#we have to structure our communication and group differently because of unreliability and disability

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[hozeletters-blog]

Secrets of Media

Media is not as straightforward as people have simplified it to be. Just like a generic-sized country or a wide city or an over populated town, media is a wide space overloaded with ideas, a platform with its own fair share of nooks and crannies. It is good that it provides a wide stage for the people’s voice, but having a wide surface can create space for more mistakes. The more you dive into the water of media’s deep ocean, the clearer its holes become. Soon, you will realize that not everything written down is true and not everything you read is factual. Even news can be a bluff and words can easily be filtered.

There has been numerous cases when things on the media were proven incorrect. The erroneous updates or “Fake news” as the people call it often get many people fooled and have them believing such outrageous pieces of information. One of these cases was the feud between the world’s most popular YouTuber Felix Kjelberg who goes by the name PewDiePie and a news outlet called the Wall Street Journal. Back in year 2017, there has been numerous instances when the writers of WSJ (Wall Street Journal) have misinterpreted the jokes of the famous YouTube Star, calling him a supporter of Hitler and part of the Nazi. This was because of a certain joke Kjelberg made in a video posted on his channel. Kjelberg claimed the statements of WJS to be not only false, but plain wrong. Along the end of 2018, pro-hacker fans of PewDiePie hacked WSJ to post a fake public apology to PewDiePie pretending to be the owner of the page. They temporarily closing the website, they are now conducting a full investigation. Cases like this are proof of just how easily things on the media can be tampered with, and even a measly fan can hack a giant corporation’s company.

    Our generation have been so accustomed to technology that it is already part of day-to-day lives. We have always connected to other people through it, most particularly social media. Social media have been a significant component of our lives in our modern society. We are able to not only share information but most importantly, also gain it. It has structured our lifestyles throughout time. Teenagers are one of the main users of social media, spending 8 hours on average online daily.

    While there have been well-known cases on the negative consequences of using social media, there are numerous benefits that it can give when used properly. It is a medium to promote positivity and produce ideas for change. The numerous benefits of social media make it one of the most irreplaceable tools of the society.

1.   Opportunity

    YouTube is one of the social media platforms that people use to state their stands and express their opinions on a given topic. This results to the attraction of millions of viewers making the video a hit becoming trending. This also lets other people to take interest in it and they may also sponsor such people or channels.

 2.   A Voice

    People have been using social media as a platform to open-up and speak for the people who cannot. Facebook and Twitter are great examples of these social media site that have been often used as a voice for the “voiceless”. An example is that people are speaking out for the disabled people and stating that even if a person is disabled, he/she can still live a full life and do what he/she can. The groups or individuals are mostly started and comprised by the youth who see the significance of equality making use of social media as a place to send a message to everyone.

 3.   Innovation and Creativity

    Because social media sites depend on the sharing of content by active accounts, people have thought of numerous ways to spice up their posts. They thought outside the box to come up with unique and new ideas for their content. Not only is their posts unique, but there are always news applications and sites that are developed introducing new techniques in expressing oneself.

 4.   Skill Development

    Interaction have become more free and easy online. The different social media sites have opened up social environments online for people to interact. Endless exposure to social media and being online have resulted to numerous benefits like engaging to their potential employers. Being online have benefitted young people in acquiring skills that helps them in evaluating and interpreting different situations. This preparation helps people to be prepared to face different kinds of situation mentally. YouTube contains numerous educational videos that aids in sharpening and improving one’s skills.

      5.   Confidence and Independence

Being online through social media is considered to be an adventured for some people. It is comparable to exploration where there is a need for numerous skills sets. People are able to mold themselves to become more independent in order to survive the social media race. They are also able to become more confident in hopes of having a positive online presence and be heard. Eventually, these becomes part of their life.

      Media has also numerous Positive Impacts. These are the following to name a few.

 1.   Social Media Is a Way to Enhance our Connectivity

    It’s an effortless manner to connect with other people but we have an amazingly wide variety of such sites to choose from. No matter how far they are or what region they could be in, how different our beliefs are, social networks are beneficial in reviving and retaining relationships with other people.

2.   Social Media Has a Lot of Benefits for Students and Teachers

    It’s been a habit for people to use social media to search important details that couldn’t be seen in encyclopedias and other books. But with the use of these social media, it has given numerous opportunities for us to expand our knowledge. For example. We use to convey our projects easily especially for research.

 3.   Social Media Can Benefit Mental Health

    Our emotions and health affect our mood being a part of the social media users community have been effective and helpful allowing us to relieve our social isolation and other depressing problems. It also allows people to share their thoughts without revealing their identity. It also develops our self-esteem making us more confident. It is a platform that helps people express themselves with less, if not without any, fear.

 4.   Help Develop Social Skills

Some people are anti-socials. Media offers them the chance to develop their own social skills. It also gives them the chance to expand their social circle and make new friends. They need to build their selves to develop their social confidence, heighten literacy in the media, and other social support to improve their social skills as a person in real life. It can also help them to communicate with others, most especially if you’re a teacher or a businessman, you need to develop these skills in order to be successful in life.

      Media have been an essential part of not only our lives, but also of the society. In today’s generation, media has been an important part of the lives of the people. However, it is two-sided which means that it has its positive side and the negative side. We are certain that nothing is perfect, not even social media. Though imperfect with its disadvantages, social media, when properly used, has its good side.

 Advantages of Media

1.   Media helps in educating the people. Through the television, radio programs and the internet, people get to know and learn on the things such as health matters, recent news and much more.

 2.   People get the recent news in just a short period of time. People get news daily through the use of media and this keeps them updated on what is happening on their environment.

3.   Media lets the people showcase their talents such as singing, dancing and acting and post it online.

 4.   Children can easily learn from media because it increases their knowledge. They can learn from quiz programs, animal programs and etc.

 5.   Radio is very convenient for the people who loves to get updated to news and such, with their mobile devices they can easily listen to it.

 6.   Media is also a great way in terms of advertising and promoting. This can make the sales of such products to increase rapidly.

 7.   Media serves as a good source of entertainment. People get entertained through music and television programs.

 8.   Media leads to the diffusion of different cultures. By showcasing these cultures, the people will be able to learn and appreciate the different cultures that we have.

9.   Television allows electronic duplication of information. This reduces the production cost making mass education possible.

 10.  Media helps people all over the world to understand and embrace each other’s differences.

 Disadvantages of Media

1.   It leads to individualism. By spending too much time on the internet and watching television, the people will often forget their lives outside of their mobile phones.

 2.   Some of the contents of media are not suitable for the children. Limiting children’s access to these can be hard.

 3.   Newspaper is geographically selective.

 4.   Increase in advertisements in television and radio is making them less attractive.

 5.   Internet as a form of media opens up possibilities of identity theft, phishing, fraud, hacking and etc.

 6.   People get too addicted to media which decreases their productivity.

 7.   By staying too long in front of their screens, this may lead to eyesight problems. Also, using earphones might lead to hearing defects.

 8.   It idealizes alcohol and drugs. Some of the programs make this kind of things appear to be cool.

9.   It can lead to personal injury. Some people likes to copy what they have watched online even though they are not professional in this field.

 10.  It can ruin a reputation of a person. Hacking is one of the tool in spreading rumors about a person.

      No matter how credible the internet presents itself to be, we find that more unreliable sources could be found in it. The easiest way for people to speak up is through their social media accounts; it is also the easiest way to fake figures. Most of the legal issues of media could be found through this branch of media. Phishing, Plagiarism, Hacking, etc. One could say that it is the most dangerous form of media, since almost everyone has access to it. But if you were leaned at the wonders of the internet, you would know that true danger is found inside something that less people have access towards.

      There are three known layers of World Wide Web: the surface, the deep and the dark web. Some of which you might be familiar to.

The “surface” is what you usually see when you open up your Safari, Google Chrome, Firefox or any web browsers. The surface has been part of the web since the first ever engine developed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. It is absolutely anything you could access whenever you go to Google, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

      The deep web also called the invisible web or hidden web. Just as the name is trying to suggest, it is below the surface, but not completely at the bottom. It is still part of the web, but unlike the surface web, this contains things that a normal web browser could not access or see. It is where one’s personal information is located. From the content of personal email accounts, banking information, medical records to legal documents. It is considered a safe place to the right people. Nevertheless, if all those information goes to the wrong hands, people’s lives could easily be mangled and reconstructed. It is accessible to the public, but protected by complicated encryptions that only professional Hackers could get through. The encryptions serve as security measures to keep it from being searched by anyone outside the system.

      Diving deeper into the sea of the internet and swimming past the deep web, you would hit something called the dark web. People often mix the dark web and the deep web, but the dark web is a completely different story from the deep web. The deep web beside the dark web would look like a safe haven. The dark web is not really buried too deep that not a lot of people know about it. It also did not help that news about it have appeared in daily papers and stories about it have been reported on TV. The dark web got its name because not many people have access to it. The dark web is a place of criminal activity. It hosts contents from harmless book clubs to dangerous and disturbing items and services and stolen information. It is the dark market of the internet. You could buy just about anything in there, even the things you could not even think one would sell, let alone buy. The encryption for this layer of the web is much more complicated than the others. This layer and its users are anonymous and cannot be tracked easily.

    Media is one of the best avenues to connect with others, let us not ruin the experience. With all the negative consequences that a person may face when he/she use media without thought or considerations, there are numerous tips on how we can responsibly use social media. Social media is mostly free, let us not make it scary due to our irresponsibility.

1.   Be mindful of your emotions

    As of the moment, teenagers are not being aware of what are they posting in social media, you should think first before you post anything. Don’t let a though-of-the-moment be the cause of something you do not like to happen in the future

 2.   Don’t Be Glued to Your Smartphone

    As great as the virtual connections are, there’s a whole world out there that can’t be seen through your smartphone.

 3.   Learn to Let it Go

    You don’t need to respond to every tweet, or comment- sometimes it’s good to get a bit of time to your own thoughts.

 4.   Don’t Post Personal Info

    There are people online who’d like to take advantage of your trust- don’t give them the opportunity! Don’t post your all information.

 5.   Enjoy Social Media

    Use your intuition when dealing with people online, and have fun sharing your experiences with the people you care about.

 6.  Never ever threaten anyone

    People often take threats seriously even if it is only a joke, most especially the authorities. When you have a problem with a person, go to someone you trust and confide with them. Let others help you instead of making things worse by threatening someone.

 7.  Be you

    You are a very unique and amazing person. Copying and impersonating someone else will only hide you beauty within. Be yourself and make friends. It is better to be not liked being yourself than loved as a fake.

 8.  Do not ruin your image

    Refrain from sharing and posting funny yet indecent or vulgar posts and contents. Even if you would gain a lot of likes now, remember that in the future, someone will come across that and might judge you even f you regret posting it. Humor is fleeting and never permanent but the internet will surely be there for a very long period of time. Do your best to avoid such drama.

  References:

https://www.momjunction.com/articles/positive-and-negative-influences-of-media-on-teenagers_00107975/#gref

https://curatti.com/social-media-positive-effects/

https://sdvirtualschools.com/how-to-use-social-media-responsibly/

https://www.importantindia.com/22940/media-advantages-disadvantages/

[bellamilroy]

My New Access Doc

Access Docs For Artists , is a new resource website to create your own personal access policy for disabled artists. This site was created by Leah Clements, Alice Hattrick and Lizzy Rose after a residency at Wysing Arts Centre in October 2018, and it’s been the answer to my prayers. Since becoming disabled in 2012 at the age of 21, my experience of working with organisations and institutions has been varied; from navigating university as a disabled student to working with galleries, international archives, organisations and local community groups, all with mixed experiences of accessibility. If there was one thing I wish I had for every single one of these moments, it’s an access doc. That one page of information that details everything the organisation should know about your needs and requirements as someone with a disability. I, like so many other disabled artists, have spent huge amounts of time agonising over access requirements; baring the brunt of internalised ableism to make every email heavy and loaded with what feels like exceptional circumstances and awkward requests. This, compounded by the fact that we’re not always aware of what we actually need based on each project, makes the start of any new working relationship fraught with anxiety, only adding to the significant barriers that already exist for disabled artists. Access Docs For Artist was a gift from the Disabled Gods, and I couldn’t be more grateful.  

When considering these barriers, I think what’s also important to acknowledge here is that even in the best possible scenario, there continues to be additional costs that disabled artists in particular bare the brunt of. It shouldn’t be exceptional or fortunate that you get the right support that you need. Operating on your own terms shouldn’t be at an extortionate cost. Operating on your own terms and making reasonable adjustments shouldn’t feel unprofessional. I felt this acutely last year when I had to make the difficult decision to step back from another iteration of my work File Under Female, a project that I was working on for another ACE bid. My health for the last 18 months or so has been particularly poor, and I worried over partners losing interest, not wanting to seem like I was flip-flopping over previously agreed plans, even though I knew it was something I could no longer carry out. I felt awkward and unreliable.

Fortunately, I’m working with an amazing range of partners (who made the first iteration of the project incredibly accessible), all of which were completely understanding and actually excited by the new, more longer term pace that the project was now going in. I realised how important this was for them to know what it means to work with disabled artists, and how this decision was one that enriched and benefitted us both. It reminded me that there is absolutely nothing unprofessional about my disability, nothing unprofessional about asking for what looks like extra, but is actually just what I need to carry out the same job. But this persistent and pervasive undercurrent of shame (overtly or not) when requesting access support or asking for reasonable adjustments puts so many off from even trying in the first place. What’s even more frustrating about this is that because working freelance as a disabled artist is so inherently challenging, your so busy trying to figure out each different encounter that you don’t even stop and think that something like an access doc could even exist. Way too often, even if you’re lucky enough to get as far down the road as working with understanding and supportive partners and organisations, let alone getting paid for the work, it still feels one sided. When you’re consistently met with organisations that fail to offer broad, open, flexible and considered access policies, having to always self-advocate for your own access needs becomes really painful; it’s a system that remains exclusionary and discriminatory by design.

It shouldn’t be this surprising when you work with people who get you the support you need, it should be a basic part and practice of creating structures and working units that work for all of us, not just one rigid format that only works for a particular group of people. What I want to see is institutions and organisations properly utilising resources like Access Docs For Artists in ways that offer meaningful and practical solutions to ensuring disabled artists get in the door in ways that are not possible currently. Every gallery, organisation and artist-led should have this strapped to all of their open calls, residency schemes and volunteer programmes etc. More than getting us in the room, we need to have disabled artists and our access policy documents treated as the creative resource that they are. When are we going to get institutions to see that working with disabled artists opens up whole new avenues of creative outputs in ways that aren’t even being thought about otherwise? I long for the day that my personal access policy isn’t treated as a clinical barrier to overcome (often at my own expense), but as a rich resource that’s taken years of research and refinement to offer a different way of doing things. When are we going to realise that access is this wonderful asset that opens up creative practices to be engaged with in radically different ways? Stop treating it like an inconvenience that serves a minority and start recognising access as the expansive catalogue of creative experiences that it really is.