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Digital Divide and Digital Equity

Digital divide is a term used to describe the void between people who have access to technology and internet access and those who do not. Digital equity is a term defining equal access of technology to everyone. "Digital Equity ensures all individuals and communities have the information technology capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy, and economy. Digital Equity is necessary for civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services" (The National Digital Inclusion Alliance, 2016). These two concepts are related, because they both incorporate the use of technology for people to be able to learn online. While digital divide details how poor people may not be able to have access to educational resources using technology, digital equity makes sure to include that people need and should be given technology resources in order for them to communicate, learn, and grow. 

“There is growing concern that people without access to the Internet are unable to participate meaningfully in the economic, social, and political life that is increasingly being lived on the Internet and through the communication and creation capacities that it affords.” (Pazurek & Feyissa, 2015). There are a lot of useful and educational information that can be found online. For example, news about what’s happening in our government is displayed on technology every single day. To not be able to have access to these important information is a concern, because we wouldn’t be able to understand important events not just happening in our country but also around the globe. 

It may not seem like a huge deal to some people, but when there are actual people who definitely cannot have access to technology, this limits their growth and opportunities. Team ISTE states, “That can be a heavy lift when you consider all the types of students on the playing field – those from low-income districts or rural communities, kids with physical or learning challenges, and girls or minority students who are not getting the same opportunities and support that would set them up for careers in tech fields.” (Team ISTE, 2018). This is a problem, because these individuals who cannot access the web to learn could possibly be the future doctors, lawyers, and teachers of this nation.

According to a research done to see how students have access to internet at school, about only half of teachers said that their students have access to the web. “Fifty-four percent of all teachers said their students had adequate internet access at school, but only 18% said their students had adequate access at home.” (Liz Soltan, 2019). Again, this is a problem, because nowadays, society is continuously progressing. We are advancing into an era where social media and the internet is needed in order to properly and accurately do homework and learn more whether that is academically or socially. For example, the other day I received an email from the university stating that there was a suspenseful man roaming around Keller Hall and to watch out for him. If I hadn’t had access to the internet, I would’ve never been able to see this. Therefore, I would’ve never known that there was a suspicious man on campus, and I could’ve gone to Keller Hall not knowing this. Here are two links to articles talking more about digital divide and equity for you guys to learn about! 

http://digitalequityforlearning.org/ 

http://www.digitalresponsibility.org/

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Social Media & Participatory Culture

The theory of Participatory Culture is a concept by Henry Jenkins that describes contemporary cultures where we do not only consume media content but we also create and distribute it. Jenkins states that “young people do things in the world that matter, they can take responsibility and change the world around them, young people are active social agents, and they need space to pursue those interests.” (Jenkins, 2010). This theory is related to social media, because millions of young people use social media as their outlets to not only express their emotions but to also practice their creative artwork. Like Jenkins stated, young people have creative minds. Therefore, they need some sort of platforms to let it out, and social media is allowing more and more young people to let their creative energy out. Young influencers who create content on social media are even being offered real jobs because of this. 

An example of this is Bretman Rock, who is a 19-year-old influencer or content creator on social media. He is famous for his hilarious and happy-go-lucky personality. He started his career on social media by simply uploading a couple videos of him dancing and applying makeup on himself. Due to his interesting personality and his cosmetic skills in his videos, he rose to fame rather quickly. Popular makeup and clothing brands continuously reach out to collaborate with Bretman all the time. These brands includes ones such as Nike, Morphe, Mac, BH Cosmetics, Colourpop Cosmetics, etc. Just recently Bretman was in a Nike commercial, and he just posted two days ago that he’s flying to Los Angeles for an acting gig. Bretman Rock has a total of 11.6 million followers on Instagram and a total of 5 million subscribers on YouTube. 

This helps to explain the Participatory Culture theory, because Bretman Rock is a consumer who takes in media content all the time but also creates it as well. My own participation in social media is similar to this as well. What inspires and motivates me to engage with others in social networks are influencers like Bretman Rock and celebrities. I get inspired when I see things that I find appealing or attractive such as the cosmetics that influencers share or the entertaining content that celebrities post. These inspirations also led me to create a YouTube channel where I review cosmetics or skincare products. 

The main social network that I am usually on is Instagram. On Instagram, I feel like it’s a sense of sharing your life through photos only which is interesting to me. There’s also an appealing kind of aesthetic to it as well. For example, I would capture photos in a certain kind of light so that all my photos I share would look alike and bright on my page. Of course, this was also inspired by others’ Instagram pages that I’ve seen as well. It’s interesting because young people get quite inspired by merely taking photos and sharing them on social media that there are even videos online of “how to look like an instagram model”. Summer Mckeen details her tips and tricks in this video.

References:

Jenkins, Henry, et al. "Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning." Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2009).

Jaakonmäki, Roope, Oliver Müller, and Jan vom Brocke. "The impact of content, context, and creator on user engagement in social media marketing." Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii international conference on system sciences. 2017.

Jenkins, Henry. "Rethinking ‘rethinking convergence/culture’." Cultural Studies 28.2 (2014): 267-297. APA

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Blog Post #1

The research from Pew Internet and Common Sense Media reveals that teens and young adults turn to social media to communicate with friends and family nowadays. In Pew Internet’s post of “Social Media Use In 2018″, authors Aaron Smith and Monica Anderson points out that the majority of Americans are users of Facebook and YouTube, but a lot of teens and young adults use Snapchat and Instagram more. In this post, the authors claim that a lot of social media users claim that it would be easy for them to give up social media completely, but I think otherwise. In Common Sense Media’s post regarding “Social Media, Social Life: Teens Reveal Their Experiences (2018)”, teens claims that social media helps strengthen their relationships with peers but can keep them away from person-to-person connections, and I agree so as well. I believe it’s actually up to the person to balance their social lives out. 

Some positive things that the teens and young adults think about social media is that they believe social media helps to keep their relationships with friends and family strong. It’s not likely that we can always have time to hangout with those we care about, so catching up with them through social media is always ideal. Something I personally like the most about social media is that it allows you to meet new people. For example, I’ve heard of several storied from friends who have studied abroad that used social media to learn a new language. They usually use apps to do this and then become language partners with the people in those foreign countries. Obviously, there are negative things such as being too trusting is never good. Therefore, you always should be careful when you’re on social media as well, because there are many scary stories regarding strangers on the internet. That leads to the negative thing that stood out to me from reading the article. Only 3% of users trust in putting their personal information onto their social media apps and websites. 

Something I found interesting was the fact that YouTube scored highest in being the most used among all the other social media platforms. I thought this was interesting, because I always thought Facebook was most used. It also shocked me learning that Twitter actually placed second to last on the list. My reason to this is because I feel like I usually hear about Twitter the most when I’m surfing on the web. For example, Donald Trump’s tweets are usually mentioned a lot on YouTube and on Google. 

Reading these articles, I’ve learned that social media is evolving quite rapidly. I’ve also learned that more and more teens and young kids are getting the hang of using social media now which is something I never knew about until I was 11 years old. These news are actually things that I’ve felt like has happened for some time, but these articles confirmed that speculation. I think social media is impacting our experiences by not only changing the way we communicate, but it is also impacting the way the world is evolving and changing. I feel like social media is such a big part of humans’ lives nowadays, because even those who claim to not like social media have to had used it before.