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Social Media and China

The Great Firewall of China

China's Internet culture has accomplished a significant milestone. The Chinese government said 802 million people are actually using the Internet (Nial McCarthy 2018) and that it makes up 57.7% of the population. But the use of Western social media has been blocked in China. In China, for example, Google, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have been blocked, as have thousands of other foreign websites such as The New York Times and Chinese Wikipedia (Yuan 2018). The Great Firewall of China is the world's biggest censorship system, much of which is known as the limit. It is a mixed effort between government authorities and telecommunications and technology companies who are obliged to follow state law. It was launched in 2000 and is now being used by the government to enforce censorship and monitor its websites and to push search engines to philtre content deemed offensive (Bloomberg 2018). It's over 50,000 people today.

Nevertheless, China has set up its own national social networking platforms. They use WeChat instead of WhatsApp, Weibo replaces Twitter, Google copy Baidu, QQ revamped Facebook messenger and YouTube replaced Youku (BBC 2017). WeChat is being used instead of WhatsApp. One researcher wrote that China's censorship has been effective; not only does the regime make it difficult for people to access classified information, but it also promotes an environment in which citizens have not been asking for such information since its introduction. For example, as she grew up with Baidu, one of the people suggested that she is used to it. Moreover, in a survey conducted by Tencent, eight out of ten people born in 2000 or later experienced a steady change in their country, and almost the same proportion said they were optimistic about their future (Yuan 2018). Thus, China's censorship is not a matter for the Chinese networkers, as the Chinese apps have everything they want.

China Social Credit System

In addition, China uses the social credit system to monitor citizens' actions through surveillance and rating cameras, along with China's Great Firewall system. Population operation will be monitored by the Ma rating system (2018) and rated on the basis of its "social credit" and first announced in 2014, will be fully nationally applied by 2020. People with a good score are granted access to greater opportunities such as business discounts or hotel room reservations without paying deposits (Nittle 2018). People with low rankings can also be fined, including travel limits, for not staying in the best hotels (Ma 2018).

Personally I believe that a social credit system will instil positive nature in society, as it constantly asks people to behave themselves socially and to promote good behaviour. Moreover, the media have also recently reported that China's ranking system is now influencing society, and Chinese people appreciate the implementation of the ranking system when they see positive public behavioural changes (Fenwick 2017).

But it also pushes China's people to become model citizens and will eventually suffer more of those who have none so they don't have anything to begin with. For example low-income individuals are more likely to fail to fulfil their financial obligations, and raised penalties in the credit system may further restrict their ability to dig (Kovic n.d).

As far as China's social credit programme is concerned, I agree with some facets of the structure and disagree with some aspects of it. I think the scheme is perfect for safeguarding the health and well-being of people since I have visited various parts of China myself in the past. I think that China seems to be taking the right direction with what it is doing in the region, even though those things can still be modified. However the things I disagree with are the people responsible for regulating public health in China. When a corrupt public servant is engaged in exploiting the lives of people, the personal welfare of citizens is at stake when they have their data in the hands of an untrustworthy official.

References 

‘The Great Firewall of China’ 2018, Bloomberg, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/great-firewall-of-china>.

Yuan, L 2018, ‘Young people in China don’t know the Internet we do- and they like it that way’, Independent, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/china-internet-social-media-great-firewall-of-china-censorship-apps-a8510036.html>.

McCarthy, N 2018, ‘China now boasts more than 800 million Internet users and 98% of them are mobile (infographic)’, Forbes, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/08/23/china-now-boasts-more-than-800-million-internet-users-and-98-of-them-are-mobile-infographic/#27a708d47092>.

Nittle, N 2018, ‘Spend “frivolously” can be penalized under China’s new social credit system’, Vox, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/2/18057450/china-social-credit-score-spend-frivolously-video-games>.

‘Social media and censorship in China: how is it different to the West?’ 2017, BBC, viewed 21 November 2020, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41398423/social-media-and-censorship-in-china-how-is-it-different-to-the-west>.

Fenwick, A 2017, ‘How’s your social credit score?’, Hult International Business School, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://www.hult.edu/blog/your-social-credit-score/>.

Kovic, M n.d., ‘What’s wrong with China’s Social Credit System?’, Medium, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://medium.com/zipar/whats-wrong-with-china-s-social-credit-system-b9e1a2ffe71c>.

Ma, A 2018, ‘China has started ranking citizens with a creepy ‘social credit’ system- here’s what you can do wrong, and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you’, Business Insider Malaysia, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://www.businessinsider.my/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4/?r=US&IR=T>.

‘Dragon Social Limited’, 2019, TDA, 30 January, viewed 21 November 2020<https://topdigital.agency/10-most-popular-social-media-sites-in-china-2019-updated/>

Zhou Minxi 2019, ‘The truths and myths about China’s social credit system’, CGTN, 22 February, viewed 21 November 2020 <https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774e7751444f32457a6333566d54/index.html>

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Social Gaming

What is Social Gaming?

In online contexts, immersive games are regarded as a new concept and no unique significance has been recognized by anybody. However most sources agreed to use those general features to characterize social play.

Multiplayer is the first feature in multiplayer games. For eg, some group games are played at the same time by a few players, and these players can participate together.

Media networks are the second feature. Social games rely on the structure of social interaction. Online games will go home" on existing social networks, helping players to improve their social links.

Sight and engagement is the last feature of a group game. Participation, actions and achievements of other players in a group game will be communicated to individual players. There will also be relations between each player (Spotless 2019).

How Social Games are making changes to the world? 

Over the years, the organization has made many misconceptions and misconceptions. For eg, the newspapers blame social games for violence (Anderton, K 2018). Internet games did well for the entire planet, too. For eg, WeTopia encourages players to play for a good cause. In 2012, the game executed several positive actions, including 1000,000 children's school days in Haiti and 45,000 children's meals in Las Vegas.

In addition, Joy Kingdom was successfully launched in October 2012 by offering five hundred thousand pet food bowls for cats and dogs worldwide (Swallow 2013).

Are Gaming Communities becoming more toxic?

Sexism can be reinforced in many video games, and the study indicates that many stereotypes are being presented to women. For example women are also under-represented in video games. They are described as sexy, sexual, and insubstantial beings. According to Dietz (1998), by displaying clothing or nearly nude women, they were viewed as sex objects. The computer study of 47 randomly picked games contained low-cut wear and cleavage (Beasley and Collins Standley, 2002; Miller and Summers, 2007; Downs and Smith, 2010).

Is it just Game or Monetization?

With the increasing popularity of internet broadcasting, it is being turned to downloadable content that can deliver new expansions or update content at a fixed price. New monetization strategies are being created as the presence of online gamers increases. Few games offer monthly subscriptions to be played on servers. Both of them are considered purchase microtransactions for access to premium content (Cobb 2017).

An example of this is a video game by Reddit Player, Electronic Arts Star Wars Battlefront II. It was said that he had to pay $80 to access Darth Vader and EA said that it was meant only to give players a sense of success by accessing several heroes (Intelligent Economist 2019).

Drawbacks and Disadvantages of Social Game

The playback of video games. Excessive video games can contribute to behavior and behavioral change, says the World Health Organization (WHO). The reason for this is that children or adults who spend too long playing video may be obsessed with their video games and losing interest in socializing with others. Another drawback is the lack of academic achievement of the individual's other hobbies. This is because a person can be obsessed with playing the whole day, and because of the reliance of gaming, can't do other things like research and sport. The third drawback to the video game is lethargic, because the player has so much time to worry about his meal and sleep. The fourth drawback is a reduction in vision and insomnia.

The fact that the eye lenses spend so much time in front of the screen weakens, as the eyes focus on the surrounding objects during the day, stopping them from staring at remote objects in a manner that retains the strength of the eye lens, and can make sleeping in the U.S. more difficult overnight due to the susceptibility of the screen to radiation (Gill 2017).

In my view, computer games are not good or poor. I grew up in the world of consoles such as Nintendo Gameboy, Sony's PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable from my own perspective. When I was younger, I used to be an addict until, eventually, I stopped playing video games until I learned that video games were OK for as long as you could balance your life. Video games have created me more and made me think creatively, because I love them, because of various scenarios. The Grand Theft Truck, the Midnight Club and Need For Speed are my favorites. I have to confess that these games sometimes drive me a bit crazy about driving my car. Furthermore, I always tell myself that I have to continue to distinguish reality from fantasy, because car accidents can lead to serious lives.

References

Gill, M 2017, ‘Deadly disadvantages of video games recognized by WHO’, QRIYO, 29 December, viewed 14 November 2020 <https://www.qriyo.com/blog/deadliest-disadvantages-of-video-games-who/>

‘Social gaming- A usability perspective’ 2019, Spotless, viewed 14 November 2020, <https://www.spotless.co.uk/insights/social-gaming-usability/>.

Swallow, E 2013, ‘How social games are changing the world’, Forbes, viewed 14 November 2020, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericaswallow/2013/03/23/social-games/#24c294a2377e>.

Cobb, C 2017, ‘Video game monetization strategies’, Medium, viewed 14 November 2020, https://medium.com/@chris_cobb/video-game-monetization-strategies-715d78e80fa0>.

Dietz, TL 1998, ‘A examination of violence and gender role portrayals in video games: Implications for gender socialization and aggressive behaviour’, Sex Roles, vol. 38, no. 516, pp. 425-426.

‘Economics of microtransactions in video games’ 2019, Intelligent Economics, viewed 14 November 2020, <https://www.intelligenteconomist.com/economics-of-microtransactions/>.

Beasley, B & Standley, TC 2009, ‘Shirt vs. Skins: Clothing as an indicator of gender stereotyping in video games’, Mass Communication and Society, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 279-293.

Anderton, K 2018, ‘The impact of gaming: A benefit to society (Infographic)’, Forbes, viewed 14 November 2020, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinanderton/2018/06/25/the-impact-of-gaming-a-benefit-to-society-infographic/#66c2d412269d>.

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Fandom and Fan Activism

The Internet that we are using today has expanded its organizational ability not only to search knowledge, but also to gather people who share common interests, priorities and attitudes that can be related to the founder communities. But how is the fanbase defined? What's the activism of the fans? Let's immerse ourselves in this subject so that we can appreciate it.

What is Fandom?

A fandom is a community of active fans who are distinct from each member of what it means to be a fan. For eg, they might attend congresses and dress up in costumes before midnight to present their favorite franchise or to accompany their own newspapers. Others might also characterize it as arguing about Twilight against Harry Potter or whether the DC is MCU-like. However, becoming a part of Fandom means that you belong to the party (Deperna 2019).

Fandom in the Entertainment Industry

The believers have stayed among all other fan armies in social media for 6 years right from 2011. This helped Justin Bieber to win the Top Social Artist Award at the Billboard Music Awards (Blue Season 2018) rather than the other artists – Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez and others.

In 2017, a remarkable change occurred when South Korea's seven-member boy band became the first K-pop group to reach the top 10 in the Billboard 200 Chart, with a record 300 million votes worldwide (Blake 2018).

Are Fans weird and overly?

Fans are also thought to be weird since they keep their idols strange. Some years back, at the end of the 1960s, for example , John Lennon gave his housekeeper a rotting molar and asked her to throw it away. But he changed his mine and gave it to her daughter, who is a hardcore fan of the Beatles. The daughter kept the items in her family and sold them at $32,000 (Raymond, 2012) to the Canadian dentist.

The rational creatures are not the fans. That's because Music has an unexpected relationship with its obsessed fans, according to Sampson (2018). Every pop star knew that they needed love and music for the public, but sometimes they were always scared of them. For example, Zayn Malik once said that a fan had been hidden in a bin for four hours to take the chance to enter the One Way backstage. In comparison, Aston of JLS (Jack the Lad Swing) remembered how security had to rescue an enthusiastic fan concealed in his luggage and waiting to be carried to his hotel room. 

What is Fan Activism? 

Fan advocacy is defined by the creation of civic interest and political engagement by foundom experiences. It is seen as an influential movement among young people in particular (Vilenchik, Schultz, Weitbrecht and Tokuhama 2011, p. 1).

Fan activism is an act in which a celebrity commits a charitable act and also encourages many people to act accordingly. Lady Gaga asks her fans to email their senators with two girls making YouTube videos of themselves. Another YouTube comic named Hannah Hart was visiting the United States for crowdfunding, inspiring hundreds of participants. Since then, they have helped their food banks in the city (Fan Activism, 2014).

This shows that fan advocacy is going to be fine for those who do not care for major political topics because of the popularity of their favorites. This would get us to learn more about the political problems they face, even in other parts of the world, to stand out about what they and their privileged people believe in. It will lead to a change that will make it possible for people to resolve the obstacles they deem unequal in order to strengthen our society.

Example of Fan Activism

Thousands of fans in Liverpool marched against ticket rates in their first 132 years of existence. In the 77 minutes of the game against Sunderland, the supporters' groups kept going, and in the 76th minute, about 10,000 fans cleared their seats. The Kop also sang "It's enough, you golden bastards, a lot" that Anfield 's four sides cheered (Press Association 2016).

References

‘Fan Activism’, 2014, The Young Foundation, 19th February, viewed 8 November 2020  <https://youngfoundation.org/research/fan-activism/> 

Why are you so obsessed with me? How pop fans became all-powerful 2019, Guardian News, viewed 8 November 2020, <https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/nov/16/why-are-you-so-obsessed-with-me-how-pop-fans-became-all-powerful>.

Vilenchik, NK, Schultz, JM, Weitbrecht, C & Tokuhama, C 2011, ‘Experiencing fan activism: Understanding the power of fan activist organizations through members’ narratives’, Transformative Works and Cultures, vol. 10, pp. 1-22.

Liverpool fans’ walkout protest: around 10,000 leave in the 77th minute over ticket prices 2019, Guardian News, viewed 8 November 2020, <https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/feb/06/liverpool-fans-walkout-thousands-ticket-price-protest>.

Raymond, AK 2012, ‘Thirteen weird (or expensive) things that fans have spent major cash on’, Vox Media, viewed 8 November 2020, <https://www.vulture.com/2012/10/13-weird-pricey-things-that-fans-have-bought.html>.

Blake, E 2018, ‘The strength of K-pop fandom, By the numbers’, Forbes, viewed 8 November 2020, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilyblake1/2018/04/04/k-pop-numbers/#25cb83c048ab>.

Deperna 2019, ‘The Fandom Dictionary’, Vocal, viewed 8 November 2020, <https://vocal.media/geeks/the-fandom-dictionary>.

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Crowdsourcing & Crowdfunding

What is Crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing includes the aggregation of work, information and opinions from a wide number of individuals who use the Internet , social media and smartphone applications to contribute their data (Hargrave 2019).

What is Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding has collected a small amount of money from a vast group of people to fund a new venture, according to Smith ( 2019). Crowdfunding offers a high degree of access to social networking and crowdfunding sites for people's networks. Hundreds of thousands of people have been motivated by popular crowdfunding sites like kickstarter to invest in the next important thing. More than 160,000 projects have been funded on-site since 2009 and Kickstarter projects have raised more than $4.2 billion in donations.

Where can Crowdsourcing be applied?

Crowdsourcing is used through both corporate and social experiences. The way people are hiring, working, assembling and selling is changing. In addition, politicians are using crowdsourcing to create a platform for people to voice their views. Parliament & Public, for example, is an online website used in France by politicians and residents for political and legislative discourse. The final report will provide guidance at the end of this time as to when and how public feedback is used in the draught regulations (Opinion 2018). Useful clinical data can also be produced by crowdsourcing in the health and science industries. One example is Harvard's Eliot Van Buskirk Multi-Source Diabetes Project. InnoCentive opened two years ago at the School of Clinical and Translation Sciences, where people can ask questions about diabetes and experts can answer questions. Money prizes give the best responses and questions (Continuum n.d.).

What is the difference between Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding?

Crowdsourcing is basically a process in which people search information together, while crowdfunding means that people make voluntary contributions to support start-ups, organisations or even individuals (Harvard 2019). (The Harvard 2019).

Let 's find the example of Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding

'Ushahidi' is a good example in the field of crowdsourcing. Ushahidi is a website that lets users transfer text messages or news items to a Google Map and it means 'testimony' as it is translated to Swahili. This website was set up by David Kobia and 20 other Kenyan entrepreneurs living in the USA to relay news to more than 45.000 Kenyans about death, abduction, theft and other abuses. Many that want to share their stores could post reports through SMS or the site itself, which makes it a valuable tool for people with silenced media voices. The app was successful in alleviating conflict in Kenya, prompting developer teams to invest more money on the initiative and upgrading the software by adding Twitter , Facebook and the most up-to - date on the web to display overtime crowd-sourced images of events on a single map (Ford, 2012).

The Starbucks Cup Design Rivalry is also an example of crowdsourcing. The cups used by Starbucks coffee, rather than the Starbucks white logo, are white in colour. This inspired the Starbucks baristas to qualify for the White Cup award in the spring of 2014. Starbucks consumers had to prepare their cups with their own original designs, take a snapshot of the cup and upload it on social media via the hashtag # white cup competition. There were four thousand separate ideas over the span of a few months, and the selected versions that were won were used for the 2014 recycled limited edition cup. Every year, reusable cups come in different types. Each cup costs $1 and is available 30 times before disposal. For those who have used these recycled cops if they buy Starbucks products, a discount of 10 cents is issued. This is Starbucks' effort to become greener and more eco-friendly and to encourage more creative individuals (Speier 2016).

Indiegogo is a very good example of crowdfunding. In 2008, Indiegogo started to become more flexible and expansive with the financing of different forms of projects, such as charities and start-ups, as a crowd-sourcing network that raises money to support independent films (Smith, 2019).

Patreon is another example of this. Patreon is a website set up by authors, musicians and others. Artists, dancers, or even others who teach how to make kitchen stuff like chairs and tables. These developers can learn advanced tutorials in which expert and frequent users can pay extra money to access the tools they want while at the same time financing their content creators.

Effects of fake news on Crowdsourced information

What information is correct online can be difficult to understand. The exponential growth of "false news" and its propensity to spread through traditional news will make a rather confusing distinction between accurate evidence and inaccuracies (Carufel 2019). However, a recent investigation has shown that crowdsourcing is the key to avoiding the danger of misleading news. The approach to combating fake news was based on public opinion polling to assess the level of public trust in 60 news sources, including 'hyper-partisan' networks, as studied by MIT scholars David Rand and Gordon Pennycook. After analysing the results , the researchers concluded that the implementation of classified news coverage scores could help to remove incorrect data (Gaszcz 2019).

List of References

‘What is Crowdsourcing?’ 2019, Crowdsourcing Week, viewed 1 November 2020, <https://crowdsourcingweek.com/what-is-crowdsourcing/>.

Smith, T 2019, ‘Crowdfunding’, Investopedia, viewed 1 November 2020, <https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdfunding.asp>.

Hargrave, M 2019, ‘Crowdsourcing’, Investopedia, viewed 1 November 2020, <https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdsourcing.asp>.

Carufel, R 2019, ‘Fighting the spread of fake news- why crowdsourcing is effective’, Agility, viewed 1 November 2020, <https://www.agilitypr.com/pr-news/public-relations/fighting-the-spread-of-fake-news-why-crowdsourcing-is-effective/>.

‘A hundred places where governments are using tech to crowdsource policy’ 2018, Apolitical, viewed 1 November 2020, <https://apolitical.co/solution_article/a-hundred-places-where-governments-are-using-tech-to-crowdsource-policy/>.

Thrope, D 2018, ‘What is crowdfunding?’, Forbes, 26 June, viewed 1 November 2020, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/devinthorpe/2018/06/25/what-is-crowdfunding/#19ad30e965c5>.

Speier, K 2016, ‘4 Examples of Clever Crowdsourcing Campaigns’, Main Street Host Digital Marketing Agency, 7th January, viewed 1 November 2020  <https://www.mainstreethost.com/blog/four-examples-of-clever-crowdsourcing-campaigns/>

Nations, N 2019, ‘What Is Patreon? And How Does It Work?’, Lifewire, 18th November, viewed 1 November 2020 <https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-patreon-4145695>

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Public Health Campaigns

Health Communication and Social Media – Covid-19

Rising the use of social networks is one of the most far-reaching effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from conventional newspapers, which are the primary generators of social networking in crisis situations, person identities have arisen sponsored by social networks, which have had a similar effect on more niche communication media. This is the premise of the study presented, which focuses on health connectivity and is based on a simulated ethnography approach using social indicators. The goal is to understand the relationship between the general public and digital media , in particular through interaction measurement. In this respect, a quantitative analysis has been carried out that explains this problem over a span of six months on three social networks: YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, with a population made up of specialist health media vs healthcare practitioners.  The results point to a new communications model that opens up a new space for agents whose content has a degree of engagement comparable to and even exceeding that of digital media specialized in health communication. The conclusions show that the crisis of the pandemic has accelerated the transformation of the communication sector, creating new challenges for the communication industry, media professionals, and higher education institutions related to market demands.

The Social Networks and Their Reach: The Fifth Power

Without a question, the study of the present realities of connectivity is concerned with the perception of any phenomena as a result of its effect on social networks. If the most common activity in the 20th century to locate information was to sit in front of a TV, purchase daily newspapers, or listen to radio newsletters in the 21st century, it is more common to type search words into an internet browser on any device — smartphone, mobile, computer. Social networks have become constant networking channels that link almost half of the world's people , making them more solid and in direct competition with the networking and journalism as players in the information-communication process.

Their influence and dissemination around the world have turned 'homo videns' into 'homo socialis,' and the importance of these events needs the attention of modern communication processes. The phenomenon impacts half of the world 's population. According to the We are Social Report, a total of 3.8 billion people are linked to social networks, with an annual average increase of 13 per cent from 2017, which means an average of 363 million new users of social networks each year. If the January 2020 study reported an improvement of 7 per cent in the use of the Internet in global terms relative to the previous year, i.e. 298 million new users, the rise of active users of social networks grew by 9.2 per cent compared to the previous year, which suggests that 321 million additional users connect on the networks.

Thus, if the 20th century was characterised by the great communication empires and news organisations that controlled the information world — Murdoch, Reuters, Havas, Associated Press, EFE — in the 21st century, the mastery of data falls to the major technology firms. The health crisis has brought to light the hegemony of those who have perfected the flow of knowledge across the major media networks, subdued the communications sector, overwhelmed by a saturation of knowledge, and expected a revolution in the advertising business model. As behemoths of big data and gatekeepers faced with an avalanche of false news that started to circulate on the internet thanks to COVID-19, great technology firms responded. Conscious of their ability to reach and effect, the seven most important corporations in the sector — Facebook , Google, Twitter , YouTube, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Reddit — published a joint statement on 17 March 2020 in favour of a mutual commitment to eradicate misleading and deceptive knowledge and to endorse the content of health-related government channels and authorities around the world. In these seven giants, it is important to remember that Google owns LinkedIn among its various platforms, the YouTube network, and Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in 2016, so that the amount in concentration is currently limited to just five big corporations. 

The rapid growth of Web 2.0, which has been converted to 3.0 with the advent of artificial intelligence and big data, by the use of algorithms that optimise the media menu of consumers, contributes greatly not only to dramatically transforming the consumption of content in all fields and in all domains of expertise, and especially health-related information, but also to amplifying the abibiology. Its ability to attract viewers simply de-thrones the conventional media in the fight for viewers or in the sale of the written word. Although it is true that the simplicity with which information is conveyed in these contact spaces makes them the target of false news and hoaxes, it is no less true that their ability to access viewers has resulted in the emergence of skilled, specialist outlets whose function as information providers has been beneficial and genuine. Thanks to social networks, skilled staff from multiple sectors have had the ability to deliver vitally valuable knowledge to the population, in place of some other institutional agency or communication media, and in a more straightforward way. Here lies the importance of the present study, which analyses some of the key profiles of health communication since the COVID-19 pandemic, as far-reaching social trends and valid alternatives to the flow of information – communication since times of crisis.

Engagement and the Potential of Social Networks

In the context of the study of social networks , new related concepts have arisen that give philosophical support and abstract meaning to the phenomena, in order to clarify the number of users that the networks pull together around individual profiles. The exacerbated desire to seek information when confronted with a crisis situation produces an inconceivable anxiety for awareness, and this makes it easier to connect with health providers who have a presence through social networks. Commitment, as a semantic interpretation of the phenomena, means a massive follow-up of particular profiles and, from a psychological point of view, an immersive and co-creative experience as a reaction to a stimulus (in this case, the COVID-19 crisis) with respect to an entity, i.e. a profile that becomes a communication – information referent.

One of the most important emerging topics identified in the literature on social media is, without a doubt, interaction as a psychological incentive that results in the act of following. Its research takes us closer to the model of connectivity that comes from the online world. This model is particularly interesting in a situation that sees the inflexion point of a new contact domain in the exchange of producer-consumer and medium-audience positions.

The engagement research has been interpreted from a number of viewpoints as a multi-dimensional concept that describes various forms of commitments and has become particularly relevant with the spread of connexions across social networks. According to Barger and Labrecque, four separate degrees of participation can be formed in social networks, taking into account the level of involvement of the user: (1) the observer — content is consumed but there is no interaction or purpose to follow; (2) the follower — content is consumed and the following profile that produced it begins, with the first degree of interaction seen as the follow-up active user moves to a second level of participation in which not only does the user ingest content posted and follow the profile, but also regularly engages with likes, retweets / reposts and comments; and (4) advocate — this is a higher level of involvement in which, apart from following and engaging, content is generated and posted that supports the profile or company that is being followed. It is in the sense of the last two forms of interaction that the present analysis examines the study of audiences in social networks and the creation of metrics, with indices focused on the features of each social network being analysed.

One of the key findings confirmed by the study proposed is that the transformation of the media flow into digital and global operation, available to all actors, suggests that conventional connectivity is no longer unique and this has been illustrated more than ever by the health crisis brought on by COVID-19. The condition has been reflected in the key role of social networks as alternate or parallel spheres for the exploration of knowledge and the consumption of material, as previously discussed in other works. The evidence from this analysis supports this notion, leading us to believe that, considering the fact that the specialist contact channels analyzed were involved in social networks, with an average number of 121,252 tweets, the followers' attitude displayed an average similarity of 149 points below that reached by health professional profiles with half the number of tweets released. YouTube evidence also confirms this observation and pattern, but it is more prominent: relative to the number of videos posted by health-based contact channels, 20,483, with an average of four comments, the health professional profiles, amid the 72-fold decline in the number of videos released (281), earned an average of 300 comments.

References

Pérez-Escoda, A., Jiménez-Narros, C., Perlado-Lamo-de-Espinosa, M. and Pedrero-Esteban, L.M. (2020). Social Networks’ Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Spain: Health Media vs. Healthcare Professionals. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(14), p.5261. viewed 29 October 2020.

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Public Health Campaigns

What is Digital Health?

Although digital wellbeing is a basic concept — using technology to help better people's health and wellness — it is a wide and growing market. It will include anything from smart devices to edible sensors , mobile fitness applications to artificial intelligence, robotic carers to electronic documents. It's just about bringing digital transformation to the healthcare industry through innovative technology and cultural transition.

Why is Digital Health so important?

The priorities of the industry are diverse and complex: avoiding illness, encouraging people to track and treat clinical illnesses, reducing healthcare prices and making drugs more tailored to their particular needs.

What makes the healthcare sector fascinating is that these goals may theoretically help both patients and their healthcare providers. By capturing more data on health metrics, from activity level to blood pressure, it is hoped that digital health will allow individuals to change their habits and sustain healthy health for longer, and therefore entail less visits to their doctors.

Online health technologies may also help to detect emerging diseases or the deterioration of current ones. By allowing clinicians to move forward faster in the course of a disease, digital health technologies may either shorten the duration of a disease, or help relieve symptoms until they really take root. Not only could digital wellness further boost the quality of living, it could also reduce the average cost of a person's health insurance over their lifespan, trimming bills for doctors and patients alike.

Taking Google, for instance. The business has the most detailed, and perhaps most far-sighted, plan. As many of its competitors, it has a stake in the fitness monitoring market for wearables, via Google Wear, and Fit, a wellness app that was launched in 2014 and has been widely ignored since then.

What are the key technology trends that will shape the Digital Health market?

The customer side of digital wellbeing has been influenced to a large extent by the rise of wearables and mobile health applications.

The boom in digital wellbeing has possibly begun with the introduction of wearables such as the FitBit bands and the Apple Watch. Hardware made it easier for people to collect data on their level of fitness, typically their amount of steps and minutes of exercise, whereas the smartphone app community that developed up around them broadened the way the data could be processed and interpreted.

For the first time, people have been able to store, compare and post those metrics related to their wellbeing and wellbeing. Soon, software developers and hardware providers have begun to extend the spectrum of what consumers can monitor, from sleep to reproductive health. So far, most applications and hardware have been focused on 'lifestyle' health measures; they are expected to become more medical in the future as hardware capacities grow and additional sensors and functionalities are added: worrying about blood glucose or pain, cardiac health, and opioid levels and side effects.

What are the trends and opportunities in the Digital Health market?

But it is not just 'lifestyle medicine' that digital wellbeing will help: an infrastructure is emerging that will gradually provide options for people with chronic illnesses to properly track and treat them. Although digital wellness will provide users with tools to practise lifestyle medicine with only a smartphone and software, adding one or two peripherals may also enhance the medical treatment of their illness.

Take someone with elevated blood pressure: an off-the-shelf blood pressure cuff can indicate if a user's blood pressure is on the way up or down, and therefore help to determine not just what dietary changes are effective, and which medications can better regulate the condition (or also whether someone has a white coat syndrome, where the discomfort of being in a doctor's office triggers an increase in a pa). Similarly, related glucose metres can help diabetics get a grip on their diet and how effective their treatment is by measuring their blood sugar management over time. Online health tools mean that more and better feedback on these metrics can be gathered and exchanged with doctors so that they can interpret the outcomes and change their management accordingly.

Although it would be comforting to believe that such services were built for the altruistic purpose of making patients safe for longer, the ultimate objective of using digital health to treat chronic diseases is to minimise the expense to providers by minimising the number of medical appointments, emergency department visits and even hospital stays that patients with such illnesses require.

The digital health industry is also expected to see a mix of what would traditionally have been called 'consumer' and 'medical-grade' digital health technologies powered by businesses from both sides of the divide. Take Apple 's recent inclusion of an ECG-like mechanism to the current Apple Watch, for example: with the new feature, a wearable product could theoretically detect previously undiagnosed cardiac problems such as atrial fibrillation in a manner that could be particularly helpful not only to the wearer but also to their doctor. In the same way, medical hardware is gradually acquiring digital functionality: for example, the medical equipment manufacturer Medtronic has developed an app that enables people with internet-enabled pacemakers to exchange data (via their smartphone) with their doctor.

With this blurring of the boundaries between commercial and medical-grade digital health hardware and software, it is maybe no wonder that 'consumer' tech firms are making more of an attempt to pursue the enterprise healthcare space. Amazon , for example, is looking to create a version of the Insurance Advantage, while Apple has released a health record programme to help people see updates about their health providers, such as hospital appointments, medical reports, and immunisation data on their iPhone.

Are there any other benefits to Digital Health?

One of the least talked about benefits of increased use of digital health technologies around the world is the possible insights that will generate a massive archive of health marker data for people around the world. In the future, with the aid of big data technologies and artificial intelligence, researchers will be able to create links between illnesses and people's habits, decide how to do or not do anything (whether it's where you live, what you eat, where you work, what prescriptions you take, and so on) would improve or minimise the risk of getting a certain medical condition.

Although there are strong and fair questions regarding the utilisation of confidential health data, if adequately managed, data obtained from digital health applications may potentially become a treasure trove for scientists looking to enhance public health. Consider, for example, Apple's latest data collection on the ECG feature of Apple Watch: it managed to get 400,000 people interested in its study, an amount well above what other research organisations might achieve, and a number significant enough to actually produce substantial results. That said, unlike other universities and academic institutions, Apple is not a public entity and does not open up its results to peer review, which ensures that academic is unfortunately not as reliable or valuable as it might be.

References 

Best, J. (2019). What is digital health? Everything you need to know about the future of healthcare. [online] ZDNet. Available at: https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-digital-health/. viewed 29 October 2020

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Public Health Campaigns

What is Public Health Campaigns?

A public health initiative is an attempt to encourage a given public to partake in activities that promote health or to refrain from activities that are unhealthful. The communication elements of public health initiatives reflect four main elements.

Why are Public Health Campaigns important?

Campaigns are used to increase awareness about critical health issues and to inspire organisations or people to obtain advice and resources. By increasing awareness, people may shift behaviours over time and change actions over the longer term , particularly as other prevention services are used.

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Protest and Activism

Activism is a method of campaigning for legislative and social change. Protest is an act of taking part in a campaign to express dissatisfaction about something. In the Arab Springs, social media is used to describe the situation in the Middle East to people around the world. A video shows that Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, a boy named by the authorities, was beaten and killed in Jiza. After it was posted, the video was taken offline, but YouTube employees were still revived. Another video posted by Wael Abbas, an Egyptian counter-torture activist, shows a video in which two police officers sexually abused a bus driver. The governments of Libya and Syria have tried to limit Internet access, but their efforts have been unsuccessful, as the inhabitants of those countries have continued to rally to express unhappiness about what was happening at the time. However, a group of hackers identified as the Syrian Cyber Armed Forces is using social media to suppress oppressive governments by posting dissident contact records, threatening opposition and spreading messages promoting the oppressive regime (Youmanans & York 2012, p. 315-323).

Protests in Hong Kong started in 2019 when a Hong Kong man who murdered his girlfriend in Taiwan was sentenced to be extradited from Beijing to the mainland and tried under Chinese law. The Hong Kongers were angry that their rights as a special economic zone will begin to erode in the years after the transition (Kuo & Yu 2019).

Shao (2019) also points out how the new protests in Hong Kong, which took place in 2019, brought demonstrators to the point of asking Hong Kong to be released from mainland China. But it has increasingly become well past the normal orderly protests, with the ongoing escalation of violence between demonstrators and the Hong Kong police to endanger the lives of ordinary citizens in Hong Kong. There are several news sources on the store. Any news sources say that the police are violent against the protesters, and there are claims that the protesters are violent against the police and destroy public property. This clearly indicates that numerous news sources have their own personal dissemination goals and methods.

The 2014 Umbrella protests is another example of protests in which the Joshua Wong student leader, only 18, used a Bluetooth networking platform known as Firechat, which could be used even though mobile networks is shut down. Joshua and his protest team led protests in favour of the Chinese government's fundamental right to vote (Sigal & Biddle, p. 287-291).

In conclusion, if the reason is to change society for the better, the act of participating in and organizing protests is a positive one. However, we need to be cautious, because things don't necessarily appear to be participating in activities. Even we can be exploited to fight for what we don't or don't want. This would have a negative impact on culture, such that we might have myths or even false influences that may contribute to the deterioration of a once healthy, prosperous society.

References

Youmans, WL & York, JC 2012, ‘Social media and the activist toolkit: User agreements, corporate interests and the information infrastructure of modern social movements’ Journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9916 pp.315-323, viewed 12 October 2020.

Sigal, I & Biddle, E 2015, ‘Our enduring confusion about the power of digital tools in protest’, Open Humanities Press, issn. 1449-1443, pp.287-291, viewed 12 October 2020. 

Shao, G 2019, ‘Social media has become a battleground in Hong Kong’s protest’, CNBC, 16th August, viewed 12 October 2020. <https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/16/social-media-has-become-a-battleground-in-hong-kongs-protests.html>

Kuo, L & Yu, V 2019, ‘What are the Hong Kong protests about’, The Guardian, 25th July, viewed 12 October 2020. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/10/what-are-the-hong-kong-protests-about-explainer>

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Political Engagement

What is politics?

What does politics mean by that? What is the first question on your mind when someone asks? Well, politics is defined as government policy, politicians, individuals and organizations who seek to reform how a country is governed.

What is political engagement?

Political behavior refers to people 's acts to share their views in politics. It is possible to hold elections, finance elections, give the candidate money, approach lawmakers or write a signing petition, marches, boycotts and alliances.

What happens when social media meets politics?

According to The Manifesto (2019), 80 per cent of any generation, including Generation Zers (aged 13-17), Millennials (aged 11-34 years), Generation Xers (aged 35-54 years) and baby boomers (aged 55 and older) use social media at least once a day, as social media is part of their daily lives.

Social media also played a major part in this evolution of the changing political landscape. Applicants on Facebook and Twitter and their certified groups actively express their views and opinions. Any party has its own pages on which it can propagate disinformation and call for donations and reports, the results of the survey and the rumours are shared without waiting for newspaper or television attention, as was the case in the pre-internet days. Vote polls are known to be an important part of the process. The Internet has raised the number of polls that we see every day. For example , Facebook polls are open to the public and the results of the polls are no longer only shared via social media sites. The findings of the polls have a tremendous impact, even though they are defective and are seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy. For eg, if voters were to believe that a low-voting candidate would be immoral to vote for them. The latest result of the vote would advise lawmakers to step their opponents forward as well. It also acts as a forum for civic interaction, as lawmakers can hold streams alive through an activity to connect directly with the candidates.

Urbain (2018) also looks at how social media can act as a campaign weapon to collect information from political enemies. The data collection programme Cambridge Analytica is used to gather data from users to sell to other political rivals. This is ethical behaviour, as the data obtained are intended to discredit other competitors in order to ensure that their efforts were successful.

Political officials often use social media for online communication for their thoughts and perspectives on subjects. Citizens ask questions, and lawmakers respond to the public's numerous queries. People use social media to support awareness-raising campaigns for global topics around the world. This creates reform for people from all parts of the world and people will register for demonstrations online and attend demonstrations whether they participate in any cause or if protests lead to changes for the population of a country (Jericho 2012).

Welcome to the Social Media War  

After each of the shock election results of the past four years, pundits have pointed to social media strategy as a reason for the upset. Online political advertising has been said to have played a major part in David Cameron’s unexpected majority in 2015, Vote Leave’s Brexit surprise, Donald Trump’s triumph in 2016 and Jeremy Corbyn’s comeback in 2017. 

Political parties clearly believe it will be a decisive factor this time, too, as they have all invested record amounts of human and financial resource to support their social media efforts.

Despite expert opinion and the willingness of parties to invest in social media advertising, there is a common perspective that questions the impact that Facebook advertising can have on changing the way significant numbers of people vote.

It’s a reasonable opinion and it isn’t an easy one to robustly rebut.

Yes, there are soft metrics for effectiveness that campaigns can point to; reach, engagements, shares and email sign-ups, to name a few.

But such is the pervasive nature of social media in today’s campaigns that the only way to categorically prove its effect on the end result would be to get one of the mainstream parties to agree to abstain from campaigning on social networks completely; a comparison of the polls at the beginning and end of the election would enable an understanding of the impact.

Such an experiment was conducted by social scientists in a local council election in the pre-digital era in order to prove the efficacy of the "ground war", which in the 1970s meant door knocks and leaflet drops.  

Two researchers, David Denver and John Bochel, chose two identical tower blocks in Dundee. They were equidistant from the polling station in a safe Labour ward and Labour was the only local party that campaigned on the ground. Labour agreed with the researchers that it would only campaign in the "experimental" block and would refrain from campaigning in the "control" block, bar a single leaflet.  

The results showed that turnout in the "experimental" tower block was 10% higher than in the "control" block; in addition, in the former, Labour’s share of the vote was 4% higher than in the latter.

At the 2017 general election, there were 97 seats that were won by 5% or less and 51 that were won with less than 2%.

Social media is now used heavily to help achieve the objectives of the "ground war". But the remit of social media advertising extends much further and so the likely effect it has on the overall result is almost certainly significantly higher.

A detailed look at the thousands of social media ads over the past month shows that online political advertising is now employed to help achieve all of a campaign’s political marketing objectives.

List of References

Satterfield, H 2016, ‘How Social Media affects politics’, Sysomos, 5 October, viewed 3 October 2020, <https://sysomos.com/2016/10/05/social-media-affects-politics/>.

‘Politics’ 2019, Cambridge Dictionary, Cambridge University Press.

Cox, T 2019, ‘How different generations use Social Media’, The Manifest, viewed 3 October 2020, <https://themanifest.com/social-media/how-different-generations-use-social-media>.

Urbain, T 2018, ‘Facebook as an election weapon, from Obama to Trump’, PHYS.ORG, 23rd March, viewed 3 October 2020.

Scribe Publications, Carlton North, ISBN: 9781921942877, pp.296-300, viewed 3 October 2020.

Jericho, G, Aug 22, 2012, The Rise of the Fifth Estate: social media and blogging in Australian politics. 

Campaignlive.co.uk. 2020. 2019 General Election: Welcome To The Social Media War. [online] Available at: <https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/2019-general-election-welcome-social-media-war/1666942> [Accessed 3 October 2020].

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Is Tumblr a blog or a social network site?

Tumblr is a free blogging site that tries to make posting and sharing as easy as possible. It is also a social network in many ways and lets Tumblr users watch each other, exchange new content votes on each other.

As well as text and pictures, Tumblr also lets you post quotes, links, audio, visual slideshows and even video. Used by personal bloggers and international media entities such as the New York Times and the Guardian, Tumblr is easy to use, even for modern smartphones and the Internet.

Tumblr’s key benefits and services

Using one of hundreds of free-to-$49 subjects, you can customise the look of your Tumblr account. But Tumblr lets you develop original themes, giving your posts and blogs a more unique look. If you wish to have more control over the design of your website.

You should write an email or even a phone blog post to the Tumblr website. There's already an iPhone Tumblr app that lets you post to your Tumblr from your mobile phone.

The Tumblr pages are designed to showcase your blog in the search engine results, and you can prepare for social networks like Facebook and Twitter to spread your posts immediately.

You can always keep the Tumblr accounts up-to-date, and 'reblog' the posts that you want to post with your fans.

Besides, Tumblr is certainly the basic blogging tool and is ideal for those who are less technically experienced. It's easy to use and fast. The Tumblr model is shared, so if you like your post, it'd be easy to "blog" or like your post. If they like it, other Tumblr users can easily track you. The Tumblr apps are designed for seamless communications between Tumblr and Tumblr.

Tumblr sounds like writing with a whimsical side. I feel like it's all easier when I say so many. But I'm just tweeting, or else I'm doing anything less enduring. This is a regrettable outcome as I loved weblogging — Blogs perfectly tuned to Google Somethings' desires, beautifully designed with the right CTAs, subheadings and content plans, all inside a well specified platform structure before "big-thinking" blogging comes to users.

Anything that's important to the company, I suppose. This is meaningful. The 'investment' in our 'strategies' content—the words that made my old school website puke—is perfectly rational. We want a decent return on blogging for our businesses, personal products, shops and everything else. We have protocols.

What makes Tumblr fun is that it appears to be creatively irresistible. They're feeling social. They're feeling emotional.

In conclusion, Tumblr lets you post a wide variety of content types, from text and images to audio and links, unlike many other social media platforms. It also offers a variety of interface "themes" that help you create a page that best supports the concept of your company and the types of content you want to write.

You can connect directories, search through content published by individuals and products that you support, scan through "tags" using the dashboard functionality (e.g. "PR," "business" or "New Jersey Real Housewives," etc.). You can "reblog" something with a single click if you see the one you want and your friends can see it.

List of References

“What Is Tumblr? | Digital Unite.” Www.Digitalunite.Com, www.digitalunite.com/technology-guides/social-networking-blogs/blogs/what-tumblr#:~:text=Tumblr%20is%20a%20free%20blogging. [Accessed 26 Sept. 2020].

Krogsgard, Brian. “Is Tumblr a Social Network? • Post Status.” Post Status, 15 Aug. 2019, poststatus.com/is-tumblr-a-social-network/. [Accessed 26 Sept. 2020].

Honeysett, Alex. “Tumblr: The Social Media Platform You Should Be Using.” The Muse, www.themuse.com/advice/tumblr-the-social-media-platform-you-should-be-using. [Accessed 26 Sept. 2020].

Whiting, Geoff. “Tumblr Advantages.” It Still Works, itstillworks.com/tumblr-advantages-28631.html. [Accessed 26 Sept. 2020].