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I deserve this award for my blog

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Finished all my blogs and essay for this subject. Time to get into some comfy clothes and enjoy the winter

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No facebook? How do the Chinese population live??

It seems in this day and age were all addicted to social media. As a millennial I can vouch that my phone is always an arm’s length away. We do this with the hope we will get a Facebook notification and have something else to look at rather than our assignments (which is me right now). We all know that China has restrictions with what they can see on the internet but it wasn’t till I lived it first-hand that I realised how strict it was. In June 2016 I went to China on a family trip and I was instantly blocked from using Google, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube all thanks to their Golden Shield Project. Everything I was addicted to was taken away from me. As a naive westerner, I honestly didn’t take a minute to think that they had their own versions of these social media sites and wondered how they survived without it. It turns out I couldn’t have been more naive and misinformed.

As the firewall blocks all western social media China has been going above and beyond to create replicas even better than the original western platforms. These include RenRen which is almost an exact copy of Facebook with the “colour scheme, logos and design being based on the original Facebook” (Fang, 2016). Wechat seems to be the most popular with all the features of Facebook but with added features such as Paypal and being able to order a taxi or buy movie tickets, making it superior to its competitors. Weibo is also quite popular, it is very similar to twitter with its 140 character limit but in China “140 Chinese characters can convey… a great deal of information” Wang (2015), making it more of a micro blogging website.

In China Social media is enormous and as you can see they have just as much choice with how they want to interact with their friends and people on the net than us westerners. In a recent study, it said that “Chinese Internet users spend more time on social-media sites than their counterparts do in … United States” (Chiu, Lin, Silverman ,2012). Obviously as I stated above I was naïve to think that they didn’t have platforms and didn’t use social media. The study even goes into detail about how long on average these two countries use social media saying, “consumers in China spend 46 minutes a day visiting social-media sites, compared with 37 minutes in the United States” (Chiu, Lin, Silverman ,2012). This use of social media in China has opened many doors for businesses to crack into the online market just like it has in Australia and the U.S.

In Australia it has become a big thing to watch Youtube videos and with that boom it has become normal for certain brands to partner up with influencers to sell their products. This is the same in China, due to how popular the use social media is, businesses collaborate with celebrities to promote their products on their social platforms. This is due to “…social media [having] a greater influence on purchasing decisions for consumers in China than for those anywhere else in the world.” (Chiu, Lin, Silverman ,2012) This is because “ Chinese consumers prize peer-to-peer recommendations because they lack trust in formal institutions.” (Chiu, Lin, Silverman ,2012) The research proves that not only is Social media is a big part of China but it is also a massive avenue for businesses to gain popularity and market share. Therefore, many businesses are ensuring that digital strategy is a main priority for their overall business plan. So, for those wondering how the Chinese population get on without having Facebook, I think they are doing just fine.

References:

Wilfred Yang Wang (2015) 'Remaking Guangzhou Geo-identity and Place-making on Sina Weibo'

Chiu, C, Lin, D and Silverman, A 2012, 'China's social-media boom', McKinsey and Company, 1 May 2013 

Fang, Angela. "6 Chinese Social Media Sites You Should Know About". Blog.tutorming.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 28 May 2017.

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These next 48 hours will test me

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Micro transactions are ruining gaming

Remember Farmville, that highly addictive game that literally all you did was make sure your crops were getting harvested. This simplistic game started a new generation of gaming. If you cast your memory back you would remember always being asked for money in return for items or to fast forward time. No they weren’t asking for hundreds on dollars only a mere dollar or two at a time. This transaction is called micro transactions and since Farmville launched and showed the world how successful you can become by asking for a small amount of money for a virtual item things have blown up.

There is no doubt that gaming has become a massive part of the world we live in today and having an older brother I know how sucked in people can get to be the ‘best’. Games considered as MMOG which allow a large number of people to play online at once are making big amounts of money. Games such as World of Warcraft and Dota 2 are key games that benefit from micro transactions. They do this by using their large fanbase to capitalise on their obsession to be good with offering micro transactions for better items. Dota 2 gives everyone a chest that is locked and for $2.50 you can purchase the key. The scary thing is that you don’t know what could be inside it could be a common item that you don’t need or something incredibly rare and powerful. These games are pretty much creating an online gambling community. This especially goes against “The US attempt to ban online gambling, which has had very limited success in regulating virtual worlds and offshore websites”( Zwart, Humphreys (2014).  Trust me this is just the tip of the iceberg as this gambling exceeds the boarders of the game with many games having a black-market that is not supported by the game creators.

Counterstrike has a massive black-market with many doing and paying whatever they can to get ‘skins’ which have no direct influence on gameplay. These skins act as virtual money with many using them to bet on professional counterstrike games. In an interview written by Polygon they interviewed a young male that got swept up with gambling explaining how one bet led to another. The young man said “ I started betting skins on professional games. Friends convinced me to start gambling on websites that were more like slot machines" (Campbell, 2016). Another boy being interviewed also admits that most the people gambling are minors and even his 13 year old nephew started gambling and when he lost his money even stole his grandparents credit card to continue.

Although “Unregulated gambling on sports is illegal almost everywhere in the world…” (Brustein, 2016) and the implication of the licence agreement (EULA) it seems gambling still can slip through the cracks. The culture of always having to be the best and have the best weapons seems quite damaging to the young male audience. “ In most countries, it is illegal for minors to gamble. And yet, millions of dollars’ worth of skins have been bet by people under the age of 18, all over the world” (Campbell). I believe both the government and the game creators have to join forces to shut down or compromise with players on gambling related to the game. Although it seems some companies are trying to stop the promotion of these tasks, obviously more has to be done so youngsters don’t get addicted and eventually lose thousands of dollars.

References

Brustein, Joshua. "Virtual Weapons Are Turning Teen Gamers Into Serious Gamblers". Bloomberg.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 22 May 2017.

Campbell, Colin. "The True Cost Of Counter-Strike Skin Gambling". Polygon. N.p., 2016. Web. 22 May 2017.

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

Nick Suzor and Darrel Woodford (2013) 'Evaluating consent and legitimacy amongst shifting community norms: An EVE Online case study' Journal of Virtual Worlds Research

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Another case of ‘slacktivism’? Public health campaigns

On this blog we have chatted about the positives and negatives of the world of social media. Today we will be addressing how organisations such as Movember, are you ok? ALS and various others have propelled their message into the world using social media campaigns.

Take your mind back a couple of years, remember when everyone was pouring ice water onto themselves… well apparently, this was for a cause. Crazy right? When this craze hit the internet and all my friends started participating in the challenge I was 17 years old. I would say compared to most other 17 year olds I had broad knowledge about the world and what was actually going on. However, being still in my teenage years I was obviously so naive about what I was seeing online. I honestly had no clue that the ice bucket challenge was meant to be raising public awareness of the horrible disease called ALS. In my faint memory, I remember a paragraph being written above the videos but can only remember people being cold and laughing at them! For me and for many in my age group there was no awareness created about this disease and I’m sure no one donated any money either. This raises the question if these public health campaigns raise awareness or is it another case of ‘slacktivism’?

In 2014, students from the university of Queensland considered the real effect Movember had on the public. For those who aren’t familiar with Movember it is an event taken place in November which involves encouraging male participants to grow a moustache and document the activity. It began in 2004 in Australia to “raise awareness regarding prostate cancer” (Burgess, Cassidy & Light 2014), however now has broadened to create awareness for other causes such as mental health and testicular cancer. As social media has grown to be a huge platform to target particular publics Movember has created strong social media presence on Facebook , Twitter and YouTube. From the outside engagement with Movembers social media seems to be a huge success, however engagement isn’t everything as seen in the ASL ice bucket challenge. From the article written by the University of Queensland students it seems that most the hype around Movember comes mostly from “minor forays into the event by celebrities, sports personalities and their fans”. There is actually only a small amount of those participating in the health campaign and even smaller amount actually “do little to engage directly with issues associated with prostate cancer, testicular cancer and men’s mental health.” (Burgess, Cassidy & Light 2014)

In hindsight, it seems to be another case of ‘slacktivism’ and another opportunity for individuals to gain popularity with their peers and online ‘friends’. The internet gives a platform for important messages such as these ones to be heard and although the hype and discussion of these events mentioned in today’s blog were found to be mostly about the superficial side it doesn’t mean it was a complete flop. In actual fact, the Movember campaign raised “$116 million” (Sifferlin 2017) in 2013 (the year the research was conducted) and ALS raised just one million less than that. Social media is a great place for organisations to create awareness on health its just sad to see most people are participating for the wrong reason but at the end of the day its creating an impact to people’s lives that need support.

 References

Burgess, J, Cassidy, E & Light, B 2014, "DEEPLY SUPERFICIAL DIGITAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT? THE CASE OF TWITTER AND MOVEMBER 2013", AIOR.

Sifferlin, A 2017, "This Is How Much Movember Raised This Year", Time.com, viewed 11 May, 2017, <http://time.com/3616435/movember-mens-health/>.

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

Thompson, S. (2016, March 15) 'How Social Media is Transforming Medical Care in the Developing World', Fast Company.

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So close, yet so many semesters making me fall apart

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Week 11 has me like....

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Crowd Sourcing

Crowd sourcing is now an everyday action most who use social media and the internet do (even if you’re not exactly sure what crowd sourcing is, don’t stress I’m about to explain). Crowd sourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated person and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in a form of an open call. This open call is typically done via the internet as it’s easy to enlist the services of a large number of people.

A fun and NSFW example of crowd sourcing would be urban dictionary. For those who have not been blessed with using urban dictionary it is a dictionary for slang words. I do give warning to those who look it up and use it as it is highly addictive, descriptive, and mostly dirty. You may be asking how a dictionary could be crowd sourcing but it’s quite simple, they get users to write the definitions. They call upon every mind on the internet to gather as much information about slang words and put it in one place, creating their dictionary. It’s quite genius as the actual creators of Urban Dictionary don’t have to do much besides monitoring (honestly can’t tell if they do this) and keeping their servers up and running smoothly. This is one out of many examples of crowd sourcing, this being the light hearted example.

It is fact that crowd sourcing can change the nature of political events. “People can organise more quickly, find others who share their views and work together in disparate locations to produce powerful sources of information.” (Ford 2012) This is exactly what they did in the Kenyan presidential elections. Citizens used the Ushahidi platform to report human rights abuses in the wake to the election. This platform gave the everyday person a voice and allowed many to come together and join forces on the information they knew to make the streets safer.

An Australian example of crowd sourcing is the #qldfloods in 2010-2011. This hashtag representing the floods occurring in Queensland was used by many to communicate advice and information around the state. “Locals used [social media] to distribute first-hand footage of the situation in their local areas” Bruns, A., Burgess, J., Crawford, K., Shaw, F. (2012) thus allowing other citizens to know where the floods were creating a crisis. This example of crowd sourcing was a great help to emergency services as the people of the internet cover so much more ground then they do and can provide live updates in an area crisis services didn’t even know was affected yet. This information also allowed for crisis mapping which is essentially a real-time display of data, which in this case gave a visual all information in one place poster of everything that was going on (example pictured below).

Overall crowd sourcing is a fundamental part of social media. It helps those in crisis know more about the whole picture of the situation, not just what has been reported by officials. It has saved lives and provided information for those in need in a crisis or just wanting to learn. This is a perfect example of how the internet and social media has made the world more connected in a positive way. My question to you guys is if you have ever used crowd sourcing either in a crisis or in your day to day life?

References:

‘#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)

Ford, H 2012, "Crowd Wisdom", Index on Censorship, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 33-39.

Middleton, S 2017, "ABC OPEN: Mapping the Queensland Floods", Open.abc.net.au, viewed 8 May, 2017, <https://open.abc.net.au/explore/1643>.

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The ‘art’ of trolling

The ultimate downfall of social media is trolling or cyberbulling. Trolling is a new term that is widely known in the online community. Urban dictionary, a dictionary for slang words defines trolling as “Being a prick on the internet because you can. Typically unleashing one or more cynical or sarcastic remarks on an innocent by-stander, because it's the internet and, hey, you can.”.

That’s the problem with the internet, people think you can do whatever you want because you’re behind a computer screen. This elixir of confidence can bring extreme consequences. In this week’s reading they talk about a girl, Megan Meir who committed suicide after online harassment. Upon further research it was specified that Megan was only 13 years of age and was targeted on the social media website Myspace. The harassment was stated as a ‘joke’ by the perpetrator, the person who bullied Meir was found to be a mother and was never charged.

Another case of trolling involves James Charles a 17-year-old beauty blogger. With that title, he already gets huge amounts of hate, as his main platform is Youtube a “problematic network…” (McCosker 2013). Recently this hate turned into trolling when a photo of him surfaced with his makeup looking extremely white in the face. This created a frenzy on social media. Trolls mocked Charles with an example below, which was one out of thousands. 

This trolling and hate went as far as saying he shouldn’t be a makeup artist, should kill himself and shouldn’t be the face of the famous brand Covergirl. To many some thought this was a joke but with such harsh comments how far can a joke go till its considered trolling? Charles posted about how he was crying himself to sleep and then received even more hate. Lucky for his family, friends and followers Charles wasn’t down for too long and ended up creating an April fools video recreating the white ghost like makeup in a tutorial.

Cases such as these have made “state regulation, technological controls, and localised non-governmental or entrepreneurial educational programs…” (McCosker, Vivienne & Johns 2016) step up to hopefully eradicate online behaviour that is not deemed appropriate. In Australia they address “safety through the newly created Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner, created by the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Act 2015 (the Act)” (2017). They also focus on the education of children and teenagers talking about the risks online behaviour has. They also have put together steps on how to report social media bulling which is pictured below.

I strongly agree with Australian laws surrounding cyberbullying. Just because it is behind the screen doesn’t mean it doesn’t have effects. Bullying can hurt those who are victims for years and lead to depression and anxiety and some cases suicide. It is only fair to have these laws so those behind the screen know words through a screen hurt just as much as saying it to someone’s face.

.References:

 Anon 2017, "eSafety information", Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner, viewed 5 May, 2017, <https://esafety.gov.au/esafety-information>.

McCosker, A, Vivienne, S & Johns, A 2016, Negotiating digital citizenship, 1st ed.McCosker, A 2013, "Trolling as provocation: YouTube's agonistic publics", Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 201-217.Stiegman, 

K 2017, "The Internet Can't Stop Trolling James Charles for This Hilarious Makeup Fail", 

Seventeen, viewed 6 May, 2017, <http://www.seventeen.com/beauty/celeb-beauty/news/a46161/james-charles-funny-makeup-fail/>.  

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When you get your laptop fixed, get great opportunities at work, essendon wins the anzac day match and you’re up to date with your school work all in a space of a few days, you know its time to celebrate. 

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Activism or Slacktivism?

As explained in my previous posts, social media has given a power to the everyday person. We can now be considered “citizen journalists”. This power is sometimes used for bad such as trolling, which we will be talking about in the next post but sometimes for good such as activism.

Dictionary.com defines activism as the doctrine of practice of vigorous action or involvement as means of achieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations, protests, etc. Social media has allowed activism as it is allowing us to not only comment on issues in our own country but the issues around the world. It allows information to reach places it wouldn’t normally be reached.

An example of this is in the past few years videos have popped up showing the violence against black men by police officers. The technology of having a smart phone not only allows someone to film the crime but also allows it to be shared across the world. This gives people in need an opportunity to share an issue that needs to be heard and hopefully get people to act against these terrible crimes in ways such as protests.

Protests can no longer be considered as just a physical march anymore. It can be in the form of an online campaign which is being signed by hundreds of people around the world. It can also be in the form of spreading awareness of physical protests.  By using social platforms, it opens up opportunities for bigger audiences and awareness. "social media can be seen as the contemporary equivalent of what the newspaper, the poster, the leaflet or direct mail were..." (Gerbaudo n.d.).  This use of social media can be seen in the recent women’s and black lives matter protests.

Most will agree that social media has created an awareness and opportunity for activism but some argue it really isn’t that great. The issue some people have with the new form of activism online is that it turns into 'slacktivism' which is defined as "activism for slackers" or as Morozov describes it as " a feel good activism that has zero political or social impact but created an illusion of having a meaningful impact on the world without demanding anything more than joining a Facebook group" (Morozov 2017).

There is no doubt that “Social media provide the tools for organized dissent...” (Youmans & York 2012) But I definitely think it is worth questioning others and your own participation in activism if it is only through social media. Hash tagging and changing your profile picture to a flag isn’t activism it is slacktivism, unless you are actually fighting, fundraising etc for that cause you aren’t doing much. I’m not telling you not to hashtag, it does bring awareness but don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’re doing so much for the world when you are safely sitting behind a computer screen.

 Gerbaudo, P n.d., Tweets and the streets, 1st ed, PlutoPress.

Youmans, W & York, J 2012, "Social Media and the Activist Toolkit: User Agreements, Corporate Interests, and the Information Infrastructure of Modern Social Movements", Journal of Communication, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 315-329.

Morozov, E 2017, "Foreign Policy: Brave New World Of Slacktivism", NPR.org, viewed 12 April, 2017, <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104302141>.

Sigal, I & Biddle, E 2015, "FCJMESH-007 Our Enduring Confusion About the Power of Digital Tools in Protest", The Fibreculture Journal, no. 26, pp. 290-296.

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Political engagement

Mediums such as Facebook and twitter allow the world to hear opinions that were once never heard. In a now globalised world people in politics are using this opportunity to communicate to the internet obsessed population. When I say people in politics I am not just meaning the Donald trumps of the world I am also talking about the general public that have an interest or opinion on politics. These ‘supporters’ (a term I use loosely) now have a voice which they have never previously had before. Now that times are changing people are making their voices heard. Some politicians are“[retreating] as those online took the opportunity to tell politicians what they really thought of them.” Others such as Obama made his “… team's use of social media during the 2008 election campaign a major focus of its strategy".(Jericho, 2013)

It’s funny to think that many people have blogs you may never have known of. Just at Swinburne University I am sure there are many blogs with a vast majority of topics with many having controversial content. I was once surprised to find out that one of my work colleagues had a Facebook page titled “Feminazis Against Actual Nazis” which has over 2,500 likes. Don’t get me wrong I was not surprised about her views, she was very known member of the socialist party but I was surprised about her starting a Facebook page. By sharing her opinions, she got a following of likeminded people making it a tribe. This is like what Jericho says about how David Kirkpatrick writer of ‘The Facebook effect’ did. In early January 2008.  Kirkpatrick decided he wanted to express his disgust with the military arm of the Columbian party. He created a Facebook page which allowed him to encourage people to march with him against the FARC. "Through the page he helped organise protests in two hundred cities around the world" (Jericho, 2013) . Approximately 10 million people ended up marching against FARC, this is the power of the mediums of the social network.

Recently there has been controversy circulating every social media platform about the change of traffic lights to include women silhouettes. If you didn’t see this discussion you are no doubt living under a rock. This caused uproar with thousands quick to blame feminists, creating a social media frenzy. This is a clear example of the power social media has and how loud everyday people can make their voices heard in this new world.  Now more than ever any countries government will be scrutinised by the public. You can simply look up Donald trump memes to understand this.

Overall Politian’s have to be wise when using social media, If they want to promote themselves they have do it in a way that is both professional but relatable, which was seen in both Obamas campaign for president and his two terms. If they fail to use social media to their advantage or in the correct way they will have less reach and power or be torn to shreds by the sharp teeth of the public. Either way it’s a risk some are still too scared to take but with with 2.307 billion active social media uses (Patel, 2016) to me it seems worth it, and its free so why not?

 Jericho, G. 2012 'How many votes are there on Twitter?' in The rise of the Fifth Estate: social media and blogging in Australian politics, Scribe Publications Pty Ltd, Australia, EBL eBook Library, viewed 20 January 2013, pp 254 - 278

Young, S. 2010, 'New, political reporting and the internet' in How Australia decides: election reporting and the media, Cambridge University Press, Australia, EBL eBook Library viewed 28 February 2012, pp 203-228.

Patel, N. (2016). 10 Things We Can Learn about Social Media from the 2016 Presidential Campaign. Crazy Egg.

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This was me Saturday night editing my posts with anger because nothing made sense in my head.

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Is Tumblr a blog or a social platform?

Tumblr isn’t like any other social platforms we use, it has the flexibility to be whatever you want it to be. But is it considered a blog or a social platform? This is the million-dollar question.

“The goal of being connected is not simply to exchange high signal content all the time. We also want all of that squishy, gooey content that keeps us connected as people.” (Wilken, 2014). This quote taken from the week one reading is what I think about when someone says Tumblr. I think of the content found in Tumblr, the kind that really doesn’t mean a lot besides giving entertainment.

Tumblr gives us the flexibility to be who you want to be. "We use... social networking sites… to 'choose, construct, interpret, negotiate, display who we are to be seen as'” (Slater 1997, p.84). Tumblr gives the biggest opportunity to the public to be who they want to be. It’s not like other social platforms like Facebook where you have your grandma on your friends list. Many take this opportunity and run with it, they express their opinions on various topics ranging from their hobbies, politics or information about themselves that they may not have ever expressed on a social platform such as Facebook. Does this make it a blog?

Dictionary.com defines a blog as “a website containing a writer’s or group of writers’ own experience, observation, opinions, etc. and often having images and links to other websites”. By this definition Tumblr is a blog, as each Tumblr page has a writer behind it exoressing their opinions. However, When I had Tumblr a few years back my ‘blog’ (referring to my page) did not express opinions about anything. All I did was ‘reblog’ photos of things I thought were cool, follow ‘blogs’ that looked pretty and on the rare occasion message other people I thought were ‘interesting’. It was the same for the people I followed, pages and pages of photos with nothing to learn or read. That is not blogging, it was like a Pinterest board on steroids. But does that mean it’s not a blog because I didn’t use it as one, was I using a social platform?

To be honest my use of Tumblr wasn’t very ‘social’ either. A social network can be defined as “…the interaction between others and sharing content through websites and applications (Nations, 2017). By this definition it would also be considered a social platform due to the ‘reblog’ option which is simply sharing content. It also has various other similar features to other social network websites such as the hashtag feature, personal messaging and of course broadcasting your thoughts to the world.

Tumblr is a unique place for people to be whoever they want to be and that flexibility is also in if they want to use it as a social platform or a blog. For past me it was a social platform, for present me it is a blog. For everyone it is anything and everything you want it to be.

Please feel free to express your opinions below because as you can see this is a blog. 

Nations, D. (2017). Serious Question: What Exactly Is Social Media?. [online] Lifewire. Available at: https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-social-media-explaining-the-big-trend-3486616 [Accessed 1st of Apr. 2017].

Wilken, R., & McCosker, A. (2014) ‘Social Selves’, in Cunningham & Turnbull (eds) The Media & Communications in Australia. 291-295

boyd, d, ‘Participating in the Always On Lifestyle’, in Mandiberg (ed) The Social Media Reader, pp 71-76

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Introducing my blog that I will be highlighting the important things regarding the digital communities of today's world :)