Interconnected

Hey, I'm Emily Rose and a Media and Communications/Business student at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne Australia with a major in Social Media. Through 8 different posts, this blog will cover our role as a digital citizen in this day and age and the role of social media.

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#8 Global Social Media Practise: Case Study China

We know China as the place where Facebook is blocked rather than a place where social media is booming. In fact, in a McKinsey survey, 91% of the respondents to the survey have visited a social media site in the previous six months, compared to 67% in the United States. Now you’re probably wondering, what social media are they using if those that we use are blocked?

China actually has their own versions of the many social media sites that we use. Although there are ways around it through using VPNs to gain access to the sites that we use, Baidu is their Google, QQ is their Facebook messenger, Weibo is their Twitter, Youku is their YouTube and WeChat is their WhatsApp. Social media in China has a greater influence than anywhere around the world regarding influencing purchase decisions with many Chinese citizens saying that they are more likely to buy something if they see it on social media or if someone they know recommends it via social media. This is because the Chinese trust recommendations made by those they know and they are skeptical of news sourcing and advertising (Chiu et al. 2012).

Tecent QQ logo

QQ is China’s version of our Facebook Messenger and is China’s #1 instant messenger app. WeChat is China’s version of what we know as WhatsApp which is a mobile messaging app. Tecent Holdings is the developer of both of the apps with the initial release for QQ in 1999 and WeChat following in 2011. There were 808 million monthly QQ accounts in 2014 while the mobile messaging app WeChat had 355 million monthly active users. WeChat has boomed recently (2018) becoming one of the most popular forms of social media and has become known as “the app for everything”. QQ was first released in Chinese but is now also available in English, French, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. This also helped QQ’s success due to widening their market so that they just aren’t appealing to a Chinese audience and also that people with different languages are also able to communicate through the app. While we were all on MSN of which was available in China, the Chinese were using QQ for the simple reason of that it is better.

China’s social media sites offer unique features of which we don’t have of which technically makes them better, but we follow the rest of the world with what’s popular regardless of features that may be different. After all, it is important as a social media user to have friends that are using the same site, so using the popular sites is the smarter move as you will be able to contact more of your friends on the one site.

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[machetelanding]

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See more crunchy munchy goodness on our channel! 

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#7 Social Gaming: Playing the Crowd

It’s one of the most addictive games that was created for our smartphones in 2012. It’s the game that everyone seems to be playing on the train, the one our parents are beating us on, where awfully high levels are achieved. That’s right it’s Candy Crush. The mobile app was created by King and believe it or not, was first released online and played as a Facebook game. It was then further released on iOS and Android later in the same year. Candy Crush has over 70 million Facebook likes with downloads spread right across the world.

The game works like a puzzle where users complete a large number of levels to match candies of which gets harder the further you progress, adding obstacles and limitations to make the game more challenging as well as a restriction of number of lives. Users whom download the app for free without buying any ‘cheats’ enjoy the challenge and also cannot justify spending money to progress further in a game. Due to the addictiveness of the game, once a user runs out of lives or is finding a level hard to beat, players are offered the opportunity to buy additional lives or special powers to help them to complete the level. Currently there are 2,840 levels (Stern 2018) with more to come as people continue to complete this number of levels. It is the most popular mobile game in the U.S and more than 1 trillion rounds have been played since the start of the game in 2012 (Takahashi 2017).

Theres a social aspect of the game with people often comparing what level they are on compared to their friends, therefore determining ‘who’s better’ when it could actually be just who’s spent more time on it. There’s also the option to share your progress on your Facebook which could be seen as showing off how well you do on the game or connecting your account could be to simply swap your data from different devices. You can also invite your friends to play, which often annoys those who you invite but you can sometimes receive rewards for taking this action which seems beneficial to you. You can no longer play Candy Crush on Facebook due to the popularity of the mobile app overpowering its Facebook success, however can play other similar games made by King of which are super similar to Candy Crush, such as Candy Crush Soda Saga. You can however play Candy Crush online through the King website.

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American’s from all walks of life taking part in the challenge

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#6 Public Health Campaigns & Communities

A campaign that I believe was successful was the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. This was popular due to the number of participants of which I found that majority of my friends, including myself took part in this challenge. The Ice Bucket Challenge requires participants that have been nominated by previous participants, to be filmed tipping ice cold water over themselves so the participants can feel the weakness and failure of their muscles as well as not being able to move your body momentarily. This gives participants a small taste of what it is like to live with ALS/MND. Participants were encouraged to donate to the ALS (Anyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Motor-Neuron Disease) foundation as a forfeit for not completing the challenge or in addition to completing the Ice Bucket Challenge (The Lancet Neurology). These videos were shared on a range of social media using one of the most popular hashtags of all time, #IceBucketChallenge. Videos were mostly on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

The success of the Ice Bucket Challenge was global due to the amount of support and awareness raised by sports people, celebrities and politicians all of which supported and encouraged donating after taking the challenge. 17 million Facebook videos were shared about the Ice Bucket Challenge and they were viewed over 10 billion times by more than 440 million people (Ni et al. 2014). ALS is a rare condition that affects 4-7 in 100,000 people, however, there is no cure or understanding of the cause (Nature 2014). The challenge started in the Unites States in July and then went global with its peak in August. Australia managed to raise $2 million from the results of the challenge which was a benefit for research that has never resulted from a social-media campaign before (Nature 2014). These results were bigger and better than anyone could have ever imagined as videos were going viral of alternative versions of the challenge, however, not everyone donated to the cause. 

This challenge has become an annual event in the ‘Freeze at the G’ of which runs before the Collingwood vs Melbourne AFL game around the Queen’s Birthday clash every year. This is to support Neale Daniher, a former AFL player whom was diagnosed with MND in 2013. They use this event for celebrities to do a specialised Ice Bucket challenge by sliding into a pool of icy water. They use this event to raise money of which in 2017 raised $4 million through donation and the sale of MND beanies (Jacks 2017). The Ice Bucket Challenge was a great way to gain attention for MND and raise money to go towards further research to try and find a cure. Although people opted to take part in the challenge rather than donate, it still managed to raise a large amount of money across the world. It is great that Australia is still paying attention to the cause by having the annual freeze at the G event of which is appealing for the local community to attend. 

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(via GIFER)

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#5 Crowdsourcing in Times of Crisis

On April 15, 2013 what seemed like another year of the annual Boston marathon changed forever. Two bombs blasted 12 seconds apart near the finish line of which 3 people died and left 16 injured forever. Crowdsourcing is when large amounts of people come together to gather information. Crowdsourcing occurred after the event of the Boston bombing as citizens shared images and videos through social media which let the public know what was happening as well as using these images and videos to gather evidence on what they witnessed to identify the who set the bombs off. Crowdsourcing has the ability to let publics anywhere around the world to know whats happening, where its happening, how did it happen.

This event was one of the first that used citizen’s footage to help find the suspect. After this event, there is now a pressure on the public to be aware and participate to help put together the pieces of the puzzle so that the truth can be identified. Social media is revolutionary due to the blindspots that security cameras have which means that anyone in a crowd can be acting as security through their phone. Another pro about social media is how fast information can spread. Lenny DePaul, a former chief inspector of the U.S marshals service said “the speed of the internet is a major advantage when it comes to sharing information”. This meant that people around the world knew exactly what was happening in Boston and that there was a suspect that needed to be found.

The FBI invested their time on the social platform Reddit. This enabled people to post live updates with true information being ‘voted up’ and false information ‘voted down’. It also enabled the FBI to gather all videos and images that were taken at the marathon to find any suspecious activity. The FBI had a page made for those who were at the marathon to post any potentional evidence and even though the FBI set it up, the Reddit community had already started posting the evidence that they had (Wadwha 2013). The FBI then sorted through the evidence people had posted with 120 agents on duty sorting through more than 13,000 videos and 12,000 photos just the day after the tragedy occurred (NBC News, 2014).

“the use of social media allows the police to push information to the public directly and instantaneously”

Although, the evidence over social media didn’t lead to finding the suspect, this event showed the power of social media and how theres always someone watching. It also showed how quickly details can spread without time or place impacting. It is clear that the power of people coming together to collect their knowledge and resources towards a common good is easier than ever before and leads to greater efficieny (Nhan et al. 2015).

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What’s a post about trolling without this guy?? 

(via GIPHY)

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#4 Digital Citizenship 3: Trolling & Social Media Conflict

“Being a hater is definitely not the same thing as being a troll, and while bullies and trolls are frequently collapsed into the same category, they have different definitions and are largely carried out by different groups of people” (McCosket 2016, p. 3).

An internet troll is usually someone that goes about their work anonymously and doesn’t personally know their victims. Sean Duffy is what’s known as a serial internet troll and one of the UK’s worst. Unemployed and at the age of 25, he was jailed after mocking the death of a number of teenagers whom he didn’t know, using the social media platform Facebook. He would torment the families those that had passed away through posting messages on the tribute pages set up by their family as well as posting YouTube videos. 

Natasha, aged 15, was one of Duffy’s victims whom was hit by a train. He posted to her tribute page the day after her death saying “I fell asleep on the track lolz”, created her own tribute page titled “Tasha the Tank Engine” and uploaded a video to YouTube with the same title. Another of Duffy’s targets was 16 year old Hayley, whom passed away in a car crash. He edited a picture of her, crossing her eyes and putting stitches on her forehead and captioned it with “Used car for sale, one useless owner”. After the internet was outraged over his words and other actions, Duffy pleaded guilty to two counts of sending malicious communications. Another 3 Facebook trolling cases were investigated which led him to be jailed for 18 weeks for posting offensive messages on the internet. Duffy’s actions demonstrated the “harm and damage” that can result form the misuse of social media. Following this, Duffy also receives a 5 year antisocial behaviour order which disabled im from accessing social networks inclusive Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Myspace and Police were informed if he buys a phone that comes with internet access (Morris 2011). 

Duffy has truly demonstrated the harm that social media can cause when used in a negative way. His content he published was disgusting and used to torment those whom were already in mourning. Those families also suffered from heightened trauma of already losing a loved one only for Duffy to make it worse by mocking those whom in no way could fight back. It has been reported that Duffy had an isolated life and had been bullied previously in his life, however, these actions really have no excuse and something like this should not happen again. UK Police have said to be cracking down on people like Duffy so that any more families don’t have to experience anything like this again. at the age of 25, he was jailed after mocking the death of a number of teenagers whom he didn’t know, using the social media platform Facebook. He would torment the families those that had passed away through posting messages on the tribute pages set up by their family as well as posting YouTube videos.

[resistdrumpf]

Top 3 signs from yesterday’s #marchforourlives

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#3 Digital Citizenship 2: Activism & Protest

Imagine sending your child off for another day at school, it seems like just any other day, except you live in America where there is currently a right to bare arms. There was a shooting in a school nearby a couple of weeks ago and just a few months ago there was a mass school shooting. This is the reality for parents in the United States as since 2000, there have been more than 190 school shootings, resulting in 200 students being killed as well as an additional 200+ injured (Erikson 2018).

It seems like it happens all too often, an American issue that’s taking it’s toll on the world including Australia, making us so grateful for our gun law change in 1996 after the Port Arthur Massacre. As someone who is considering living in the USA in their future, the one thing that is always holding me back is the lack of gun control. The issue has reached a climax that can no longer be ignored due to the rise in mass shootings in recent years. This comes as no surprise when you hear that there are 88 guns for every 100 people in America (Wong 2018).

There have been many pages and online protests over the changing of gun control laws in America. Everytown for Gun Safety is a Facebook page I’ve been following for 3 years now. It has 1.5 million with awareness to this page made through a viral Facebook video which featured numerous popular celebrities that believe that laws should be changed because #EnoughisEnough. #EnoughisEnough is a general hastag in relation to violence in America that comes back in and out of internet trends. The hashtag #NeverAgain has been used as protest through social media for everyone to take a stand against gun violence and peaked after the school shooting in Florida. This hashtag was also used to raise awareness of the #Marchforourlives which was a #NationalSchoolWalkout on the streets of Washington and other US states to demand an end to mass shootings. This demonstrates the ability for messages to be sent quickly and efficiently though the use of social media which resulted in the #Marchforourlives to be the biggest single day protest in Washington DC’s history with an estimated 800,000 people attending (Durando 2018).

Think of the change that Australia’s made. We changed our gun laws in 1996 which was also our last mass shooting. America has the opportunity to make this change too which may result in a similar future. America isn’t safe with their current laws, #EnoughisEnough, it’s time to give parents the confidence that their child will return home safely and that it will happen #NeverAgain.

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YouTube clip posted by MAIG coalition 

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Jimmy Kimmel Mean Tweets - President Obama Edition

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#2 Digital Citizenship 1: Political Engagement

“The Social Media President” was in power from Janurary 2009 - Janurary 2017. You know exactly who I’m talking about…right? That’s right, Barak Obama. He used social media to his advantage as he used it to relate to people all over the world, even bringing interest to college students whom wouldn’t have necessarily been interested in politics if Obama wasn’t so active on social media (March 2016). Obama had two different twitter accounts during his time as president, one as his presidency account and the other as his personal account. This displayed a different side to a president that no one had ever been exposed to ever before. As being the first president during the social media age, he was largely focused on family and personality rather than policy, leaving his presidential account and advertising to take care of all policy issues. On average, more than 80% of Americans have been exposed to political content on their social media platforms, of which demonstrates the major involvement of politics in social media.

Obama’s 2008 election campaign was the first presidential campaign that involved social media. It was the first year that saw information floating around the web, at times even in record speed before they could be published in the papers or on TV. The platforms used were Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Myspace due with Twitter not emerging till the 2012 election. Since then, Twitter has now served as the main source of communication from those in power. After this election, social media had changed the lead up to presidental campaigns forever with social media being used in campaigns ever since. Different social media platforms serve different purposes in the election campaigns. An example of this is the way Obama used YouTube for advertising as it was cost free, due to not having to pay for it to be televised on TV.

In the 2012 presidential campaign, Obama used the most social media platforms at 9 while his opposition Mitt Romney used 5. One of the most noticible developments between the 2012 and 2016 elections is the use of images and videos. The development of these social networking sites now enables users to share and embed photos and videos at a high quality which captures the attention of audiences. Romney used twitter as a tool to fight his opponent as most of his tweets leading up to the election were about Obama. Hashtags of which started operating in 2007, were more likely to be used by Obama than Romney with 16% of Obama’s tweets containg hashtags (Bouilanne 2016).

Although social media has been used as a way of promotional marketing, “TV debates, advertising, rallies, door knocking, the news media and press conferences are still highly priotities by the campaigns and their candidates”(Gunn 2017). Despite us not losing our old ways, here’s to the 2020 election, social platforms being used in ways that we have never seen them before and who knows, maybe even more social media platforms that don’t currently exist today!

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Political Engagement Presentation

https://prezi.com/view/mV5eOb5Xsy46loT4JJzc/