socailmediaandthecity

[socailmediaandthecity]

Is it time to stop questioning? (season: 6 episode: 18)

A fun little fact for my followers, each quote on every blog post, link and picture are real Sex and The City quotes! Don’t believe, look up the season and episode of every quote. The words that I have crossed out, are the original Carrie Bradshaw quote, and what was left in italics was my modern interpretation. 

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(Week 11)

No one should have to feel like this. The discussion around online trolls is extremely important to educate fellow digital citizens. It’s 2020, do people still think it’s cool to bully online? 

I wonder, When did digital communities it stop being fun and start being scary? (season: 6 episode: 8)

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(Week 11) Emotional trailer for Cyberbully the movie (2011), exposing the harms of online bullying and harassment.��

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Week 11: Digital Communities, Cyberbullying and Leaked Nudes

The final blog explores the problematic events of digital community exclusion, highlighting the importance of being a good digital citizen. Firstly, let's explore the complex concept of digital citizenship again. Digital citizenship can refer to many meanings, often equated with participation in the political process as voting, or referring to the engagement outside the formal election process (Milne 2020), an example fo this is online activism discussed in my previous blog post through the sustainable movement. More specifically, digital citizenship refers to user behaviours within social institutions like schools or on social media platforms, the last definitions align with the problematic views of digital communities due to the high increase of online harassment. 

Below is a list of online harassment definitions (Milne 2020); 

Being called offensive names / being embarrassed online

Being physically threatened online 

Being sexually harassed online / being hurt online by a romantic partner 

Being impersonated 

Spreading damaging rumours online 

Encouraging others to harass online / Attempting to hurt the victim in person after online harassment

The film Cyberbully (2011) illustrates the impacts online harassment can cause an individual. Cyberbully is about a teenage girl named Taylor, who falls victim to online bullying. After her mother gives her a computer for her birthday, Taylor is excited by the prospect of freedom and the independence of going online. However, Taylor finds herself victim to online bullying and thus the film demonstrates her family taking on the school system and state legislation to help prevent others from going through the same harrowing ordeal as her daughter. The film highlights the determination affects problematic digital community impacts, digital citizens. Individuals and families who have suffered from online harassment have some options to undertake to take action and prevention for the future, as shown in the film. These include; legal remedies, sex discrimination act, criminal code act and enhancing online safety for children. However, do these remedies cover public figures like celebrities when faced with online harassment?

Jennifer Lawrence's leaked nudes are an example of a gap in legislation from protecting public figures of online harassment damages. Jennifer's powerful interview with Vanity Fair speaks volumes about the legal remedies that need to change in order to cover public figures. Additionally, Jenifer explains in her interview how we can all be better digital citizens. Below is Jenifer's response to her online harassment: 

Jenifer Lawrence: “. . . I started to write an apology, but I don’t have anything to say I’m sorry for. I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. I was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you. I can’t even describe to anybody what it feels like to have my naked body shoot across the world like a news flash against my will. It just makes me feel like a piece of meat that’s being passed around for a profit. It is a sex crime. It is a sexual violation. It’s disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. That’s why these Web sites are responsible. Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it. It’s beyond me. I just can’t imagine being that detached from humanity. I can’t imagine being that thoughtless and careless and so empty inside. Anybody who looks at those pictures, you’re perpetuating a sexual offence. You should cower with shame. You have a choice. You don’t have to be a person who spreads negativity and lies for a living. You can do something good. You can be good. Let’s just make that choice and – it feels better. All I wanted to focus on now is speaking out and hopefully helping anyone who’s been violated in this kind of way . . . ” (Kashner 2014)

I wonder, Just how dangerous is a digital community an open heart? (season: 6 episode: 11)

References:

Kashner, S 2014, ‘Both Huntress and Prey’, VanityFair, 20 October, viewed 7 June, < https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/10/jennifer-lawrence-photo-hacking-privacy>. 

Milne, E 2020, ‘Week 11: Digital Communities and trolls: Understanding social media conflict', MDA20009 Digital Communities, Modules via Canvas, Swinburne University of Technology, 1 June, viewed 7 June 2020.

[socailmediaandthecity]

(Week 10)

After spending all night online gaming you’re definitely going to need a LARGE cup of coffee

[socailmediaandthecity]

(Week 10) Not only does the gaming culture have a gender imbalance, but if you’re older you are often left out of the gaming community. Here is a link to a 90 year old gamer for those who are interested in learning more about the ‘Gamer Grandma’!

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Week 10: Gaming Communities and Culture

Playing a game by definition is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles (Hardwick 2020). The history of games has evolved over the decades from arcade games, local multiplayer, online multiplayer, social media and mobile games and finally to online streaming platforms (Hardwick 2020). This blog post will explore specifically the gaming culture and more importantly, highlight the gender imbalance in the gaming community.

The typical gamer is generally considered to be white or east Asian, young, middle-class man. Therefore, a masculine-dominated gaming culture. Individuals who fall under the 'typical gamer' category are more welcomed into the community and are less likely to face online harassment. The masculine-dominated gaming culture is prevalent in the eSports professional gaming community. eSports is an enormous and lucrative industry, closely tied with online streaming platforms (Hardwick 2020). Over the last decade, the eSport phenomenon has grown in players and audience, generating $465 million in 2017 (Llorens 2017). Originally, eSport was a typical all-male professional gaming community, however, the first all-female team participated in 2014 (Marchall 2016). eSport released a trailer to introduced the female league of legends team, receiving enormous backlash from the gaming community (Marchall 2016). The trailer presented the females as tokens, treated the girls differently to male teams, with male audiences hating them just because of their gender. 

There is currently no evidence, concerning the possibility that the physical skills required to play online games are unevenly distributed between men and women, hence no real reason for the gender divide (Llorens 2017). Although teams can compose of both men and women, there is a strong gender imbalance in eSport (Llorens 2017). The prejudices and the continued harassment target at women gamers are widely known and well documented (Ruotsalainen 2018). Reinforcing, individuals who don't look like the stereotypical gamer are unwelcome in the gaming community.  While some notable women gamers have made it to the top of the sports in their chosen games, women's participation at the professional level of competitive gaming remains scarce (Ruotsalainen 2018).

I wonder, Is gaming community sex ever safe for females? (season: 3 episode: 11)

References:

Hardwick, T 2020, 'Week 10: Gaming Communities, Social Gaming and Live Streaming', MDA2009 Digital Communities, Learning materials via Canvas, Swinburne University of Technology, 23 May, viewed 1 June 2020. 

Marchall, C 2016, 'The Case For All-Women League of Legends Leagues', PcGamer, 15 June, viewed 1 June 2020, <https://www.pcgamer.com/au/the-case-for-all-women-league-of-legends-leagues/>.

Llorens, M.R 2017, 'eSport Gaming: The Rise of A New Sports Practice' Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 464 - 476. 

Ruotsalainen, M 2018, 'There Are No Women and They All Play Mercy": Understanding and Explaining (The Lack Of) Women's Presence in eSports and Competitive Gaming' PhD theses, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland. 

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(Week 9) It’s time for Carrie Bradshaw to re-evaluate her white privilege. I found this article to be extremely informative and very relevant to share in this movement for #BlackLivesMatter. Although my blog is centred around this character and show, I also want to present a modern Carrie Bradshaw, as an online activist, fighting for change with sustainability, sexualised labour and most importantly racism. 

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(Week 9) The Project Australia discussed the controversy around posting a black title and hashtagging #BlackOutTuesday, after the George Floyd video went viral around the world. The interview explores the concept ‘clicktivism’ and how some media scholars argue that this isn’t enough to combat racism. I highly recommend watching as the video really demonstrates how social media can benefit a campaign but how it can also hinder a campaign into a hashtag ‘tend.’ 

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Week 9: Digital Communities, Political Engagement and Activism

Combining our knowledge of digital communities, digital citizenship, hashtag publics and online activism, we can understand how these concepts impact campaigning. Campaign is defined as a project, of linked actions organised toward achieving a particular goal either political, social, business and marketing (Stickels 2020). With the increase of mobile devices, we can analyse the shift in digital campaigning and the power it has on the success of a campaign in the 21st century. For example, the power and agility to document, keep track of stories through hashtags and the ability to immediately go live. 

The first shift is the concept sousveillance, a term coined by Steve Mann, describing the opposites of the term surveillance (Stickels 2020). Sousveillance explores the relationship between the government watching its citizens and citizens watching the government or office of this government, such as politicians or members of the police force (Stickels 2020). Sousveillance empowers all individuals with the ability to be a journalist, giving citizens the ability to be highly critical. 

An example of this was the recent footage of George Floyd being murdered by American police officers in broad daylight (Hill et al. 2020). Multiple videos of the scene were distributed online from witnesses footage and security cameras street view (Hill et al. 2020). This is an example of sousveillance of citizens watching the police force of the government. This disturbing footage created an uproar and reinforced the movement #BlackLivesMatter. 

The second shift in digital campaigning is clicktivism, a concept with a range of views. Some media scholars argue it is a tactic or a strategy for politicians to employ where social media can help flip the numbers of a campaign (Stickels 2020). Whereas other scholars see clicktivism as a step towards activism, the first step for many people into the world of activism due to the ease and convenience of online-actions (Stickels 2020). Activism is broadly defined as a 'process by which groups of people exert pressure on organisations or other institutions to change policies, practices, or conditions the activist find problematic (Chon and Park 2020, p. 73). Ahern (2013) argues clicktivism is not enough, as we need to believe that we must be the change we want to see. Hence, the act of sharing the George Floyd video was powerful in relighting the change of racism, it is not enough to simply share the video and end racism. Similarly, it is not enough to hashtag #BlackLivesMatter and combat racism. Following the thought that clicktivism is a step in the right direction but there needs to be more to the campaign in order to create permanent change. 

I wonder, When will waiting for change the one… be done? (season: 6 episode: 12)

References:

Hill, E, Tiefenthaler, Triebert, C, Jordan, D, Willis, H & Stein, R 2020, '8 Minutes and 46 Seconds: How George Floyd Was Killed in Polic Custody, The New York Times, 31 May, viewed June 5 2020, <nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html>.

Ahern, C 2013, ‘Real Change Must Come From Within Ourselves, The Sligo Champion, 14 January, viewed 16 May 2020, <https://www.independent.ie/regionals/sligochampion/opinion/real-change-must-come-from-within-ourselves-28983806.html>. 

Chon, MG, Park, H 2020, 'Social Media Activism in the Digital Age: Testing an Integrative Model of Activism on Contentious Issues’, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, March 2020, vol. 97, no. 1, pp. 72-97

Stickels, L 2020, ‘Week 9. Digital activism and campaigning’, MDA20009 Digital communities, Learning materials via Canvas, Swinburne University of Technology, 16 May, viewed 13 May 2020.

[socailmediaandthecity]

Wow 100 followers!

So thankful for everyone who is reading my posts, enjoying my content and loving my Carrie Bradshaw aesthetic! I’ve got three more blog posts coming soon . . . 

I wonder, How do you know if you’re good at blogging in bed? (season: 2 episode: 16)

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(Week 8) Sexualised labour is a very complex concept. In this video, my friend Miranda Hobbes narrates the problematic arguments of pornification and porn-chic aesthetics on social media. Whereas the images demonstrate the empowering arguments for sexualised labour. 

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(Week 8)

I wonder, Twenty-something influencer girls: problematic . . . or empowering friend… or foe? (season:2 episode:17) 

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(Week 8)

Porn-chic aesthetic example 2/2: Martha’s Instagram influencer post / Minimal clothing / Sexual posing / pornification 

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(Week 8)

Porn-chic aesthetic example 1/2: Martha’s Instagram influencer post / Minimal clothing / Sexual posing / Using her body as a prop to sell a product - Glassons cardigan 

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Week 8: Instagram Influencers and Cosmetic Surgeries

In the digital context, it has been argued that women are presenting themselves in a highly sexualised version on their online profiles, this concept is called sexualised labour (Marvoudis 2020). Pornification refers to the increasing occurrence and acceptance of sexual themes and explicit imagery in popular mainstream culture (Tyler & Quek 2016). Whereas porn-chic is a style that reflects the mainstreaming of new media, and commercial pornography within Western societies  (Drenten et al. 2018, p. 42). Conformance to heteronormative notions of attractiveness is how some women on social media present themselves. Displays of female sexuality through sexualised social media content is a powerful means of gaining visibility, predominantly seen on the platform Instagram. Instagram influencers utilise aesthetic templates, an aspect of sexualised labour (Drenten et al. 2018, p. 43). 

Instagram influencers are a categorised form of micro-celebrity,  a style of an online presence to gain attention and popularity by employing social media accounts (Senft 2013, p. 37). As discussed influencers perform sexualised labour by adopting porn-chic aesthetics to generate attention, and potentially monetisation (Drenten et al. 2018, p. 42). Research highlights female influencers editing their physical appearance both online, through the use of photo-editing tools, and offline procedures such as plastic surgery, to present hyper-sexualised versions due to porn-chic branded ideals and pressures of sexualised labour. Instagram aesthetics have become almost synonymous with 'body image' and is often cites as the reason for an increase in demand for cosmetic enhancement (Marvourdis, 2020, p. 127). In 2017, statistics released by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery reveals that '42% of surgeons are reporting that their patients are actively seeking aesthetics surgeries to improve their appearance for social media channels (Dorfam et al. 2018). Reinforcing the extent to which influencers meet these aesthetic ideologies that are ultimately disseminated and endorsed by Instagram. 

Martha Kalifatidis illustrates a certified Instagram Influencer, due to her blue tick on her profile, with over 330K followers. Martha's profile employs the porn-chic aesthetic discussed above, following the heteronormative feminity in the picture below; botox, lip fillers and breast implants as discussed by Mavroudis (2020). Martha demonstrates the extreme lengths influencer  undergo to maintain their following. Prior to fame from Married At First Sight, Martha previously undertook her cosmetic surgeries, hence as an influencer she now maintains her image. Unlike other Instagram Influencers who deny any cosmetic work, Martha openly talks about her cosmetic surgeries, proudly embracing who she is, which is quite empowering. By doing this, individuals can no longer attack her on Instagram and call her out for getting work done as she explicitly talks about it when promoting products and collaborating with businesses. In one of her IGTV, Martha states, "Now this bra fits me perfectly! I have DD boobs and I feel fully supported in this bra. But keep in mind I do have fake boobs so your body might fit differently in this bra." Martha is an exception, compared to other marketing influencers. Although there is not enough research on this type of influencer to suggest if her followers still feel the pressure to undergo cosmetic surgery and look like Martha. More research is required in this field to understand the effects of sexualised labour and explore both arguments of social media problematic pressures and social media empowerment. 

I wonder, Is it better to have cosmetic surgery fake it than be “alone”? (season: 2 episode: 4)

References:

Drenten, J, Gurrieri, L and Tyler, M 2018, ‘Sexualised Labour in Digital Culture: Instagram Influencers, Porn Chic and The Monetization of Attention’, Gender, Work & Organisation, vol. 27, no 1, pp. 41 - 61. 

Dorfman, R G., Vaca, E E., Mahmood, E, Fine, N A. & Schierle, C 2018, ‘Plastic surgery-related hashtag utilization on Instagram: Implications for education and marketing’, Aesthetic Surgery Journal, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 332-338.

Kalifatidis, M, I 2020, marthaa__k, 8 April, viewed 12 May 2020, <https://www.instagram.com/p/B-t2GL2ALua/>. 

Mavroudis, J 2020, ‘Lecture 8: Digital Health and Cosmetic Surgery on Visual Social Media’, Learning Materials via Canvas, Swinburne University of Technology, 6th May, viewed, May 11 2020.

Mavroudis, J 2020, ‘Am I Too Branded? Fame Labour and Microcelebrity Culture’, PhD thesis, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne.

Senft, T.M 2013, ‘Microcelebrity and The Branded Self’, in Hartley, J, Burgess, J & Bruns, A (eds), A Companion to New Media Dynamics, Blackwell, UK, pp. 346 - 354.

Tyler, M & Quek, K 2016, ‘Conceptualising pornographication: A Lack of Clarity and Problems for Feminist Analysis, Sexualization, Media & Society, Vol. 2, no. 2.

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(Week 7)

A perfect example of fast fashion in 2020. Consumers are constantly wanted to wear the latest trends, regardless of the old trends sitting in our wardrobe collecting dust. I am guilty of the pressures from our digital community, of posting an outfit on my social media profiles and immediately not wanting to wear those clothes again as everyone has already seen me in them . . . it just doesn’t make sense. 

I wonder, Is today’s youth, obsessed with fast fashion culture, are the women of my generation growing into mature, responsible adults, or are we thirty-four going on thirteen? (season:3 episode:15)