michaelblogfordc

[michaelblogfordc]

Week 11 Global Social Media: China

Well well china, as one of the memer out there, just to see if anyone understand this: Pooh. No? nevermind :p

So what do we have in China regarding Social Media?

The so-called ‘Great Firewall of China’ that was instigated in 1998 and serves to limit the access that China has to the rest of the world over the Internet, is a constant reminder that doing business in China is a very different affair.

The much publicised withdrawal by Google from China in 2010 showed that even the search leviathan could not combat the Chinese Government’s desire to limit its citizens’ access to the services that the rest of the online world takes for granted. YouTube continues to be blocked to Chinese users, with Google searches redirected to their Hong Kong services – all of which can be turned off at any time by the Chinese Government.

China banned most of the social media from overseas and why does it happen?

The main reason will be: The 'Great Firewall' in China prevents internet users from viewing or positing socially or politically sensitive content.

But China homegrown social media are useable for users from other country just to follow up some news that they are interested and only published within China. For examples, TikTok, WeChat, Weibo and etc. 

Here, some memes to laugh at and one of them answers what I’ve mentioned earlier

[michaelblogfordc]

Week 10 Social Gaming

Nicuuhhhh, the topic I’m really good at, and sometimes maybe not really good at. I mean about gaming and not researching :p 

What is Social gaming?

Social gaming often refers to online games that allow for social interaction between players (Clement 2021). Social interactions such as word typing, in-game comms, pre-set quick interactions are now commonly found and build-in games. These features did help a lot on the gamers regarding their communication during their play time. But sometimes, social interaction does not limit to happen inside the game. Gamers are now commonly active in all kinds of social media and discuss among their interest.

What does gaming link to social media?

You know games require a lots of information. Heh, you know right. Information about how to clear a stage, where to find hidden Easter eggs, or even just to share about their trophies regarding certain games. Gamers are needed to communicate and share the infomations among each other. And there is where social media will be helping. There are a lots of ways for them to reach out to each other for example, Facebook groups, Discord channel, YouTube channel or even Tumblr.

Facebook Groups (Sea of Thieves)

YouTube channel (League of Legends)

References

Clement, J 2021, Social gaming – Statistics & Facts, Statista, viewed on 29 May 2021, < https://www.statista.com/topics/2965/social-gaming/#dossierSummary >

[michaelblogfordc]

Week 9 Fandom

Ah ha fandom. I don’t understand why are people hating Kpop fandom tho (although I’m not one of it hehe) , but sure they are fans to some others but not kpop. Peace and love to all kinds of yall.

So fandom

A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant portion of their time and energy involved with their interest, often as a part of a social network with particular practices, differentiating fandom-affiliated people from those with only a casual interest.

A fandom can grow around any area of human interest or activity. The subject of fan interest can be narrowly defined, focused on something like an individual celebrity, or encompassing entire hobbies, genres or fashions. While it is now used to apply to groups of people fascinated with any subject, the term has its roots in those with an enthusiastic appreciation for sports.

Now we know, it doesn’t specify to fandom and to those people who are fans to something else but have hated towards kpop, read more books hahaha. 

Fandom in social media

Thanks to social media, fandom can grow rapidly regarding followers as people who hope to see more stuffs regarding their interest will search for it, follows up with a subscribe or follow. 

For example, one of the group I’ve join as I share a same interest in a game with others. It could be counted as one of the fandom.

As you might be not able to see but there are 37.7K people in the group sharing the same interest and discussing non-stop every minute. These are the fans to the game. Not the fan we saw in the supermarket ah. 

Besides that, fun facts. Do you know there are specific names for kpop fandom? I bet some of you don’t. For more information you can go read it yourself, I’m kinda lazy to paste it all here :p

Here’s the link, https://www.koreaboo.com/lists/meanings-behind-25-kpop-fandom-names/

[michaelblogfordc]

Week 8 Crowdsourcing & crowdfunding

Week 8 guys, lets go into crowdsourcing and crowdfunding

What is crowdsourcing? It is a participation of a group of people that shares a common interest or goal. Through the internet, a group of people could mean the involvement of thousands of people contributing at the same time either for a project or business in form of ideas, innovation and more.

What is crowdfunding? It is an activity of seeking fund from people via online to help fund a certain project or a potential idea (Goodrich 2013). Examples of well known crowdfunding platforms would be Kickstarter, GoFundMe, Patreon and more that raises money from the public.

What does it do with social media?

People nowadays could easily achieve both actions via social media. It is very hard for people to understand others interest or try to find some fund for his/ her business. With social media nowadays its easy as ABC. 

Examples please. 

It might be a troll haha but it is publicly open at that time and people are joining in just because they share the same joke or they found it funny. 

References

Goodrich, R 2013, ‘What is crowdsourcing?’, Business News Daily, viewed 29 May 2021, <https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4025-what-is-crowdsourcing.html>.

[michaelblogfordc]

Week 7 Public Health Campaigns & Communities

Straight to the point as I have no more stuff to start with ahahhah

What is Public Health?

Public health promotes and protects the health of people and the communities where they live, learn, work and play. (APHA)

While a doctor treats people who are sick, those of us working in public health try to prevent people from getting sick or injured in the first place. We also promote wellness by encouraging healthy behaviors.

From conducting scientific research to educating about health, people in the field of public health work to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy. That can mean vaccinating children and adults to prevent the spread of disease. Or educating people about the risks of alcohol and tobacco. Public health sets safety standards to protect workers and develops school nutrition programs to ensure kids have access to healthy food.

I don’t have any examples for it but.....

There is one, the Ice Bucket Challenge!

The Ice Bucket Challenge, sometimes called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, was an activity involving the pouring of a bucket of ice water over a person's head, either by another person or self-administered, to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as motor neuron disease and in the United States as Lou Gehrig's disease). 

The challenge encourages nominated participants to be filmed having a bucket of ice water poured on their heads and then nominating others to do the same. A common stipulation is that nominated participants have 24 hours to comply or forfeit by way of a charitable financial donation.

There are tons of celebrities tagging each their friend to do the challenge after they have done it. It creates massive flow between all the social medias and it is a big hit back then. 

Look who we have, Bill Gates

Tom Hiddleston

Kim Kardashian

My thoughts? As to know social media is a great place for people to share their thoughts. Same goes to celebrities. It feels great to have them using their influence to promote public health and meanwhile it is fun looking at it. Me doing it? Nah its cold :/

References

APHA, What is Public Health, viewed on 29 May 2021, <https://www.apha.org/what-is-public-health>

[michaelblogfordc]

Week 6 Activism & protest

I am not very into this topic tbh but I always getting this kind of information without me trying to search it everytime. From Blacklifematters to Stopaisanhate. Social media are flooded with these kinds of news when the matter is pushed on top of the hill and getting tons of attention. 

Let’s look into more about Stop Asian Hate

Ever since it came to light that the COVID-19 virus originated in Wuhan, China, incidents of hate against Asians in America have been steadily on the rise. According to a study by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, there has been an increase of 150 percent in hate crimes against Asians in the US in 2020 - more than double of 2019. These include attacks on people of Asian origin as well as the businesses run by them. The study found that two of the cities, where Asians have been targeted the most are Los Angeles and New York.

Hashtag #StopAsianHate has always being seen in social media nowadays especially in Tik Tok. There is one user which is a Washington mother posted teaching her children viral lesson on the StopAsianHate movement has more than 1 million views and counting. Jane Park is a Seattle resident and mom to two children living in American as Korean American. In tik tok Park recorded a video in the clip showing to her children the words, “Stop” “Asian” and “Hate”.

There are a lots of celebrity trying so hard to use their influence to promote the protest. Some may say they are trying to maintain good personalities but from my POV, don’t be so conspiracy la. For example, Damian Lillard wearing a long sleeved shirts with Stop Asian Hates printed on his clothe is shown too in tiktok. Other than that, Manny Pacquiao which is Philippines boxing champion supporting on this movements too. He posted texts “Stop attacking Asians who can’t defend themselves, fight me instead”

[michaelblogfordc]

Week5 Digital Citizenship 1: Political Engagement

Ohhh no politics. Yikes. The area where I spend very minimum attention to. But it could be kind of interesting and funny (I think tho and some base on the memes). Why don’t we start, shall we?

Political behavior is traditionally defined as an “activity that has the intent or effect of influencing government action— either directly by affecting the making or implementation of public policy or indirectly by influencing the selection of people who make those policies” (Verba, Schlozman & Brady, 1995, p. 40).

It can be typically accepted that political behaviors can be scoped widely, which include everything from the nerve wrecking job of running for an elected office (Black 1972), to the relatively tedious act of voting (Wolfinger & Rosenstone 1980), and even to a mere shallow act of an online petition signing (Cruickshank, Smith & Eelmann 2010).  

The political behaviours such as commenting on others’ political postings on social media and indicating that you “like” them involve engagement and mobilization, but need very little resources as they do not cost money, they take very little time, and require almost no skills (EshetAlkalai & Chajut, 2009).

Examples of Politicians such as Donald Trump using twitter and get banned

Donald Trump posted a statement ahead of Memorial Day, lamenting higher gas prices and lauding his performance as president.

But despite what you might have seen on Instagram, the statement wasn’t made on Twitter, where Trump once had nearly 89 million followers.

On May 27, Trump posted a statement on DonaldJTrump.com noting the approach of Memorial Day, the recent rise in gasoline prices and "how great of a job Donald Trump did as President."

The full text of the statement appeared in the Instagram post, but it was formatted to make it appear as though it came from @realDonaldTrump, Trump’s former Twitter account. The Instagram poster wrote in his caption: "He’s back!!!"

Twitter announced Jan. 8 it had permanently suspended Trump’s account in connection with the attack on the U.S. Capitol two days earlier, saying: "After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence."

Citing two Trump tweets on Jan. 8, Twitter said: "We assessed the two Tweets referenced above under our Glorification of Violence policy, which aims to prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021."

A Twitter spokesperson confirmed May 28 that Trump's account remains permanently suspended. It appears the message used by the Instagram account came from an account called @realDonaldTrump on Gab.com, an alternative social networking site, that says it is an "uncensored Twitter archive and shares email statements sent by The Office of Donald J. Trump."

What do I think of it? Twitter’s users’ policy had always strives to protect their users. Although Twitter has the correct approach in protecting users, freedom of speech is limited as the other users cannot voice out their opinion on politics which may discourage users from engaging in any political matters in the past, present, as well as the coming years.

References

Black, GS 1972, ‘A theory of political ambition: Career choices and the role of structural incentives’, American Political Science Review, vol. 66, no. 1, pp. 144–159.

Cruickshank, P, Smith, CF & Edelmann, N 2010, ‘Signing an e-petition as a transition from lurking to participation’, Electronic Government and Electronic Participation, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Wolfinger, RE, & Rosenstone, SJ 1980, ‘Who votes?’ New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Verba, S, Schlozman, K, & Brady, H 1995, ‘Voice and equality’, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Eshet-Alkalai, Y, & Chajut, E 2009, ‘Changes over time in digital literacy’, Cyberpsychology & Behavior, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 713–715.

[michaelblogfordc]

Digital Communities Week 4 Is Tumblr a blog or social networking site(SNS)?

Hi everyone I’m Michael, you can call me mike as well. 

This blog is kinda late but anyway, let's begin. Is Tumblr a blog or social networking site(SNS)? Before I start any research on that, I would say its pretty much blogging to me as I know there is a thing call Tumblr about few years ago while I’m still in my foundation. Me and my classmates were on Tumblr for pictures mostly, we look into photography, anime fanarts and cute photos of cats and dogs.

Aight, get back to the topic. Lets go for what is a blog, the definition of it. According to Jamie 2021, a blog is an online dairy or journal located on a website. A blog's content doesn't only limits to text and pictures, nowadays there are alot of elements included in a blog for greater visual experience. Elements such as animated GIF, video, and links to other website are commonly found in blogs nowadays. 

There are several blogging patterns as different kind of blogs are made to meet their kind of needs. Types of Blogs. Personal blog, its a kind of blogging pattern that the content they share rely on the blogger him/herself. These blogs are mainly in a form of dairy or something personal that the blogger would like to share himself such as journal-like entries, their interests and hobbies. Niche blogs, a kind of blog that blogger would like to share something that relates to their profession or interest. It could range from anything to anything. Example of niche blogs are travel blogs, fashion blogs, food blogs, and et cetera. Company/ business blogs, this blogging patterns are mostly run by company as the main purpose is to attract target customer or provide updates to their existing customer. Affiliate blogs, a affiliate blog are aimed to help promote a third party product or service on his/her personal or niche blogs. There will be a link redirecting the readers to the business online store. When any traffic comes from the blog and makes a purchase, the blog owner will receive a commission.

Where are the blogs? Where can we find them?

 Blogs can be found normally in WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, LiveJournal and et cetera. Now we have some basic understanding about blog. What about social networking site? Lets continue, shall we?

What is social networking site(SNS)? A social networking site is an online platform that allows user to create a public profile. With a profile, user can build up connection with other users so that they can interact and share anything. Some SNS allows user to confirm connections and that brings more privacy and control to the people they wish to connect. Are there any different user style when it comes to different SNS? Of course they do. For example, people will tend to be more professional and formal on LinkedIn as it's one of the platform that allows potential employer to get to know you. You will wish to perform well and professionally right? Other examples such as Instagram or Facebook are mainly use for social. Sharing news, funny stuff or any updates among your family, friends or even colleagues. Other than that, we have WeChat, WhatsApp and Telegram. These are mainly for communication purpose as how they designed.

Conclusion

Now I would say that Tumblr is half blog and half SNS or you could say that a combination of both as Tumblr will serve a base of blog and meanwhile allows user to do connection, react and comment and even repost on their timeline. Is Tumblr a good place to blog and social? Yeah like why not? Bonus, this place is not as toxic as other social networking site hehe. Anyway, thanks for reading through!!! ありがとうございました!! Hope yall stay safe and well all the time.

References

Jessica, K 2021, How to Start a Blog - Beginner’s Guide for 2021, Bloggingbasis101, viewed on 04 April 2021, <https://www.bloggingbasics101.com/how-do-i-start-a-blog/>

Techopedia 2021, What is a Social Networking Site, viewed on 04 April 2021, <https://www.techopedia.com/definition/4956/social-networking-site-sns>

WDD staff 2011, A brief history of blogging, webdesignerdepot, viewed on 04 April 2021, <https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/03/a-brief-history-of-blogging/>

Ivy, W 2020, What is social media, Techtarget, viewed on 04 April 2021, <https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/social-media>

Maisha, R 2021, What is a Blog? An introduction to blogging, Hostinger tutorials, viewed on 04 April 2021, <https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/what-is-a-blog>

Jamie 2020, What is a Blog? - A guide to understanding the concept of Blogging, makeawebsitehub, viewed on 04 April 2021, <https://makeawebsitehub.com/what-is-a-blog/>