DIGITAL COMMUNITIES

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CHINA- STILL THE BIGGEST INTERNET USERS DESPITE THE FIREWALL

The social media sphere in china differs from its western counterpart.  Despite the ‘GREAT FIREWALL,’ it has one of the biggest internet user bases and is the most active environment for social media (mckinsey.com).  With the censorship laws blocking some of the most popular social media sites used around the world, China decided they would fight back and create their own platforms! Genius. Without the competition of social media giants like facebook and twitter, the created platforms i.e Tencent Weibo attracted over half a billion accounts (makeawebsitehub). Although there is this great firewall, it's not to say, marketers can't reach their Chinese consumers. They can and they most definitely should!

Marketers must thoroughly understand the Chinese media space and each of their own platforms in order to engage with their consumers appropriately. As social media has become a vital part of marketing and advertising and as Chinas users spend more than 40 percent of their time on social media it is critical marketers examine the Chinese social media sphere. Although it may seem like a foreign social network, there are similarities in the data that can be gathered for marketing purposes from both facebook and Tencent weibo. In fact, Tencent weibo actually enables access to a larger range of consumer information for more accurate profiling. More so than name birthday and gender , Tancent weibo gives a current address,  education level, industry code and even whether or  not that person's account is under their real name (This has me wondering why there is a great firewall and then easily accessible personal  information?)

Some interesting research I came across about the great firewall of china was that citizens were suspicious, feeling as though they were being surveilled online. This caused a modification in their speech and conversation, overall self-censorship. This suspicion deemed to be more effective in blocking internet content than the actual firewall itself !

http://makeawebsitehub.com/chinese-social-media-statistics/

The last post for digital communities class thanks, Anthony, and Tom!

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#7 HOW SOCIAL IS SOCIAL GAMING?

I don’t consider myself a gamer whatsoever, so this week’s topic was particularly interesting for me. Social gaming is defined as the activity of playing an online game on a social media site. What is it that specifically defines a game as social? According to Adweek.com, a few of the differentiating factors between a game and social game are:

Turn based: The obvious, a game is not social unless it’s played with someone else. In a social game, one of the main elements is taking turns. Although a consistent element in social games it’s not always required.

Awareness: knowing what others are doing in the game, how are they playing , who Is playing ?

Casual: Social gaming is for the wider public, not the ‘hardcore’ gamer

Multiplayer: From one other player to 100 other players.

Based on social platforms: Most social games are interconnected or just simply shared on social platforms automatically making them social. The social platform provides the user with an identity and is also a medium for communication between players. A game that is considered social usually facilitates and encourages communication about a game outside of that game.

We discussed a number of examples of social games in the lecture, each having their own unique social elements. One, in particular, interested me most. ‘Little big Planet’. What makes Little big Planet social is its unique concept, this particular game is a sort of service rather than a product where the enjoyment is not only the game but the creation of the game itself (by the player no less). The democracy in this game puts the power in the hands of the players who create their own levels adding a certain appeal. The game puts a strong emphasis on user generated content and is representative of their tagline “play , create, share”. Each of these is what distinguishes Little big planet as a social game rather than just a game. The ‘play’ aspect outlines the ability to play the game alone or with others online, ‘create’ consists of the new content created by the in-game creation tool and finally ‘share’ is about sharing your own created content with other online players.

The following is a snippet from a review of the little big planet from commonsensemedia.org

 “It's like no other platformer you have ever played because the environment is so reactive. And when you're finished with the Story, your fun gaming experience can continue endlessly by exploring new levels created by others online”

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#6 SOCIAL MEDIA USING ITS POWERS FOR GOOD.

Social media is a rising phenomenon, the affordances of each platform are used for good, bad and everything in between. For example, we have discussed cyberbullying, this week we focused on something more positive which is the use of social media for public health campaigns.

What once were ‘personal’ illnesses and hardships that were only spoken about with family and friends, are now bravely shared online for the world to see. Health campaigns/public health have been taken to social media for a number of reasons, to raise awareness, to raise money, as a way to vent/coping mechanism and as a platform to share your experiences in the hope to help others in a similar position.

I wanted to focus on a topic of a public health campaign that I’m passionate about, Beyond the blue. One of their campaigns which made use social media was in 2012. The aim was to raise awareness of the organisation itself as well as promote their own platform which mental health patients can access for help. Fellow classmate “itsmelew” discusses the affordances of social media, namely connectivity. Connectivity is generally embedded in social media, yet this aspect is especially important for public health campaigns. It is through the reach and timeliness of social media that campaigns are able to spread the word regarding their own specific objectives e.g awareness , donations, promotion.

For the beyond Beyond the blue campaign, they used the platform ‘Clipsed’. This platform shares and accelerates promotion of an organisation through traditional social media platforms like facebook and twitter as well as Gmail and Hotmail.

The main part of this campaign was the competition that ran in conjunction with AFL teams, Geelong, and hawthorn to win a signed jumper. The facebook shares and overall social media hype contributed to a successful campaign for beyond the blue proving the importance of the use of social media for a public health campaign.

This specific campaign from Beyond the blue proved to be successful with a share rate of 68%, 4121 entries, and a landing page conversion of 53% , all of which contributing to the success of the specific objectives set by beyond the blue prior to the campaign.

Socialmedianews.com.au argued that social media is greater than generic advertising in enforcing change when it comes to important issues “you can generate strong interaction from your fans and followers and create a much more viral effect that you won't see from generic advertising”. I completely agree, do you??

Link to class presentation: http://prezi.com/g7o8hsfinys9/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

http://www.socialmedianews.com.au/beyond-blue-enjoys-social-media-success/

[cracked]

The 14 Most Insane Things Happening Right Now (8/25)

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On a more serious note..$220million!

[vinebest]

what is this tragedy

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Ice bucket challenge gone wrong hahah

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#5- THE POWER OF THE CROWD

Crowdsourcing is generally common when it comes to large-scale disasters, like the one that was too close to home, The Queensland floods.  After this disaster, huge amounts of information flooded the media, a big media agency then attempted to make all the crowdsourced information and services play a big part of the disaster relief (crikey.com) 

When an emergency / disaster arises we (well most of us) instinctively want to help. With barriers like location, language and physical well-being we may not be able to do as much as we would hope to. This may have been the case years ago, but today we have the power of social media giving us the ability to interact with people around the world enabling us to participate in one way or another. Not only can we find out who is safe or In need of desperate help as the disaster unfolds, but we can take to social media to begin the process of disaster relief such as raising money. This is exactly what happened after the Queensland flood with the rise of hashtags on twitter such as #qldfloods and #thebigwet.

Below is an image of what the hashtags covered after the floods in 2011.

And a tweet from the 2013 floods.

A concern when it comes to crowdsourcing is the copious amounts of information provided by unofficial people, making it difficult to know which information is accurate or inaccurate. In the midst of a disaster, however, all crowdsourced information is still used/ considered.

To assist in the process of utilizing all this information, the concept of ‘crowdmapping’ emerged.

Crowdmapping, as discussed on kimoquaintance.com, is the term used for gathering all the information provided by people on social media and integrating this with geographic data. This information is provided in real-time and covers events like disasters or even political elections and violence. The mass media can be strict with the information that it makes available, this is why crowd mapping is a successful tool, providing information in real time. When reporting on disasters a crowd map is usually named a ‘crisis’ map.

The example below is the Libya crisis map

A quote forms the creators of ‘bushfireconnect’ a crowdsourced map for bushfires says ‘we need something where we can share information with the next village or community, and it has to be immediate’.” This in reference to losing contact with officials during the black Saturday bushfires (crikey.com)

Feel free to leave comments if you want to chat about this week's topic!

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#4 TROLLING 101

 The troll: This species is described by Mcosker in his article ‘Trolling as Provocation’ as someone who aims to anger harm and cause discomfort towards their target. Some of their work involves the 'deliberate defacement and disruption' of Facebook pages, typically memorial pages. These species live to embarrass, anger and disrupt for their own amusement. They aim to destroy reputations, products, and companies hence why their nickname is ‘hater’. It's hard to understand why there are people out there who like to / get joy out of intentionally hurting others especially in the cases of trolling directed at people struggling with illness or loss. Trolls can be heartless monsters preying on any weakness they can find. 

How they do it:

-   Disruption: They find a discussion and disrupt the conversation with off-topic comments and ridicule creating a controversy.

-   Lies: They spread lie and deceive the members of an online conversation in the hope to cause misery and pain.

-   Research: If they're really dedicated, they use their tech savvy-ness to dig up comments from your past to back up their argument.

The victim: You are the victim if you are being trolled, in other words, you’re basically the butt of the joke and have some haters on your hand.

Their Weapon: Humour, bullying, memes, unnecessary/hurtful comments, humiliation, ridicule, anonymity.

Your weapon: The ability to ignore the troll and report abuse

How to play:

What’s important to note is that you can't win an argument with a Troll- This is what Webroot.com wants us to remember, BUT you can play (respond). Trolls are nasty individuals using their power of online anonymity to be hurtful and spread hatred. Knowing the intentions of a troll, if you do become the victim then you can decide how you will react.

1. You could cry or

2. Understand it's not personal and move on to report the abuse (if allowed) , delete it and forget.

3. If the site is public , rather than just ignore full stop, ignore the troll but address the situation. By completely ignoring them you have given them the power of silencing you, therefore by doing nothing you are still ‘feeding the troll’ Instead Webroot.com suggests commenting on the group discussion with something along the lines of ““Wow. Looks like we’ve got a troll trying to attack people on this site, derail meaningful dialog and control our conversation. I suggest that this forum doesn’t give them that power by ignoring their unproductive comments and continuing our discussion”

In conclusion

1.       There’s not much we can do

2.        The trolling is real

3.       Haters gon’ hate.

Below is a video with further suggestions on battling the troll!

References:

http://www.webroot.com/au/en/home/resources/tips/pc-security/you-cant-win-an-argument-with-a-troll

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN5FZS_JVIE

https://ilearn.swin.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-5545811-dt-content-rid-29072865_2/courses/2016-HS1-MDA20009-213452/McCosker_Trolling%20as%20Provocation_YouTubes%20Agonistic%20publics_digi%20first_Convergence-2013.pdf

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Celebs read trolls directed at them on TV. Quite funny but is it good that we give these trolls their 15 minutes of fame??

[jayjayvanity]

Stop cyber-bullying!!

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#3 THE ACTIVIST

Firstly I want to talk about my own engagement with Digital activism. When you like a digital activist post on Facebook, a like really seems like the least possible thing you can do and is assumed to have no impact whatsoever. In the past week or so I have engaged with digital activism through many animal cruelty organisations and their posts on social media. I have not only liked, but shared the posts I feel most passionate towards as well as clicked through and signed petitions.

 At the moment, I am somewhat a digital activist myself as I am currently involved in a fundraising event ‘The million paws walk’ to raise money in the hope to put an end to animal cruelty. In order to reach a fundraising goal, I share links and information hoping people will share my passion and donate money towards a good cause. Below I have included an example of digital activism provided by ‘world animal protection Australia’.

Another approach to activism is ‘Culture Jamming’ . Today, culture jamming surrounds us and is a response by consumers towards corporations who they fear have too much power. An example of Culture jamming is a rebuttal against one of the biggest corporations ‘Coca-Cola’.

 Advertising (although my major) can be so manipulative and coercive, causing consumers to do exactly what an ad intends. This can be conscious or subconscious by the consumer but in either scenario, the corporation is continuously achieving a powerful status. We as the consumer have very little power over these giant corporations thus result to culture jamming to express our own opinions or interfere. On the site ‘the activist’ they provide us with a little advice to disrupt the corporate power on the internet. They propose we ‘begin interacting with the ads they're being shown and muddying the data that's being collected’

We don’t know what the future holds, but I personally hope digital activism continues to fight for important social, environmental and political issues. More importantly I hope culture Jamming begins to have an impact on the major corporations who are using their power for financial reasons disregarding the important issues.

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Just one of the many MANY political memes featuring Obama. An example of how the public communicates political information via social media.

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The most popular Twitter hashtags of 2015 have been revealed

This year’s most talked about subject on Twitter was the Paris attacks, the social media site has revealed. Tweeters used the hashtag #JeSuisParis to show their solidarity with Parisians after last month’s terror attacks as well as the attacks in January at the headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The link wouldn't embed in my last post so here it is! The most popular #hashtags on twitter in 2015. Never underestimate the power of your hashtags !

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#2 HASHTAG POLITICS

Politics, although one of the most controversial topics can be so very very dry. BUT our good friend social media has joined the party and completely amplified these once dry discussions. I want to focus this post on hashtags. Social media and Hashtags has converted the controversial topics surrounded by politics into interesting, humorous and engaging posts. Social media provides political information in a form that would most of the time would not make it to the 6pm news. I’m talking Donald Trumps head on characters in Game of thrones.

With the use of hashtags, we have become more connected with our political leaders and the political campaigns. We can even access the latest debates and poll information in the most entertaining ways with the use of memes and YouTube videos, which engages audiences like myself who don’t have the time to try and translate all of that political jargon. I have been exploring Obamas political engagement in order to understand the ways in which social media can be used in political campaigning.  The article ‘the social media president’ provides a useful explanation of the use of social media in political campaigns. Firstly, it invites the public to be heard and places a major importance on the interactions that occur between citizens and political institutions. With social media connectivity in just the click of a hashtag, a share or a like on Facebook, political information is shared to the public, the public’s opinions are then gathered and with that, policies are codetermined. These days were providing more input into a political conversation and decision through more than just a vote. The engagement between political candidate’s and the public in recent years has been so powerful. Below I have attached a video of the most popular hashtags, political and otherwise of 2015.

Hashtags and social media posts never fade, so I bid you goodbye with a quote from the man himself from the article How many votes on twitter. “Be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life. That’s number one’

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DONALD TRUMP IN MEAN GIRLS

Donald Trump joins The Plastics in Mean Girls Last week's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gds9C... Follow us!: Anthony - @anthonychori Ramon - @ramoni...

These videos just get better and better haha! 

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An example of a cluster Network! some of these visualisations of data are so very confusing!

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#1 Is Tumblr a Blog or Social Network Site?

As a new user of Tumblr, I only had a very basic understanding of the whole concept. I understood there was a blogging element and that somehow amongst this, there are GIFs and memes. Before our discussions in class, I generally thought Tumblr was more interpersonal, providing entertainment yet lacking in social connectivity. So when asked the question if Tumblr is a blog or social networking site, I immediately assumed it were a blog

After discussing the social affordances of Tumblr in comparison to other platforms like Facebook and Twitter, I began to notice the similarities and quickly altered my first impression.

 In a YouTube clip labelled “what the heck is Tumblr” Tumblr is described as a microblogging AND social networking site. My take from this definition is that Tumblr is, in fact, a social networking site, yet encompasses a unique side with the use of blogging or better known as ‘micro blogging’. Do you agree?

 Tumblr allows you to blog with limited restrictions in comparison to say twitter (with their 140 character rule). The blogs in their unique forms act as a starting point for social interaction. The social affordances of Tumblr for example ‘reblogging’ allows us to connect with other users, beginning discussion and thus creating a social network. The way in which a network is created is unique and differentiates them from social networking giant Facebook who focus on connectivity via ‘likes’or nowadays ‘reactions’

 Boyd and Ellison's definition of a social network are broken down intro 3 characteristics. Social networks are web-based services allowing people to

-       Create public or semi-public profiles

-       Create a list of users seen as having similar interests/ share connections

-       Navigate their own and others connections made within the network

Tumblr encompassed all of these characteristics, the blogging aspect is simply its own unique feature and added bonus separating them from their competitors or even providing a competitive advantage in comparison to other blog sites which are not ‘social networks’ Essentially Tumblr is the best of both worlds.

 I will conclude with the best definition I came across when researching for this post. The article ‘What is Tumblr’ in the economist, defines Tumblr as a blog platform yet also a ‘weakly’ linked social networking site, which in a way is the anti-facebook- “a social network where you do not have to be friends with your mother”

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Well, this is exactly what you want to come across when about to write a post explaining Tumblr !