#upcmc

[wendellcapili]

Afternoon tea at the UP College of Mass Communication

(Standing) UP CMC Journalism Department Chair Karol Ilagan, UP CMC Dean Diosa Labiste, and UP CMC Office of Extension and External Relations Head Jane Vinculado.

(Seated) Playwright Bonifacio Ilagan and former UP Faculty Regent (2015) & former UP CMC Dean (1985-1991) Georgina Encanto 🌻

📷 Joanne Mabuloc

[digitalkswithkev-blog]

Week 8: Call Centers and Data Theft

            For developing countries such as the Philippines, call centers are important economic entities, as call center corporations are hiring workforce from developing countries due to the cheapness of labor. Such is exemplified in the documentary Dispatches: The Data Theft Scandal (2006). We follow Sue Turton as she transact with data thieves of cal center data, which include the name, address, bank accounts, credit card numbers and other important financial information of British call center clients, who unknowingly gets victimized by people in the call center who trick clients into disclosing confidential data.

            Apparently, the illegal data trade is a naturalized part of the call center industry, as how informant reacts about the matter in a light way.  This may imply that the digitalization of previous offline transactions is a highly risky process, with the correspondences being prone to wiretapping, which is demonstrated by the documentary. However, it was because of a glitch in the system, thus the mechanization of the databases is also a factor that contributes to the riskiness of transactions. Two forms of data thievery are thus in play – on the one side is that by human intention, and the other by mechanical error.

            Two countries are placed in the forefront, United Kingdom, a developed country, and India, a developing country. The documentary has implications on the digital divide phenomenon that we are experiencing, and the capacity for it to be an avenue of crime. Looking at the dynamics of the call center labor pricing in developing countries which is cheaper than those from the first world, it would seem that the reason for resorting to crime is the deficiency in salaries. However, that is not the case, as call centers contribute highly to the local economy. Thus, the drive to commit the crime may be attributed to the corruption of individuals who have the power to control the data.

             As communication researchers, such as have implications on our role as data analyzers who must keep the confidentiality of our sources. In the case of call centers, lives may be put in jeopardy if the financial data of the clients land on the wrong hands. From the perspective of the call center agent, and in our case the researcher, selling client/respondent data for personal gain is extremely in violation of the ethics of research.

             Another perspective to the issue is social media research on the other hand, which usually looks at the aggregate of Facebook or Twitter enunciations, without the profile owner’s consent. However, the assumption here is that the person’s profile is public on the web, and thus consent is given without the need for formalities. However, in the context of bank accounts, formalities are held in high regard, because of the delicacy of the matter. Financial damages may be procured from the unethical disclosure of information. Thus, in this sense, cyber crime law is applicable, as theft is by in its essence, a crime.

            The documentary presents a grim fact about the digitalized worlds we move in. It also says something at the applicability of the crime in the Philippine context, being that our country is of the developing type. In the end, it must be at our careful judgment whether the information being sought from us will affect us in a detrimental way, and thus we must know how to safeguard. Criminals may be hard to spot because of the mediated nature of the process, but cues exist, particularly suspicion over the data gatherer’s online demeanor. May such judgment ward off cyber criminals. 

MANALESE, Kevin John C.

2010-17726

University of the Philippines, 03.03.2014

[digitalkswithkev-blog]

Week 6: The Online Disinhibition Effect

        The online disinhibition effect, or the homogenization of the masses thru the internet as a mass medium, is a demonstration of the internet’s dark façade – that it blends us so much and standardizes us and our perspective of the world, because it has made rather simple and easy our partaking in the creation of mediated messages. We contribute to the medium through the release of user-generated content, which is sparingly possible with traditional media and that we can be little broadcasters ourselves. We’ve talked about in class the components of the online disinhibition effect, which we will discuss below.

        Because the digital world is an imagined world, we become detached from our actions online, because of the merits that being anonymous online can give. This is dissociative anonymity, and through this we see online users getting the chance to break the limitations that they experience in the real world, such as exaggerated or unreal data in our online profiles. Users can be whoever they want to be through online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. For example, in the real world, we may not be able to say directly to a person that we hate him or her, but online, without naming anyone and just imagining in our minds the person that we loathe, we post or tweets of unaddressed hatred. The mere utility of the medium for mudslinging is of course unbecoming of the user who generates such mudslings.

        The online platforms have also permitted our invisibility, making us observe from our monitors the activities of other people, or to put it simply, stalking our so-called friends in the newsfeed. In e-mail, we become invisible in that the person who sent us the e-mail has no idea whether the receiver have seen the message, unless the sender utilizes mechanisms that will notify him once the sent message has been clicked. Facebook uses the same principle, by incorporating the concept of a message being seen. Such is an example of how online mediums may control our behavior, because we may be prompted to respond quickly to a message. I can get around this however, by not clicking the message itself, and just clicking the message notification icon, especially if the message is a one-liner. The sender will never know if I had seen the message or not.

        The internet has also permitted asynchronicity – delayed responses to a message because of the absence of pressure to respond. I like the internet because of this, as I have the leisure of time to create a reply, not like the real world in which I everything is snappy. Facebook controls this by introducing the concept of the seen and the unseen.

        Users also experience solipsistic introjection, or the contagion of a certain online behavior, such as retweets or the sharing of articles in Facebook. It has homogenized the masses into a group think phenomenon. Lastly, the internet has made possible the reduction of authority, which is not possible in the real world. Hierarchies online are thus conclusively more flexible, with scalar chains being leveled flatly because of the possibility to contact every member of an institution quite easily. In the real world, barriers, whether physical or social exist, and this is negated because of online messaging. Authorities are breached, as mediating persons may be passed over, an unethical usage of the internet.

        I conclude by saying that the internet is very successful in homogenizing its users, stripping them of manners of individualism and creativity. However, this is the reality, for blogs that provide the platform. Individuality and heterogeneity still have room online, especially for blogs in which every single line of the html code is written. As users, we must thus remember that what we are and what we do online are never dissociated from us, as who we are online are translations of what we are offline. 

MANALESE, Kevin John C.

2010-17726

University of the Philippines, 02.10.2014

[digitalkswithkev-blog]

Week 5: Success of Online Advocacies - The Compatibility of the Hashtag Phenomenon to Filipino Culture

        Having interned in a social media research firm, I was immersed to in the quantitative-qualitative analysis of the public social media enunciations such as Facebook posts and tweets of people of different demographic profiles. Differences are observable based on the user’s gender, socio-economic profile, and age, to name a few. From observing their online pronouncements, it can be seen that the youth, compared to the older generations are more likely to participate in social media campaigns, particularly those that use hashtags. Why is the trend as such?

        Hashtags are tweets (or Facebook posts) that use the symbol [#] placed before a word. The use of such social media device, as how my supervisors in my internship company explained, is for the organization of data. For example, by using a hashtag such as #YolandaPH in your tweet, interested parties such as in this case, people who are willing to donate to the Philippines may be able to find all tweets that are related to the event. Such will increase the efficiency of publicizing relief efforts, and thus may increase the number of donating parties.

        The Filipino youth had the most share of using the said hashtags, primarily perhaps because majority of internet users are the youth, and because of their knowledge of the said medium. Regardless, the youth are no doubt participatory and are catalysts of change, when participating in such advocacies. Motivations in using the said medium are of course varying, ranging from the youth retweeting the hashtag for the better reasons of intending to help, to the more trivial reasons of retweeting the hashtag because of fanaticism and novelty such as because the celebrity that they are following tweeted the hashtag, or because of group think – that because the news feeds are salient with the said hashtag, the youth join the bandwagon. Whatever the motivations, in the digital medium that standardizes and simplifies the masses, differing motivations are not taken into consideration because the mere use or retweet of the hashtag is contributory to the success of an advocacy.

        However, it will not hurt to explore the motivations, as by learning those motivations, we may learn the factors that can affect the success of a social media campaign. Looking at the Filipino culture, such success of advocacies may be attributed to the socialization of fanaticism in the behavior of colonial period Filipinos. Particular in the domain of religion, fanaticism has long since been ingrained in the culture of the Filipinos. The Spanish colonial Filipinos, having been described to have inferiority complex, are inclined to witness festivities with fanatic fervor, and participate in it.

        On the other hand, there are those that have as motivations, sincerity to utilize the hashtags because of the realization that the hashtags are vital in disseminating information and publicizing the cause. They are those that believe that collective movements are important in saving the lives of their fellow countrymen.

        Needless to say, as I said earlier, the motivations are just part of the complexities of the simple action of pressing the retweet button under tweets that banner advocacies. With our next retweets, let us take the time to question ourselves for reasons as to why we are taking part in the relief efforts. Are you sincere or not?

MANALESE, Kevin John C.

2010-17726

University of the Philippines, 02.09.2014