Blog 1A (2) Social media, User Generated Content, Affordances....and Privacy
What exactly is social media? The simple answer to this is a bunch of internet apps that allow for User Generated Content (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). So now you’re asking ‘what is User Generated Content’, right? It’s exactly how it’s described – using different forms of media content created by end users, aka you or me, rather than professional content creators.
Mayo (2014) suggests that social media can then be broken down into four main groups:
- Social networking tools like Skype, Facebook and Tumblr
- Social publishing and sharing tools – blogs; Twitter; YouTube; Flickr; Google Docs fit into this category
- Social and content management tools – Survey Monkey, Moodle and other web based tools used for tasks like calendars, surveys, polls and the like; and
- Gaming environments – Xbox Live, Playstation Network, Minecraft, World of Warcraft etc.
Above image: Survey Monkey website homepage - an example of social and content media management tools. (Zapier, 2015)
Because I haven’t dissected enough terminology and theories, let’s discuss affordances! Gibson (1979, p. 19) wrote that humans, along with animals, orient to subjects in their world – rocks, rivers, buildings etc. The term affordances refers to the different ways these orientations are interpreted (Hutchby, 2001). Whilst a business may see Facebook as an advertising means to get clients, an individual may see Facebook as a tool to communicate with friends and families.
Above video: How Cambridge Analytica psychologically profiled Facebook Users (BBC News, 2018)
I think most people today find social media challenging because of privacy risks, especially with all the recent news about breaches. Trepte (2015) suggests that today’s social media has two types of affordances, or more simply, potential forms of use. There are affordances related to social media functions - these ask us to comment on statuses on platforms, upload pictures and videos, and tag friends or places we visit. Also termed ‘warm affordances’ they allow us to share content, keep in contact, and interact. The other kind are ‘cold affordances’ - the legal jargon, the stuff that implies an agreement about privacy. For example: the picture I shared of my cat on my Facebook yesterday now belongs to Facebook, as is set out in their terms of service. Yet, my ability to share which friends see that picture is an example of warm affordances.
Recent news: Facebook is rewriting it’s Terms of Service and Data Policy, focusing on easy to read language and making things clearer https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/terms-and-data-policy/
Deciding what to share, and what audiences to let access them, can be very challenging. There’s some pictures I’m happy to share with some friends, but not others, because unfortunately humans can be very judgemental….
Then there’s the external links where we go to fill out a “when will we die” survey. Whilst we believed these external permissions were secure, as we now know, there is potential for data breaches.
Related news: Australia’s Privacy Commissioner to Investigate if Facebook breached Australia’s Privacy Act: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-s-privacy-commissioner-opens-facebook-probe-over-data-breach
This has actually led to me making some changes on how I access Facebook, and how I share User Generated Content. I revoked app permissions, and have started again, and am very careful with what I click on and give permissions for now. Are you bunkering down on your privacy settings, or are you just letting whatever happens, happen?
Update: I’ve embedded some non-referenced articles in this post, and there’s also an Easter Egg ;)
BBC News 2018, How Cambridge Analytica psychologically profiled Facebook Users, BBC News, 4 April, viewed 7th April 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84gTofMPz1k>.
Gibson, JJ 2014, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception: Classic Edition, Taylor and Francis Group, London.
Hutchby, I 2001, Technologies, texts and affordances, Sociology, 35 (2), p. 441-456.
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M, ‘Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media’, Business Horizons, 53(1), 59–68.
Mao, J 2014, ‘Social media for learning: A mixed methods study on high school students’ technology affordances and perspectives’, Computers in Human Behavior, 34, p. 213-223.
Zapier 2015, ‘Survey Monkey [image], in Zapier - Survey Moneky – Features, Pricing, Alternatives and More, viewed April 2018, <https://zapier.com/apps/surveymonkey>.