democratically to anyone and everyone via social media. It’s a “new way for organizations” desperately needing to share news and keep people up to date to “harness” this “cheap labour” from their followers and spread a message. Hashtagging, @ tagging and sharing digitally one person, name, handle at a time to another in their network of friends, colleagues, collaborators can get a word out in a flash, straight to people’s mobile phone applications (Shepherd p10).

Sometimes these messages have a real sense of urgency and are an important part of emergency operations in times of natural disaster or environmental crises. For this reason, having studied the successes of The Queensland Police’s employment of twitter and its hashtags, I’ve got an admiration for crowdsourcing… to an extent!

In 2012 the ARC Centre “highlighted the important and rapidly emerging role of social media in emergency communications”. Dynamic and monumental use of hashtags and handles at the time of the 2011 disatrous Queensland floods - like #qldfloods and @QPSMedia – evidently had been a crucial part of the emergency operation to keep people safe and spread the word. “Crisis Communication on Twitter…[in] South East Queensland” had the Queensland Police Media Twitter trending. It “was the most visible presence in the ‘flood’ of information emanating” on the social network (Bruns A, Burgess J, Crawford K and Shaw 2012 p7).

So we know crowdsourcing can be great, but I’m so sceptical. Within the last year there have been natural disasters and emergencies across the world publicised on social media, specifically facebook, as they happen in real time. The south west Victorian fires in March are one example. I have friends that live in those areas and narrowly escaped being trapped in by fire as crews worked to keep it away from their homes.

This emergency was promoted on facebook, part of their new crowdsourcing technique for people within these effected groups or areas to mark themselves as safe. They call it “Crisis Response” (facebook p1). This would seem an effective away for people to touch base with their network and say they’re safe from the disaster and some of my friends did, helping me rest easy knowing they were fine. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have known.

But, I have also seen instances of those “safe” numbers climb higher than the number of people actually involved in the emergency because facebook users think it’s funny to mark themselves fine for the purposes of a meme. It’s all well and good when fortunate enough to be sitting in the comfort of your own home with not a care in the world but that’s rubbing it in hideously. It’s salt in the wounds for those waiting – whether it’s a local or international disaster - to hear if their loved one/s is/are safe and it’s very problematic.

Once again in one more blog, the notion of policing arises… The tech’s not going away. Although it’s flawed, it can work, but misuse is rife because of what’s considered ‘funny’ online. So how do we make sure “crisis response” gets used for the right reasons? Because social media crowdsourcing could make or break an event in the future. You never know when someone could become the boy who cried wolf, or “safe”; it’s dangerous.

References…

·       Shepherd H, 2018, Contexts: Crowdsourcing, Sage Pub Journals, p1, http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1177/1536504212446453

·       Shepherd H, 2012, Crowdsourcing, Jargon: Key Concepts in Social Research, Contexts, Vol. 11, No. 2, American Sociological Association, p10.

·       Bruns A, Burgess J, Crawford K and Shaw F, 2012, #qldfloods and @QPSMedia: Crisis Communication on Twitter in the 2011 South East Queensland Floods, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, Brisbane.

·       Facebook, 2018, Crisis Response, About, Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/about/crisisresponse/

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

“media misuse”

I like this term used by @lucyscottdigitaldiary​...

It doesn’t matter in this world what item we have in our hand, what resource we have access to, there is always someone who will use that for the opposite purpose of what was intended; people love to misuse. Everyone can be a publisher anytime and anywhere now, so unfortunately we have the pleasure (sigh) to witness misuse of technology everyday with this culture of trolls.

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

Trolling and Social Media Conflict...

When we walk down the street, we see people that have made decisions that day. One being what they’re wearing. Like uploading a post to facebook, twitter, Instagram etc, they have curated their outfit; chosen what to wear on that day for others to see and put themselves out there. Imagine if everyone thought it was appropriate to comment or criticise on what strangers on the street had decided to wear? Well, that’s what people do online. They comment and criticise strangers for the image they have created for themselves digitally. This is cyberbullying under the broader banner of trolling.

Before week 7, I had never delved into the depths of what trolling is. Trolling as a term was coined on popular “image-based bulletin board” site 4chan in 2003 (4chan p1). It’s a site I had never heard of and was disgusted by when I unknowingly delved into researching the site. It’s full of content produced by trolls that is defamatory, explicit, graphic, offensive, the list goes on. 4chan believed that trolling was something people could choose actively to do but should be committed to following that through if they so desire. It was supposedly innocent when it first started. No one was planning to be overly provocative but to spark and encourage debate, but with the many and varied social media platforms popping up, and the list grows, it seems people are tempted to be spiders with a nasty leg in each platform’s camp, keen to start upsetting people.

I was shocked to discover in our digital world there aren’t just people who we can see are, individually, trolls poking the bear, but there is this awful culture of trolls that bounce off one another and promote the disgusting treatment of other people with an online presence. It’s not just about saying horrible things about people to other people. This culture is, as McCosker puts, a “place of provocation” (McCosker p2) where people can push the boundaries without being digitally policed, sometimes in the process

Anyone active on social media forums; pages, groups, the marketplace, messenger (if we hone in on facebook) can be victims to a trolling attack. The Fibre Culture Journal talks about “the Internet’s folk wisdom for trolls” which is not to feed them or give them anything to hit back at, but that’s not what fuels many of these awful people. The “remedy” or advice to ignore them “rests on a belief that acknowledgement and interaction” is the thing trolls live for, but this culture as it continues to spiral just encourages throwing flames at unsuspecting people for kicks whether the collective “internet” feeds them or not (Wilson, Fuller and McCrea p1).

The results of this, as we’re hearing and reading in the news are the deaths of young people; “highly publicized…cases of teen suicide” they are “seemingly driven by peer cruelty” (Boyd p130). The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that there were 3,027 suicides in Australia in 2015 and on average there’s approximately 65,300 attempts every year. The phenomenon of youth suicide is larger than ever and funnily enough, corresponds with the first generation of impressionable adolescents growing up with social media, desperately wanting facebook before the legal age of 13 and then being confronted by cyber bullying in everyday life whether they’re the troll and bully, they’re the victim or bystander. No coincidence these statistics are increasing.

How destructive troll culture is. How far do things have to go for people to stop hurting other people behind the mask of a screen? Seems things have gone to the end of the spectrum too many times with no change at all. Are we too far gone? Devastating.

·       References…

o   Know Your Meme, 2014, Trolling - Forgive me father, for I have trolled, Know Your Meme, http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/726997-trolling

o   Wilson J, Fuller G and McCrea C, 2013, Troll Theory?, Fibre Culture Journal, issue 22, Open Humanities Press, England.

o   McCosker A, 2013, Trolling as Provocation: Youtube’s agnostic publics, Convergence, Sage Publications, UK.

o   Boyd, D, 2014, ‘Bullying: Is the Media Amplifying Meanness and Cruelty?’, in It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens.

o   4Chan, 2018, What is 4Chan?, 4chan.org, United States.

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/meme/images/35630703/title/trolling-back-day-photo

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

Thanks @celiessocialworld for sharing. People love to talk about people and our catching up for gossip over coffee has been replaced by cyber bullying behind backs online. Once it’s out, it’s out forever online.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWBvXRVMPDU)

ANTI-BULLYING CAMPAIGN 

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

Activism and Protest...

I grapple with the idea of social media activism where I can be digitally “policing practices” without the shield of anonymity. I feel you need to be a person that has the confidence to publicly stand up for your cause if you want to get involved. You also need to have trust in yourself and your competence to be articulate and put your passion for what you care about on the line. Under the banner of “large-scale, revenue-seeking social media enterprises” that rely on and predict trends, it’s a minefield of genuine passion and propaganda. I joined facebook in 2010 as a fun means of being up to date with my mates but now it’s used “to serve the political goals of reformers, revolutionaries, and authoritarian regimes” beyond keeping up with the Joneses (Youmans and York p1).

I think with social media increasingly accessible, I don’t know that our true opinions are accessible to others just as easily. We know that social media is a place of open slather for others to attack one another. I also know I’ve found myself wanting to share and add comment to a cause but I’ve left it in case there was backlash or people I know and like disagreed strongly with what I had to say. I think I value “cultural capital” and my “digitally curated self” over standing up for something in this climate. It really does “drastically alter how we conceive of ourselves” in an internet world that’s always on and hard to escape (Mazie p1). Sometimes I think it’s better for me to avoid drama rather than push my own agenda but I can’t help but think I and so many others must be silencing some causes in the ‘democracy’ that is social media because we want to be liked.

Alternatively, we can be guilted into social media activism where, in theory, “like-minded activists…meet” within the “reach of communications” online (SIgal and Biddle p1). Facebook is rife with it and likes to encourage us to associate our faces with a cause, so much so, there’s “access to anyone to create their own custom…frame” (Weedn p1). We only need to scroll our friends lists to see profile picture “frames” scattered through. Often in times of natural disaster or social crises, facebook will develop and ask users if they want to show their support by changing their profile picture to one with a digital sticker on it. This essentially means that you can show your support for this cause even if you physically take no action. When it starts to trend and it seems everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, sometimes we can be alternatively guilted into taking action. I know I have changed my photo in the past so that people didn’t think I am cold hearted because I haven’t put a sticker on my personal facebook branding. How did we get to a point where our brains, the world’s most amazing super computers, are feeling peer pressure at the hands of an algorithm?

 References…

·       Youmans W and York J, 2012, Social Media and the Activist Toolkit: User Agreements, Corporate Interests, and the Information Infrastructure of Modern Social Movements, Journal of Communication, International Communication Association.

·       Biddle E and Sigal I, 2015, Our Enduring Confusion About the Power of Digital Tools in Protest, Activism and Technology, The Fibreculture Journal, Issue 26.

·       Mazie S, 2017, Three Big Problems with Social Media Activism, Your Daily Dose of Micro Genius, Big Think, Smarter Faster, http://bigthink.com/praxis/facebook-is-fraying-not-saving-the-world

·       Weedn T, 2018, Easy Steps to Create Free Facebook Profile Frame Overlay, Profile Overlays, http://www.profileoverlays.com/create-free-facebook-profile-frame-overlay/

[exploringdigitalcommunities-blog]

“Social network infiltration worldwide is increasing significantly, from 2.46 billion users in 2017, to an expected rise to 2.77 billion users in 2019, with this having a direct effect on the act of protest and activism, especially within the political landscape.”

A quote from @digital-discussions​ blog A steady increase of SM users as seen in the graph, but I’d be interested to see the drop in the 2018 growth following the Cambridge analytica scandal. I read quite a few people in my circles were deleting facebook and moving to twitter more so can only imagine the blown up scale worldwide.