The Axe

[quotethatshow]

[lowkey-playa]

I cannot stress this enough

[axebrain]

Agreed.

[thisisclarewright-deactivated20]

Crowdsourcing Power

Blog # 6

Week 8

The good, the bad, the ugly, we all have our opinions on Social Media. The way it has filtered into our lives and revolutionized the way we connect with each other in our personal and business lives, but what about the use social media in global scale disasters? By posting photos, comments and hashtags we rapidly spread information globally for disaster relief via social media sites. This is the crowdsourcing power of open social media platforms.  

The main advantage of crowdsourcing is the immediacy in which disaster status reports and emergency information can be dispersed compared to more traditional methods. The use of social media platforms provides the opportunity for status reports to be communicated urgently to relief organisations and the public (Gao, Barbier, Goolsby 2011 p. 11).

Crowdsourcing tools collect data by creating hashtags. Hashtags are a user-generated tool for marking a message with a specific topic or theme. As an example, the twitter hashtag #qldfloods was created in 2011 for the Queensland flood crisis. By using a hashtag tool we are able to coordinate user activity on social media platforms (Bruns, Burgess, Crawford & Shaw 2012 p.7).

Social media platforms, in particular Twitter, have proven to be a main source of news and media information. In the Queensland flood crisis first hand images were posted and shared in a context that is referred to as “citizen journalism” (Bruns, Burgess, Crawford & Shaw 2012 p.34). Citizen journalism, like all social media post ranges from the informative to the boring, but gives the public a true, first hand sense of the scale of the disaster in real time.

The platform Ushahidi was created specifically for crowdsourcing power.  Ushahidi enables anyone to create their own mapping website for events in which public can post reports to. This means that even in remote locations, with the use of Ushahidi, we can use crowdsourcing power to organise events and citizen contribution reporting in global disasters (Ford 2012).

Crowdsourcing has proven to report information and advice quickly in crisis situations, often developed with very little prior planning from authorities. This platform provides scope for up-to-date information and coordination of emergency management of global disaster procedures.

References

Bruns, A, Burgess, J, Crawford, K & Shaw, F 2012, #qldfloods and @QPSMedia: Crisis Communication on Twitter in the 2011 South East Queensland Floods, Arc Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, pp 7-10, viewed 17 September 2015, <http://www.cci.edu.au/floodsreport.pdf>.

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

Huiji Gao, Geoffrey Barbier, Rebecca Goolsby 2011,“Harnessing the Crowdsourcing Power of Social Media for Disaster Relief,” IEEE Intelligent Systems, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 10-14, viewed 11 January 2016 < http://www.cci.edu.au/floodsreport.pdf>.

[axebrain]

Nice job @thisisclarewright.

I agree that the main advantage of crowdsourcing is to provide ‘immediacy’ to emergency or critical situations, however, there is also the need to validate these reports. The creators of tools like Ushahadi recognise this and have been working on it since it was first launched.

Good luck for the final essay!

[shivaniielizabeth-blog]

The World of Online Gaming

I come from a bit of a gaming world – I wouldn’t call myself a gamer, but my brother is a gamer, and my partner is a gamer, as well as most of his friends. Now, because of this world that the people I love are so heavily involved in, it is practically impossible for me to not be able to pick up terminology or story lines and even get a little bit involved in these online worlds.

Over 50 million people play an MMORPG (Second Skin, 2008), and I can see why. World of Warcraft has over 10 million players worldwide (Atlay, 2015), all part of this virtual reality world. I remember once my partner was playing World of Warcraft, and he asked me to play a bit so that I could understand what he was talking about when he explained what was going on in his games. All I did was run around and kill things with lasers coming out of my eyes… and I only played for about 40 minutes before I said that it wasn’t for me. That being said, I did get really into it! I yelled when someone ran in front of me to kill the tree-monster (sorry if you play WOW, I don’t remember the exact character name) I was trying to kill. It was a lot of fun, but I don’t think I really was able to get into the virtual world side of the game with less than an hour of play time.

The documentary Second Skin (2008) focuses on the relationships that gamers have with their virtual worlds and their fellow gamers. So many people have used these games as a form of socialising. People play these games for more than 10 hours a day… couple that with approximately 8 hours a day for work, attempting to factor in 4 hours for sleep, that leaves 1 hour left in a day for EVERYTHING else, including eating, bathing, cleaning, exercising, socialising (Second Skin, 2008). Half of MMORPG players say that they are addicted to this virtual worlds and 1 in 5 say that they are residents of a virtual world (Second Skin, 2008). It can be an online dating tool, with 1 in 3 gamers date someone from a virtual world (Second Skin, 2008).

There is a dark side though, especially for females. Many can experience cyber bullying. John Oliver, host of Last Week Tonight, dedicated a segment to the online harassment (2015). He focused on the “veritable cornucopia of horrifying messages” that women can receive online, including rape threats and death threats. It also focuses on how the law in America hasn’t progressed to be able to help these women the way the really should be able to.

I personally think that the gaming world gets a bad rap for being an ‘unhealthy’ virtual world. To me, I don’t really see the difference between my partner wanting to log into his game as soon as he gets home and me checking my Facebook newsfeed. Virtual worlds can be addictive, and for all the reasons we have discussed – they provide you with the ability to escape, and communicate and even to become the person you WISH you could be. There probably is something inherently wrong with all of this, but I also don’t believe in digital duality (Herrman, 2014) and the real and virtual are going to become synonymous, and I really do think that this is something that we need to embrace, rather than reject.

References:

Atlay, O 2015, ‘Most Popular MMORPGs in the World’, MMOs.com, viewed 17 January 2016, < http://mmos.com/editorials/most-popular-mmorpgs-world>

Herrman, J 2014, ‘Meet the Man Who Got Inside Snapchat’s Head’, BuzzFeed, 28 January, viewed 16 January 2016, <http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/meet-the-unlikely-academic-behind-snapchats-new-pitch#3dlvjg2>

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver 2015 [television program], HBO, 21 June.

Second Skin 2008 [Presto], Brauer & Escoriaza, USA.

[axebrain]

@shivaniielizabeth, I’m very interested in the point you make about gaming being like social networking in that it is addictive and takes you away from those around you.

I would suggest that maybe gaming removes you completely from the ‘real’ world, whereas social networking allows you to straddle the two, a bit like a functioning addict.

I too find it disgraceful how women are treated, not just in games but by trolls all over the internet. Oxygen theives who hide behind an avatar to harass and threaten people, when in the real world they cower and whimper and say nothing. Nobody’s full stop.

[myuniblog]

Week 9 - Visual communities and social imaging: #FBF

“There is a sadness and a longing in the relationship to memory and history….which may not be altogether present in the social construction of vernacular digital photography and its communities.” - Martin Lister (on Traditional photography)

Two years ago I went on  trip to Europe. At the time I shared almost all the images taken on my smartphone via Instagram. Recently I made one of the images (an eiffel Tower Selfie) my profile pic on Facebook and was met with questions from family and “friends” on how I was enjoying Paris and how long I would be gone for. I changed the pic.

I had chosen it because I thought it was just a nice photo and my profile was due for an update. I was surprised that some of the questions were coming from people who had seen me the day before and knew very well that I wasn’t in Paris, or were people who had like the photo two years ago when it was first posted.

In that moment I became all to aware of the ubiquity of photography in the digital/technological age. That is to say the the importance of immediacy over archiving when posting personal photographs to social media (Hand, 2013 p.4). Unless prefixed with a #FBF (Flash Back Friday) why on **** green Earth wold you display a pic that was not taken there and then. I was playing with fire.

                                                                            *****

I have a real anxiety around being tagged in anything on Facebook whether it be a photo which I am in, or something that someone is sharing.

This doesn’t come from having had a bad experience…yet, but more from the idea of not having any control. For this reason I have my tagging preferences set to my approval first before they appear on my timeline. That doesn’t stop them from appearing on the Taggers timeline or the timelines of anyone else who may be tagged in the image, but it does mean that it won’t surface as part of my feed until I give it the say so.

Apart from a lack of control there are other reasons as to why I want to be able to approve what will effectively become content that is associated with me (No one wants to appear to have more chins than they actually do). Just because something is on Facebook does not mean that it will be confined to that realm - it is effectively the property of the internet, and for that reason can be used out of context, its so scary when you really think about it.

For all the reasons I have named and probably some more I have taken to barely posting images to Facebook. I only post photos to Instagram, which are then shared on Tumblr & Twitter via preferences. Because Instagram is a photo based social media I find that its community is more forgiving of the types of photos you post - it respects that the images you share may not have happened just then, but are indeed memories/moments that are important to you.

References Hand, M 2012, Ubiquitous Photography, Polity Press, Cambridge.

Lister, M 2013, The Photographic Image in Digital Culture, Rutledge, New York.

[shivaniielizabeth-blog]

I love the point you made about playing with fire by posting an old photo - it’s like we now demand up to date content from everyone around us!

[axebrain]

Hey @myuniblog, great post and so true.

I too am concerned about what gets posted on Facebook and also have my timeline on approval mode. I actually had to do it because I had a bad experience with a weird ‘friend’ a few years back who posted a heap of his political propaganda on my timeline. When I deleted the posts, he just posted them again and again until I had to block posting. Eventually I had to block the weirdo.

I’ve actually been saying I’m going to leave Facebook for nearly three years and I still haven't been able to do it. Once my study is done, this time for sure...

[axebrain]

Prepared to engage

Online gaming is something that is a complete mystery to me. Not only have I not played online games, I’ve barely played video games period. Firstly I’m a Gen-X. Secondly it just never appealed to me. I was much more comfortable playing sport, drinking and chasing girls than sitting around whiling away the hours on a video game.

That said, it is now a legitimate and consuming part of ‘life’ for millions of gamers the world over. Online game EVE is said to have “over 500,000 registered users” (Thornhill, T 2014), making the scale of the world truly mind boggling to a novice like myself.

My need for real and face to face friendship was paramount in my shunning of video games but I am now led to understand that many gamers are just that because of the “the ability to play with all of your friends” (Zynga, 2014). A case in point is the Facebook game FarmVille which was the highest rating Facebook game between 2009 and 2011 (Facebook Apps Leaderboard 2016). FarmVille enabled users to share interactions with their friends whilst creating their own unique gaming experience, the very definition of ‘doing things with your friends’.

In a further blurring of the lines between gaming and reality, there is even alternative currencies created for online games which equate to real dollars. However, Thornhill  (2014) points out that the “primary basis for value in the game’s virtual economy is the time and skill that gamers put into such concepts as the mining of minerals, the selling of goods and services, or the stealing of goods and money”. So too, the EVE community have appointed a panel of governors called the Council of Stellar Management to oversee the way the game is played and to take action when it is not played within the spirit of fair gameplay.

Of course it all comes back to money. What doesn’t. The hours invested by gamers to create spacecraft, bases and the like far outweighs what is skimmed from the top by those who capitalise from this practice. This creative input by users makes the game more and more difficult to regulate, particularly when attempting to rectify “disputes regarding many aspects of gameplay.” (de Zwart, M & Humphreys, S 2014) Lessig (as cited in deZwart & Humphreys, 2014) explains that four factors affect regulation on a given point: law, norms, architecture and the market.

These grey areas, particularly in the legalities of gaming, have meant a rise a litigation within large gaming communities, prompting questions about “how far domestic laws can apply to the global environment of the MMOG (Massively Multiplay Online Game)”. It boggles the mind that we have reached a point where we are unaware of how the law is to be practiced because we are quite literally applying law in an environment where it has not been practiced before.

Regardless of my inability to understand the intricacies, online gaming has become something more than just the game. With numbers of players exceeding the populations of small countries, it is a huge and curious leviathan that will continue to prompt questions and push boundaries well into this century.

References

de Zwart, M & Humphreys, S 2014, The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online, Cultural Studies Review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 77-99.

“Facebook Apps Leaderboard - AppData”. appdata.com. Retrieved 30 January 2016.

Lessig, L 2006, Code: Version 2.0, Basic Books, New York, 2006, pp. 120–5.

Thornhill, T, 2014, The online videogame battle that cost $300,000: Gamers see hundreds of costly spaceships destroyed after user forgot to pay bill to defend their base, The Daily Mail, 29 January, viewed 30 January 2016, <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2547908/EVE-online-sees-biggest-battle.html>

Zynga, 2014, Farmville, viewed 30 January 2016, <www.zynga.com>.

[axebrain]

Attention as a managed achievement

Being Australian, there was a time in my life when I understood attention seeking behaviour to have a negative connotation. In some intrinsic way related to the good old Aussie ‘tall poppy syndrome’, I was conditioned or brought up to believe that attention seekers were in some way unhappy about themselves, hence their relentless lust for attention to somehow receive the love they never got. Or something like that.

Fast forward to 2016 and I can’t imagine a world where EVERYBODY isn’t seeking EVERYBODY'S attention. And when I say everybody, I mean everybody they know. Or want to know. And if their behaviour in fact improves their ability of getting the attention of more people, the better things are.

Social media now occupies the space between us and everybody else. It owns it. It feeds off it. And it capitalises on it. Lange (2014) in his study of YouTubers videos goes so far as analyse the way that YouTubers build their audience by creating “video’s of affinity”, designed to “maintain feelings of potential others who identify or interpellate themselves as intended viewers of the video”.

Of course, when discussing information made public by those who are essentially private individuals, the issue of privacy is never far from the centre of discourse. Evan Speigel (2014), CEO of social media network Snapchat, has spoken of the importance of “ephemerality” or transience in the production of media. In other words, the ability for messages or media to disappear after a period of time.

In Speigel’s mind, the online world should and will eventually parallel the real world - “the world separated into an online and an offline space is no longer relevant.” (Herman, J 2014) Just as the words we speak are gone once they are spoken, so to, according to Speigel, will the media we produce disappear, fostering an online space more akin to the reality it desperately attempts to mimic.

According to Vivienne and Burgess (2013), this next phase of social media would not make video or photography less culturally significant, but more, for “the meanings and material practices…have changed without decentring it as a dominant cultural form”. In some ways this is theory is borne out by the birth of growing new social media networks Periscope and Meerkat, networks which rely on live streams which are then deleted after 24 hours of airing.

Of course all of these points are moot if media fails to engage. Would this new media landscape see more failed attempts at gaining an audience because of its transience, or a more ‘music-industry like’ space where artists are given a chance because people are looking to give different things a try?

Only time will tell.

We just might not know because it might have already been deleted.

References

Herrman, J 2014, ‘Meet the Man Who Got Inside Snapchat’s Head’, BuzzFeed, 28 January, viewed 24 September 2015, <http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/meet-the-unlikely-academic-behind-snapchats-new-pitch#3dlvjg2>.

Lange, P 2009, ‘Videos of Affinity on YouTube’, in P, Snickars & P, Vonderau (eds), The YouTube Reader, National Library of Sweden, Stockholm, pp 70-88.

Spiegel, E 2014, Partner Summit Keynote, AXS Partner Summit 25 January 2014, viewed 28 January 2015, <http://blog.snapchat.com/page/3>

Vivienne, S & Burgess, J 2013, ‘The Remediation of the Personal Photograph’, Journal of Material Culture, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 279-98.

[axebrain]

Emergency and Disaster Communications

I work in local government as a social media advisor and the topic of emergency communications is one that I am well aware of. We continually monitor the various weather bureau social media pages, CFA information and SES updates and share each accordingly. These shares happen every other day for varying emergencies including fire, high winds, total fire ban, storms, floods and just about any other weather event you can think of.

I am of the opinion that these updates are not the role of local government but management and council are very concerned about the role that we play in regards to those who follow our page who may not follow other emergency pages.

Heather Ford (2012) strikes a chord when she talks of how difficult it is to decide which information “should be declared as ‘verified’”. The approach I take at work is only to share information that is of relevance to our followers/residents. Obviously should the need arise, people within our organisation would take control in the event of an emergency situation and we would post our own information, but until that time, I consider pages such as the SES, BOM radar and CFA as far more likely to know what is happening than myself and so I trust them. In this way, our sharing “supplement traditional information dissemination and sourcing methods by emergency services organisations” (Bruns et al, 2012).

The approach that we have taken is akin to the ABC. We have plans in place and awareness of those plans, but most importantly we have consistency -  “people…know what they're getting, and when, where and how they’re getting it.” (Postetti, J 2012). Our followers and likers know that our channels will supply regular information on weather conditions that are out of the ordinary and will update them as the day goes on. In this way, residents can be confident that they are not forgotten and can share information that is of significance for them.

Obviously it is problematic to “approach social media platforms as 'support acts’ for the main coverage on broadcast media.” (Postetti, J 2012). Social media has become a channel in and of itself and quite literally can be the ‘newsbreaker’ for many people in regards to how they first learn about an emergency situation. Whilst it may not be the only channel that people access, it is more often than not, the catalyst for the consumption of radio, internet or television around the event. And in times of crisis, it is playing a significant role in alerting people more quickly and easily than either of those three channels combined.

References

Bruns, A, Burgess, J, Crawford, K & Shaw, F 2012, #qldfloods and @QPSMedia: Crisis Communication on Twitter in the 2011 South East Queensland Floods, Arc Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, pp 7-10, viewed 17 September 2015, <http://www.cci.edu.au/floodsreport.pdf>.

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

Postetti, J & Lo, P 2012, The Twitterisation of ABCs Emergency & Disaster Communication, Australian Journal of Emergency Management, Vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 34-39.

[axebrain]

Digital Citizenship

What governs the way we behave online? When one takes a look at the comment fields of innumerable YouTube clips or Facebook posts, it may come as a surprise that there isn’t any regulatory body (like the Police) keeping an eye on the behaviour of individuals online. I mean, the internet is a big place. No single force of people could possibly manage to view and moderate the many millions of conversations happening simultaneously online at any one time. And so we do it ourselves.

According to McCosker (2014), digital citizenship is concerned with “ethical behaviour in online environments and takes aim at problematic or aberrant forms of participation”. In other words, being a good digital citizen is to uphold moral and ethical standards when conducting oneself online, including the denouncement of behaviour which contravenes these moral codes including trolling, flaming and online harassment.

Scholars however are divided on the role that these types of online interactions contribute to the conversations, social interactions and indeed, overall culture of which they are a part. Much of the debate is around whether offence rests on the “senders intent” (O’Sullivan and Flanagan, 2003) or the “experience of the recipient” (Lange 2006).

Chantal Mouffe (2000) suggests that “agonistic pluralism” is the space within which online interactions take place, where “conflict remains ineradicable but may be productively accommodated by social institutions and platforms that allow space for the flow of passion and contested interaction among adversaries.” According to Dicken, agonism is characterised as “an element of public culture and politics that can accommodate cruelty” (Dicken 2009).

A more in depth look into the way trolling or flaming works, and we become aware that it is “carefully constructed to initiate ongoing reactions and to draw attention” (McCosker 2014). Often a troll enters a conversation, makes a post guaranteed to get a reaction and then proceeds to disrupt the flow of comments by deliberately inflaming the respondents with vitriolic or bigoted remarks. Often this is done anonymously. McCosker (2014) suggests that these interactions are “tools for intensifying an agonistic space that seeks to draw out and multiply interaction or reaction and extract responses.”

Sometimes however, bullying or vitriolic interaction is not anonymous. Boyd (2014) believes that social media has “not radically altered the dynamics of bullying, but it has made these dynamics more visible to more people.” That said, incidents of bullying in a social media space has very real and specific consequences which are not unlike physical bullying. Numerous incidences of students having to leave schools and change habits in the face of bullying have been identified. According to Boyd social media fills the “role in teens' struggles for popularity and status because they enable the easy spread of information and allow teens to keep up with ever-changing school dynamics” (Boyd, 2014)

Whilst it can seem that everywhere you go online there is an internet troll going to town on somebody about something, perhaps, as McCosker suggests, these interactions are playing out in order to cement culture rather than defy it. If the comments of a vitriolic nobody sparks hordes of digital citizens to stand up together in defiance, can it be all that bad?

References

Boyd, D 2014, Bullying: Is the Media Amplifying Meanness and Cruelty?, in It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, Yale University Press, New Haven, USA, pp 128-52.

Dicken B (2009) The (impossible) society of spite: revisiting nihilism. Theory, Culture and Society 26(4): 97–116.

Lange P (2006) What’s your claim to flame? First Monday 11(9) Available at: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1393/1311 (accessed 14 April 2010).

McCosker, A 2014, YouTrolling as provocation: Tube's agonistics publics, Convergence, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 201-217.

Mouffe C (2000) For an agonistic model of democracy. In: O’Sullivan N (ed) Political Theory in Transition. London, UK: Routledge, pp. 113–132.

O’Sullivan P, Flanagan A (2003) Reconceptualizing ‘flaming’ and other problematic messages. New Media and Society 5(1): 69–94.

[axebrain]

Social media activism

In recent years, the increasing number of protests, sit-ins, uprisings and indeed emancipatory action across the world involving social media has risen in line with the growing numbers of individuals calling social media home.

It is not surprising that in a world that has turned “technology and science into a sort of secular religion.” (Ellul, 1964), the organisers of mass political action have taken to the medium that nearly three quarters of the planets population inhabit in some form or other.

Political action by individuals and groups is not uncommon, but the use of social media to mobilise such action is. Gerbaudo (2012) suggests that social media are employed by activist leaders and influential individuals “to generate a new experience of public space”. Indeed social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide a place where like minded individuals can come together to find a sense of belonging.

However, it is within the constraints of these platforms that tensions arise between “the sociopolitical uses by activists and the commercial interests of the platform owners” (Youmans, W, & York, J 2012). Yuma's and York (2012) take the argument further by suggesting that the rigidity of a platforms programming and it’s “company policies" actively derail activism.

As such, there are examples of governments that have actively sought to close or disable the accounts of high profile activists in the interests of the state, by relying on social media’s bent towards “suppressing anonymity” (Youmans, W, & York, J 2012). Dirty tricks abound, particularly relating to the action taken by platforms to maintain user good will, an example of which includes “Government agents in Sudan post[ing] pornography to protest pages and then report[ing] them to Facebook (Boswell, 2011).”

The owners of Facebook and Twitter find themselves protecting their own interests, particularly those relating to advertising and consumerism. These major platforms take a serious view of government interference, should it hamper these capitalist goals and are therefor happy to close accounts in the interests of maintaining their profit margins. In the same way governments are happy to allow platforms to further these goals, lest they be seen as a censor or restrictor of content.

In this way, social media will continue to maintain its dominance in the mobilisation of activist activity in the modern world. It remains to be seen whether social media will continue as merely a  “rallying point for emotional condensation and as a symbolic springboard towards participation” (Gerbaudo 2012) or the focus of real and long lasting political change.

References

Boswell, A. (2011, April 6). How Sudan used the Internet to crush protest movement. McClatchy Newspapers. Retrieved from http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/ 04/06/111637/sudans-government-crushed-protests.html

Ellul, J. (1964) The Technological Society. New York: Knopf.

Gerbaudo, P 2012, Tweets and the Streets : Social Media and Contemporary Activism, Pluto, London.

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.

[axebrain]

Online media and politics

For a long time I’ve been looking for the way to describe social media’s ability to manipulate my time without truly providing me with something that makes me either interested or engaged.

Jodi Dean’s presentation to the Plenary may just be it (DCU School of Communication 2013). Dean’s half hour dissection of the inherent problems with social media from the standpoint of democracy rings true to me in just about every utterance.

Dean frames her rhetoric by using the phrase “communicative capitalism” (DCU School of Communication 2013). She sees the interactions between people online as becoming more and more a furthering of economic and business ends rather than social ones.

Dean sees communicative capitalism as having three main impacts. Firstly, messages become contributions, diminishing their value. What is matters is “not what was said but THAT something was said”. (Dean - DCU School of Communication 2013)

Secondly, Dean refers to a decline in symbolic efficiency, or the way that symbols move from one context to another. Dean sees this as an “entrapment in immediacy and locality” (Dean - DCU School of Communication 2013). What is important is what is closest or is screaming the loudest. A bi-product of this is the reduction of ideas to their simplest symbolic form, images become the preferred way to share because ideas have to be explained and debated.

Thirdly, Dean talks of reflexivity, the “mass of virtually indistinguishable yet rapidly circulating differences and modulations that ensure that nothing changes.” (Dean - DCU School of Communication 2013). It is this reflective repetition which Dean says hurts democracy at its core because it discourages debate, instead encouraging individual opinions that are unsupported and become part of the ongoing cycle.

Communicative capitalism, she posits, perpetuates the notion of an ideal world where “the language of unity and security displaces our attention from nefarious and conservative media practices, as if only old media can be manipulated.” (Dean - DCU School of Communication 2013).

The nefarious and conservative media practices that Dean speaks of, include the ownership of data and metadata, and the recording of online habits and practices. Data which large companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter can on-sell to political movements that can afford them, such as right wing conservative political parties. It is left wing, idea driven political organisations that often suffer in this environment because they can become caught in the “shift from doing to appearing, to getting attention instead of building a political apparatus of duration.” (Dean - DCU School of Communication 2013). Communicative capitalism keeps political organisations from being focused and organised and so prevents political movements of any duration.

Greg Jericho suggests that it’s not all bad. He credits social media with being “at the very least…used to create the spark that fires a movement…into taking action” (Jericho, G 2012). He suggests that “real activists require real connections” and that regardless of movements on social media, it is the human connections that create the movement.

For someone that has only recently become politically active in the online space, I am convinced of its ability to empower engagement with a cause online. I am also however, highly aware of its ability to distract, to enable my fleeting outrage at a cause, which can be easily sated by adding my signature to a change.org petition.

I understand the electoral commission are even investigating how we might one day vote online. I wonder what the online campaigns will be like before and on election day when that day comes. I will be able to be outraged, satisfied, eat and vote, all from the comfort of my couch.

References

DCU School of Communication 2013, IAMCR 2013 Plenary No. 3 - Jodi Dean, 3 July, viewed 11 January 2016, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5ABPuNQ6IU>

Jericho, G 2012, How many votes are there on Twitter?, in The Rise of the Fifth Estate, Scribe, Victoria, Australia, viewed 13 January 2016, <http://reader.eblib.com.au.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/(S(nnbk3ckrjkmrgn0wnuzvyini))/Reader.aspx?p=1020873&o=132&u=n7q7Kv4mRD%2f%2bPbP2znnFgA%3d%3d&t=1452679395&h=8509E365563F12FB43E244C8D305D0B67320335F&s=22680311&ut=405&pg=261&r=img&c=-1&pat=n&cms=-1&sd=1>

[shanrosew-blog]

You blog? You famous!

All the bloggers out there doing this way better than me, don’t take offence! I’m merely referencing one of the readings from week four which states that on the internet, you only need fifteen friends or people who are interested in what you’re writing and your sufficiently famous (Rettberg 2014, p. 67). So, I’m still not famous. 

I must be doing something wrong. It could be that I’m not up on the lingo like ‘pwned’ that I only managed to discover once reading the learning materials. I happened to come across this on Tahlia’s blog and thought she’d made typos throughout her post AND her title! I’m so glad I didn’t pull her up on it. Embarrassing…

DO I EVEN KNOW WHAT A BLOG IS?

So I admit my interpretation of a blog prior to this week was that it was a written or visual diary. A space where people share their thoughts and opinions and content that has either amused or inspired them. Turns out they are not only much more than that, but they can also be a lot simpler. They can serve a range of purposes from a corporate level down to a personal page sharing a love of mini dachshunds. I happen to own a mini dachshund and since falling deep in love with her, this kind of blog is not that far fetched.

SEE LOOK! THEY ARE ADORABLE!

The unique characteristic of the blogosphere is that it reaches a wider audience and it has the potential to spread like 'word of mouth’ but in an exciting and fast- paced digital community (Cross 2011, p. 38).

I FOLLOW YOUR BLOG, ARE WE FRIENDS?

A link between blogs can signify that two bloggers know each other and may consider one another as an associate or a friend but it can also signify that one blogger enjoys another bloggers blogging (Rettberg 2014, p. 67). The PUBLICS that are formed when considering blogs is often referred to as 'networked publics’ and, when put simply, refers to publics that are reconstructed by network technologies). I found Boyd’s definition the clearest and easiest to relate to the idea of social media platforms and blogging communities as describing the space constructed and the imagined collective in network technologies (Boyd 2010, p. 39). When I think of that idea, I imagine little towns made up of the collectives of the blog world… The fashion bloggers, the science geniuses and the mini dachshund enthusiasts.

This idea of networked publics leads to considering what the publics are seeking and delivering through these blogs. Blogging about illness has become a platform for detailed and on- going expressions of people who are suffering severe illness (McCosker 2008, p. 1). These platforms offer sufferers and their loved ones an opportunity to communicate and relate to others experiencing their pain or to supporters who are encouraging their journey. I am lucky enough to not have suffered a serious illness but I imagine a community of support and people experiencing similar things would be true comfort. A risk with having these blogs that are given such a potentially public and powerful voice is that vulnerable people can be taken for a ride. Let’s look at a very well- known case of this in Australia earlier this year. Belle Gibson, a 23- year- old blogger who claimed to cure brain cancer with natural therapies and healthy foods was discovered to be misleading followers (Ferreras 2015). It was discovered Gibson never had the cancer and many people who were inspired by her were left feeling betrayed.

After this week diving into the world of blogs, I feel inspired to keep talking about them but I also feel like I’ve been missing out by just keeping to the single servers like Facebook and Instagram. I have an urge to try and start a photoblog now but if anyone can tell me how to reference where these pictures have come from that I have found on other Tumblrs? I’ve seen people can link them to the original posters blog? HELP.

REFERENCES Boyd, D 2010, ‘Social Network Sites as Networked Publics’, in Papacharissi, Z, A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites, Routledge, Hoboken, pp. 39-58.

Cross, M 2011, Got Blog, in Bloggerati, Twitterati: How blogs and Twitter are transforming popular culture, Praeger, Santa Barbara.

Ferraras, J 2015, 'Belle Gibson, Australian wellness blogger, lied about cancer diagnosis’, HuffPost Canada, 22 April, viewed 4 December 2015, <http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/04/22/belle-gibson-cancer-lie-wellness-blogger_n_7120796.html>

McCosker, A 2008, 'Blogging Illness: Recovering in Public’, M/C Journal, vol. 11, no. 6, pp. 1-8.

Rettberg, J 2014, 'Blogs, Communities and Networks’, in Blogging, Polity Press, MA.

[axebrain]

So well written Shannon,

I love how you’ve incorporated all the different elements and injected some real personality into the blog posts.

I need to make sure I do that myself, I’m a bit too dry and academic.

Luke

[tahliaforrestdigital-blog]

pwned by the public

First of all, for me personally, this week was more so preparation for the group assessment which includes a presentation. Mine is due tomorrow morning and I spent most of my study time this week dedicated to that, but don’t worry the presentation looks awesome me and my girl Shan smashed it.

While I write this blog post, I am alone in my bedroom. My family is not home and the house is silent.. but, when I click “post” at the end of this rant, this blog post will be made public, for all to see, read and devour. 

But what and who is the public?

Within the learning materials of week 4, Mizuko Ito (cultural anthropologist) describes it as “…reactors, (re)makers and (re)distributors, engaging in shared culture and knowledge through discourse and social exchange as well as through acts of media reception.” In saying this, if you are reading my post now and are engaged in my opinion, welcome to the public! When it comes to blogging, I like to think of my followers as my public, as they are my audience. Pretty cute that I have an audience, thanks guys, shucks. 

Moving along…..

Networked Publics!

Networked publics are a little harder to put into words and anecdotal examples..but thats where Danah Boyd (2010) comes in :) Boyd uses 3 central dynamics to describe networked publics, which include: Invisible audiences: not all audiences are visible when a person is contributing online, nor are they necessarily co-present Collapsed contexts: the lack of spatial, social, and temporal boundaries makes it difficult to maintain distinct social contexts and The blurring of public and private: without control over context, public and private become meaningless binaries, are scaled in new ways, and are difficult to maintain as distinct. 

However, this is still completely different to Counterpublics…duh.

Counterpublics are loosely connected groupings actively working to counter dominant cultural norms and social structures. Basically, the trends we see on facebook, twitter and here on tumblr connect us to make us a counterpublic.. The example they used in the learning materials rocked: “For example, consider the development and use of the word ‘pwned’, a corruption of the word ‘owned’. This originated in an online game called Warcraft, where a map designer misspelled ‘owned.’ When the computer beat a player, it was supposed to say, so-and-so 'has been owned.’ Instead, it said, so-and-so 'has been pwned.’ It basically means 'to own’ or to be dominated by an opponent or situation, especially by some god-like or computer-like force. 'Man, I rock at my job, but I still got a bad evaluation. I was pwned.’ OR 'That team totally pwned us.'” (Learning Materials)

This week totally pwned me…goodnight everybody xo

[katedcswin]

Hey there Tahlia.. wow your blog looks cool, i’m a rookie at the blogging stuff but you seem to know your way around pretty well I really like your page. I enjoyed your blog on Publics and and how personal your writing style is.

[shivaniielizabeth-blog]

Great title Tahlia! I like the point that you make about how while no one is home, you will still be connected to the outside world irregardless of where you are. 

[axebrain]

Great writing Tahlia,

I like how you write, a little less formally than me (I’m all academic and shit) so it’s really nice to be reading all these blogs and seeing how you can still reference articles and stuff but make it sound like you’re a person and not a robot.

I’m going to keep that in mind for my future blog posts.

Luke :)

[axebrain]

Networked Publics

This week’s idea of networked publics presents a very interesting take on how social media and the internet are changing the shape of the modern world.

Central to the idea of the networked public is the concept of social contexts and their dynamic nature within this arena.

The blog takes the centre stage here in the form of audiences or publics that are interconnected, building an online story across multiple referential diary-like entries that form what Kitzman (2004 as cited in McCosker 2013) calls “public intimacy”.

Networked publics are shaped by three central dynamics; not all audiences are visible when a person is contributing online, nor are they co-present, they can step into and out of the online world at their convenience; social contexts can be be blurred because of the lack of spatial, social and temporal boundaries present in the online environment; the control of context in relation to public and private information becomes more difficult to maintain and the line between these two ideas becomes blurred.

A blog has three major components. It is chronological and appears in reverse order with the most recent entry at the top. It is updated regularly to maintain relevance and readership and it tends to focus on a specific topic or relies on the personality of the writer.

These three elements, whilst correct, do point to the blog as a form of self promotion, to a level of “performance and construction” (Miller & Taylor 2006; McCosker 2008 as cited in McCosker 2013) that removes the intimacy the blog aims to create.

So what is the value of a blog if it’s very authenticity can be questioned or dismissed entirely?

McCosker and Darcy, in their study of cancer blogs argue that the value of sharing information on terminal illness “can be identified here as personal, in the form of identity management through a traumatic, disrupted life period, network-enabling in generating online spaces for shared traumatic experience and a culture of self and networked help, and social in what is recouped in the forms of non-institutional management of serious illness.” (McCosker 2013)

Whilst this can be true for self-help blogs, so called ‘citizen journalism’ does not get off so easily. Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur, laments an alarming blurring of the lines between “fact and opinion, informed expertise and amateurish speculation” (Keen, as cited in Cross 2011). Cross (2011) goes so far as to blame the blog itself for the “superficial, unedited and opinionated flow of information” that now permeates news and current affairs.

References

Boyde, D 2010, ‘Social Network Sites as Networked Publics’, in Zizi Papacharissi, A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites, Routledge, Hoboken, pp. 39-58.

Cross, M 2011, Got Blog, in Bloggerati, Twitterati: How blogs and Twitter are transforming popular culture, Praeger, Santa Barbara.

McCosker, A & Darcy, R 2013, 'Living with Cancer: Affective Labour, Self-Expression and the Utility of Blogs', in Information, Communication and Society, vol. 16, no. 8, pp. 1-20.

[thisisclarewright-deactivated20]

Blog #1  For better or for worse

The ubiquity of digital communities and social media networking has created a revolution in the sociality of modern day communication. We are, as individuals, networking more than ever before with digital technological devices. But is this shift in increased digital communities a positive or a negative for establishing relationships?

Is technology redefining human connection for better or for worse? 

Dr Sherry Turkle coins the term the “Goldilocks effect” in an April 2012 TED Talk (TED-Ed 2013). When you think about it, Goldilocks was a sassy girl. Rebellious to her mothers demands, a connoisseur of culinary dishes and meticulous with interior comforts. But, who could have guessed, generations after her creation Goldilocks’s legendary character would be used to best describe the negativity of personal connections we now maintain with friends, family and colleges! Turkle states that communication via digital technology enables us to maintain relationships not too far, not too close, but just the right amount of physical and emotional distance (Hunt 2014). In her TED talk, Turkle talks about people wanting to be with each other, but also elsewhere, in amounts that are convenient to them (TED-Ed 2013). How does this form of “beingness” effect adolescents who need to develop the art of face-to-face communication, which takes place in real time, without the control of being able to edit their words or retouch their image (TED-Ed 2013)? Turkle maintains that human relationships are messy, yet we are cleaning them up with technology and therefore sacrificing communication for mere connection (TED-Ed2013).

With the ubiquitous influence of digital communities in our daily lives, and with no sign of this abating, lets search for the positives. In an American study of the use of social networking sites among 92 undergraduate college students, positive results in digital relationships were found (Pempek, Yermolayeva, Calvert 2009, p. 227). It is apparent that spending time on social networking sites is a daily experience for most young adults, at a time in their lives that is traditionally characterised by a struggle to find their sense of self. With the use of social media, adolescents can experiment with their identity, in an easy, accessible way and foster the development of their identity in a virtual environment (Pempek, Yermolayeva, Calvert 2009 p.228). In addition to this, research found a strong positive relationship between social media use and social, face-to-face interactions. The primary use of social media sites is for youth to stay in contact with friends they often see, and friends they rarely see (Pempek, Yermolayeva, Calvert 2009 p.229). 

So what now? Is technology redefining human relationships for better or for worse? For good or for bad? Is it negative or is it positive? Let me just say this; It is here, and it is not going anywhere anytime soon - so lets embrace network digital technology for all the affordances it provides us, but lets be AWARE of how much it can consume our lives. Lets make conscious efforts when we are with our friends to put our phone away for real time, face-to-face interaction. Lets make digital device exclusion zones in our home for quality family time. Lets look up at the world around us when we are outside, instead of down at our mobile devices and lets smile, the real life around us is too good to miss!

References

Hunt, M 2014, ‘Technology, Connections and the Goldilocks Effect’, Social Media Today, 12 February, viewed 17 November 2015, http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/technology-connections-and-goldilocks-effect.

Pempek, T.A.; Yermolayeva, Y.A.; Calvert, S.L. 2009, College students’ social networking experiences on Facebook, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Volume 30, Issue 3, May 2009, Pages 227-238 http://cdmc.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/Facebook2009.pdf

TED-Ed 2013, Connected, but alone?- Sherry Turkle, 19 April, viewed 17 November 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv0g8TsnA6c.

[axebrain]

Hey Clare,

I totally agree that social media is not the monster it is made out to be. It has so many positive aspects that you have covered and often augments face to face relationships rather than diminishing them. There is however, the choice we make to maintain digital contacts whilst in the company of our ‘real’ friends that poses the real threat. Are we ‘here’ or ‘there’? For we cannot be both, no matter what my kids tell me. Something has to give and the fear is that real relationships are pushed aside when we think we need to check Facebook every ten seconds.

Regardless, you are right. Digital community is here to stay. We must embrace it, but not forget to embrace our friends with our full attention too.

Great post.

Luke

[shivaniielizabeth-blog]

How does Social Media make you feel?

I’m a proud Gen Y, brought up in the golden age of the internet. I remember being in primary school and we had 3 computers in the back of the classroom and we used them to research a few things here and there, to play games. I remember how, as I grew up, the way I used the internet changed. I started to use it for different reasons. I began joining digital communities, through chat rooms. I remember being able to connect with people my own age from all corners of the globe. Growing up in a small country town, I found it difficult to find people that I could relate to. With the help of the internet, I could meet people who liked the same music as me, read the same books, dressed the same way I did. I remember the rise of MSN messenger, my go-to when I got home from school. I used it to talk to my school friends (never mind the fact that that I had only seen them less than an hour ago), and chat with my friends that lived in different towns and my family who were overseas.

Looking back, what I remember most is the feeling on inclusion I got from being able to chat with these other like-minded people. Ferdinand Tonnies said “what holds a society together when most of us are strangers to each other?” (Sapiera, 2012). The internet has allowed strangers from all over the word come together to become a community, based on common interests. Virtual communities are different to the traditional idea of a community as written by Tonnies (Sapiera, 2012). Virtual communities do not need to have any face-to-face contact, nor (as I discovered as a teenager) not bound by geographical location (Sapiera, 2012).  A virtual community can breed a healthy environment for its members. The members of a virtual community are brought together by shared feelings, ideas and desires (Sapiera, 2012); and therefore an acceptance which may not be experienced in their own day-to-day lives.

Some, such as Sherry Turkle (TED-Ed, 2013), believe that this shift to a digital community and result in a disconnection with society, and ourselves. Online, you can portray yourself as who you would like to be seen as. You can edit conversations and retouch photos to show a perfect life. Instagram model Essena O’Neil couldn’t take the pressure of her made up life and blamed social media for her losing herself (Hunt, 2015). The argument that social media can be harmful will never go away. After all, social media is a relatively new thing. But from my experience, social media allowed me to be part of a virtual community that accepted me for who I was, and allowed me to grow into myself at a time that I was particularly impressionable.

References:

Hunt, E 2015, ‘Essena O'Neill quits Instagram claiming social media ‘is not real life'’, The Guardian, 3 November, viewed 14 November 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/nov/03/instagram-star-essena-oneill-quits-2d-life-to-reveal-true-story-behind-images>.

Siapera, E 2012, ‘Socialities and Social Media’, in Introduction to New Media, Sage, London, pp 191-208.

TED-Ed 2013, Connected, but alone?- Sherry Turkle, 19 April, viewed 26 October 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv0g8TsnA6c>.

[axebrain]

Hi shivaniielizabeth,

I remember the age of MSN messenger, I didn’t really participate then and I remember feeling a sense of ‘missing out’ regarding this new version of interacting. I was fortunate enough to join Facebook quite early on and there was a real sense of discovery in being part of a platform that was part of a new revolution in social interaction.

The notion of digital community is such a personal thing and the acceptance that you gain from it can be just as important as face to face interaction.

Great post!

Luke

[axebrain]

Community, Society, Networked Individuality

Social media is the building blocks of modern society. Corporate organisations use it to communicate with customers, stakeholders and staff; everyday people use it to communicate with friends and family, as well as to give feedback to corporations and retail outlets: even children in primary school are starting to use it.

To say that social media is a building block, begs the question. What were the building blocks of society before the digital revolution? Siapera (2012) sees a clear distinction between the notion of a proximity based ‘community’, a ‘goal oriented’ society, and the emergence of a modern offshoot of society, what has come to be coined “networked individuality”.

This term refers to the idea the individual as the “primary unit of connectivity” (Siapera 2012, pp 200). Reinhold (2013) agrees, referring to a “personal connectedness in cyberspace”. To this end, the new community member acts as what Wellman (2001) terms a “autonomous communications node”, always connected, moving in and out of various communities based on time, interest and personal connections. But how personal can a connection be when it doesn’t take place in the same location, let alone the same country?

Sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies theorised that the industrial revolution forced the people from a ‘community’ based form of sociality to a ‘society’ based one, where rational will took over from the organic formation of connection that happened in communities. This new rational ‘society’ was lamented by Robert Putnam in his book ‘Bowling Alone’ (Putnam, 1995)

Wellman argues that the question of the community is “not a matter of preserving some ideal form of community, but understanding its dynamic nature and its historical embeddedness” (Wellman, 2001a), in other words, community is not about location, but about coming together to meet and share.

Most interesting is Wellman’s re-interpretation of the proximity based elements of traditional community, arguing that the internet has re-defined what proximity is. We are all ‘on the net’ and are therefor part of whatever community we choose. In this way, whilst the decision to join an online community may be rational and lead to certain goals, they can at the same time be self-fulfilling and organic, providing the same kind of connection as Tonnies defined ‘community’.

Modern social networks echo this sentiment clearly. To be a member of a particular network may seem from the outside to fulfil ‘society’ type needs such as membership or belonging (it is nearly a rite of passage these days to have a Facebook account), they may also provide traditional ‘community’ needs such as those relating to affection and affective relationships (the bonds that Facebook maintains are friends and family bonds).

References

C-SPAN 2012, Robert Putnam - Bowling Alone, 19 December, viewed 16 November 2015, <http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4236758/robert-putnam-bowling-alone>

Rheingold, H 2013, Network Literacy Mini-Course, viewed 16 November 2015, <http://rheingold.com/2013/network-literacy-mini-course/>

Siapera, E 2012, 'Socialities and Social Media', in Introduction to New Media, pp 191-208.

Tönnies, F, & Harris, J 2001, Community And Civil Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost, viewed 19 November 2015, <http://ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xww&AN=112387&site=ehost-live&scope=site>

Wellman, B. 2001. Computer Networks As Social Networks. Science, 293(5537), 2031, viewed on 18 November 2015, <http://ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA78825687&v=2.1&u=swinburne1&it=r&p=AONE&asid=b6df677ae33fd65abaedf672d275cb40>