Looking back on it all

Now in my third year of my degree, it’s time again to put this semester behind me. But not before I reflect on my achievements and failures throughout the IAB260 Social Technologies unit.

My initial expectations

I’ve been trying to make my way through my degree without taking too many Computer Science units, only because I’m a terrible programmer! When I first saw this unit advertised, I thought it would be a great chance to use my own experiences towards completing my degree. I first started using Facebook in 2009 and have been slowly adopting different social media platforms since. I honestly had no idea what to expect from the learning content of this unit. At the start of this semester I didn’t appreciate how much social technologies contribute to the society that we want to create. I only appreciated it for the value that it added for me – keeping up-to-date with my network, the convenience of messaging friends and the ability to coordinate events.

Before this semester started, our unit coordinator Kate Davis asked us to introduce ourselves in our Google+ community and explain why we took the unit and what we hope to get out of it. This is what I had to say thirteen weeks ago:

I took this unit because I’m interested in how social media can empower and rally support for movements such as the recent Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong.

Much to my surprise, I actually got the chance to explore this as a part of the learning content in the unit. Looking back. the reality far exceeded my expectations for this unit as we covered a range of topics that I’ll get into later in this post.

Wait… there’s no lectures?!

Blogging, Google+ communities, no Blackboard and no lectures – it was definitely a radical change in teaching styles and something that I have never experienced before. However, connected learning proved itself to be really engaging and enjoyable! While I wasn’t as active in the Google+ community as I hoped, it did provide a great environment to share ideas and seek advice from my peers.

I’m glad the teaching team adopted the ‘learning through assessment’ ethos for the unit. It’s certainly a lot easier knowing that the unit content directly relates to an assessment item. In other units, I’ve found myself trying to extract the key learning from each lecture and disregard anything I deem to be irrelevant. But with IAB260, it was more enjoyable going through the weekly learning on the unit site exploring all of the content at my own pace.

This unit also introduced me to blogging, I always read them but never created any blog posts until the start of the year. While I won’t assessment which mandates me to keep blogging, I think I will anyway. I’m not too sure what I’ll post about yet, but it does give me the chance to add my voice to the global online conversation!

For the first time in years, I really enjoyed completing the assessment items. We had the freedom to be as creative and critical as we wanted to be. I especially enjoyed developing my own persona, it gave me a chance to reflect on my own values and express it in a form I enjoyed creating:

What do I take away from all of this?

The first blog post I made was on ‘My Online Identity Crisis‘ where I explored my thoughts on how I am represented online. I further dissected this in my Identity Map, when I had a greater understanding of my online presence:

But what I’m really going to take away from this unit is a better understanding of my online-self and how to harness the power of social technologies. While I do have a changing presence across different platforms, I don’t have a cohesive voice. I’m quite opinionated and I want to share my voice to an audience that will listen and this unit has helped me understand how to extend my reach.

What could I have done better?

Studying is a balancing act and sometimes I don’t give my study the attention it deserves. I was only engaging with this unit on a part-time basis, on the weeks when I had to complete an activity. I didn’t quite explore the rest of the unit content because I never took the time to read many of my peers’ blog posts. Having a greater understanding of the unit content would make me feel more confident in achieving the learning outcomes of the unit:

1. Apply analytical and critical thinking skills to understand the way people experience social technologies, including how people construct personal and professional online identities
2. Assess and critically reflect on social technologies and their applications
3. Demonstrate broad knowledge of issues and topics related to social technologies and deep knowledge of one or more specific topics
4. Apply verbal, written and visual communication skills that effectively convey information in social media contexts

In saying this though, this is one of the most enjoyable units I have taken as a part of my degree. Cheers to the teaching team for their dedication to delivering a quality unit – it’s much appreciated by all of us! I will take what I’ve learned in this unit and apply in my future studies and professional career 🙂

Trust and Ethics

Our reality is augmented by the digital world we communicate, collaborate and create in. We also utilise a range of digital services such as cloud storage and we entrust our personal data with these service providers. Unfortunately everything on the Internet is vulnerable to attack and on the 31st of August 2014, a private collection of over 500 private pictures of various celebrities was posted on 4chan. It then spread by other users on websites and social networks such as Imgur, Reddit and Tumblr. The images, of mostly women, were believed to have been obtained via a breach of Apple’s iCloud service by targeting specific account information such as passwords. This event would later become known as ‘The Fappening’ and unfortunately it isn’t the only case of misogyny that has been facilitated through the Internet.

There was an outcry of support from the public as we were encouraged to avoid the pictures altogether. For those who found themselves caught in the hacking, some went to social media voicing their concerns:

https://twitter.com/M_E_Winstead/status/506197725285998592

But with over 20 percent of teens admit to participating in sexting, we leave ourselves vulnerable to the same fate that was highlighted by ‘The Fappening’. Sexting, a name given for the creating and sharing of sexually explicit pictures or messages through mobile phones, the Internet and other electronic devices, is a crime when it involves people under 18. It’s also a crime when it involves harassing people of any age. Findings from the Young People and Sexting in Australia report concluded that:

Both young people and adult stakeholders agreed that current legal frameworks relating to sexting (particularly those that conflate sexting with child pornography) are not widely understood by either young people or adults, and that this lack of education and awareness places young people at risk of unreasonable criminal charges.

Sexting between consenting persons always carries the risk of being made more public and attracting cyberbullying attacks. Images may be passed through social networking sites without consent and attract derogatory, abusive and vicious attack. Roisin Kiberd from VICE provides his position on our modern human condition after ‘The Fappening’:

Our appetite for pornographic trespass is no longer for accidentally bared skin, but accidentally bared humanity. We want to know the setting the woman is in, the story behind each shot. This makes the denials or the humbled explanations on chat shows after a photo leak part of the process of getting off. We don’t care about seeing a celebrity naked—we just want to see them suffer.

Monica Lewinsky was the first person to have their reputation destroyed through public shaming online. Her TED talk explores the culture of public shaming online and its evolution through social media:

The Victorian Government has been the first state to introduce sexting laws to exempt young people from child pornography charges. In order to inform and educate young people, more legislators need to recognise that sexting can be an expression of intimacy, rather than shaming and criminalising young people for sexting. Our social media platforms can be quick to adjust to concerns of their communities. Reddit has addressed its role in ‘The Fappening’ by updating its privacy policy:

No matter who you are, if a photograph, video, or digital image of you in a state of nudity, sexual excitement, or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, is posted or linked to on reddit without your permission, it is prohibited on reddit. We also recognize that violent personalized images are a form of harassment that we do not tolerate and we will remove them when notified.

The responsibilities that individuals have to other people who may post explicit material is unclear. But with sexting education more focused on fostering ethical, respectful practices between intimate partners and within friendship networks – we can reduce the risk of being publicly shamed online.

Making online content: you won’t believe how it can change your life!

With over 3 billion of us creating and consuming content on the internet, have you ever wondered what it takes for content to go viral? There is over 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, so it’s no small feat for one of those videos to become a part of our pop culture!

What makes content spread?

An article by Santon Chang describes social media as a highly democratic human system, where everyone can participate freely. You are free to access any information you want and share what you like. Santon goes on to describe social media as a tribal environment, where users gravitative towards others who have similar interests or views. For content to go viral, it needs to gather widespread interest from a diversity of tribes:

With a distinct Korean origin, the popularity of Psy’s Gangnam Style is not constrained to a certain geographical area. With over 2.3 billion views, it is a cross-cultural success which created a massive global response. You must have been living under a rock if you hadn’t danced like this at least once:

Barack Obama admitted he dances like Psy in the White House to annoy his kids and the Secretary General of the UN was taught the dance by the pop star himself:

But what lead to this becoming the most viewed video on YouTube?

In the above video, YouTube Trends Manager Kevin Allocca claims that there are three reasons why videos may go viral:

• the influence of trend makers
• community participation
• and unexpectedness

You can view the initial reactions to the unexpectedness of Gangnam Style on Reddit, where the first mention of the video was in a thread titled “Words cannot even describe how amazing this video is…‟. From here, trend makers bring a video into popular consciousness as Ellen Degeneres did on her show:

Popularity brings with it community participation and this is how we become part of the phenomenon, either by spreading it or doing something new with it. Let me introduce to you, Baby Gangnam Style:

Or the Ohio University Marching Band’s take on it:

And (un)fortunately there’s a ‘Strayan version of Gangnam Style too:

Allocca goes on to say that:

these are characteristics of a new kind of media and a new kind of culture where anyone has access and the audience defines the popularity. We all now feel some ownership in our own pop culture.

Creating your own viral content

Is there a magic formula to ensure that your content will be viewed and shared by millions? While there is no exact science to virality, there are some structures which explains why things go viral. Jonah Berger identifies six principles that cause people to talk about and share an idea or product, defined as his STEPPS model:

• Social currency:, It’s all about people talking about things to make themselves look good, rather than bad
• Triggers, which is all about the idea of “top of mind, tip of tongue.” We talk about things that are on the top of our heads.
• Ease for emotion: When we care, we share. The more we care about a piece of information or the more we’re feeling physiologically aroused, the more likely we pass something on.
• Public: When we can see other people doing something, we’re more likely to imitate it.
• Practical value: Basically, it’s the idea of news you can use. We share information to help others, to make them better off.
• Stories, or how we share things that are often wrapped up in stories or narratives.

There’s even 10 simple things that you can do that will help increase the sharability of your content, for example Tuesday is the best day to publish and promote content. Creating viral content can lead to many successful outcomes, such as increasing awareness in ALS or signing with a record label. So, do you know of any other successful viral content? Or have you seen something that deserves the worlds attention? Comment below!

A Guide for Defending Democracy with Umbrellas

“Albert Einstein painted portrait _DDC9392” by thierry ehrmann is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Albert Einstein once said:

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

There are many examples of when we’ve made our world a better place to live in. A bright page in our recent history was when our government finally said sorry for the injustices suffered by our Indigenous peoples. Reconciliation was brought about by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal activists fighting together since the late 1950s. But what else could bring all Australians to action in 2015? It’s hard to ignore that our country is led by a sexist Prime Minister for Women, with an archaic stance on marriage equality:

This man leads a government whose policies on asylum seekers are criticised by the UN and actively fights those who stand up for human rights. Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of the current social injustices in Australia. But what can be done to bring about positive change? The Oxford English Dictionary defines activism as:

the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change.

Notable activism movements include the 1963 March on Washington led by Martin Luther King Jr., which brought together 250,000 people who rallied for an end to racism in America. Compare this to the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, where 300,000 troops ended the calls for democracy in China:

Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 by Kevin Lim is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

As with everything in our world, the Internet has evolved activism as well. Along with marching on the streets, we can instantly progress a movement amongst our social networks and the world. Internet activism is defined on Wikipedia as:

the use of electronic communication technologies such as social media, especially Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster communication by citizen movements and the delivery of local information to a large audience. Internet technologies are used for cause-related fundraising, community building, lobbying, and organizing.

I’m a left-leaning student, but I don’t like to push my political position on my friends. I’d prefer them to reach an understanding of where they exist on the political spectrum by themselves. During the Queensland elections, I shared the ABC’s Vote Compass on Facebook to help my friends cut through the biased content published by the local media and find their fit in the political landscape:

But my actions can also be categorised as ‘slacktivism’, defined by Oxford English Dictionary as:

Actions performed via the Internet in support of a political or social cause but regarded as requiring little time or involvement, e.g. signing an online petition or joining a campaign group on a social media website.

I don’t particularly agree with the pejorative term, I believe it discredits anyone who is looking to take action in causes they believe in. Just because I am active within my social networks doesn’t mean that I won’t continue to engage with traditional methods of activism, such as meeting with MPs:

Our Prime Minister dismisses social media as “kind of like electronic graffiti“, he’s unsurprisingly naive to how empowering technology can be.

#UmbrellaRevolution

When the Chinese government resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, Britain ensured that Hong Kong’s previous capitalist system and its way of life would remain unchanged for a period of 50 years. Its citizens were also promised universal suffrage; the opportunity to vote for their head of government known as the Chief Executive. The Chinese government decided to go against the agreement and vetted candidates for Hong Kong’s first direct elections in 2017. This led student groups and pro-democracy activists to mobilise large-scale acts of civil disobedience in Hong Kong’s CBD, at its peak attracting more than 100,000 protesters:

Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution by Pasu Au Yeung is licensed under CC BY 2.0

While these protests attracted the support of the United Nations, it wasn’t even seen as a major news event in mainland China. Searching for the term ‘umbrella revolution’ in mainland China on social media returned no results, as nothing gets past the Great Firewall. These protests even led to the Chinese government blocking access to Instagram completely.

Fortunately, the Great Firewall doesn’t censor the Internet in Hong Kong. Technology played a significant role in supporting the calls for democracy and the activists themselves, as technology can help:

• Shape public opinion
• Plan an action
• Protect activists
• Share a call to action
• Take action digitally
• Transfer resources

Messaging apps such as WhatsApp are prevalent in Hong Kong and were used to plan and coordinate the demonstrations. When police started to appear in riot gear, rumours started to circulate. Journalism student Lydia Sung said she was:

receiving a lot of information mainly through WhatsApp that the Peoples Liberation Army would become involved and that police were armed with long guns, rifles, real bullets, rubber bullets, whatever. I was so confused,

Later that night the Hong Kong police fired 87 rounds of tear gas on peaceful demonstrators, who used umbrellas to protect themselves from the teargas and pepper spray:

Rainstorm in Hong Kong allows protesters to use umbrellas as (Chinese) manufacturers intended. http://t.co/VxV3KGlJea pic.twitter.com/P7jFgLfLj4

— Philip P. Pan (@panphil) September 30, 2014

Facing the possible threat of the police cutting off access to the Internet altogether, almost half a million protesters downloaded FireChat. Unlike WhatsApp and other messaging apps, FireChat doesn’t require an internet connection for users to communicate. Instead, it uses a phone’s Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals to connect it to other devices within a given range. Most messages sent on FireChat were reporting on what was happening in real-time. This included information on where the police were and what they were doing or calls for supplies like food and water.

To counter the misinformation that was spreading across these social networks, the same journalism student Lydia Sung created a Facebook page that would attempt to separate fact from fiction. LIVE: Verified updates consisted of a team of 25 with 15 student reporters on the ground filing reports late into the night. This act of citizen journalism is defined in an article on Social news, citizen journalism and democracy as:

a range of web-based practices whereby ‘ordinary’ users engage in journalistic practices. Citizen journalism includes practices such as current affairs-based blogging, photo and video sharing, and posting eyewitness commentary on current events.

Through social media, a country found its voice, defied its government and shared its movement to the world. Key economic areas of Hong Kong were occupied remained closed to traffic for over 70 days, However, this had a huge impact on those who were involved. The peaceful actions of the demonstrators led to 955 individuals being arrested and 221 activists hurt. Unfortunately the protests ended without any political concessions from the Chinese government. This is only one example of the power that social media has for activism and it can’t be discredited. I look forward to the next opportunity to utilise it – because any action is better than none.

Keeping your head above the information

“Kochie whacks Mel with paper” by Sunrise7 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

As a child, I used to tune into morning talk shows presenters to consume the news and keep up with current events – but how can you truly be informed about the world we live without diversifying who you listen to? Sorry Kochie, but hourly news bulletins and infomercials just don’t work for me anymore. As a young adult, I use social media as a tool to keep up-to-date with information on topics that interest me.

I enjoy keeping up with the latest news and current events, it helps me to be informed on what’s occurring in my own backyard and allows me to find my place in our ever-changing world.  According to Pew Research, three in ten adults consume at least some news while on Facebook and 34% of those Facebook news consumers ‘like’ a news organization or individual journalist. I tailor my News Feed on Facebook to deliver the range of headlines that I care about, alongside the news and current events that my friends are passionate enough to share as well. I engage with and ‘like’ the Facebook pages of news organisations and individuals that I trust – ABC News provides me independent news and The Conversation provides independent analysis from the sharpest academic minds in Australia and abroad. Engaging with this information through reputable news organisations allows me to formulate my own views and opinions free from political bias.

However, news organisations do not have the monopoly on the information I engage with. Information on news and current events can be delivered in many different forms. One Facebook page that I ‘like’ is The Simpsons against the Liberals, where its community shares the information of our government’s failings through a creative take on The Simpsons:

I love satirical comedy, ‘liking’ the Facebook pages of The Roast and Friendlyjordies delivers hilarious and informative videos on the news and current events into my News Feed. I also make use of the ‘Trending’ news panel on Facebook, it allows me to view the conversation on what the world finds important and helps me keep up with the latest pop culture information as well.

Facebook isn’t the only social media platform that I use to keep informed, I use Instagram to follow organisations and individuals that interest me. I enjoy the music that Ta-ku produces and by following him on Instagram, I can see what he’s up to and keep up-to-date with the latest tour dates and track releases. I also like to watch the content produced by Vice, using their portal on Snapchat’s ‘Discover’ page allows me to view short snippets of their current content and helps me decide if I want to watch the entire video. The best part about using social media to keep informed is that you manage the sources of information that you engage with.

We don’t use the TV in my lounge room to watch TV anymore. it hasn’t even been tuned into the free-to-air channels. When my friends and I are on the couch we don’t all drown out to the same information being shared by commercial media. We are sharing information with each other, information that we have found on social media on topics that we want to discuss with others – this is how I keep informed in a world full of information.

My Online Identity Crisis

I’ve always been self-aware of my identity online, taking care at displaying an image I’m comfortable with others viewing. I display a professional identity that showcases my achievements and I treat my personal identity in the same way I present myself to others in real life, an honest reflection of my values, beliefs and opinions. However as with most things on the internet, it can be seen by anyone willing to find it!

Just as Facebook is the awkward family dinner party we can’t really leave, I tend to moderate what appears across all the social media platforms I use – as I don’t want my online presence to become a talking point at Christmas for my family. While I would like any future employers to just stay within the professional confines of my LinkedIn profile, I’m aware that my personal life is only one Google search away.

There is nothing I can do to keep my personal and professional online identity separate, I walk a fine line in what I share online. There are a lot of causes I believe in and I get up to some pretty weird stuff at times, but these are all things that I want the world to see! Even though this might come back to bite me in the future, I want my personal identity to be accepted by the professionals viewing it.

As the wisest of the wise, Bon Jovi, once put it –  it’s my life! I’m still the same person at home and in the workplace so why should I treat the two any different?