#md20009

[chatswithstreety]

WEEK 5!

Over the last year during the pandemic the internet and social media has been a huge part of activism and to raise awareness for specific causes and movements, why do you think it plays such a vital role now in activism and what is one example where social media has helped to make a difference?

Recently with the pandemic, our lives have all changed dramatically with new laws restraining our ability to leave the house, catch up with friends and attend functions. Factors like this have limited the ability for activists to practice traditional forms of raising awareness resulting in many turning to online platforms. Social media allows anyone to participate and express their opinions online regarding modern issues to a global audience instantly. Its platforms like these where people can interact and exchange their personal views. An example of an activist group using social media to further raise awareness would be the Black Lives Matter movement. Through the use of hashtags (#blacklivesmatter/#BLM), posts, stories, emojis and stickers that represent the movement, it allows people to easily navigate to content regarding the community. Other examples referencing the BLM movement on social media is the clenched fist image used in many profile pictures across all social media platforms to represent 'the blackout movement'. The blackout movement addresses all injustices of the black community including the inconsistencies on social media platforms with algorithms and the number of rising white creators in respect to other cultures. Although only referencing the BLM movement, social media has allowed many minorities and people to express their beliefs inside not only their community but allowing us outsiders insight into the lives of other cultures or groups.

References:

Hu, J., 2021. The Second Act of Social-Media Activism. The New Yorker. Available at: <https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-second-act-of-social-media-activism>.

Maqbool, A., 2020. Black Lives Matter: From social media post to global movement. BBC News. Available at: <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53273381>.

[lifeinadigitalage-blog]

Online Mental Health Awareness... and Diagnostics?

The idea of community and support while going through a mental health journey is prevalent in the modern day, we don’t feel alone and that there are people that care about us all around the world. Social online groups are an example of this, in forms of blogging, online bulletin boards, Facebook groups etc. The online community are able to provide; information, awareness and routines for the people who are connecting with others within the global community. While this sends information instantly to your hands; the accuracy of said information isn’t coming from professionals and therefore symptoms of group illness may not be the illness you are harvesting.

While online groups may not give the most worldly data and information about the said illness, they help raise awareness about the problem and campaigns that raise money and support for the illness. Examples of these are; the famous ALS ice bucket challenge which has now turned into the annually Big Freeze for MND run by the AFL during June. Other indie examples include; Project Semicolon and RUOKM8? These campaigns as well as government run websites make up “83% of internet users seek(ing) health information online...” (McCosker, 2016) and therefore people are realizing that accurate information is required for these viral health campaigns. RUOKM8? was a campaign run by Meme-based Facebook page Ladbible - they believed that RUOK? day wasn’t directing support to young men and in schools RUOK? would be considered a joke as ‘we ask people are they okay, all the time.’ Ladbible characterized on their 33 million Facebook likes with a demographic of 18-30 year olds across the UK (ladbible, 2017)  Using their many online channels they were able to publish “Several editorial articles (which) were pushed out through our social channels. com news on mental health, personal stories and statistics to highlight how wide scale the issue is.” (ladbible, 2017) They included statistics, other channels for support, group peer to peer support networks which were directly advertised to men, because suicide rates “have doubled in men under 35″ (Gunnell, 2003) 

A personal example of peer to peer support and diagnosis is the MS NSW/ACT/VIC Support Group on Facebook which both my mother and I are apart of to be able to gain information about my mother’s diagnosis with MS over 7 years ago. This group has over 1.3K members and is public for anyone to join - while this is risky due to anyone can join (researchers, non-diagnosed people) but they share their stories where MS hasn’t held them back, as well as symptoms that are basic for the illness. They also raise awareness for events and fundraising that have been linked from MS Australia’s website, such the Walk + Fun Run and World MS Day 2018. This group has given support for people across the 3 states and even helped my mother during the early stages of her diagnosis due to fear of the unknown. 

Campaigns and Support Groups are the easiest and most personal ways to gain information to understand about a previously diagnosed illness of self or someone you know. And therefore you are able to feel apart of a community who cares about you and will give you the information to make you some relief and not alone. 

- Ladbible, 2017. RUOKM8? Is an ongoing commitment to destigmatise mental health issue, Destigmatising Anxiety, Viewed on 4th May 2018 http://www.ladbiblegroup.com/Projects/uokm8/ - McCosker, A. (2016) Digital Mental Health and Visibility: Tagging Depression, in P Messaris and L. Humphreys, Digital Media: Transformations in Human Communications (2nd edn), Peter Lang. -  Gunnell, D., Middleton, N., Whitley, E., Dorling, D. and Frankel, S., 2003. Why are suicide rates rising in young men but falling in the elderly?—a time-series analysis of trends. Social science & medicine, 57(4), pp.595-611. - MS, 2018. MS Australia - The national voice for people with MS. Viewed on 4th May 2018. https://www.msaustralia.org.au/

[communityornah]

Social Imaging Platforms

It’s been said that a picture or an image can speak a thousand words such as the photo shown above. This was taken during the protests that took place in Brazil.

But nowadays it isn’t about just sharing powerful or meaningful messages. Developers have come up with ways to make sharing images with others fun or enjoyable. There are many apps/websites that do this.

Snapchat

Facebook

Instagram

YouTube

Tumblr

Some don’t agree but I believe that Flickr is also a social imaging platform. This is because is fits into the social networking website frame. As said in my first blog post, a social networking website is one that allows a user to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. (Siapera,Eugenia, 2012). I’ve included YouTube as well because a video is also a form of image.

Taking pictures isn’t restricted to just cameras these days. You can take photos on your cellphone as well and that lead to the popularity of the #Selfie trend. 

A Selfie is a photo taken by you of you, typically with a smartphone or a webcam, and then usually put on a social networking site (Oxford Dictionary, 2013). But Mr. Bean did it before it was cool

I believe that the selfie trend got even more famous because of Instagram (Note: This link for Instagram is more of a definition for those who for some reason don’t know what Instagram is). 

Instagram allows the user to publish their Instagram post on several other social networking sites such as Facebook, Tumblr and even Flickr (Told you Flickr was a social networking site!).

Snapchat also popularizes taking selfies, except snapchat is very different than other social imaging sites. It’s not a website but an app, and it allows users to send photos to friends or randoms (depending on who they add) for a set time frame with a limited amount of texts and then after the time limit reaches, it magically disappears completely! And because of this time limit, there are some nice photos and some embarrassing ones, such as my photo below this text.

The good thing about Snapchat is that it tells the sender whether the receiver took a screenshot or not, so that means no one can be sneaky and hide the fact that they have an embarrassing photo of you.

Selfie has become such a huge thing in our lives that EDM producers, The Chainsmokers (inb4, I knew them before this song that made them famous, #ImSoHipstah) produced a song in 2014 called #Selfie which topped the charts everywhere!

Some people call it narcissistic some call it normal. In all honesty, it’s normal THESE DAYS, but flashback around 20 years and you’d be called a self obsessed prick. But hey, time changes everything doesn’t it? Also everyone is so obsessed with how many likes they get on their pictures, like chill out. Likes won’t define who you are. Anyways, in this time and age, the digital trend of everything has picked up which means photos are now digital and shared and that applies to videos, news, etc. I’m gonna finish here before I go on. Oh and Pssssst, follow me on Instagram - https://instagram.com/that_skinny_bastard/ :)

REFERENCES

Distractify, (2015), Brazillian protester [ONLINE]. Available at: http://qltyctrl.com/60-photos-of-human-experience/ [Accessed 20 May 15].

OLIUR, (2013), Quirky GIF [ONLINE]. Available at: http://a4.files.theultralinx.com/image/upload/MTI5MDI2NDc0MDQzODg1NTc4.gif [Accessed 20 May 15].

Rhygos Gaming, (2014), Mr Bean [ONLINE]. Available at: https://imgflip.com/i/bfeqp [Accessed 20 May 15]

Instagram, (2015), Mr Bean [ONLINE]. Available at: http://instagram-signup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/instagram.png [Accessed 20 May 15].

Snapchat, (2015), Akash Sabharwal

Michelle Riall, (2015), Little promo gif [ONLINE]. Available at: http://38.media.tumblr.com/e97ee576538542e9f0126dffe92381c5/tumblr_n43mvt4d8L1r4ea7so1_1280.gif [Accessed 20 May 15].