A Media Story

i really wanna pass this subject, enjoy my work :)

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Is it really possible to govern what is said and seen on social media?

Social media can be a very scary place, especially for young teenagers who are still developing their personality, their opinions, their confidence and how they see themselves. And this is drastically stunted when they are bullied, trolled or hated online, especially when it comes from an anonymous source.

The question here is:

IS it actually possible to monitor and govern what goes down on social media, and how do we combat and support those who are mercifully under attack?

A term which came to be Shortlisted for the Oxford English Dictionary’s 2018 word of the year, was “gaslighting”.  Which is defined to be the action of manipulating someone into believing they are wrong or into not trusting their instincts/gut. Gaslighting is often used as a method of power and control, and this is widely seen on social media as a form of cyberbullying.

Technology has done they world much good, but it also has lead to such great horrors. Such as “technology violence” and the extent to which new communication and surveillance technologies are increasingly misused to stalk, intimidate, harass, humiliate and coerce intimate partners, particularly girls and women.

The internet is dangerous, simple as that.

In order to combat technology violence safety campaigns, need to be updated to include information on the innumerable amount of complex and emerging technologies which enable the perpetration of violence in social and intimate contexts. It is also a seized phone, a disabled account, a misrepresentation or a keystroke tracker.

All violence is about a person or person(s) having power and control over another. The uses and misuses of technology are part of this daily power struggle, especially for girls and women. The solutions aren’t easy.

People need to be educated on how to protect themselves (education and empowerment). If you are able understand technology and are in control of your online life, then violence is less likely to happen, which is the best-case scenario.

Jessamy Gleeson, Research Officer, School of Global, Urban & Social Studies, RMIT University, 'What does Gaslighting Mean?' The Conversation, 2018 , https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-gaslighting-mean-107888

Laura Vitis and Fairleigh Gilmour, 'Dick pics on blast: A woman’s resistance to online sexual harassment using humour, art and Instagram', Crime, Media, Culture. 2017;13(3):335-355.

Ostini J & Susan Hopkins, S 2015 'Online Harassment is a Form of Violence' (Links to an external site.), The Conversation 8th April

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Slow fashion, Fast Purchasing

I’m not one to care much about clothes, in fact I pretty much wear the same thing over and over again and make it “different” by changing on item of clothing, so I’m no expert when it comes to fashion whatsoever.

Slow fashion is known to have slower production schedules, small-batch collections, and zero waste designs, and these brands aim to reduce the textile waste clogging landfills. Instead of chasing trends, these slow fashion brands utilize enduring styles with layering options and create classic and versatile pieces. The point of slow fashion is to reduce carbon emissions while also creating clothing that will last, which is also usually sustainable and eco-friendly, the only downside to slow fashion is that to support the brands choices of materials their products are usually more expensive.

“The emergence of sustainability in fashion is not a recent occurrence, but rather has seen various waves of environmental, social, and economic concern (e.g. Belz and Peattie 2009), such as anti-fur campaigns in the 1980s and protests against unethical working conditions in the 1990s/2000s” (Brown 2011; Gam 2011).

In recent past decades there has an awaking of ‘sustainable fashion’ terminologies, such as eco-, green-, slow-, and ethical-fashion, which are basically all the same thing. In its most basic form, sustainable fashion, as part of the slow-fashion industry, is often described as the antipode (opposite) to fast-fashion, which is mass-produced, cheap, changes within a fortnight, and often associated with a ‘throw away’ attitude (Watson and Yan 2013).

People are becoming more and more aware of the state that earth is in, in terms of pollution and global warming, and their way of trying to keep our planet safe is by buying sustainable clothing, but whether or not these options are bought depends on who offers these garments and if their ideal product is available for a reasonable price.

That’s the reason why many people stick to fast-fashion, its cheap, you don’t feel bad when its discarded as the quality is not good anyway and fast-fashion allows for trendy clothes/items to come and go with little impact on purchase price.

Zhen Lai, Claudia E. Henninger and Panayiota J. Alevizou ‘An Exploration of Consumers’ Perceptions Towards Sustainable Fashion – A Qualitative Study in the UK’, in Sustainability in Fashion A Cradle to Upcycle Approach, edited by Henninger, C.E., Alevizou, P., Goworek, H., Ryding, D. (Palgrave: 2017)

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The truth behind the online gaming community

I feel like I have a pretty good and solid opinion and experience in this topic unlike many others, I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember.

For me it started, if I can recall correctly at age 3, my father was a huge Halo fan and introduced the FPS (First Person Shooter) game to me at a young age and I instantly hit it off, in fact playing the game with my dad and younger brother soon became a tradition in my family as the years went by.

I’ll admit I was and still pretty good, with my quick hand-eye coordination I quickly surpassed my father as the best on the house hold, but it wasn’t until I was around 8 that I was I introduced to the online gaming community, and I must say as a female it was not a pretty scene in 2007.

Online Gaming comes in many forms, from First Person Shooters such as Halo, Call of Duty and Destiny, MMORPGs such as Elderscrolls online, World of Warcraft, RuneScape, League of Legends or other types such as puzzle games, simulation games (The Sims Saga), quiz games etc.

Attention came to esports (electronic sports/video games) through the act of broadcast tournaments and competitions to find the best players in the world in their particular game. Such broadcasting which allows gamers to show their skills off now is through a streaming platform known as Twitch. “By 2017, the site boasted 2.2-plus million unique broadcasters per month with 17,000-plus members in the Twitch Partner Program and 110,000 “creators” in the Affiliates Program—content producers that receive revenue from their streams—and about 10 million daily active users” (Taylor 2018).

Unfortunately, there is always a downside or negative side to online gaming, which comes in the form of conflict. I personally experienced such abuse and hate messages from online players after a game or match. I see it as just playing the game, it’s always been there. Females usually receive more than males if they choose to communicate in game via a microphone due to the immaturity or disgusting behaviour they exhibit. Conflict is usually seen through messages or even in the extreme cases of DDOSing (disconnecting someone’s internet, and finding their IP address to ban/kick them from the game).

But these online games can also form lifelong bonds, I can personally attest to that. You just need to meet the right community who makes who feel safe to participate.

Taylor, TL 2018, ‘Broadcasting ourselves’ (chapter 1), in Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming, Princeton University Press, pp.1-23

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Instagram Filters, Snapchat Filters, You name it they got it

Filters. Filter. Filters.

This new and non-psychical form of modification was first introduced to Instagram when posting a picture or video, you could change the hue or contrast of the image or video chosen to post. But now a days filtering has changed dramatically, such as peoples skin tone, changing body shapes such as how wide their hips are, their breast size, digital nose jobs, altering their face to “fit in” with influencers and social media lights.

Isabelle Coy-Dibley has outlined and identified a new form of body dysmorphia, known as “Digitised Dysmorphia” (2016). Coy-Dibley defines this digital disease as “created through the use of digital modification apps”. The study goes on to study its impact on the problematic relationship many women have with their body images, and how digitized dysmorphia has/is occurred within Western Society, particularly among young women in such a digital age.

Jessica Barker’s study “Making-up on mobile: The pretty filters and ugly implications of Snapchat” goes on to further explain the implications and downsides to filters. Filters follow trends and reinforce beauty ideals related to those circulated by the cosmetics industry. Filters are the digital ages make-up. “For women who attribute filter use to a desire to appear made-up, delight is often tempered with complex feelings towards their natural beauty. And not all lipstick-and-lashes filters are well-received; the inclusion of makeup in certain filters has been considered inappropriate, and users articulate frustrations about seeing their skin whitened”.

While it all used to be fun to put a filter on to look silly or muck around, the new “natural” filters or modifications really harm women’s perspective and self esteem as they believe they are expected to look a certain way, whiter, prettier, skinner. Better.

This is not healthy and frankly one of the biggest causes of body dysmorphia and insecurity with one’s image.

Coy-Dibley, I. (July, 2016). “Digitised Dysmorphia” of the Female Body: The Re/Disfigurement of the Image, Palgrave Communications. 2:16040 doi: 10.1057/palcomms.2016.40

Barker, Jessica. (2020). 'Making-up on mobile: The pretty filters and ugly implications of Snapchat', Fashion, Style & Popular Culture. 7. 207-221. 10.1386/fspc_00015_1.

Rettberg J.W. (2014) 'Filtered Reality', In: Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137476661_2

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Body Modification on Social Media

Now days, plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery have become very popular and almost a beauty standard within the social world. In particular social media has led to many people becoming invested and almost obsessed with their image on the internet. And that’s the thing, people, especially teenagers are looking up to these extremely unrealistic beauty standards. The act of changing one’s appearance to fit in or to appease someone has led to many females in general becoming depressed or insecure about their body image, and this unfortunately has led to many people harming themselves through starving or harming themselves in other ways.

According to an Oxford Study on plastic surgery-Related Hashtag Utilization on Instagram, A total of 1,789,270 posts utilized the 21 hashtags sampled in this study. Of these hashtags, #plasticsurgery had the highest number of posts associated with it (523,361 posts). This was more than the next two most popular hashtags combined (#facelift with 224,235 posts, and #rhinoplasty with 138,259 posts). This study was done to show the implication for education and marketing on the topic and other body modification surgeries.

Body modification is the deliberate altering of the human anatomy or human physical appearance. It is often done for aesthetics, sexual enhancement, rites of passage, religious beliefs, gender reconstruction and many other number of reasons.

Sometimes people use body modification to become who they had always felt like on the inside, or to correct a “flaw” they thought they had to feel more themselves. The former is usually referred to as gender reconstruction and is done and performed on trans man and women. The latter is surgery which does modify the body but not to please a social audience but to have the person feel happy and right in their own body.

Robert G Dorfman, Elbert E Vaca, Eitezaz Mahmood, Neil A Fine and Clark F Schierle, ‘Plastic Surgery-Related Hashtag Utilization on Instagram: Implications for Education and Marketing’, Aesthetic Surgery Journal, Volume 38, Issue 3, March 2018, pp 332–338

Carah N, Dobson A,  'Algorithmic Hotness: Young Women’s “Promotion” and “Reconnaissance” Work via Social Media Body Images', Social Media + Society, 2016

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Digital Citizenship and Hashtag Publics

Digital Citizenship, sounds like a pass or license someone needs to move around and contribute in the digital world.

Digital citizenship refers to the responsible use of technology by anyone who uses computers, the Internet, and digital devices to engage with society on any level.

People and communities all use technology to engage with their own communities and society and any and all levels. The use of technology has greatly become the world's most prominent force of delivering information across the globe and into society.

Digital Citizenship is what every person should be practicing when approaching technology and communicating into the web. It also refers to on another note of teaching digital citizenship, as it is essential to helping students achieve and understand digital literacy, as well as ensuring cyberbullying prevention, online safety, digital responsibility, and digital health and wellness.

Within Digital Citizenship there is also something know as Hashtag Publics.

Hashtag publics refers to hashtags people use to create momentum and awareness all over the internet. Hashtag are used privately, for people to use for their own personal use such as tracking a particular post online, or publicly such as tags which as widely looked up and popular, which may be used to gain followers on Instagram for example #photooftheday or by using hashtags when discussing topics on twitter #auspol.

For Australian politics the twitter hashtag of #auspol is what journalists and/or people have used mostly for commentary and rumour spreading about the machinations of the federal government. While not all Australian political conversations on Twitter occur under the #auspol umbrella, it's useful simply because it's so generic. "It is part of the political furniture in Australia” (Axel Bruns), and it has become a reliable source at times for the Australian media. It has had a long life line in regards to other political hashtags such as the US’s #ctot.

Bogle, A., 2021. #auspol: The Twitter hashtag Australia can't live without, Mashable, viewed 28 May 2021 <https://mashable.com/2016/03/21/twitter-australia-auspol/#4tvfXtsZUEqV>

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A world of Reality TV

Reality Tv, from shows like Big Brother to Married at First Sight, these shows all have one thing in common, the perception that everything that happens, happens in real time and are real experiences, meaning not scripted.

From these type of TV shows many of the conversations have a political dimension (Van Zoonen, 2005). The thing about reality tv is that it is in fact NOT REAL. All of the beloved or hated personalities are crafted and scripted to make entertaining television for viewers to get hooked onto, unfortunately the downside to this form of media is that the outside environment or viewers believe everything to be true, which can then sometimes lead to actors/actresses being bullied and harassed online mercilessly by pained and aggressive viewers who do not know any better. 

Unfortunate, most reality tv has the underlying political talk engraved into the show, even when it is not needed. Using Graham’s criteria (2008) to identify political talk within reality tv, through 2 steps:

(1)    a participant made a connection from a particular experience, interest, issue or topic in general to society, which

(2)    stimulated reflection and a response by at least one other participant, were coded as political threads.

I’ve never been personally interested in reality tv, this may be due to my prior knowledge of how it’s not real/scripted or simply because its not my type of entertainment. The thing is though, people do try to enjoy it, maybe they find the drama interesting or they find they can form a connection with a personality due to the participants feeling more “real” and “genuine” or “authentic”. All the political talk/conversation turns that fun and relaxing show into a toxic space in which people are attacked for their beliefs and due to the spotlight on them they have nowhere to escape.

Reality TV is one, if not the most toxic form or political talk within media. These shows are created to start fights and conversations where people will be hurt. Honestly, the media and producers are to blame for the toxicity and they need to change their views and agenda.

Graham T (2008) Needles in a haystack: A new approach for identifying and assessing political talk in nonpolitical discussion forums. Javnost – The Public 15(2): 17–36.

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How does Tumblr function as a digital community?

Tumblr, the social media blogging site to end all sites.

Tumblr has always been a more out there and extravagant community, with an abundance of fandoms, artists and writers, who under anonymous users or their real identity can create and share their ideas and opinions of the world.

Tumblr was forged by the one and only David Karp in 2007, a high school drop out at the age of 15. He created a site for teens, by a teen. This can easily be noted by the abundance of GIFs, memes, texts and images available for all to have the creative freedom they wish to desire.  

Tumblr was made to be a universal social media space, where one could blog about anything they wish while also keeping up on news, one may say it is half social media and half personal blog; the best of both worlds. It used to be very alone in how in operates and performs but now Tumblr is one of many online platforms which allows those to replicate or create social spheres. Habermas (1989) defines a social sphere as a place where society comes to share private thought which becomes public opinion.

Tumblr is a place where teens go to escape, speak out about issues that they are facing with the save anonymity, ramble their 7 Redbull’s into monologue after reading a new book, a place where people can say the craziest of things just for the sake of saying it or simply to spout random facts of which make people lose their minds.

Really its all about a couple of things for both old and new folk of Tumblr; making connections and saying what they are too afraid to say in person.

Tumblr is a community which has communities within communities, they may all intertwine, some may gather more likes and reblogs but what makes it so unique and interesting is that Tumblr allows content creators to create with an arsenal of tools that other sites do not allow or would ever consider. Although there have been recent changes to policy, particularly the removal of NSFW accounts and the ban of other “inappropriate posts”, the majority of freedom of expression is still possible through what Tumblr provides.

 Habermas, Jürgen. 1989. The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article. In Critical theory and Society. A Reader, ed. Stephen E. Bronner and Douglas Kellner, 136-142. New York: Routledge.

Jessalynn Keller, “Oh, She’s a Tumblr Feminist”: Exploring the Platform Vernacular of Girls’ Social Media Feminisms, Social Media + Society Volume: 5 issue: 3, 2019.

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