Digital Communities

Strictly for educational purposes only (Swinburne Sarawak)

[kirstin-k]

Global social media: China

There are a few countries that goes to wide lengths to protect their citizens from other countries and the internet. Countries like China, Ethiopia, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam have restricted their citizens internet access as the internet is a very powerful tool to spread activism, information, memes and ideas (Alexander 2019). China has not only restricted their internet access to the outside world they also implemented social credit system.

China is starting to use a system that ranks their citizens and giving them social credit by monitoring the behaviours of citizens. It was made public in 2014, with the belief to reinforce trust of the citizens. It was said that this programme or system will fully operate this year which is the year 2020 throughout China. In the time being, the system is run by different groups around the country including city council members, and these data are then kept and scored by the city’s private tech platforms (Ma 2018). Creemers (2018) mentions that this system is implemented to allow the government to use technologies to gain social control in governing but is especially inescapable in Tibet and Xinjiang as those places are politically sensitive areas. Ways used to aid in this system is by using revolutionary CCTV cameras, mobile devices, car number plate as well as facial recognition technologies. These devices are used to track each citizens movements and actions taken that are then scored. The score or pointed received by the individual will also be base on online actions like, what they purchase online, what do they post in social media and what kind of friends they have. These points serve as a good or bad ticket that will affect them in looking for jobs, their loans and mortgages, relationships and traveling. It is a scary thing as an individual is seen as an object or test subject that is always being watched and wound be punished if a mistake was made.

Ma (2018) also brought up the punishment that will be placed on those who does not receive good social credit scores: -

1)     Not able to travel. These is around 9 million citizens that are not be allowed to fly or use the train by blocking them from purchasing tickets for domestic flights. On the other hand, 3 million citizens are blocked from purchasing business-class train tickets.

2)     Effecting internet speed. People who do not pay bills on time, playing too much video games, purchasing inappropriate items online, posting inappropriate contents on social media and spreading fake news will make their internet speed slow as a punishment.

3)     Children banned from entering the best schools. There were 17 young adults that did not carry out military service, they are barred from enrolling themselves in schools in universities, high schools and was even refused for them to continue their studies.

4)     Publicly shamed. If an individual's score is low they will be named a bad citizen publicly, but they are able to appeal in court as notified before their names are placed in the blacklist

There are many more punishment listed but these 4 above are the ones that will really affect one’s life if they are considered to have low ‘social credit’ by the government.

References

Creemers. R. (2018). China’s social credit system: An evolving practice of control. SSRN. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3175792

Alexander. D. (2019). 7 countries with the most restricted internet access. Interesting engineering. Retrieved from https://interestingengineering.com/7-countries-with-the-most-restricted-internet-access

Ma. A. (2018). China has started ranking citizens with a creepy ‘social credit’ system- here’s what you can do wrong, and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you. Business insider. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4

[kirstin-k]

Social Gaming

Games are often enjoyed by everyone especially the younger generations. It is even said that gaming is all about the community. In the entertainment industry, gaming was known as the fastest growing enjoyment even more than films, TV shows and others. Compared to other communities like social media, gaming communities are often known to be diverse and centred around an organisation, events, or anything game related.

There are many advantages of online gaming as gamers are able to gain experience and life skills, they are also able to connect with others online and form bonds with their teammates. Playing with other people helps them learn to cooperate with others and build confidence. They can even learn how to lead a team as the team leader of a multiplier game. Online games are also a platform used to talk about their fears and sadness in a safe way, as they do not need to be afraid to talk face to face with others but instead have a virtual space to do so. Gamers will need to use critical thinking to win a game or solve a puzzle in the games they are playing. This helps them keep their mind active and use the time to think deeply instead of doing activities what do not benefit them at all.

The gaming community is enjoyed by everyone, but there is always a bad side to everything. On of the problem is the toxic community also known as trolls. These people love to hate on others by blaming their teammates, making irritating sounds into their microphones, or the one that does not give other players chance to play their games properly, they dare to do these things because of anonymity. Anonymity means that other players do not know who the other person is and cannot track them down. Other than that, gaming can be addicting and can causes the players to forget about their health as well as spend to much money on games that they cannot afford. Some even chooses to go bankrupt just to get a new game.

black female gamers are often faced with misogynoir and overt racism in the gaming community. It really should not matter how a person look like or what gender they are when online gaming should be for fun, not to push others down. Female players often receive words like “Girls do not play games” are often thrown at women because they believe that girls belong in the kitchen and so on. The N-word is also thrown around like it is appropriate to use during games with people of colour. Girls who uses their web cams while gaming also was asked to do inappropriate things like to twerk or show them their private areas. In a 2015 study conducted, more than 66% of games experience major harassment and most of them includes racist comments and threats. 29% of gamers were said to have been doxed during an online game. 

With these in mind the gaming community is not a bad place, there is just bad people in them, gamers around the world should stand together and lift each other up instead of spreading negativity, threats and harassing others.

References

Morris. N. (2020). Black women are being targeted with ‘disgusting’ misogynoir in online gaming forums. Metro. Retrieved from https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/11/black-women-racially-abused-online-gaming-needs-stop-12359923/

Hawks. K. (2017). Top 10 problems every gamer has faced. Vocal. Retrieved from https://vocal.media/gamers/top-10-problems-every-gamer-has-faced

 https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/self-educational-effects-computer-gaming/20980

Online gaming - The benefits. (2020). internet matters. Retrieved from https://www.internetmatters.org/resources/online-gaming-advice/online-gaming-the-benefits/

pcdreams. (2016). The significance of online gaming communities. pcdreams. Retrieved from https://pcdreams.com.sg/the-significance-of-online-gaming-communities/

[derrickteo]

Social Gaming

Does monetisation affect the growth of organic, grassroots communities?

I believe that monetisation does positively affect the growth of organic, gamers communities. Through monetisation, game developers are able to generate revenues to create a better quality game and professional gamers will have a clearer goal on choosing this path as they are making income. For example, eSports is a way for gamers to generate their income which could rack up millions of dollars competing professionally (O’connell 2020). According to Newzoo, a gaming industry analysis company, global eSports revenue rose dramatically in 2019, up 27% compared to 2018. And with digital streaming now, gamers are able to earn by streaming themselves gaming on platforms like Twitch. Therefore, monetisation is a win-win situation for both the game developers and the gamers.

Are gaming communities becoming less about play and more about monetisation?

Personally, I think that gaming communities are not becoming less about play and more about monetisation. Instead, I think there’s a balance between both playing and monetising. If the gamer has the passion to game, he or she can earn monet out of it. As example, there are many existing famous gamers/youtubers such as the Faze clan, Ninja, PewDiePie and so on which are making use of their hobby/passion of gaming and using that to earn millions of dollars. Esports is a place for competitive, organized video gaming which allows professional gamers to come together and could win millions or huge brand endoresements for it (Willingham 2018).

Are gaming communities becoming more toxic environments for some?

I strongly believe that gaming communities are becoming more toxic environments. Emotional, using foul languages, blaming others are only some of the toxic characteristics (Mustofa 2018). I think the reason why such things are happening is because competitive gaming makes us put winning over everything else and that includes shaming other players. Moreover, most gamers use nickname for their character which will make them feel free to say anything as others will not know their true identity. Nonetheless, all these can be avoided by following influencers out there with a positive behavior which does not throw tempers but instead laugh it out as after all it’s only just a game or one could also turn off chat and ignore team members. This could help us by not looking or hearing the chat and allow us to focus on the game to win.

List of References

O’connell, B. 2020, The Street, ‘How much do eSports players make?’, viewed 27 May 2020, <https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/how-much-do-esports-players-make-15126931/>.

Willingham, AJ. 2018, CNN, ‘What is eSports? A look at an explosive billion-dollar industry’, viewed 27 May 2020, <https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/27/us/esports-what-is-video-game-professional-league-madden-trnd/index.html>.

Mustofa, A. 2018, HYBRID, ‘Toxic Behavior in Online Gaming, is it necessary?’, viewed 27 May 2020, <https://hybrid.co.id/post/toxic-behavior-in-online-gaming-is-it-necessary/>.

[valeriejawan]

Fandom

What is it?

Based on the Cambridge Dictionary, fandom is defined as the state of being a fan of someone or something, especially in a very enthusiastic way. Fandom is essentially a way of saying “fan culture”. Fandom functions as an alternative social community (Jenkins 1992). The fan community shares a mutual bond over their enthusiasm for the specific piece of pop culture. 

Fandom on Social Media

We often see a lot of fan accounts created on social media especially on Instagram where there are at least more than 10 fan account for one specific celebrity. It is created by fans and not professionals, for the greater good of their fandom and also for other fans to enjoy. Fans are now going beyond the ‘traditional’ forms of engagement; at one point this was limiited to concert attendance and merch. Now fans have a few ways to be more involved - social media being the most important. 

This is where social media has positively affected fan culture by allowing the interaction of fans and aspects of fan culture to increase. The interaction between fan and the celebrity have increased because social media allowed fans to feel more connected to the celebrity on a more personal level. Increased It also has increased fans interaction with one another, allowing them to connect with each other with the same interest; and also affecting interactions between fan and producer; the record labels, the movie studios, the publishers, and the TV producers. 

I, myself. don’t personally have my own experience of fandom but I have seen a lot of fandom going on around me. For example, my mother is “fangirling” over a Korean actor named Lee Min Ho. So, for me, it is fair to say the media representations of fans as ‘weird’ and ‘overly emotional’ because sometimes this fandom can over-control someone’s emotion and they can get really obsessive of the celebrity. 

Fandom is (not a surprise) a friendly space for every Asian fan. Most of the fandom happens in Asia especially towards Korean actors/actresses, Japanese anime etc. Tumblr is one the preferred social space for fans as of now, because it serves as the ultimate place to connect with other fans of a particular topic and interact with the community especially for teens and young adults with strong interests in pop culture. Fandom on Tumblr is where mostly young people come together, forming small subsets of fan-driven communities to enjoy one another’s fan art, gifs, photos, fan fiction, and discussion. This is usually about a popular TV show or movie etc. They can be easily found through hashtags in Tumblr. 

One of the most famous fandom in Tumblr is the Harry Potter Fandom. Although the Harry Potter books and movies were concluded few years ago, but the Harry Potter Tumblr Fandom is still thriving till this day. Many fans have a place in their hearts for many of the characters in Harry Potter. Inspiring photos of the Harry-Ron-Hermione trio, gifs of Professor Snape or equally funny posts of Lord Voldemort can be search through any of the character’s name in the tags. There is also a hashtag and post called “reblog if you are a wizard” basically for Harry Potter fans to reblog if they are a huge fan and that post has hit 1.4 million reblogs on Tumblr. 

References

Moreau, E 2020, ‘A list of 10 entertainment fandoms that grew from tumblr’, Lifewire, viewed 23 May 2020, <https://www.lifewire.com/entertainment-fandoms-on-tumblr-3486068>.

Stein, LE 2018, ‘Tumblr and fandom’, Editorial, viewed 23 May 2020, <https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/1580/1826>.

<https://rampages.us/tommyspage/work-1/>.

Misailidou, E 2017, ‘Social media fandom: the construction of identity in the cases of “the 100″ and “once upon a time” tumblr communities’, ResearchGate, viewed 23 May 2020, <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317420298_Social_media_fandom_The_construction_of_identity_in_the_cases_of_The_100_and_Once_Upon_A_Time_Tumblr_communities>.

Cohen, D 2016, ‘The evolution of fandom through social media’, Pulsar, viewed 23 May 2020, <https://www.pulsarplatform.com/blog/2016/the-evolution-of-fandom-through-social-media/>.

<https://www.hundredlifedesign.com/fandoms-what-they-are-and-how-to-get-into-it-or-not/>.

[kirstin-k]

Fandom

What is fandom?

Fandom, also known as fan culture, is a phrase known for a group or community formed around a shared enjoyment of a topic within the community or group. These topics can vary from, TV shows, movies, cartoons, artists, celebrities, sports, and many more. These fans not only act as a consumer but they also produce their own content on the topic they are interested in. These contents that the fandoms create can be memes, fan art, cosplay, fanfics, video edits and more.

Tumblr is one of the best places for fandoms and fanbases. In the years when the TV show Supernatural was debuted, it was one of the largest fanbase In Tumblr. There are wide variety of gifs, pictures and blogs written about these tv shows and the gifs and more can still be seen until now.

These are the reasons why people explore the fandom sides on Tumblr: -

1.     They can make connections and new friends. As people are posting blogs about the topics or people they love to watch, the community will come together to share observations, theories and bond with amazing people with common interest on Tumblr.

2.     They can grasp the skills to critique as well as analyse media. They sometimes call themselves or are called the Sherlock of the fandom. These people are able to connect the character personalities, plots and gain details from the topic that they are interested in that others might not have noticed.

3.     They come to know new books, shows and more. As the topics they are a fan of, will have similarities with other movies and more, other users will suggest new topics that are similar when they finished the current shows and movies that they were enjoying. For example, a community loves Harry potter so when the series ended, they will be suggested the same work by the same author named JK Rowling for you to enjoy, that is Fantastic beasts and other works by her.

Fandom is not all happy and enjoyed by everyone, there are also negative things about fandoms as they do not only love and have passion for the topics and celebrities they are fans of, but they also have power against other when the community comes together. All the topics or people they talk and post about can be seen by everyone worldwide. These causes cyberbullying and dangerous connections like pedophilia. Cyberbullying starts because people do not like the fandom as they see them as losers for liking these topics or people or they just hate the fandom itself for no particular reasons, On the other hand, people especially adults can pose as someone else like a teenage girl, and take advantage of the people who are minors post about their interests by pretending to have a common interest and contact them. Fandoms will also go against other fandoms as the celebrities they stan are competing to get first place in music charts, movie charts and more. They will go against others to tell people that the person they stan is the best and others are not. The word “stan” is used as a term for crazed and obsessive fan that will go to great lengths for their obsession over a celebrity. This term came from a song by Eminem. These causes negative behaviors and teaches young generations that this is a acceptable behavior.

I chink im cool. (2012). Stan. Urban dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Stan

Lindsay. K. (2019). The good, the bad, the load: Welcome to fandom fridays. Refinery29. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/06/234404/fandom-fridays-introduction

Hodge. D. (2017). 5 Reasons to explore Tumblr’s fandom side: a brief look at the vast world of fans and fandom on one of the internet’s top blogging websites. Studybreak. Retrieved from https://studybreaks.com/tvfilm/tumblr-fandoms-skills-learned/

Fandom and participatory culture. (2020). Grinnell college. Retrievd from https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultural-theory-and-theorists/fandom-and-participatory-culture/

[raymondlai00]

Public Health Campaign

Is social media useful in spreading information on Covid-19 in Malaysia or your home country?

The recent Covid-19 pandemic has influenced the whole world in many ways. Many countries have started to ask the people to quarantine themselves. The pandemic started back in 2019 and cases of an unknown virus were reported in Wuhan, China on 31 December 2019 (Schumaker 2020). In March, it quickly escalated and was declared a global pandemic. Malaysia announced their Movement Control Order (MCO) on 16 March 2020 and started on the 18 March.

Personally, I feel like social media is very useful when used to spread information especially when people can only contact with the outside world using social media during quarantine. Beginning of the MCO, I scroll through social media a lot to find there is a lot of information on the how the virus spread. Although social media should be used to spread accurate and useful information, but there was a lot of fake news and misleading information about the virus such as eating garlic will kill the virus. Fake news and misleading information are one of dangers of using social media to spread any public awareness as it will lead to many people to do things that they should not do to prevent the virus. Personally, I filtered through all the news by find official websites to determine whether the information is reliable such as News company such as The Star and Sin Chew Daily and trusted pages such as Sarawak Eye on Facebook.

Are there particular social media platforms which are more appropriate for some campaigns?

               Yes, I think the selection of social media platforms for campaigns is crucial if the campaigns are targeted to specific age group of people. Take Facebook and Instagram for example, Facebook is a platform that has 2.49 billion active users monthly in 2020 and Instagram had just reached its 1 billion active users monthly in 2020 (Clement 2020). Although it maybe obvious that Facebook is able to reach more people then Instagram, but Instagram can be more appropriate if the campaigns are targeted to younger people like teenagers and young adult. This is because Instagram users are mostly younger people as the statistics shown by Statista shows that age group of 18-24 and 25-34 shows higher percentage than Facebook’s by 7.2% and 7.9% respectively (Clement 2020). On the other hand, Facebook’s age group of 45-54, 55-64 and 65+ shows higher percentage than Instagram’s by 3.3%, 6% and 7.3% respectively (Clement 2020). Thus, using Instagram will reach more young people and Facebook will reach more and older people.

Keep reading

[kirstin-k]

These statistics presented are good!

[kirstin-k]

Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding

Crowdsourcing is to engage a group of people that have a common aim or objective while, crowdfunding is a way to raise capital through collective effort from others. It is the opposite of mainstream approach towards business finances.

Fake news can spread fast and wide as people can share a writing in just seconds with the tips of my fingers. These fake news issues aren’t new, but it is getting worst with new technologies and platforms to spread them. A way to counter this problem is by possible using crowdsourcing. People trust reputable news outlets or networks more than others. Social media helps by using trust ratings to inform how contents are promoted. It’s a major challenge to stop or decrease the spread of misinformation especially on social medias. There are ways used to limit fake news and misinformation. People were given surveys to find out that marginal websites are mostly distrusted. There are fact-checkers implemented in crowdsourcing to diminish fake news and misinformation.

In the cultural and creative sectors, they make contributions to creative projects and sourcing links to a project with new workflow or business model. These contributions can be taken from contests held like logo designing and they are then presented to clients through internet platforms.

There are risk and benefits in the legal and financial part when conducting crowdsourcing. It can entail on legal uncertainty between the company or individuals as there is no solid agreement between the two parties. There are also concerns on fee issues, regulations, copyright and internet-linked risks like hacking. It can even be called gambling as the artists and supporters are betting on the success of a product that they made.

In the future, crowdsourcing will become an acceptable method in producing products, but the full potential of crowdsourcing has yet to be discovered and implemented. An example on the the future of crowdsourcing: Twitter has announced that they will be using crowdsourcing to translate Twitter into several languages. 

References

What is Crowdsourcing?. (2020). Crowd sourching week. Retrieved from https://crowdsourcingweek.com/what-is-crowdsourcing/

What is crowd funding?. (2020). Fundable. retrieved from https://www.fundable.com/learn/resources/guides/crowdfunding/what-is-crowdfunding

Carufel. R. (2019). Fighting the spread of fake news - why crowdsourcing is effective. Agility. Retrieved from https://www.agilitypr.com/pr-news/public-relations/fighting-the-spread-of-fake-news-why-crowdsourcing-is-effective/

Sexton. C. (2019). Why crowdsourcing may be the best way to limit fake news. earch.com. Retrieved from https://www.earth.com/news/crowdsourcing-limit-fake-news/

Members research service. (2016). Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding in the culture and creative sectors. European Parliamentary research service blog. Retrieved from https://epthinktank.eu/2016/02/24/crowdsourcing-and-crowdfunding-in-the-cultural-and-creative-sectors/

Crowdsourcing spreading like wildfire with social media. (2020). prescient digital media. Retrieved from https://www.prescientdigital.com/articles/web-2.0/crowdsourcing-spreading-like-wildfire-with-social-media

[kirstin-k]

Public health campaigns & Communities

Health campaigns in social media usually compete to get their popularity higher. Therefore they concluded that these campaigns actually can come up with positive changes or even prevent negative changes in these issues. 

Fitbit a sports and fitness technology product and Garmin posted on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Found out that Instagram  has higher engagement rate on delivering health messages compared to the other platforms. 

On of the concern for public health is about mental health. Mental illness can come in many shapes and forms. A mental illness widely talked about in this day and age is depression. May is known as Mental Health Awareness Month. So, there are multiple fundraisers, campaigns and events held to raise the awareness for this issue.

Depression is a serious issue as people actually die from it. It wears people down but often the victim themselves will not tell anyone about it. Why you ask? Because they do not want to burden others and sometimes it even seems like people do not care when they do open up about their struggles. Depression does not only come from traumatic experience but also from within the victim themselves. Often they do not know why, how or what caused it, it is just there and they need to overcome it. There is no magic pill to make it go away and some even makes it worst. When someone cannot take it, this is where they commit suicide or inflict pain on themselves. It helps someone to be an activist to cope with their depression.

Social media helped most of these people to see the bright side or even gave them advice and help they needed to feel better. Netizens on the these platforms also helps them by creating awareness of this issue and tell people to always look out for their friends when they are always sad, angry or even happy all the time as people cope with this issue differently. Social media also helped by sharing ways to help people like them. For example, What to do if your friend seems off lately, what should you ask your friends to tell you about their struggles and what should you do when they do tell you about them.

#Breakthestigma - Raise awareness today. (2010). Retrieved from https://adaa.org/raising-awareness

Wakefield. M.A., Loken. B., & Hornik. R.C. (2014). Use of mass media campaigns to change health behaviours. PMC. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4248563/

Parekh. R. (2017). What is Depression?. Amerian psychiatric association. Retrieved from https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/depression/what-is-depression

[kirstin-k]

Activism and Protest

All these acts of getting rights for a certain topic or so called taboos needs to happen to make a change. Usually people will not even talk about them if no one is making these things a big thing to change the minds of the government or the world. Over the years there are hundreds of protests and activism going on. Some may be smaller or bigger than others, but that doesn't make it any less important.

One of the bigger activism is LGBT pride. It is a pride to the promote self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people hence the name of the movement as a social group. June is officially named the month of LGBT pride. It started during the 1960s but still faces problems with the social norms. People are bullied and disrespected just because they transitioned or like the same gender. Even if a person is not in that community, that does not mean you cannot support them. Even if people do not support them, they should not call them disrespectful names and put their hands on these people. 

Some countries still do not support this movement but at least the people can call this community their home and be supported by them all the time. Social media helped this movement a lot as it spreads the news fast and get supported by other communities even thought they are strangers.

All these successful protests are thanks to social media. It provides a platform to communicate with people in different communities and to give their support, but it also allows people to cyber bully as it is simple to do so. There are some actions taken by both the social media and netizens to reduce these negative acts. Netizens usually shares these profile and call them out for cyber bullying and the social media management will block these users and might have punishment for their wrong doings. It helps spread information fast and to inform people of a situation or topic that is happening and make a change. There are always negative and positives to using social media for activism and protests but conflict cannot be avoided as everyone has different opinions and can easily share what they thing on social media platforms.

References

Garfield, L 2018, ‘June is LGBT pride month-here;s everything you need to know’, business insider Malaysia, viewed 24 April 2020, <https://www.businessinsider.my/pride-lgbt-month-definition-gay-history-parade-celebrations-2018-6?r=US&IR=T>.

Barnett, K 2019, ‘The impact of social media on modern protest movements and democracy’, the sociable, viewed 24 April 2020, <https://sociable.co/social-media/impact-social-media-modern-protest-movements-democracy/>.

[kirstin-k]

Social Media and Politics

The official definition of politics is the activity of the government, members of law-making organizations, or people who try to influence the way a country is governed, but is it all it is? 

There are many things like issues in countries or something unique that happened that are made political as everything in the country links to the government. It is said that they are the one in charge of the citizens. Therefore, these issues are shared in social medias that might benefit the citizens or government or it might destroy them as rumors spread fast using social media.

Because of social media or the new media, it had altered the way political institutions operate, how leaders communicate with others, how the campaigns held and how they engage with their citizens.

One of the movement that changed and impacted the politics in the western countries is the Black Live Matter movement. This movement is a movement that is build to get rid of unjust violence and discrimination towards black communities and gain freedom as they are always seen as bad people or slaves. It changed politics by changing some of their policies and enforce laws against unjust acts and violence toward black communities as well as shed light on racism. 

This is still an ongoing topic like the other movements as people still sometimes run into people throwing racist commends towards others, but because of social media, it is impacting the government or politicians to take these issues as a serious matter because their citizen’s safety and satisfaction is their responsibility.

Racism is often link towards government and politicians as discrimination can be seen in the the way the government system is set and the treatment of race.  The former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew once famously said that Malaysian politics will always be based on race and this statement was shared on social media platforms. This statement spark questions towards the politicians but sadly seems to have become a normal thing among these politicians to be racist. The unwritten rule but known by sight in Malaysian politics is that all prominent positions in the government and position of prime minister must go to the Malays or Muslims and no other religion or race. However Pakatan Harapan did violate some of these rules by nominating 2 minority race politicians to prominent government ministry positions but both of them resign recently after being attack on racial grounds.

About 2013, Black lives matter, viewed 17 April 2020, <https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/>.

King, J 2018, ‘how black lives matter has changed us politics’, new internationalist, viewed 17 April 2020, <https://newint.org/features/2018/03/01/black-lives-matter-changed-politics>.

Owen, D 2018, The new media’s role in politics, Openmind, viewed 17 April 2020, <https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/the-new-media-s-role-in-politics/>.

Nair, C 2020, “Malaysia’s ‘malay first’ malaise”, The diplomat, viewed 5 May 2020, <https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/malaysias-malay-first-malaise/>.

[kirstin-k]

Is Tumblr a blog or a social network site?

To people who does not explore much on Tumblr or does not even know what features Tumblr has, Tumblr is just a blogging website, but Tumblr actually can be used and is used as both for blogging as well as social networking. Tumblr does not just have a singular use. When people use Tumblr for blogging, they will write about a topic, much like what we are doing for this unit. On the other hand, people to view, read like comment on the blogs posted are interacting with the individual who posted the blogs or stories. These interaction shows that people are social networking with one another (Kenton 2020).

Yes, the layout of Tumblur might be different compared to the other social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, but if we look closely between all these platforms, they have similar characteristics. For example, all this platforms allow you to like, comment and share the contents that your interested in.

These platforms, including Tumblr also allows you to add friends, family as well as strangers and post about anything that you would like to share with them. It can be used as a storytelling or a sort of e-book platform, these quote on quote stories might be about daily life of an individual like a journal or they can even make up stories and post them here for other people to enjoy. Some artist, Youtubers or book authors use these platforms like Tumblr to share their works to connect with fans and even promote an upcoming project (What is a Blog, Blogging & Blogger? Definition, Meaning & Examples 2020)  .

Reference

Kenton, W 2020, Social networking definition, investopedia, viewed 12 April 2020, <https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-networking.asp>.

‘What is a Blog, Blogging & Blogger? Definition, Meaning & Examples’ 2020, blogging tips and tricks, 10 April, 12 April 2020, <https://startbloggingonline.com/what-is-a-blog-definition/>.

#MDA20009 #IsTumblrablogorasocialnetworksite?