Digital Communities @shanegrey05-blog - Tumblr Blog

Global social media: Case study China

St4art*vpn

What do weknow about social media usage in a country such as China? China is a countrythat I deal with for business on a regular basis, it is also a place that Iregularly visit based on my business dealings, and through my observations and contacts it is a place that is embracing social media by connecting with others. I was however surprised to learn through a survey conducted by McKinsey that 95 percent of internet users in Tier 1, 2 and 3 Chinese cities where registered users of a social media platform. In addition China is said to have the most active social media population in world, as in the past 6 months 91 percent of the respondents stated that they had logged on to a social media platform, in comparison to 70 percent from Korea, 67 percent from the United States and 30 percent from Japan (Chiu, Lin & Silverman 2012, p. 2).

It is great to see Chinese internet users now engaging with social media. The internet has given ordinary Chinese citizens access to information which was not available to them a few years ago. Their access is limited to domestic social media platforms, which do differ slightly to the western social media platforms that we all know. There are however a few reasons why domestic social media platforms are becoming more popular with Chinese citizens, these include situations which have separated families such as rural to urban migration, and loneliness attributed to the “one child” generation, and the lack of trust in information stemming from government controlled media (Crampton 2011).

Even though China has a very active domestic social media scene, they unfortunately also have one of the most technically sophisticated internet filtering systems in the world. Known as “China’s Great Firewall”, it is designed to stop citizens from reading about sensitive issues, as well as restricting them from posting information. The internet in China is hosted by 8 government Ministry of Industry and Information Technology licenced providers, with websites located outside of China reported to load slowly, while people friendly websites from within China load quickly and with ease (The Great Firewall of China 2013). This does not seem to be a big issue or high priority with the Chinese citizens as their greatest interest is being able to connect with other Chinese citizens online (Crampton 2011).

Hopefully this situation improves for my friends in China and that their government eventually allows them the same access to websites and western social media platforms that we all use on a daily basis.

References:

Chiu, C, Lin, D & Silverman, A 2012, China’s social-media boom, Mckinsey & Company, viewed 6 February 2015, http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/chinas_social-media_boom.

Crampton, T 2011, Social media in China: The same, but different, The China Business Review, viewed 6 February 2015, http://www.thomascrampton.com/china/social-media-china-business-review/.

The Great Firewall of China 2013, Open Democracy, viewed 6 February 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/china-correspondent/great-firewall-of-china.

Image credit: Sta4rt*vpn - http://www.start-vpn.com/blog/2012/01/25/how-to-unblock-facebook-in-china-how-to-bypass-internet-censorship-in-china-63742/

Social gaming: playing the crowd

So how manyonline games both single and multi-player have you installed on your smart phone from social media platforms such as Facebook? Leveraging off ever growing social networking sites, online gaming developers are now utilising the large user-bases of social media platforms such as Facebook to create new online communities (Swinburne Online 2015, week 10). Me personally I do not have very many, only two in fact. However I must admit I recently downloaded a game called Airport City which was advertised on my Facebook feed. It is very addictive, but it does have some elements that ruin the playing experience. Firstly as it is a SIMS type of game it goes very slow (time that is), and to speed it up you can buy virtual dollars to create your airport and city faster. As I am frugal with my money, I refuse to pay to play a game so, I just have to sit and wait. Secondly it continually wants to share my progress with everybody on Facebook; again something is refuse to do due to privacy concerns.

Something I have never engaged in is massively multiplayer online games (MMOG), and after researching the game ‘Eve Online’ and the issues that a MMOG online gamer can be faced with, I do not think that I will any time soon. There was a case of a player who was suspended from playing Eve Online for thirty days as they breached the terms of the service for making comments outside of the games environment about another player (de Zwart & Humphreys 2014, p. 78). Therefore who wants to play an online game and end up being a victim of cyber bullying?

As online communities continue to grow, so does the threat of cyber bullying, and because of this resolutions in online disputes require a clear understanding of the social norms with in the community (Suzor & Woodford 2013, p. 1). As virtual worlds such as online social spaces continue to develop, there are now sets of rules that govern how online gamers should interact within the community (Suzor & Woodford 2013, p. 2). This is good news for the online gamer, as online environments such as MMOG’s have these terms and conditions which a player must accept prior to playing online against other gamers. And if somebody does act inappropriately against another gamer then the platform provider is encouraged to get involved in player to player disputes (de Zwart & Humphreys 2014, p. 78). These rules are here to help protect online gamers and ensure correct conduct is being adhered to.

References:

de Zwart, M & Humphreys, S 2014, ‘The lawless frontier of deep space: Code as law in Eve Online’, Cultural studies review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 77-99, Swinburne University, Learning Material, viewed 30 January 2015.

Suzor, N & Woodford, D 2013, ‘Legal and governance challenges’, Journal of virtual worlds research, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 1-14, Swinburne University, Learning Material, viewed 30 January 2015.

Swinburne Online 2015, ‘Week 10: Social gaming: Playing the crowd’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, learning materials on Blackboard, Swinburne Online, January, viewed 30 January 2015.

Visual communities and social imaging

By now many of us are well aware of social imaging, we seem to be exposed to it everywhere, with most people now engaging in creating visual communities. Ubiquitous photography has come about through the developments in technology such as mobile phone cameras and social media platforms, which has led to new forms of personal photography. Originally personal photography was centred on the experiences of close networks such as the family photo album resulting in creating social cohesion, now through social imaging new networks known as visible publics have emerged (Swinburne Online 2015 week 9).

According to SocialMediaNews.com.au there are now 13,200,000 Australians using Facebook (Cowling 2014), that equates to 57 percent of the Australian population. With so many people using Facebook imagine how many images of people are posted every day, there may even be several images of yourself being posted by family and friends without you even knowing it. Unfortunately for some people this can cause some issues regarding their privacy. By tagging somebody in an image posted on Facebook makes the person searchable and connects them to other users (Swinburne Online 2015 week 9). For me this causes a degree of anxiety, for example I like to keep images of my children off Facebook as I do not know who could be out there looking, therefore when a family member tags me in an image relating to one of my children I can sometimes feel as if my privacy has been violated. It has been suggested that “social networks are defined as connections between people who deem other members important to them in some way” (Lange 2009, p. 70). This is why the tagging of me by somebody else for other people who I do not know to see does not sit well with me.

(AndroidTapp)

For me the only time I make use of images and video through digital communication to connect with others is at work. As a marketing manager one of my roles is to ensure that our digital corporate communication messages are kept up-to-date and relevant. This means using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

A new social media platform which is new to me is Snapchat. For those like me who do not know much about Snapchat it is a visual communication app that is now a major contributor to social imaging and visual communication. Snapchat uses selfies which are digital portraits of yourself taken by you on a mobile phone at an arm’s length (Swinburne Online 2015 week 9). It is interesting to note that the founder of Snapchat Evan Speigel has come out saying that “traditional, profile-based social media was over” (Herrman 2014), and that selfies make sense as a fundamental unit of communication as they “mark the transition between digital media a self-expression and digital media as communication” (Herrman 2014). Therefore one of Snapchat’s aims is to overcome the issues we may have images of ourselves being shared without our knowledge (Swinburne Online 2015 week 9).

(Digital Trends)

References:

Cowling, D 2014, Social Media Statistics Australia – June 2014, Socialmedianews.com.au, viewed 23 January 2015, <http://www.socialmedianews.com.au/social-media-statistics-australia-june-2014/>.

Herrman, J 2014, Meet the man who got inside Snapchat’s head, BuzzFeed, viewed 23 January 2015, <http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/meet-the-unlikely-academic-behind-snapchats-new-pitch#.efYx9zXq92>.

Lange, PG 2009, The Youtube reader: Videos of affinity on Youtube, National Library Sweden, Stockholm.

Swinburne Online 2015, ‘Week 9: Visual communities and social imaging’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, learning materials on Blackboard, Swinburne Online, January, viewed 23 January 2015.

Image credit: AndroidTapp - http://www.androidtapp.com/htc-salsa/htc-salsa-facebook-tagging/

Image credit: Digital Trends - http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/selfie-word-of-the-year-2013/

Crowdsourcing in times of crisis

What would you do in times of crisis such as a natural disaster? How would you communicate and receive crucial up-to-date information which could help save your life? This is something that I’ve never really contemplated until this week’s study topic. There is a concept known as “Crowdsourcing”, and it is used to describe a connected crowd. It can an individual, an institution or a non-profit organisation or company (Oxendine & Waters 2014, p. 51), and utilises online tools and systems to solve problems (Dailey 2014, p. 448). Broadly speaking crowdsourcing can be described as “the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, especially from the online community” (Swinburne Online 2015 week 8).

In terms of a natural disaster how can crowdsourcing help you and others? Well it is quite simple, as there are now many ways in which you can post information for people to access and retrieve information. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are a good place to start. There is also telecommunications such as a phone call or SMS, however in times of a crisis these can sometimes prove to be unreliable due to infrastructure damage.

Another useful social media platform is Ushahidi. Ushahidi which translates in Swahili to ‘testimony’, was developed to assist in the way information flows worldwide (Ushahidi). It can being used for anybody to commence a mapping website which allows any citizen to post reports (Ford 2012, p. 33). In terms of the Haiti earthquake, it was used by integrating Twitter, Facebook, smartphone apps, SMS, blogs and YouTube videos. And because of Ushahidi, rescue teams were able to map locations of people needing help, identify unsafe structures and other relevant information pertaining to the crisis (Linden 2013).

In Australia after the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires that claimed the lives of 174 victims (Black Saturday Bushfires), affected Victorian bushfires residents requested that somebody should develop a crowdsourcing service as they identified gaps in accurate and reliable information during the crisis (Mares 2011). Inspired by successfully implemented community crisis mapping of disasters such as the Haiti earthquake through Ushahidi, Bushfire Connect was established. It was run by volunteers, and brought together in one virtual space residents of local communities, emergency services, and government agencies. It was designed to use fire information from different sources such as from, official agencies, crowdsourced journalism, and social media platforms such as the internet, mobile devices and SMS (Mares 2011).

References:

Black Saturday Bushfires, Black Saturday Bushfires, viewed 18 January 2015, <http://www.blacksaturdaybushfires.com.au/>.

Dailey, D & Starbird, K 2014, ‘Journalists as crowdsourcerers: Responding to crisis by reporting with a crowd’, Computer supported cooperative work, vol. 23, pp. 445-481, Swinburne University, EBSCOhost, viewed 17 January 2015.

Linden, R 2013, The Life-Saving Power of Crowdsourcing, Governing, viewed 17 January 2015, <http://www.governing.com/columns/mgmt-insights/col-crowdwourcing-ushahidi-saving-lives-haiti-earthquake.html>.

Mares, F 2011, Bushfire Connect fires up for its second year, Crowdsourcing.org, viewed 18 January 2015, <http://www.crowdsourcing.org/document/bushfire-connect-fires-up-for-its-second-year/7535>.

Oxendine, CE & Waters, N 2014, ‘No-notice urban evacuations: Using crowdsourced mobile data to minimize risk’, Geography compass, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 49-62, Swinburne University, EBSCOhost, viewed 17 January 2015.

Swinburne Online 2015, ‘Week 8: Crowdsourcing in times of crisis’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, learning materials on Blackboard, Swinburne Online, January, viewed 16 January 2015.

Ushahidi, Mission, Ushahidi, viewed 16 January 2015, <http://www.ushahidi.com/>.

Image credit: Knight Foundation - http://www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2011/8/9/ushahidi-helps-bring-crowdsourcing-technology-to-132-countries/

Image credit: Leson, H 2011 - http://www.slideshare.net/heatherleson/crowdsourcing-fire-and-floods

Image credit: Venturebeat - http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/03/crowdsourcing-golden-rules/

Digital Citizenship 3: Trolling and Social Media Conflict

Social media platforms have given citizens a great deal of access to public communication channels, allowing for greater ability to have a say. However with this increase in open public forums comes a greater responsibility to ensure they are not misused such as in the form of trolling (Swinburne Online 2015 week 7).

To be a Cybersmart citizen it is important for you to engage online positively and exercise your rights and responsibilities while respecting others. Showing respect, integrity and ethical behaviour when interacting online usually discourages anti-social behaviours like trolling, bullying and harassment (Cybersmart). Cyber bullying can remain online forever even if you delete something as it can be viewed and saved by a large number of people. It could come back to bit you in years to come, therefore it is important for you to choose who you share information with and how you engage with others (Cybersmart).

It is impossible to stop trolling, however you can educate teen victims to become more resilient and gain an understanding of how to deal with the bullying. Social media platforms have also now made these issues more visible (Boyd 2014, p. 152) with many of the most popular social media platforms having some type of reporting mechanisms (Cybersmart). This increase in visibility should not be used against the offenders but used to educate them. There is also an argument that if we reduce social media platforms then trolling would reduce, this is a narrow minded approach and would not work (Boyd 2014, p. 152).

There is a number of online forums that are available to educate teens and parents of teens. The Cybersmart website is a good source of information pertaining to online bullying such as trolling. I agree with educating teens the message of cyber bullying, and coming from parents and schools should assist with reducing the threat. As a parent with young kids growing up in a digital society surrounded by social media makes it easier for me to educate them from an early age of the correct etiquette when using online mediums.

When it comes to Australian users, it is no surprise that teenagers are high users of social media platforms, with Facebook and YouTube being the top two social media platforms used by teenagers, refer to the below graph (Raco 2014). However, the proportion of teenagers using Facebook has decreased from 70 per cent in 2012 to 58 per cent in 2013, with Facebook stating that teenage use is on a decline (Raco 2014).

References:

Boyd, D 2014, It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens, Yale University Press, New Haven.

Cyberssmart, Australian communications and media authority, viewed 9 January 2015, <http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/>.

Raco, E 2014, Aussie teens online, Australian communications and media authority, viewed 9 January 2015, <http://www.acma.gov.au/theACMA/engage-blogs/engage-blogs/Research-snapshots/Aussie-teens-online>.

Swinburne Online 2015, ‘Week 7: Digital citizenship 3: Trolling and social media conflict’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, learning materials on Blackboard, Swinburne Online, January, viewed 8 January 2015.

Image credit: Australian communications and media authority - http://www.acma.gov.au/theACMA/engage-blogs/engage-blogs/Research-snapshots/Aussie-teens-online

Image credit: Trend Micro - http://www.trendmicro.co.uk/home/internet-safety-for-kids/10-crucial-cyberbullying-signs/index.html

Digital Citizenship 2: Activism & Protest

I have never really been into the whole activism thing, even though I have strong opinions of certain local and global issues I usually keep them to myself as I do not what to feel alienated for having an opinion. However, a few month ago I saw that a friend of mine liked a community group on Facebook which is Save the Heart of Huskisson. Huskisson is a small New South Wales south coast town about one and a half hour from where I live, and is where I used to holiday when I was young, so it grabbed my attention when I saw that he had liked it. This community groups Facebook campaign states that it is “An urgent appeal to bring this unique Huskisson coastal block with its iconic outlook into public ownership before it's sold and built on” (Save the heart of Huskisson). They have 3294 likes which now includes me, so does this make me a digital activist?

In terms of using social media for digital activism it has been said that Facebook can be utilised to form groups and change people’s minds in order to establish strong but flexible connections with other like-minded people (Gerbaudo 2012, p. 3). I know I am only one person but I thought as this town is close to my heart I should have a voice. If you believe in saving a small town from governments putting profit before people, then please feel free to visit their Facebook page and hit like.

The group has also posted a petition on change.org which received 687 signatures within the first 24 hours of going live (Drewitt-Smith 2014), which now leads me in to clicktivism. Some people say clicktivism is an easy way to become an activists and that it has negative implications such as that has no substance (Swinburne Online 2014 week 6). However after researching this method of activism I personally think it has many positives. It has been suggested that participation in digital campaigning is increasing rapidly especially through sites such as change.org, as the traditional campaign methods are on the decline. People are still going to protest in public, however campaigning online now provides greater reach to geographically challenged people to have their say. It is also interesting to note that the communications director of change.org recently advised that his organisation is not a movement however provides people with a campaigning tool (Howard 2014).

The use of social media platforms for activists and protesting will continue to grow as technology grows and improves. It is important to keep in mind that social media platforms are societies that shape interactions with activists and protesters, which results in more people having access to express their opinions and interact with other activists, political and cultural groups (Youmans & York 2012, p. 317).

References:

Drewitt-Smith, A 2014, Thousands support campaign to save land in Huskisson, ABC, viewed 12 December 2014, <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-28/huskisson-land-campaign/5926246>.

Gerbaudo, P 2012, Tweets and the streets: Social media and contemporary activism, Pluto press, London.

Howard, E 2014, How 'clicktivism' has changed the face of political campaigns, The Guardian, viewed 12 December 2014, < http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/24/clicktivism-changed-political-campaigns-38-degrees-change>.

Save the heart of Huskisson, Facebook, viewed 12 December 2014, <https://www.facebook.com/heartofhuskisson>.

Swinburne Online 2014, ‘Week 6: Digital citizenship 2: Activism and protest’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, learning materials on Blackboard, Swinburne Online, November, viewed 12 December 2014.

Youmans, WL & York, JC 2012, ‘Social media and the activist toolkit: User agreements, corporate interests, and the information infrastructure of modern social movements’, Journal of communication, vol. 62, pp. 315-329, Swinburne University, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 December 2014.

Image credit: Haiku Deck - https://www.haikudeck.com/clicktivism-slacktivism-uncategorized-presentation-iwKTRNPhcf

Image credit: Twitter - https://twitter.com/heartofhusky

Digital Citizenship1: Politics & Civic Cultures

Do you follow a politician or a political party on social media? This was a question that I asked several of my family, friends and work colleagues, and I was surprised by the mixed responses that I received. As I am not really interested in politics I thought people that I knew would be the same. As digital citizenship facilitates civic engagement beyond other media such as newspapers (Mosberger, Tolbert & McNeal 2008, p. 21), I can report that there were more people participating in politics through social media platforms than I actually thought.

Facebook and YouTube were the two social media platforms I found most people used to follow a politician or political party, but I was surprised nobody mentioned Twitter. After some research I found that only a small number of politicians have embraced Twitter, many have joined Twitter but only a few use it with any enthusiasm (Jericho 2012, p. 255).

If politicians are now using social media platforms to engage with younger voters then they need to know how to relate to them. Kevin Rudd tried this and failed when he tried to speak like a young person saying “As I rock around the place talking to kids" (Rudd appeals to young voters, business 2013), this made him appear as if he was trying too hard and the negative comments did him more harm than good. And who cannot forget the image on Twitter where he cut himself shaving, was this an attempt at comedy?

Twitter and Instagram had become part of Kevin Rudd’s strategy to campaign for younger peoples votes (Hudson 2013), and to combat identity confusion and people pretending to be him on Twitter, his account was the first Australian account to be verified by Twitter (Tudehope 2011). Also many people probably do not know that Kevin Rudd was not only the first Australian politician but the first Australian to reach one million followers (Tudehope 2011). But does this translate into one million votes?

There is evidence that shows access to politics through social media platforms has important social benefits. The research found a positive connection between social media use and participation which included campaign contributions and citizen initiated contact with politicians and political parties resulting in actual votes (Chadwick & Howard 2010, p. 175).

In conclusion digital citizenship facilitates civic engagement and has a higher impact than any other media platform. It has the ability to engage younger audiences who are underrepresented and encourages political interests and discussions (Mossberger, Tolbert & McNeal 2008, p. 21). This would most likely have long term positive impact on political participation as it creates and opportunity to rebuttal (Swinburne Online 2014 week 5).

References:

Chadwick, A & Howard, PN 2010, The Routledge handbook of internet politics, Routledge, London.

Hudson, P 2013, Kevin Rudd posts picture of shaving mishap on Twitter, Sun Herald, viewed 5 December 2014, <http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/kevin-rudd-posts-picture-of-shaving-mishap-on-twitter/story-fni0fit3-1226677342900?nk=dddc49ed59d3abd51903a329629d7802>.

Jericho, G 2012, The rise of the fifth estate: Social media and blogging in Australian politics, Scribe Publications, Australia.

Mossberger, K, Tolbert, C & McNeal, R 2008, Digital citizenship – the internet, society and participation, MIT Press,Massachusetts.

Rudd appeals to young voters, business 2013, News.com.au, viewed 5 December 2014, <http://www.news.com.au/national/rudd-appeals-to-young-voters-business/story-fnho52ip-1226670518011>.

Swinburne Online 2014, ‘Week 5: Digital citizenship1: Politics and civic cultures’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, learning materials on Blackboard, Swinburne Online, November, viewed 5 December 2014.

Tudehope, T 2011, How did Kevin Rudd becomes Australia’s Twitter master?, ABC, viewed 5 December 2014, <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-13/tudehope---how-did-kevin-rudd-become-australia27s-twitter-mast/2897554>.

Image credit: The Hothouse Blog - http://www.hothouse.com.au/blog/category/media/feed/

Image credit: ABC - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-06/sprokkreeff-social-media-election/4866960

kateeddel-blog

Online interaction has always been something that has sparked my interest.

Since a young age in school I was always interested in chat rooms, social media and online connection. At a younger age, this was all purely based on socialising and meeting new people.

Over the years I am starting to...

shanegrey05-blog

How very true, I too believe we are turning in to digital beings. It always makes me laugh when you see a group of people all sitting around with their smart phones out all probably communicating with one another via social media. I'm guilty of it too and will often send a text just to save time as I know if I call I'll spend too much time talking about nothing.

You're Never Too Old To Join The Social Media Bandwagon

For somebody in the early 40’s, do not laugh all you 20 something’s you will be old too someday, I thought that social media was pretty easy to use, but as stated in my previous post, I really only know and use Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Research has shown that social media usage for older adults has risen to 72% up from 8% just 9 years ago (More Older Adults Using Social Networking 2013). For personal use I use Facebook mainly to obtain information from pages of interest and social groups, but very rarely share anything. The reason for this is that posts of my friend’s short black latte macchiato do not really interest me too much and tend to put me off. I still have not embraced the whole sharing our social selves concept, I put this resistance down to not knowing enough about the other social media platforms and a lack of knowledge on where to start (Ostrow 2009).

Call me a voyeur but from a personal perspective all I really use social media for is to look, but in terms of affordances, I am fully aware that Facebook has a multitude of different features, functions and limitations, I just choose not to fully utalise all that it is capable of due to the reasons I mentioned above. I have however also had to develop an understanding of YouTube and Twitter through my marketing role at work. The social media aspect at work is an enjoyable task as it gives me an insight of what people (sometime positive and sometimes negative) think about our products, and allows me to socially communicate with them (Swinburne Online 2014 week 3).

I’m sure I am not the only person out there my age that has still not embraced all social media platforms, but when I do eventually get around to it I expect and hope them to be easy to use. It has been suggested that when designing online communities including social media platforms, two facets are of importance, these include usability and sociability (Koper et al. 2004, p. 25). To help people like me that use social media for information only and to get them activity participating in social media there is an interesting theory called social exchange theory which provides a framework that includes guidelines to increase sharing and reduce lurking, and centres on providing users a willingness to contribute and share information (Koper et al. 2004, p. 23).

By the way after writing this I’ve now just started following @StaffordBros on Twitter. So there you go this not so old timer is willing to give another easy to use social media platform a go for personal use. Feel free to follow me @shanefellowes.

References:

Koper, R, Pannekeet, K, Hendriks, M & Hummel, H 2004, ‘Building communities for the exchange of learning objects: Theoretical foundations and requirements’, Research in learning technology, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 21-33, Swinburne University, EBSCOhost, viewed 27 November 2014.

More Older Adults Using Social Networking 2013, Pro Bono Australia, viewed 28 November 2014, <http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2013/08/more-older-adults-using-social-networking#>.

Ostrow, A 2009, STATS: Social media resistance is fading fast, Mashable Australia, viewed 27 November 2014, <http://mashable.com/2009/08/26/social-media-brand-marketers/>.

Swinburne Online 2014, ‘Week 3: Platform case study: reddit’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, learning materials on Blackboard, Swinburne Online, November, viewed 27 November 2014.

Image credit: Pro Bono Australia - http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2013/08/more-older-adults-using-social-networking#

Introduction to Digital Communites

When I initially thought of digital communities I thought of social media and I would instantly think of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. However now that I’m faced with learning more about digital communities I can see straight away that it is much more than just those three social media platforms that most of us use, see and hear about every day.

With social media networks being assisted by media and communication technologies, it has been suggested that social media networks are becoming increasingly diverse. Today, devices such as mobile phones, tablets and computers are allowing users to more easily engage in digital communities (Cunningham et al. 2014, p. 291). Cunningham et al. (2014, p. 292) also talk about self-presentation through online profiles and state that social networking sites “enable constant communication and connection, while encouraging increasingly public levels of self-disclosure or exposure”.

Is it a good thing to share our social selves? Ferdinand Tönnies an early 20th century sociologist wanted to know what held a society together when most people became strangers during the industrial revolution when people left the people they knew in their villages to work in cities with people they did not know (Siapera 2012, p.192). In light of this Ferdinand Tönnies identified two forms of sociality, community and society which brought people together to interact and communicate. I believe that this is still relevant today through digital communities (Swinburne Online 2014 week 2). I think it can be a good thing to share our social selves especially now that many of us in society are time poor and are willing to use new digital technologies to communicate either through text or images. It can sometimes be more time efficient and convenient to pick up our mobile phone and send a text, email and post a message or image (Cunningham et al. 2014, p. 292).

Approximately a decade ago geographical location proximities to other people seemed to dictate our social lives. I know when I was growing up my family and I only socialised with people in our own area, whether it be at school, a neighbour or a sports team. The friendships and acquaintances would be maintained through face-to-face communication and the occasional telephone call and hand written letter if they moved further away, but you would often lose contact with them once they moved (Siapera 2012, p.191). Today the internet has provided us new possibilities for sharing our social selves a topic that will be discussed in my next blog (Siapera 2012, p.202).

References:

Cunningham, S, Turnbull, S, McCosker, A & Wilken, R 2014, The media & communications in Australia, 4th edn, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

Siapera, E 2012, Understanding new media, Sage Publications Ltd, London.

Swinburne Online 2014, ‘Week 2: Social theory and social media’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, learning materials on Blackboard, Swinburne Online, November, viewed 14 November 2014.

Photo credit: ADMA - http://admablog.com/2013/04/04/online-communities-for-b2b-lead-generation-a-guide-for-b2b-marketers/

First timer

This is my first time using a social media to write a blog so bear with me while I learn as I go. I'm looking forward to sharing my thoughts and what is being taught through Digital Communities this teaching period at Swinburne Online. My assessment 1, blog post 1 will be posted very soon so stay tuned.

Photo credit: KCADP - http://ksabolition.org/uncategorized/kcadp-is-gearing-up-stay-tuned

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