NGUYEN NGOC HA PHUONG

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WEEK 10: Digital citizenship and Conflict: Social media governance

Being a public sphere, social media networks are the spaces where the real world we are living in is reflected and at the same time, digitalise the social practices and processes for us - the digital citizens. Consequently, negative aspects like conflicts, harassment, or bullying can also happen online but result in both virtual and non-virtual effects. (Lenhart et al., 2016) Unfortunately, not all platforms are regulated with proper official policies to assign those behaviors with proportional punishments, along with the ability to be anonymous behind the screens that reinforce the users' audacity to exploit the freedom of speech.

Online harassment is not always identifiable. While well-known platforms like Facebook or Tiktok have community guidelines in place, the effectiveness of those policies can vary, leading to inconsistencies in addressing harmful behaviors. It seems like the more policies platform operators try to publish, the more tips and tricks the users will improvise to break the laws. Haslop et al. (2021) mentioned the problem in which online harassment has become so common that it starts to be considered normal in digitised forums. The worse thing is the users are adapting to the situation by developing a tolerant "wall" to naturally ignore - keep scrolling when they witness offensive content instead of showing personal disagreement. This reminds me of the comment section of the Instagram reels, where I observe waves of body shaming, gender discrimination and racism expressed in the form of sarcastic comments. Anyone who disagrees with the major would be said to be "dry", "lack of humor" or "not pass the vibe" and easily become the next target of the assaults.

Since it requires a lot of time ahead to fully govern the platforms' usage, prioritize the development and enforcement of clear, comprehensive policies that outline what is "acceptable", it is our responsibility to recognize our role in shaping the online landscape's culture and strive to contribute positively to the digital public sphere.

REFERENCES

Haslop, C., O’Rourke, F., & Southern, R. (2021). NoSnowflakes: The toleration of harassment and an emergent gender-related digital divide, in a UK student online culture. Convergence (London, England), 27(5), 1418–1438. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856521989270

Lenhart, A., Michele, Y., Zickuhr, K., & Price Feeney, M. (2016). ONLINE HARASSMENT, DIGITAL ABUSE, AND CYBERSTALKING IN AMERICA. Data&Society Research Institute . https://www.datasociety.net/pubs/oh/Online_Harassment_2016.pdf

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WEEK 9: Gaming communities, Social gaming and Live streaming

Being the relative of a League of Legends worldwide community member, I used to could not stand hearing him shouting whenever his favorite streamer won a match or slamming the door when seeing that stranger lost through a screen. However, after this week's content, I have realized how the evolution of live streaming and game platformisation has helped gamers gain their own fanbase, along with strengthening relationships between the game producers, the players, and their audience.

Over the years, the video game industry has grown into one of the largest, most profitable entertainment industries in the world thanks to the emergence of platformisation. As defined by Nieborg and Poell (2018), platforms are programmable digital spaces facilitating and mediating interactions between the end users and the content creators. Besides transforming the product distribution strategies of the game developers, platformisation also impacts the broader picture of cultural practices, resulting in new normativity for media consumption, sociality, representation and expression. (Poell et al., 2019) Take League of Legends as an example. Developed by Riot Games, League Of Legends has evolved into more than just a digital game. It has become a multifaceted platform encompassing esports, community engagement, content creation, and social interaction. The players' communication is no longer limited inside the game but is catered across a variety of environments to suit different needs. Among them, I am especially impressed with how League of Legends inspired a rich ecosystem of content creators who produce a wide range of content, including gameplay videos, tutorials, fan art, music, and memes. Platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok have enabled creators to reach large audiences and monetize their content, further enriching the experiences. As a result, in community members' minds, League of Legends might also be a part of their popular culture.

Livestreaming is also a win-win business contributing to game platformisation. While outstanding players become famous and receive commercial sponsorship by doing what they love, the game developers gain back the increasing exposure. In Vietnam, Độ Mixi is a very well-known streamer with not only gamers but also the young generation. However, what makes him favorable is not just his playing skills, but his humor sense, his unique tone of voice, and the way he interacts with the viewers. These emotional factors are believed to be one of the reasons behind the bonding between players and online gaming.

REFERENCES

Nieborg, D. B., & Poell, T. (2018). The platformization of cultural production: Theorizing the contingent cultural commodity. New Media & Society, 20(11), 4275–4292. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818769694

Poell, T., Nieborg, D., & van Dijck, J. (2019). Platformisation. Internet Policy Review, 8(4). https://doi.org/10.14763/2019.4.1425

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WEEK 8: The dark side of filters

Imagine one day, the Genie from Aladdin appears and offers: he takes 5 years of your life but then gives you a “perfect face”. Would you accept that trade? Actually, it does not need that much sacrifice to achieve an ideal appearance. With just one tap on the screen and the technology called Filter, you can attain the unattainable beauty that has been shaped, expecting us to live up to. But do those standards always give us the conditions to meet the mass expectations, or are they the reasons for several times we stand in front of the mirror, stare at our bare faces and hate our looks?

From goofy and playful Snapchat dog faces, flower crowns, or rainbow puke with experimental purposes, the filters world has been developed so far with a diverse range of formats from cartoonish effects, interactive games to beauty modifications. Since Instagram allows users to diversify the filter library by uploading their self-created ones, a power imbalance between the creators and the users regarding personal aesthetic preferences arises. Barker (2020) points out the tight connection between face filters and feminine beauty ideals in a celebrity-led, self-image-saturated culture. This also happens due to the lack of policies and regulations from the platform operators to control the biases. (Hunter, 2023)

The technology itself might be neutral, but the creators and operators are responsible for importing the subjectivity, and the users are who unconsciously inherit the biases. A significant negative inherent is Digitised Dysmorphia, in which a person constantly feels the need to modify their unwanted features with technological tools. While the convenience of technology can help us see our most ideal appearances, it can lead us to not only compare ourselves with others but sarcastically, our digitized versions. Consequently, this adds to the reality that we are being heavily regulated by collective expectations about which beauty is more favorable than the others, breaking our perceptions about individuality.

REFERENCES

Barker, J. (2020). Making-up on mobile : The pretty filters and ugly implications of Snapchat.

Hunter, T. (2023, September 20). Should women use beauty filters online? We all have opinions. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/20/beauty-filter-criticism-benefits-tiktok/

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WEEK 7: How are we being affected by the aesthetic templates on social media?

Despite the fact that there is more and more content encouraging users to love themselves and cherish their natural body features, social media has always been promoting particularly favorable physical standards through different periods. One of the contributing factors is the platforms' algorithms, which are proven to privilege the content from "high-value" users (Carah and Dobson, 2016), thus spreading not only their images but also opinions, judgments, and lifestyles widely. This results in social media creators beginning to exploit their algorithmic visibilities to influence biased perceptions, such as their aesthetics. (Duffy and Meisner, 2023)

This week's topic reminds me of the Kardashian family and how they have been shaping social media's physical ideals in the last two decades. Social media users definitely cannot forget how the concept of the "Brazilian Butt Lift" and the tanned skin that this family helped mediated. One of the most historical moments is Kim Kardashian's #BreaktheInternet photoshoot with Paper magazine, in which she balanced a glass of champagne on her bum and showed her naked backside.

Moving on to 2022, they suddenly noticeably became slimmer in not only their arms and faces but there was a drastic change in the sizes of their breasts and butts. Social media was ablaze with predictions that their new figures have marked "the end of the BBL era". Once again, the Kardashians established the standard for which body type would be favorable and marketable.

When I noticed this transformation, the only question raised in my head was "So how are they gonna take the responsibility for having inspired their followers to get cosmetic surgery based on their prior features?". They might be able to easily surgically "detach" what they had implanted, but not everyone could afford that great amount of money just because "the Kardashians said being thin is the new aesthetic". Consequently, those who cannot apply the template will have the tendency to face FOMO, body insecurity, or even eating disorders and other psychological issues due to desiring the feeling of being appreciated on social media.

REFERENCES

Carah, N., & Dobson, A. (2016). Algorithmic Hotness: Young Women’s “Promotion” and “Reconnaissance” Work via Social Media Body Images. Social Media + Society, 2(4), 205630511667288-. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305116672885

Duffy, B. E., & Meisner, C. (2023). Platform governance at the margins: Social media creators’ experiences with algorithmic (in)visibility. Media, Culture & Society, 45(2), 285-304. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437221111923

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WEEK 6: Does "sustainable fashion" really exist?

According to Domingos et al (2022), a fashion label is perceived as "slow/sustainable" when it follows the principles relating to quality-based production, ethical attitudes, and well-made and long-lasting products. However, an ideal story in which both the economic and ethical concerns are prioritized is relatively rare to happen in the fashion industry. Even Uniqlo, a top global brand that is known for its timeless designs, is still not categorized as a slow-fashion company but instead a "sustainable fast-fashion brand" because of its mass production. (Danziger, 2021) So the question is, in which way sustainability is demonstrated in the current fashion landscape?

Firstly, we must look straightforward into the reality that thanks to media in general and social media in particular, slow fashion nowadays has become a movement that every brand is following to make themselves more ethical and favorable in the consumers' eyes. Browsing on H&M, Zara, or Uniqlo's websites, it is observed that they have exclusive sections where they clarify their efforts in maintaining sustainability, with identical terms such as "net-zero impact", "reducing the footprints", "environmental-friendly materials"... However, it seems like their practical outcomes do not align with the missions they set for themselves, based on annual reports and news indicating the great amount of solid waste and CO2 emissions from their factories, how they exploit their labor resources, and how fast can they catch up with the trends and produce collections constantly. (Shedlock and Feldstein, 2023)

Since the "slow" factor still needs a very long time to be clearly visible through the manufacturing process, it is suggested that we should shift the attention to the customers' - our mindsets when purchasing and consuming clothes. You can buy a $4 T-shirt from SHEIN but wear it for 4 years, that is when you practice sustainable fashion, focusing on the clothes' lifespan and number of usages, even though your piece comes from an unsustainable brand.

In 2023, the fashion industry witnessed the rise of "capsule wardrobe" and "quiet luxury". Although these trends did encounter certain unknowledgeable followers, they contributed significantly to educating consumers to prioritize clothes' quality in materials, forms, and seams over logos or trendiness; and to only buy the "hero" pieces that can match well together. On Instagram and TikTok, some popular fashionistas like Tim Dessaint and Daniel Simmons have succeeded in inspiring their communities to repeat outfits, proving that simplicity and efficiency should be the new trend.

REFERENCES

Danziger, P. N. (2021). Uniqlo Intends To Become The World’s Top Fashion Retailer By Distancing From H&M And Zara. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2021/02/17/uniqlo-intends-to-become-the-worlds-top-fashion-retailer-by-distancing-from-hm-and-zara/?sh=70d9bb076d9a

Domingos, M., Vale, V. T., & Faria, S. (2022). Slow Fashion Consumer Behavior: A Literature Review. Sustainability (Basel, Switzerland), 14(5), 2860-. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14052860

Shedlock, K., & Feldstein, S. (2023). UNRAVELLING THE HARMS OF THE FAST FASHION INDUSTRY AT WHAT COST? Center for Biological Diversity. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/pdfs/Unravelling-Harms-of-Fast-Fashion-Full-Report-2023-02.pdf

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WEEK 5: Politicians' communication strategies in digital space

Being a non-barrier public sphere, social media have made it much easier to not only exchange opinions but also leverage the conversations' purposes. As a result, topics and activities that used to be considered as very formal and required professionalism like politics or election campaigns have also been raised on those platforms, leading to historical debates and more noticeably, some politicians' communication strategies.

Enli (2017) compare the strategies of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election to analyze how the interaction between politicians and ordinary people has been transformed. While Hillary preserved her image as an exemplary public servant, maintained a high level of professionalization, Trump did not hesitate to create controversial statements, expressing himself through extensive insults and media appearances.

In my opinion, Trump might not be as positive as Hillary (Crockett, 2016), but he succeeded in making himself worth-discussed content, thus making himself familiar in voters' minds and increasing his earned media resources. In other words, rather than trying to make himself favorable, he preferred to be the reason of any debates and critiques at that time, as long as his name was mentioned. Besides being interested on name-calling, I think Trump was voted also because his voters could sympathize with him on social media, an individual who also has a down-to-earth range of expressions: frustrations, humor, sarcasm... rather than someone who only talks about the future political actions that they have not been able to witness or believe.

Moreover, it is proved that if politicians understand social media's algorithms, they can exploit them by several ways such as stimulating spam, intentionally spreading fake news about their opponents, easily knowing the public's insights and satisfying them... (Nelimarkka et al., 2020) We may not be able to measure how much of Trump's digital identity is his real self and how much is calculated, but it is undeniable that "political marketing" is a real thing and social media has become a new venue for the politicians to branding themselves.

REFERENCES

Crockett, Z. (2016, November 7). What I learned reading 4,000 Trump and Clinton tweets. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2016/11/7/13550796/clinton-trump-twitter

Enli, G. (2017). Twitter as arena for the authentic outsider: exploring the social media campaigns of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election. European Journal of Communication (London), 32(1), 50–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323116682802

Nelimarkka, M., Laaksonen, S.-M., Tuokko, M., & Valkonen, T. (2020). Platformed Interactions: How Social Media Platforms Relate to Candidate–Constituent Interaction During Finnish 2015 Election Campaigning. Social Media + Society, 6(2), 205630512090385-. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120903856

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Week 4: Reality shows in the age of social media

According to Deller (2019), the concept of reality TV has always been perceived as how entertainment content is recorded in a real setting involving individuals from real life. This is also one of the paramount reasons why viewers feel attracted to this type of content, although they claim to dislike it or call it superficial and nonsense.

From only through voting messages and ratings, audience engagement nowadays can also be observed through social media, thus expressed under more diverse formats and directions. As a result, reality show producers have been adapting to the situation by adding details in the scripts that have the potential to drive discussions. For example, the America Next Top Model even has a list of controversial and cringeworthy moments collected by Business Insider (2022), in which the contestants were unwillingly put in contexts that evoked and exaggerated their extreme reactions. In contrast, people who refused to act wildly or keep a neutral attitude would be called mediocre or not a "view attractor".

Source: Erin McDowell on Business Insider (2022)

Similarly, Kavka (2018) raised serious concerns in some British reality shows regarding the extent of ethical values for entertainment when witnessing the participants being forced to suffer through offensive experiences, supported by a term coined by Mark Andrejevic: "the lab rat quality of reality television" (2013). While those scandalous events are clearly perceived as scripted, they are still the motivation for the audience to follow the shows just to figure out how those uncommon conflicts would be solved. Besides simple amusement purposes, consumers place a higher demand on authenticity since the increase in artificial media production raises doubts about the plausibility of the value. (Rose and Wood, 2005) From another point of view, they prefer to be immersed in the blending of the factitious and the spontaneous, reflecting a complex negotiation of authentic and inauthentic elements in the shows. (Rose and Wood, 2005)

To sum up, reality show viewers are equally likely to favor stage-craft and imagination in producing genuine experiences as they were to rely on their personal lives. This preference implies their engaged and interactive role in the shows' pre-production and post-production processes since they would be the final consumers after all.

REFERENCES

Andrejevic, M. (2013). When Everyone Has Their Own Reality Show. In A Companion to Reality Television (pp. 40–56). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118599594.ch3

Deller, R. A. (2019). Reality TV: The TV Phenomenon that Changed the World. In Reality Television. Emerald Publishing Limited. p.153

Kavka, M. (2018). Reality TV: its contents and discontents. The Critical Quarterly, 60(4), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/criq.12442

Rose, R. L., & Wood, S. L. (2005). Paradox and the Consumption of Authenticity through Reality Television. The Journal of Consumer Research, 32(2), 284–296. https://doi.org/10.1086/432238

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Week 3: Why Tumblr should be called a healthy public sphere

In an era where social media has become an irreplaceable part of our lives, new platforms are constantly emerging both intentionally and unintentionally, revolutionising the way we interact and communicate. As a result, adapting to each of their "cultures" has no longer been a challenge, and users have a wide range of options for digital networks that suit the specific kinds of posts that they are producing and consuming.

Source: (@stfuziac on Threads, 2023)

Theoretically, Habermas (1991) associated the public sphere with characteristics such as "unlimited access", "equal participation" and "the absence of institutional influence". Although in the modern context, those requirements are difficult to completely satisfy due to the commercialised mindset of the content creators (Törhönen et al., 2020), the freedom of speech embodied in non-coercive discussions is still predicted to recover by speech communities that emphasize participatory democracy. (Carpentier, 2011)

Compared to other popular platforms, Tumblr is an ideal digital space to raise and engage in social movements. Thanks to its allowance for anonymous pseudonyms, low level of surveillance yet high level of content exposure, and the one-way relationship among followers (Renninger, 2015 and Keller, 2019), this is where feminists, queers, trans, and other marginalized groups feel safe to tackle taboo issues straightforwardly without the fear of being judged by unlike-minded users or violating community guidelines. From my perspective, based on the platform vernaculars, these users consider Tumblr as their safe zone where they can express a more honest and "raw" version of themselves, a personal wardrobe to store their secret and irresistible thoughts with the hope of receiving empathy.

Some weeks require more reflection than others. Despite being a very open person – there are a few things I try not to expose, that is, at l

Another social media that I think has similar platform vernaculars is Threads, released in 2023, branding its uniqueness by concentrating on streamlined and in-depth conversations around particular topics or themes. This targeted approach nurtures meaningful connections and minimizes the noise from mass social networks. Threads' users have been depending on the network offers to enhance privacy and control, build carefully filtered publics, and reduce information overload.

REFERENCES

Carpentier, Nico. (2011). Media and participation : a site of ideological-democratic struggle. Intellect. https://doi.org/10.26530/OAPEN_606390

Habermas, J. (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. MIT press.

Keller, J. (2019). “Oh, She’s a Tumblr Feminist”: Exploring the Platform Vernacular of Girls’ Social Media Feminisms. Social Media + Society, 5(3), 205630511986744-. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119867442

Renninger, B. J. (2015). “Where I can be myself … where I can speak my mind” : Networked counterpublics in a polymedia environment. New Media & Society, 17(9), 1513–1529. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814530095

Törhönen, M., Sjöblom, M., Hassan, L., & Hamari, J. (2020). Fame and fortune, or just fun? A study on why people create content on video platforms. Internet Research, 30(1), 165–190. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-06-2018-0270