It’s Car And Men

The online population of China is approximately 800 million, yet this population does not have access to Facebook, YouTube, and not even Goggle. The Chinese government has been controlling its internet accessibility through its largest system of censorship in the whole world – Great Firewall. To make this censorship work, China’s government allies with telecommunications and technology companies to reinforce its state rules on restricted internet (Dawson 2018).

So, to what extent does China restrict its online community’s internet accessibility? In 2017, China eliminated the function of anonymity to post social media or playing games, and even banished Winnie The Pooh when several bloggers depicted President Xi Jinping (President of China) as a Pooh. Even two of the GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon), namely Apple and Google, where Apple had to fight for privacy control, and eventually built a local data center in China to fulfil the Chinese government requirements. The tech giant, Google, was told by the Chinese authorities to pull down around 2,290 items and other terrorism-related items in the year 2016 (Mozur 2018).

China also blocked the usage of Whatsapp service in China. A case of Mr. Zhang, a Chinese individual was under detention due to the action of spreading articles on Whatsapp. As Whatsapp messages are encrypted and run by American company, it is naturally assumed to be a more secured platform compared to China local messaging apps such as Wechat. However, when Mr. Zhang was sued for spreading articles on Whatsapp, Mr. Zhang’s lawyer was surprised that police presented them printouts of comments and articles from Mr. Zhang. They could not figure not how the police got the data and started wondering whether Whatsapp is still safe (Mozur 2018). Not only so, China citizens have been prisoned for giving offensive, ill-advised comments in private chats on China’s version of Twitter – Weibo’s (Dawson 2018). But really, how is it still called “private chats” when the conversations are being monitored by a third party? Apparently, there is no online freedom in China, not even online privacy.

Nevertheless, Chinese government believes that they did what they have to do. They proposed a Cybersecurity Law that would solidify their grip on controlling the flow of information online. They believe restricting online content allows them to maintain social order and most importantly, safeguard its national security. By restricting online content, Chinese government believes that they can provide necessary support for police investigations when required and keep the country out of chaos. In other words, it is their way to show that they care about the national safety and security (Wang 2015).

References

Dawson, S 2018, ‘The Great Firewall of China’, Bloomberg, 6 November, viewed 21 November 2018, <https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/great-firewall-of-china>.

Mozur, P 2018, ‘China presses its internet censorship efforts across the globe’, NY Times, 2 March, viewed 21 November 2018, <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/technology/china-technology-censorship-borders-expansion.html>.

Social gaming, commonly known as games online, or activities that require social interaction between players. There are two types of social games:

·         Casual games: Online games guided with relatively simple rules and are normally free for download or to play online. For example, Facebook games – Tetris Battle & FarmVille.

·         Hardcore games: Any games, but less accessible, that require possession of skills, significant investment of players’ time and effort to complete a successful round of game. For example, Final Fantasy and Monster Hunter (Damasco 2014).

Social gaming was meant to serve only one purpose – entertainment. However, some games are monetized by companies in order to gain profits. This monetization system has a direct negative impact on the growth of gamer communities. To some, game monetization deteriorates the value that games provide. They believe that games are supposed to be stress relieving and for relaxation purposes, but monetization took their one shot at relaxation away because they have to pay to relax (Darell n.d.).

On the other side, game monetization becomes an effective business model. For example, League of Legends (LOL), a game created by RIOT Company to generate revenue. Although League of Legends was free for download, it contains selling items – selected characters and cosmetic items to the games. This brought LOL to be one of the most successful free-to-play games globally and it was assumed to have made approximately $1.3 billion in revenue from 80 million players (Nikita 2015).

For all types of games, gamer communities are often formed to symbolize their team spirit. While the more the merrier, a bigger size of community may sometimes affect the relationships between the team members. This is because there are more ‘replacements’. Imagine this scenario: E and F are playing a game, and they needed a third player to continue the game. They invited A to join, but A couldn’t do it. So they invited B, again, B couldn’t do it. At this golden moment, C pitched in and save the game. While this may seem like a strong teamwork, helping out one another; however, after some time, C might be perceived as more competent than A and B, and this might erode the relationship between one another very covertly.

In short, we cannot say whether monetization had a negative or positive effect on the growth of gamer communities. In either way, it does affect – some people are reluctant to pay for it; but some think that the monetizing components made the games more competitive than ever. Similarly, some members compete best with competitive members, whereas some are less fond of competition. Thus, it really depends on what kind of gamer communities we are talking about.

References

Damasco, D 2014, ‘Casual gamers vs hardcore gamers’, Gamasutra, 24 February, viewed 14 November 2018, <https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/FlavioDamasco/20140224/211502/Casual_gamers_vs_hardcore_gamers.php>.

Darell, R n.d., ‘Top social games & why they are so popular’, Bit Rebels, viewed 14 November 2018, <http://www.bitrebels.com/entertainment/top-social-games-why-they-are-so-popular-infographic/>.

The social network offers various forms of global interaction, even changing the social interaction landscape. As social media become more embedded in our lives, more and more people engage in this new virtual landscape, and fan communities along grown in this social influence.

Tumblr, no doubt, has become one of the main platforms that bring people together by shared passions, and fandom is no stranger on Tumblr.

Fandom is formed by people who share the same likings, collective preferences and those who are “fans” to something. While communities on social media or fandoms can spring up anywhere, fandom is full of gatekeeping. To “maintain” a fandom, boundaries are drawn between “true fans” and “casual fans” (Locke 2017). To be in a fandom, you have to be real fans. Not just real fans, but REAL fans. It is about self-definition - how much you define yourself to be “obsessed” of something, to feel qualified as a “top fan” of something, someone or anything. When it comes to fandom, it is no longer about what you love, but how you love – do you love enough. If you do not love hard enough, you probably may not even be “eligible” to be a part of the fandom, and that’s how the boundary line is drawn.

Fandom is vast and huge, and it can be a powerful critical tool. And when that happens, fan activism happens. Fan activism, defined as “civic engagement and political participation that emerge from within fan culture itself, often in response to the shared interests of fans, framed through metaphors drawn from popular and participatory culture” (Jenkins & Shrestova 2006). In fan activism, fans participate, they gather and mobilize support for their favourite causes. With this participatory culture, fans participate in social or political activism to express their beliefs and opinions. For example, marriage equality, favourite celebrity, gay right parade. However, some fans express their concerns immorally just to communicate their disagreement or dislike towards something, and it is unjust to the others where they get verbally attacked or persecuted just because they do not share the same piece of opinion, or just be different.

Clare McBride, a lesbian, claimed that she was not treated nicely for being a queer woman. Although fandom has become a gateway for queer fans of all genders to safely explore their queerness, it was a different case for her. Despite there’s an existing LGBTQIA community, where those fans consider themselves allies, their desire to support for gay male characters far outweighed their support for gay female characters. She came across posts expressing outright disgust for queer women/lesbians, which actively damaged her. As she tried to overcome the emotional pressure, she said she could never bridge over the gap between male and female gay characters (McBride 2018).

References

Invisible Children n.d., Our Story, Invisible Children, viewed 9 November 2019, <https://invisiblechildren.com/our-story/>.

Jenkins, H & Shrestova, S 2012, ‘Up, up and away! The potential of fan activism’, Transformative Works and Cultures, vol. 10, <https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2012.0435>.

Locke, M 2017, ‘5 things I learned studying fandom’, Medium, 14 September, viewed 9 November 2018, <https://medium.com/s/5-things-i-learned/5-things-i-learned-studying-fandom-2bb857fdef03>.

Howe (2006) defines crowdsourcing as a new web-based business model for organizations or institutions to harness creative solutions by involving a distributed network of people in the form of an open call for proposals.

From a business perspective, a company that adopted crowdsourcing successfully is Threadless.com, a web-based t-shirt company that crowdsources the design for its apparel. The company organizes online competition and had a sale of 60,000 t-shirts a month (Brabham 2008, p. 76).  Nevertheless, crowdsourcing does not guarantee information credibility. The spread of fake news is augmenting on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and often, it is almost impossible to curb the spread of fake news. This heavily impacts on reputation of businesses, harming someone’s knowledge. In fact, some people spread fake news to generate attention and to make personal or political gains (Yschiatschek et al. 2018). Taking Wikipedia as an example. Given that anyone can edit or change the information on Wikipedia, how sure are we that the contributions are 100% credible and reliable? 

With the power of digital crowd, social media platform is not just a source of ideas, but also a virtual ‘money machine’.

Crowdfunding is defined as a money-raising practice where a large number of people who each contribute a small amount to fund projects or ventures, through websites such as Indiegogo, RocketHub and Kickstarter (Prive 2012; Bennett, Chin & Jones 2015, p. 142). Project organizers normally create a profile and post short videos or introduction on the project to build a compelling message to draw attention from financial donors (Prive 2012).

In fact, the digital climate today has opened a gateway for people, or even fans to be involved in their favored production. Veronica Mars movie, the movie that was funded entirely by its fan with a total funding of $5.7 million within 8 hours of opening the project. Another one, Zach Braff, who took his indie film Wish I Was Here to Kickstarter to garner funds from the fans (Booth 2013, p. 149-150). Despite the success of crowdfunding his movie, Zach Braff was criticized and received backlashes, he then announced that he will never do crowdfunding again (Hurst 2014). Same goes to the Veronica Mars movie, Kristen Bell the actress claimed to be under a lot of pressure because the money came from the fans (Prive 2012). While crowdfunding seems to be an act of support from the fans, it is important to point out whether crowdfunding could be a type of fan exploitation.

However, it is highlighted that fans are not financing those movies ignorantly. In fact, it could be a voluntary investment – funding in something they believe in, something that they believe they benefit from. Fans who were involved in the funding would probably feel satisfied for it because they might see money as a symbol of their fandom support (Chin et al. 2014).

Furthermore, in Malaysia’s 2018 election, a man named Joe Lee created the hashtag “#PulangMengundi” which translates to “return to vote” as a way for Malaysian citizens to cry out for help. As some students or workers tweeted that they could not afford to return home to vote due to expensive air tickets, Malaysians began volunteering to cover the costs for them. One by one, the hashtag went viral and became the top trending hashtag in Malaysia. It is undeniable that crowdfunding such as this has united the hearts of Malaysia communities, which got many young adults and first-time voters to come home to vote (Selff 2018).

References

Bennett, L & Chin, B & Jones, B 2015, ‘Crowdfunding: a new media & society special issue’, New media & society, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 141-148.

Booth, P 2015, ‘Crowdfunding: A Spimatic application of digital fandom’, New media & society, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 149-166.

Brabham, DC 2008, ‘Crowdsourcing as a model for problem solving’, The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 75-90.

Chin, B, Jones, B, McNutt, M & Pebler, L 2014, ‘Veronica Mars Kickstarter and crowd funding’, Transformative Works and Cultures, 15 March, viewed 2 November 2018, <https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/519>.

Howe, J 2006, ‘The rise of crowdsourcing’, Wired, 1 June, viewed 2 November 2018, <https://www.wired.com/2006/06/crowds/>.

Hurst, S 2014, ‘Zach Braff announces he will never do crowdfunding again after receiving harsh criticism’, Crowdfund Insider, 1 October, viewed 1 November 2018, <https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2014/10/51431-zach-braff-announces-will-never-crowdfunding-receiving-harsh-criticism/>.

Prive, T 2012, ‘What is crowdfunding and how does it benefit the economy’, Forbes, 27 November, viewed 1 November 2018, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2012/11/27/what-is-crowdfunding-and-how-does-it-benefit-the-economy/#4c545d57be63>.

Selff, A 2018, ‘This country’s election shows the complicated role Twitter plays in democracy’, Huffington Post, 5 May, viewed 2 November 2018, <https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/twitter-malaysia-elections_us_5aeafdd5e4b00f70f0efe0bf>.

Have you ever gotten trolled on the internet? Or maybe seen one of them? If you are an active social media user, you probably have experienced, or seen one of them. Although some people find it entertaining or where “sense of humour” is unleashed with appreciation, the cold hard truth is that it can be nasty or mean sometimes. And here today, we’re looking at the darker side of internet trolling. The act of trolling is getting increasingly familiar on the internet, and to those who is not clear on what internet trolling really is, it can be explained as “taking actions to upset people, such as making controversial comments and posting extraneous messages with the intent of provoking people into responding emotionally for personal amusement” (Moreau 2018).

Trolls can be found anywhere – Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube or any social networking site, you name it. What makes people troll? It is so easy because anyone, literally anyone can do it and they can do it under “protection” without getting any troubles. Trolls come in and spew whatever they wish, and they derive pleasure by inflicting pain upon others.

Anonymity instigates trolling because people can now hide behind a fake-name, faceless user account. In fact, trolling becomes a source of empowerment for cowardly people because they do not have to take responsibility or to suffer the consequences for what they said or did, especially when what they did is bad.  

In fact, internet trolling can cause some serious pain to people. Twitter users and celebrities face trolling frequently that it has started to become a norm, an unusually painful one. In 2000, a mother of a murdered victim quit Twitter after suffering online harassment. Having to deal with her daughter’s death was not enough, the mother still had to suffer from verbal attacks online and was compelled to leave Twitter (Cohen 2014).

Amanda Todd - the 15-year-old Canadian girl - committed suicide on October 10th, 2012 after spilling her situation on YouTube and received hate comments that asked her to kill herself. A place where she thought she could relieve some of the pain, turned into a series of bullying where people teased and verbally attacked her aggressively, which left her vulnerable and helpless (boyd 2014, p. 132).

Robin William’s daughter, Zelda Williams, was being taunted – trolls photoshopped and posted her late father’s body in a morgue that did not belong to Robin Williams. In response to that, the 25-year-old Zelda Williams was left “shaking” after suffering from cruel and harsh criticisms (Cohen 2014).

Thinking how some people humiliate or insult random people on the internet just because they like it is just disturbingly sad. To even think of hurting people – there’s just a thin line between trolling and inhumane.

References

boyd, d 2014, ‘Bullying: is the media amplifying meanness and cruelty?’, In it’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, pp. 128-152.

Cohen, C 2014, ‘Twitter trolls: the celebrities who’ve been driven off social media by abuse’, Telegraph, 18 November, viewed 26 October 2018, <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11238018/Celebrity-Twitter-trolls-The-famous-people-whove-been-driven-off-social-media-by-abuse.html>.

The ascension of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag – and the others like #MeToo and #MAGA (Make America Great Again) – has spurred an active discussion about how effective and viable social media is for web-fueled activism and protest. It is believed that social media has become an important tool for users to express their political views, or to participate in activities that are important to them (Anderson et al. 2018).

Given that social media has become the source of news and information, it has also emerged as a key platform for people to debate and engage in civic-related activities. Although social media does give a voice to the underrepresented groups, there is a considerably large group of people agree that social media also distracts people from “real” issues. Instead of focusing on the real issue, it sometimes ends up being a “trend” (Cohen 2018).

Social media is also where subactivism rises. Subactivism, defined as small-scale, decisions and actions that are often made by individuals that could have either political or ethical reference, and it easily submerges in our everyday life. Although subactivism often remains insulated in a private realm, it can sometimes leak out and become publicly visible. As social media is now the major facilitator of exchange of information, it gives rise to transforming them into over public activism (Bakardjieva 2009, p. 96). People can take part in a group, encourage one another to take action on issues that are important to them. Some even changed their profile picture or use hashtags in their posts to exhibit support for a cause. In fact, most people believe that social media engagement is one way to get the officials’ attention or to initiate a social movement (Anderson et al. 2018).

Yet, despite the wide network social media possesses, it is hard for a leader, a charismatic leader, to emerge in the midst of progressive web-fueled protests. A leaderless movement could spread really quickly; however, there is an inability to make functional or complex decisions without the rise of a powerful leader. Although having a leader may seem pretty insignificant in the case of thousands or even millions of people who stand together, leaders are the ones who shape the message to be delivered (Cohen 2018).

With that said, millions of voices do make an echo. Even if there was no leader who raises to speak or to lead the movements, the movements did not come out of nowhere and somehow happen themselves. Names or faces may not be remembered, but the movements pushed by the people who stand in the same belief through social media, will be remembered in the times to come.

References

Anderson, M, Toor, S, Rainie, L & Smith, A 2018, ‘Activism in the social media age’, Pewinternet, 11 June, viewed 11 October 2018, <https://wtop.com/social-media/2018/06/todays-protests-many-voices-social-media-not-1-leader/>.

Bakardjieva, M 2009, ‘Subactivism: lifeworld and politics in the age of the internet’, The Information Society, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 91-104.

We, the people of a nation, are living in a democracy – which means we “rule” in a way. Therefore, we have a say in what should be decided and what happens. Politics is everywhere around us, and the political decisions made have influenced our everyday life, from our homes to our environment.

How do we actually have a say in politics? By the most common ways - voting, campaigning, signing a petition, joining political parties, get involved in pressure groups, or to take it to social media (Berman 2018).

Undeniably, social media is holding a growing power and the sense of digital citizenship has become a force in the life of people. It even became a medium for people to voice out their opinions, share their thoughts, or even join a group of interest (Cruce n.d.) The use of social media is no longer just creating content, socializing with others, it has extended to posting about politics, or sharing one’s political affiliation. As a highlight, political engagement on social media is relatively public, which has a huge audience. Hence, it is important to understand its subtle yet monumental effects on political engagements.

Political engagements on social media can be detected easily, those that publish or repost political content, use specific hashtags like #politics, #vote, #party #timetochange, #people, #metoo, #vote and more. The use of hashtags actually expands the size of the audience, specifically to those who purposefully seek politics; however, some that do not intently seek politics could also conveniently come across politics on social media. And if the users shared the same ground, they could respond to the political content easily by clicking the “like” button, comment “support”, or re-post the content to show that they are in one accord.

The one main influence of social media on political engagement is that it affects the people around – especially those who are inactive politic practitioners, in which they are exposed to politics on social media even when they are not looking for it (Bode 2017). With minimal efforts, zero costs, very little time, not even skills, people can get politically engaged by liking and commenting on those contents. Those seemingly non-influential actions by individuals instigate people to be directly or indirectly engaged, to force a change or influence a government action.

Social media like Twitter has been used by political parties to influence and communicate with people. Their message may reach to just a small population of people in the universe, but it is people who can make a change. To politicians, social media became a tunnel of connection to the people. Videos or funny memes regarding politics were even made, which adds advantages to politicians. Some people may not pay attention to political campaigns, but most people pay attention to the ongoing trends on social media. There may also be political debates on social media, which could rise as the “hottest” or “latest” topic and instigates more political engagement among users. Meaning, the political use of social media has undoubtedly opened the gateway to increased political engagement among the people.

In one way or another, social media definitely induces political engagement and increases people’s participation in democracy. Due to the digital citizenship of people, politics is no longer just about governance, but connecting with people and governing them through social media.

References

Berman, A 2018, ’10 ways to be politically active in 2018’, Medium, 18 January, viewed 5 October 2018, <https://medium.com/inktothepeople/10-ways-to-be-politically-active-in-2018-744f0daeffd0>.

Bode, L 2017, ‘Gateway political behaviours: the frequency and consequences of low-cost political engagement on social media’, Social Media + Society, 25 November, viewed 5 October 2018, <doi: 10.1177/2056305117743349>.

According to Big Commerce (n.d.), Tumblr was founded by a man named David Karp in the early 20th centuries, 2007, and it offers users to post blogs and other multimedia services. Despite being in the competition with other existing social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Tumblr manages to own a special place in the heart of users, even until now.

Now the question, 

Based on Google, Tumblr is defined as “A microblogging and social networking website.”  Looking at the definitions of “blog” and “social network site”, blog can be described as “a regular activity of users to record their opinions, interests and experiences for other people to read”, whereas social network site comprises “activities of communicating with other internet users and making friends.” 

Tumblr is a place where users present themselves unreservedly, where they create an image that they want people to see from them.  Meanwhile, users do interact or socialize with one another on Tumblr in fewer cases, which could also mean it’s a social network site. For many reasons, it is believed that Tumblr is a combination of both. Although Tumblr is a ‘social’ network site, it can sometimes be a privy and exclusive space where people share a non-disclosed side of themselves, or personal information that not many people know about.

In fact, Tumblr has affordances (Affordance theory n.d.), in which the possible uses of Tumblr, in terms of its possibilities for action, are actually depending on users’ choice of use and capabilities. Hence, whether Tumblr is a blog or a social network, it actually depends on how the users make use of it.

Before diving any further, let’s see how Tumblr describes itself on Facebook:

It is crucial to note the key word “interests” under the About category. Comparing Tumblr with Facebook, a social network site, Tumblr is not the main site where users would use to make friends or to stay connected with friends. Rather, it is a space where people blog posts, images, memes, or even videos of their interests to document their adventures. According to Tumblr, it’s the “interests” that connect users with one another. Specifically, Tumblr is often used for “fandoms”, where users create blogs about their favourite movies, pets, celebrities, arts or anything that they are interested in. Consequently, Tumblr has become a place of collection of everything that users like.

With that said, Tumblr can also be a platform where users follow people with shared interests or to interact with friends. For instance, a group of friends creates a specific hashtag and uses it on their posts to track activity, and they can even control the accessibility of their posts by sharing with only selected users (Menendez 2013). Similarly, Tumblr users would usually follow people who share the same affection or pursuit as themselves. They might keep track of each other’s blogs and re-blog one another’s. To be exact, Tumblr is a social network where users express themselves, their actual interests with their selected real friends. Therefore, in this case, Tumblr can also be a social networking site.

To conclude, Tumblr is a blog and a social network site, and whether it is a blog or a social network site, it entirely depends on the users’ choice as Tumblr offers both affordances to users.

Biblography

Affordance theory n.d., Learning Theories, viewed 29 September 2018, <https://www.learning-theories.com/affordance-theory-gibson.html>.

Menendez, SR 2013, ‘The 7 best uses for Tumblr’, Mashable, 9 December, viewed 28 September 2018, <https://mashable.com/2013/12/09/tumblr-uses/#MOxc7Cn.Xaq0>.