'Time for Digital Communities'

Since 2006, Facebook opened its platform to developers to encourage social gaming. Social gaming refer to games especially made for, and profiting from, social network sites (Swinburne Online 2015). A social game lives on a social network; it allows you to play with or against your friends. However, a social game doesn’t need to be played just on Facebook, these days you can play online through an internet portal with your friends or other users (Lovell 2011). Social gaming aims to involve sharing, competing and cooperating with other players – it is another way of communicating (Lovell 2011).

Source: Online-gaming (Net Addiction 2013).

With online multiplayer games, rules are used to establish a field of interaction – competitive, social, cultural and commercial exchange (de Zwart & Humphreys 2014 p. 77). They are contractual environments; meaning a player must accept the one sided end user license agreement (EULA) to be able to access the game platform (de Zwart & Humphreys 2014 p. 78).

Different cultures and different external factors can cause a misunderstanding about ‘where to draw the line’ about acceptable behaviour (de Zwart & Humphreys 2014 p. 93). Every player brings their own expectations and this can be based on their own cultural values, age, gender and educational levels.

What’s it like to be an EVE Online player? (2014) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE0RHgc4LMU

EVE Online is a social game that prides itself on its aggressive and piratical game play. Due to this it has attracted many scams and scandals over the years, including theft, fraud, corporate raiding and ponzi schemes (de Zwart & Humphreys 2014 p. 78). Recently, EVE Online suspended a player known as The Mittani, due to comments he made about another player outside the game environment (de Zwart & Humphreys 2014 p. 78). He had breached the terms of service which resulted in a thirty day suspension.

In 2009, a social game connected through Facebook ‘Words With Friends’ was released. It is a scrabble-like word game that you can only play multiplayer – against friends or other online users. It didn’t take long for this app to become successful considering it had over 1.6 million daily users (Kincaid 2010). In October 2009 John Mayer tweeted that Words With Friends “is the new twitter” (Kincaid 2010). As more players signed up, they would tell their friends to do the same so they could challenge them, that’s how this game spread globally.

Source: Zynga bring Words With Friends to Facebook (All Things D 2011).

Social gamers are likely to have social ties, which provide them with knowledge and skills held by other players. It also allows them to meet people online and form a superior group, enabling them to obtain higher expertise and achievements (Wang et. al 2011).

  References:

de Zwart, M and Humphreys, S 2014, ‘The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online’, Cultural Studies Review, Vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 77-78, 93.

Kincaid, J 2010, ‘A look behind the ‘Words With Friends’ iPhone gaming phenomenon’, TechCrunch, 10 June, viewed 9 January 2015, <http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/10/a-look-behind-the-words-with-friends-iphone-gaming-phenomenon/>.

Lovell, N 2011, ‘What is a social game?’, Games Brief, 11 January, viewed 9 January 2015, <http://www.gamesbrief.com/2011/01/what-is-a-social-game/>.

‘Online-gaming’, 2013 [image], Net Addiction, viewed 9 January 2015, <http://netaddiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/online-gaming.jpg>.

Rev3Games 2014, ‘What’s it like to be an EVE Online player?’, YouTube, 19 May, viewed 9 January 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE0RHgc4LMU>.

Swinburne Online 2015, ‘Week 10: Social gaming: playing the crowd’, MDA20009-Digital Communities, Learning materials on Blackboard, Swinburne University of Technology, viewed 9 January 2015.

Wang, J, Huffaker, D, Treem, J, Fullerton, L, Ahmad, M, Williams, D, Poole, M and Contractor, N 2011, ‘Focused on the prize: Characteristics of experts in massive multiplayer online games’, First Monday, vol. 16, no, 8, viewed 9 January 2015, <http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3672/3028>.

The rise of the selfie!!

Selfie – a self-portrait photograph, usually taken with a hand held camera phone at an arms-length.

Source: A selfie – what represents this time period (Time Capsule 2015).

Selfies have been around since MySpace days; however they have become dramatically popular since Instagram found its followers. “It’s the posing for the camera in new ways that’s been changed by technology, not the kind of images” (Subbaraman 2013). The hashtag #me is the third most used tag on Instagram. Selfies have become an expression of our identity by sharing them online through social media (Subbaraman 2013).

Who can forget Ellen DeGeneres telling the audience at the Oscars she was live feeding in between breaks. Here’s her selfie that was posted to Instagram that night:

Source: Oscars: Ellen DeGeneres wasn’t kidding about that selfie (The Wrap 2014).

Why is Instagram so popular with selfies? Well, you can simply take a photo of yourself.. bad photo? Who cares, that’s what the filters are for.. wow now you actually look decent.. better post that.. might even share it to Facebook or check in - which will pin point your exact location, making you publicly visible through social media!

Welcome to digital narcissism! Is social media allowing the population to become self-obsessed? We are socially more connected than ever – not so much interested in others, but more interested in what people think about us (Chamorro-Premuzic 2014). Let’s face it; a selfie isn’t a selfie unless it is uploaded to social media. We thrive on compliments; so by uploading a selfie we receive likes or comments from the public that either boost or lower our self-esteem.

Even a song was produced!!

#SELFIE (Official Music Video) – The Chainsmokers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdemFfbS5H0

How about the next best selfie app, Snap Chat. An app that allows you to take a selfie, put a time limit of up to 10 seconds before it disappears and send to your friends. Snap shots are now used as a part of communication. You can even do a video of yourself if you really wanted to! However, this app was originally brought out as a sexual pleaser, which means the 10 second selfie idea was to encourage nude photos. Even though the photo disappears after a maximum of 10 seconds, it can still be screen shotted (no privacy). Facebook groups have been made up in these circumstances, like this following link which is called ‘Snap Chat “Selfies” Exposed’: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Snapchat-Selfies-Exposed/1437331156540544

The following link describes the 5 types of selfie takers on Snap Chat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfoMuxOZewY

However, experts have linked selfies with a mental illness, stating that people who are continuously trying to find the right angle to portray themselves could possibly be ill (Griffiths 2015). Dr David Veale explains that 2 out of 3 people who have a Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) have a compulsion to take and upload selfies to social media (Griffiths 2015).

While others are now spending thousands on surgery to make themselves look picture perfect (Parry 2014). Trina Lavey, 38, had a chin implant, nose job and cheek-defining fat grafts in a bid to take better selfies (Parry 2014). Is social media really that important it is beginning to change the way we look?!

References

‘A selfie – what represents this time period’, 2015 [image], Time Capsule 2015, viewed 8 January 2015, <http://www.timecapsule.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Blog-3-1.jpg>.

Chamorro-Premuzic, T 2014, ‘Sharing the (self) love: the rise of the selfie and digital narcissism’, The Guardian, 14 March, viewed 8 January 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/mar/13/selfie-social-media-love-digital-narcassism>.

Facebook 2015, ‘Snap Chat “Selfies” Exposed’, viewed 8 January 2015, <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Snapchat-Selfies-Exposed/1437331156540544>.

Griffiths, S 2015, ‘Addicting to posting selfies? Then you’re probably selfish and may even be a psychopath, claims study’, Daily Mail, 8 January, viewed 8 January 2015, <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2900420/Addicted-posting-selfies-probably-selfish-psychopath-claims-study.html>.

‘Oscars: Ellen DeGeneres wasn’t kidding about that selfie’, 2015 [image], The Wrap, viewed 8 January 2015, <http://cdn-s3.thewrap.com/images/2014/03/ellen-stars-selfie.jpg>.

Parry, L 2014, ‘Nip, tuck, click: Selfies see demand for plastic surgery to soar by 25%, as patients go in search of the picture perfect look’, Daily Mail, 1 December, viewed 8 January 2015, <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2855851/Nip-tuck-click-Selfies-cause-demand-plastic-surgery-soar-25-patients-search-picture-perfect-look.html>.

Pownall, R 2013, ‘5 Types of people on Snap Chat’, YouTube, 10 June, viewed 8 January 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfoMuxOZewY>.

Subbaraman, N 2013, ‘It’s all about me! Why we love ’selfies’, Today, 20 July, viewed 8 January 2015, <http://www.today.com/money/its-all-about-me-why-we-love-selfies-6C10679994>.

Crowdsourcing is the process of obtaining content by a large group of people or especially the online community by contributing ideas together (Swinburne Online 2015). Basically it is a combination of ‘crowd’ and ‘outsourcing’. The idea of crowdsourcing is that more heads are better than one; the quality of the content will be of a high standard (Daily Crowdsource 2015).

Source: Use the right social media for your crowdsourced projects (Tweak Your Biz 2013).

These days it is becoming more about the online community through social media. A person who owns a mobile phone has access to the internet – therefore access to social media. More in four American adults own a mobile phone, one in five own a tablet/iPad and new cars are built with internet (Morejon 2012). News reporters and newspapers used to be the only source to produce news reports. Today, mobile phones are adding to people’s news consumption – it is convenient as you have access to the news wherever you may be.  

In 2012, a survey was conducted for devices that are used to read the news (Morejon 2012). It follows:

70% of device users get their news from a desktop/laptop

51% of device users get their news from a mobile phone

56% of device users get their news from a tablet/iPad

This means the majority of reporters or journalists now use social media sources for researching their stories (Bunz 2010). Check out this following link that describes the impact Twitter has on Journalism:

The impact of Twitter on Journalism (2012) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl9xI-kAE8A

Social media can play an important role in crisis communication. Whenever possible the community come together through social media to gather information, support each other, assist if needed and respond to messages. A lot of people are now filming incidents that happened and upload them to YouTube, like this following link of the South East Queensland floods in 2011:

Toowoomba flood 2011.01.10 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYUpkPTcqPY

Through the use of twitter more than 35,000 tweets containing #qldfloods hashtags were recorded through 10-19 January (Bruns et. al, 2012, p. 23) sharing news, photos, videos and advice. These specific hashtagged tweets meant that it was possible to track the majority of tweets relating to this event. Follow this link: https://twitter.com/qldfloodsorg - as it provides all the #qldfloods tweets since 2011. Twitter and Facebook delivered timely and informative updates as the flood crisis unfolded (Liddy 2013). Even the police provided timely updates through their twitter account, where news reporters eventually used the tweets as their own material (Bruns et. al, 2012, p. 23). Social media has improved the communication between the police and the media in crisis situations.

Crowdsourcing is seen as a positive; however it can be a negative as well. How? One word, rumours. As you know rumours can spread like crazy, but rumours on social media – go worldwide! Such tweets like celebrity deaths – it takes one hater to tweet it and it can go viral within minutes (Mason 2012). Like Usher, usually the celebrity themselves will tweet back claiming they are very much still alive!

Source: Responses to fake death reports (About 2015).

References

Bruns, A, Burgees, J, Crawford, K and Shaw, F 2012, ‘#qldfloods and @QPSMedia: Crisis communication on twitter in the 2011 South East Queensland floods’, Arc Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, p 23, viewed 7 January, <http://www.cci.edu.au/floodsreport.pdf>.

Bunz, M 2010, ‘Most journalists use social media such as Twitter and Facebook as a source’, The Guardian, 16 February, viewed 7 January 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/media/pda/2010/feb/15/journalists-social-music-twitter-facebook>.

Liddy, M 2013, ‘How Twitter covered the Queensland floods’, ABC News, 26 April, viewed 5 January 2015, <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-11/how-twitter-covered-the-queensland-floods/3767166>.

Mason, L 2012, ‘Social media rumours and hoaxes’, Social Media Sun, viewed 7 January 2015, <http://socialmediasun.com/social-media-rumors/>.

Morejon, R 2012, ‘How mobile and social media drive news consumption’, Roy Morejon, 5 April, viewed 7 January 2015, <http://roymorejon.com/how-mobile-and-social-media-drive-news-consumption/>.

PBSoffbook 2012, 'The Impact of Twitter on Journalism', YouTube, 15 November, viewed 8 January 2015, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl9xI-kAE8A>.

‘Responses to fake death reports’, 2015 [image], About, viewed 7 January 2015, <http://0.tqn.com/y/urbanlegends/1/S/w/B/1/usher-death-hoax.jpg>.

Swinburne Online 2015, ‘Week 8: Crowdsourcing in times of crisis’, MDA20009-Digital Communities, Learning materials on Blackboard, Swinburne University of Technology, viewed 7 January 2015.

Twitter 2015, ‘QLD Floods’, viewed 7 January 2015, <https://twitter.com/qldfloodsorg>.

'Use the right social media for your crowdsourced projects', 2013 [image], Tweak Your Biz, viewed 7 January 2015, <http://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/files/shutterstock_123852919.jpg>.

There are three components that are central to bullying these are: aggression, repetition and imbalance in power (Boyd 2014 p. 131). News media describe serious criminal acts of aggression by teens as bullying, rather than stalking, harassment or abuse (Boyd 2014 p. 132). Some people believe cyber bullying is a new phenomenon, while others believe technology offers a new site for bullying (Boyd 2014 p. 132).  

When a child comes home from school with a black eye, the parents will notice he/she has been bullied. When a child has been cyber bullied, how will the parents know? What can the parents do to prevent this from happening if the child never speaks up or shows emotion from this act of bullying? The problem with this is there are parents who did not grow up with this type of technology, they don’t understand the online world and how everyone can connect to anyone (Fuller 2014).

Source: Dangerous websites for teen girls that teach self-harm (Dr. Michele Borba 2015).

Cyber bullying sometimes will not end until it literally ends. Sharlene Chadwick stated that children who used to be bullied at school could escape it once they got home, now with the rise in technology it is surrounding them 24/7 (Stolz and Chilcott 2013). Children who were bullied were crying out for help, with over 100 calls to the Kids Helpline, with the majority of them threatening suicide. Seven child suicides in Australia in 2012-2013 were due to bullying (Stolz and Chilcott 2013). This happens all over the world, in Missouri statistics prove that for people from ages 15-24, suicide is the third leading cause of death. Given that 71.9% of students reported being cyber-bullied once or twice throughout the year, 19.6% reported once or twice a month, 5.3% reported once or twice a week and 3.1% reported almost every day (Megan Meier Foundation 2015).

Source: Cyber bullying: steps to stop it (Raising Children Network 2015).

Yes, my last reference was a Foundation made by Megan Meier’s parents to prevent suicide from cyber bullying. Unfortunately their beautiful daughter, aged 13, was trapped between a fake social media account- who she thought was a young boy she loved – which turned out to be nothing but insults. She had a history of depression and the stress and frustration was too much for the poor girl (ABC News 2007). Below is a link to an interview with Megan’s parents (Note: this is quite upsetting to watch):

Megan Meier Story (2007) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFsfDLCkfQU

However, cyber bullying does not only happen to our youth, it happens to anyone. Who could forget the beautiful Charlotte Dawson, a model who committed suicide. Dawson received a lot of online abuse, with people who urged her to hang herself. Dawson had admitted to having depression, with the increase in cyber bullying via social media websites became all too much for her to handle. It affected many people, with good friend Russell Crowe stating “Just don’t understand. There’s not enough kind souls as it is” (ABC News 2014).

Following the death of Charlotte Dawson, an online petition called ‘Charlotte’s Law’ is circulating to make changes to laws regarding cyber bullies. Below is a link to a video by Channel 9 news which explains this in further detail:

Petition calls for ‘Charlotte’s Law’ (2014) - http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity/haters-ate-charlotte-dawson-alive-20140227-33j4s.html

The laws for cyber bullying should be strict, if someone is pushing another person over the edge they must be stopped before it is too late! Think twice before becoming an internet troll, how would you like it if it was happening to you?

  References

ABC News 2014, ‘Charlotte Dawson’s death puts cyber bullying back in spotlight’, ABC News, 24 February, viewed 5 January 2015 < http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-23/charlotte-dawson-death-puts-focus-on-cyber-bullying/5277904>.

ABC News 2007, ‘Parents: cyber bullying leads to teen’s suicide’, ABC News, 19 November, viewed 5 January 2015 < http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3882520>.

Boyd, D 2014, ‘Bullying: Is the Media Amplifying Meanness and Cruelty?’, in It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, Yale University Press, New Haven, USA, pp. 131-132.

‘Cyber bullying: steps to stop it’, 2015, Raising Children Network, viewed 5 January 2015 <http://raisingchildren.net.au/verve/_resources/PIP-CyberBullying-123.gif>.

‘Dangerous websites for teen girls that teach self-harm’ 2015, Dr. Michele Borba, viewed 5 January 2015 < http://micheleborba.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/cyberbullying_2_1.jpg>.

Fuller, G 2014, ‘Cyber-safety: what are we actually talking about?’, The Conversation, 27 February, viewed 5 January 2015 <http://theconversation.com/cyber-safety-what-are-we-actually-talking-about-23505>.

Megan Meier Foundation 2015, ‘Bullying, cyber bullying and suicide statistics’, viewed 5 January 2015 < http://www.meganmeierfoundation.org/statistics.html>.