Introduction to Social Media

This is the class blog for COMM 2311 Introduction to Social Media

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holy shit

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This… this is what lightning magic is supposed to be like.

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Thanks for an awesome semester. Previous version before adding final touches. Watch til' very end after logo.

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Honorable Mentions

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Week 12

A social media app that has not been mentioned that's pretty popular is Discord. Discord is like Skype but without the lags and I believe was originally made for gamers to be able to specifically talk to their friends versus talking to anyone who was currently in their game session. However, like Twitch, it expanded from gaming and has people interested in other fields as well such as animation, music, film, art, photography and so on. There are groups dedicated to an abundant amount of categories to one specific work, and like Skype you can screenshare if you want to present or watch something together. Although, unlike Skype, you do not need an email or phone number to add someone. You can just use their username or just search for a group that you're interested in. There are many groups and individuals with varying interests and anything goes, as long as there's nobody harassing anyone or if they're a hate group; those people get reported and their accounts deleted. As stated before, with many groups around, there definitely has to be some supporting a specific movement or a marginalized group. I think that, along with how simple it is to reach out to others on this easy to use platform, political and social issues could be spread out as fast as they do on Twitter. People from multiple groups could be informed from multiple perspectives and be taught on how to support or fight the issue at hand.

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Extra Credit Post

Social media is full of rules that are written and implied. For my short report I added a whole bunch of people on social media and started messaging them excessively. I learned that it is not a good idea to do that because I got sent some very inappropriate pictures after that and had to delete and block several people but it made me think. What other ways can I break social media etiquette?

This list could go on and on. I could start posting nudes all over the internet (not recommended at all. No one wants to see that.), I could post every second of my day online (talk about blowing up someone's timeline), of I could go and troll people over things they are passionate about (this one is kind of fun, not going to lie). Those are all pretty obvious violations but what are some that aren’t as obvious?

This list will be smaller but not less important. My classmates brought up some pretty good ones like selfies and sending someone else's Snapchat to another party but I want to focus on Net Neutrality for my example. With Net Neutrality we will have to pay to use certain internet sites and pay more to use others so a way to break social media etiquette with that would be to go on these sites and shame others for not being able to afford to use these sites. That may seem like a really crappy thing to do but the world is a messed up place and if Donald Trump can be our president (facepalm) then there will be inconsiderate people out there who will shame others because of their access. 

Another example I can think of that isn’t as common is making a GoFundMe for yourself when you don’t really need it or lying about the cause so that you can just get extra money. I’m sure we’ve all thought about ways to make more money but making up some sob story to make others feel bad for you on social media is not the best way to make money. Especially because there are consequences to your actions and if people find out you’re scamming them you could be reprimanded. 

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Self Analysis

This semester was not at all what I was expecting. I originally took this class just because it was required but now that I look back on it I’m so glad I did because I learned a lot. From actually looking at the always ignored terms and conditions on social media sites to learning about Wikipedia, the class was full of great content that will be beneficial in my career looking ahead in life. 

The thing I enjoyed most about the class, however, is the atmosphere. Through facilitations and constantly talking I feel like I gained an excessive amount of confidence through sharing my thoughts with others which is something I have never been good at. And besides that this class was so interesting that I never really zoned out and if I did something pulled me back in fairly quickly whether it be laughing over some joke or an interesting comment. 

Overall, I’m glad I took this class and I learned a lot from Professor Holmes. I broke a little out of my comfort shell but that’s okay because I know it will benefit my future. 

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Week7 meme

I chose this meme because it is funny and relates to what some people go through to not be themselves. The image is based on white being the majority and perceives that everyone wants to be a part of that majority. Memes can have an impact on social capital and power by influencing trends such as this one.

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Week 8(extra credit)

I broke netiquette on social media by first going onto Facebook, a more family oriented social media site, and tried to convince my friends and family I was going to commit suicide. My post was “ I can’t take this anymore, I’ll just end it.” I only received a few responses but it showed that many people only respond or acknowledge you when there is something wrong. My second attempt got more responses than I would have thought. I went onto a more popular and young generation social media platform. This platform was Snapchat. I have many followers and my post of me committing suicide cake with a lot of friends caring and asking if I needed anyone to talk to. I did notice that some people assumed I was playing, I got a response stating, “ do a flip” from one of my closer friends. This violation of netiquette explains how users view each other digitally.

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Maszoliin Spencer-14

There are many challenges that Wikipedia and any other sites like it experience. Though they may be easy to use and grasp information from, being a site where anybody can edit and manipulate information is a different ball game. I like to think of it as an open wall to public art. If everyone had the capabilities to put their opinion on it would definitely be a disaster, considering that it would be open to vandalism. A site that also encouraged user generated content was Yahoo answers. We live in a society where we are now self-taught by simply typing in what we need in Google are YouTube. According to the Yahoo Answer policy page:

·         You can add details to or delete questions you've asked for as long as the question is open.

·         Once the question is resolved, you cannot make changes or delete your content.

·         You can edit and delete answers while the question being asked is open.

·         Once the question is resolved, you cannot make changes or delete your answer.

The good thing about Yahoo answers is that at some point the correct answer will be finalized and there will be no one able to change that answer. I feel that maybe wiki should have some of the same guidelines

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Maszoliin Spencer-Self Analysis

This semester has been nothing less than expected. I’ve learned a lot from everything to hegemony in social media, social groups on media, Wikipedia, and everything in between. Essentially this class has taught me how to analyze all aspects of social media. Even though it’s easily assessable , there are ethics to using it. As content creators we must understand that there is a cause and effect to everything we may post. We learned that though the project that was assigned. The content we post allows our audience to draw a little perspective of us.

I also enjoyed the Facilitation assignments because it allowed me to get a deeper look into our class discussions and really understand the unforeseen of social media. The articles attached to the topics were great and created a space to even look beyond the class and apply it to everyday life. I’m with professor Holmes every year, so any class she is TEACHING .... I AM THERE .

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Self Analysis - Shelby Powers

Throughout the first days of class, I was honestly unsure of what exactly I wanted to accomplish in COMM 2311. I knew that I wanted to learn about more of the behind the scenes aspects of social media, but I also felt as though the interactions I would have with my classmates would be important. I am generally an introverted and quiet person, and I still am, but I definitely noticed that I was a lot less nervous to speak in front of others by the time we did our second facilitation. That small sense of improvement has really resonated with me, especially because I was initially dreading the facilitations. I also met my closest friends in this class and I feel very grateful for that. Working with Hunter and Gia on our facilitations was actually a lot of fun, even if we were stressing about our readings or our power point and I think that spending so much time together made us closer. I feel as though I have become a better version of myself in that I am not as afraid of interaction with others here on campus. This was my first semester at UNT Dallas and I think that taking this social media class was a great way to start things off. A concept that I actually think I mastered is the interaction between individuals on social media, especially within social movements and dating apps, as that is what we covered in our facilitations. Something I was not expecting coming into this course is how in-depth I would need to study Tinder. In general, I really loved our facilitation topics and research project subject. They were interesting to me and honestly not challenging to understand. As for how I plan to continue my improvement, I aim to continue to learn and evolve as social media itself evolves. It’s an ever changing field and I hope to learn as I go. 

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Final

I have learned so much throughout the course this semester. I expected the course to mostly be about learning how to operate different social media sites and while we did learn that, the course went much deeper than just the surface.Seeing how the sites function beyond just participating on the websites gave insight into how they make money, what happens with our information that we give, and how this is used to tailor the internet to each individual. Even our different cultures use the internet to speak out on topics that are important to us and we create communities that support our thoughts and beliefs. I have always been a conscious user of the web and understood that once it is out there it no longer belongs to me, but this course helped me understand exactly how this is done and why.  It was difficult at first to understand Wikileaks functioning, but through discussion, I see how it has effected our decision making when it comes to politics, even if the information is not exactly clear. All of these things we went over in class has made me more aware of the many marketing tactics we come in contact with. Knowing this has shown me to be less influenced by what I see and do more of my own research on topics. I will take this knowledge and use it to my advantage by always remembering that all media has a purpose and always do my own research on any subject.

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Self - Analysis: Daisy Garcia

At the beginning of the semester, my expectations for this class were to learn about social media platforms and their uniqueness. The articles that we read that were part of the assigned readings were helpful, as well as those that we needed to research for the facilitations and our papers. I have definitely learned a lot about social media, and how it has affected our everyday lives, but we also discussed larger topics, such as identity, crowdfunding, trust, algorithms, WikiLeaks, and Wikipedia. We create an online identity that can change on different platforms or even be different from who we are in reality. I also learned how after one google search for a product, it shows up on Facebook and Instagram. I also never really paid attention to Rights and Terms of conditions, but they are important and often get overlooked because of all the reading. Many just click just to get through. However, everything that we post on Facebook and Instagram, to name a few, is their property. Now, every time I am Googling for something that I am not going to buy, but someone else might, I start thinking how I am going to get the advertisements after. I don’t post often, but I am more aware of the things that I post and how others present themselves on the different platforms. The midterm project was a really great project. I enjoyed seeing how people would react to my post and actually made me see that even though they might see your post and not comment, it has an impact. I was recently talking about this project and they told me that a person, in particular, was asking if I was really worried about me, but her reaction on the online platform showed a more relaxed emotion. Overall, this was a great course and helpful for me to understand that social media has its own rules and has consequences.

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Week 8- Zainab H.

After discussing violations, I think that the biggest violation that we may not know of is disclosing information about oneself. What if we posting personal information such as our likes and dislikes is a violation? I think this may become a real violation to many people because we are always talking about surveillance yet we put ourselves in these situations. So if we wanted to stop being watched and not having others know anything about us, we can just not disclose any information.  When I think of this, I like to refer back to the purpose of social media and why it was created, to how it is being used now. We say it was created to connect to those who we are close to, but now were are connecting to people who we do not know from across oceans, and this is when we see issues arise. So what if we stop trying to connect to those we have never met before and telling them everything about ourselves, and instead connect to those we do know and disclose information to them privately?

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Self-Analysis - EC

With the end of the semester, I’m sure that everyone is tired and happy to have the next month off before coming back in the Spring and thinking about ending it all *INSERT SARCASM TO THE EXTREME HERE.*

I’m actually glad that I took this class as I was able to learn so much more about social media then I previously did. No narcissism intended there. The class turned out to be far better than what I expected and I enjoyed reading some......most of the reading that were assigned to us. I have to admit that my most favorite things to read were about user-generated content (shoot, I like did my final project over it) and the public sphere. I think what I got most out of this class, and my other classes, is that I was able to speak out more than usual.

Compare to my previous classes, I was never the type to speak out or voice my opinion. I liked just listening to what others had to say and silently agree or disagree. Not sure if maybe it was because the class was pretty much about social media (which I love) or because I felt comfortable saying my opinion about the readings and presentations of my peers. Nevertheless, I feel like I became more social and communicative in class and with my peers. I especially noticed it when people would call me out on saying my thoughts over the subject during their facilitation. Thanks.

Another thing that I would like to say that I got from this class is that I feel I’ve become slightly better at reading scholarly articles. That is saying something as I don’t have the tolerance or energy to read an article that is more than 3 pages. Now, I feel like a nerd citing articles during conversations with my friends. But I think that is a good thing as it will make research for other classes less of a pain.

Lastly, I have to mention that the use of Tumblr to make these weekly assignments has been fun. The use of GIFs and memes to explain a certain thought or feeling while writing these assignments have made them fun. Even while writing this self-analysis the use of GIFs is very beneficial.

Overall, I feel that I was able to learn a lot from this class both from the material, my peers, and myself. I am ready for my month of relaxation.

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Final Blog Post - Ernesto

It is week 16 and I am just realizing that this semester is just days from being over. Well before this semester even started I knew that having a class with professor Holmes would be entertaining but challenging at the same time because of the amount of writing that is required. COMM 2311 made me see a wider view of topics that I've already had some sort of understanding of and at a time it even showed me some new things that I had no knowledge of. Would I consider myself, as of right now, a better version of Ernesto compared to the start of the semester? HECK NAW!

Other than that, the most challenging task for me was working with groups. It’s not that I can’t play nice with other people it’s that I work better solo especially when I have to present the work. Presenting still makes me nervous but whenever I get my “groove” going it just becomes a walk in the park for the most part until I’m asked a question that is when I drop the ball. Unfortunately, since I’m majoring in comm&tech group work and presentation are going to be a regular task that I’ll have to face. Overall this class was fun, it would have been better if it wasn't early in the morning ( YES 10 am is early for me deal with it)  and I’m excited to see how the information that I gained from this class will affect my future understandings of social media. Now time to prepare my soul for the next semester since I almost lost it during this semester. See Y'all next semester and happy holidays!!

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Phillip Anderson - An Introspective