Digital Communities

When I was ten years old, the girl who lived up the road from me was the first on our street to get a Nintendo 64 console. I would often find myself at this girls house after school (which I realize now must have annoyed the crap out of her parents), we would spend countless hours with our eyes glued to the screen and our hands tightly gripping the controls as we immersed ourselves in the virtual worlds of these games- Mario Bros was my specialty.

Although I would probably say that this was the peak of my gaming days and a far reach from the social gaming landscapes of today, it is still an interesting point for me to consider the evolution of the gaming world and how this has been changed even more by the introduction of online platforms- such as social media sites and how the affordances of these platforms have revolutionized the way in which we consider gaming and what it means to be a gamer in general.

One of these aforementioned qualities is the unprecedented level of connectivity that is experienced within modern gaming circles, in past times where gamers may have been limited by geography restrictions, social networking sites now limit or in some cases almost abolish these limitations entirely (Jenkins, 2009). This connectivity now enables users of online games to create gaming circles with people from all over the world, share their results, as well as tips or tricks they have learnt and learn from other members of the community (Zwart & Humphreys, 2014).

In past times, gaming participation was also highly restricted to users who invested in the separate consoles that allowed them to connect to these gaming communities- such as the Xbox, Playstation or Sega. Although in today’s digital world, anyone with a working internet connection can involve themselves within these gaming communities and if the endless amount of request I get from Facebook friends requesting me to play Farmville or Candy Crush are anything to go by, then I think it’s a safe bet to assume that a lot of people are indeed active participants within these social media hosted game communities.

I think this shows how the affordances provided through social media sites have allowed for more and more people who may have been excluded from niche gaming circles in past times, whether it was due to not having enough interest in games to actually actively purchase the pricey consoles that were required or not being particularly technologically skilled enough to participate, have now been given a platform that makes gaming more accessible and appealing for everyone within online digital communities.

 REFERENCES:

De Zwart, M & Humphries, S, ‘The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as OLaw in EVE Online’, Cultural Studies Review, Volume 20, Issue 1, p.p. 77-99

If somebody was to scan through the pages of my Instagram and Facebook I wouldn’t be surprised if they concluded that I was a little bit of a narcissist. I’ll admit it, although arguably a hell of a lot less than a lot of the people on my social media feeds, I am partial every now and then to the posting of a selfie and why shouldn’t I be? It is indeed a common occurrence and necessity in the digital landscapes of today to build connections between individuals within a social network by sharing, among other things, images (Lange, 2009) from one’s life- including one’s perfectly filtered face for all the world to see.

I began to consider the sharing of selfies as a small part of sharing ones private life, after all isn’t the purpose of social networks that they provide us with an online platform in which we can partake in a kind of digital story-telling of our lives (Vivienne & Burgess, 2013)- or at least a heavily constructed view of our lives that we want people to see. From this I started to consider the notion of over-sharing, more specifically the increasing amount of members from this online visual communities feeling the need to share what may be considered traditional private and make it public.

A recent example of this where the social practice of the ‘selfie’ was utilised in a way that might be seen as a case of over-sharing was through the Tumblr page titled ‘Selfies at Funerals’ which was created by Jason Fiefer. As the name suggest, the tumblr page incorporates individuals posting pictures of themselves whilst at funerals. What makes this an interesting example is not so much the content of the uploaded material, but instead how it provided a catalyst to an abundance of varied responses which ranged from these actions being a form of digital respect paying to the deceased (Long, 2013), to a debates on what should and should not be shared in today’s digital communities (Hebblethwaite, 2013). This provides an interesting contrast when considering the fairly unrestricted level of interaction and communication that social networks allow their users- is the practice of sites such as ‘Selfies at funerals’ an example of narcissism and over-sharing or an expected outcome of the digital story-telling affordances of image sharing communities? 

REFERENCES:

Hebblethwaite, Cordelia, 2013, Trending: Selfies at Serious Places, Selfies at Funerals, BBC, Viewed 2 November 2013, < http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24754876>

Lange, P, 2009, ‘Videos of Affinity on Youtube’, Snickars, P, & Vonderau, The YouTube Reader, Mediehistoriskt, p.p. 70-78

Long, Heather, 2013, Is Taking a Selfie at a Funeral Bad Form, The Guardian, Viewed 2 November 2013, <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/30/selfies-at-funerals-acceptable-or-not>

To take a closer look at how crowdsourcing through digital platforms can and has been utilised in creative and not so typical ways, I decided to take a closer look at a recent highly publicised example that was created by photographer Brandon Stanton through his Humans of New York blog.

HONY or as its better known, Humans of New York is a photo blog that was initially created in 2010 by Brandon Stanton and features photographs of various people in New York City which are accompanied by a quote from that person. Since its creation as a Tumblr blog, HONY has since gone on to become extremely popular across many digital platforms and social networking sites, currently sporting over 2 million followers on Instagram and 12 million on Facebook. Through these platforms provided by HONY, Stanton has launched several successful charity campaigns that have relied heavily on crowdsourcing efforts to raise funds, including an Indiegogo fundraiser that sought to raise money for people affected by Hurricane Sandy that made over $80,000 in just 12 hours of its launch and over $300,000 by the campaigns conclusion – which shows the power and benefit that having a strong online presence can provide for crowdsourcing campaigns.

More recently, HONY launched another campaign through Indiegogo, the biggest online crowdfunding website that went on to become the most contributed to campaign through this network. The campaign started when Stanton asked thirteen year old Vidal Chastanet who his biggest influence in life was and he responded with the name of the principle of his highschool, Ms Lopez. The highschool was later revealed to be Mott Hall Bridges Academy in Brownsville, Brooklyn, one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in New York City (Kulp 2015).

Besides becoming the most liked and shared post from the Humans of New York blog, Vidal’s response brought to light to a different kind of crisis- the lack of funding within the public school system, particularly that of the poorer and more crime ridden neighbourhoods, such as Brownsville. Initially the campaign sought to raise $100,000 in an effort to send three of the schools classes on a field trip to Harvard University. However within 24 hours the campaign had raised over $350,000 through crowd sourced donations and went on to raise over 1.4 million dollars overall- which has since been used to implement many ongoing positive opportunities for the students of Mont Hall Bridges Academy for years to come (Corrado, 2015).

In the readings this week by Heather Ford, she talks about the power that crowdsourcing platforms hold in helping to ignite change and bring awareness to a particular issue or crisis. I think that they also hold a great power in their ability to build a sense of a community around a particular topic or social crisis (Ford, 2012). What was so amazing about the success of this particular campaign was that it was achieved predominately by the donations afforded through followers from the various social networking platforms of the Humans on New York blog. Which I think speaks volumes to the possibilities that the affordances provided by sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr can have in determining the success of online crowdsourcing campaigns.

           REFERENCES:

Corrado, T, 2015, ‘Digital Storytelling, Crowdfunding and Social Media: How HONY raised $1,000,000 Online’, Blue State Digital, Viewed 07-05-2015, <https://www.bluestatedigital.com/news/entry/digital-storytelling-crowdfunding-and-social-media-how-hony-raised-1000000>

Ford, H, ‘Crowd Wisdom’ in Index on Censorship, Oxford University Libraries, Sage Publications, p.p. 33-39

Last week I received an email requesting that I sign the petition for the current ‘Keep it Clever’ campaign that seeks to make sure that Australian universities are properly funded, so as to keep Australian graduates highly skilled in a competitive global market and not fall behind (Universities Australia, 2014). Being a campaign that I not only find to be an important one, but also one that relates to my life directly, I decided to sign the petition. I was surprised by how easy it was, after clicking the link through my email I was taken to a website that displayed a detailed pre-prepared letter that stated how important this issue was to me, signed my name at the end and sent it to my local member of parliament- all I had to do was click the ‘Okay’ link. After completing this, I received an email that thanked me for my efforts towards supporting this cause and making a difference, which prompted me to give myself a mental pat on the back for my ‘efforts’.

It wasn’t until later that week when I was watching some French film that showed hundreds of university students involved in a violent protest that I thought back to the email that thanked me for ‘making a difference’. Now I am not saying that violent protest are the more effective way of supporting a cause, but this film created a poignant contrast in my head of the images of students being physically beaten into submission by the authorities and myself clicking the ‘okay’ button and it made me consider what it means to be an activist within today’s digital landscapes or perhaps more often than not- a slacktivist.

Take for example the ALS ice bucket challenge that recently clogged up my Facebook news feed - Thousands upon thousands of participants from all over the world throwing freezing water over themselves in an effort to raise awareness and money in support of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. The campaign ended up raising more than $100 million for the ALS association (Gautier, 2014), forty times more than the donations from the previous year prior to the ice bucket challenge, which by any standards would consider this campaign an overall success. However as a recent poll taken in the UK shows, more than half of the people who participated in the Ice bucket challenge themselves, could not even recall what the ALS initials stood for (Vallis, 2014). This begs the question, although it would be hard to dispute that online activism causes do indeed raise awareness of a particular issue or cause (McCafferty, 2011), is the awareness one of superficiality and very little actual interest amongst the participants of such online campaigns? 

REFERENCES:

Gautier, A, 2014, ‘The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: Slacktivism or Innovative Philanthropy’, Essec Business School, Viewed 07-05-2015, < http://knowledge.essec.edu/en/business-society/als-ice-bucket-challenge-slacktivism-or-innovative.html>

McCafferty, D, 2011, ‘Activism vs Slacktivism’, Communications of the ACM Journal, Volume 54, Issue 12, Web of Science, p.p. 17-19

Universities Australia.com, 2014, ‘Keep it Clever’, Viewed 07-05-2015,  <https://keepitclever.com.au/>

Over the weekend I went to the cinema to watch the new MTV film ‘Unfriended’ for two reasons, the first being that even in this day and age of excessive online downloading I still love going to the cinema and don’t think watching a film on one’s computer measures up to the experience on watching it on the big screen in a room full of strangers. The second being that this particular film was a horror film and I just happen to love the horror genre, despite it often being full of over the top acting and unrealistic realities- what can I say, I like cheap thrills! Although ‘Unfriended’ turned out to be a different kind of horror film for me, don’t get me wrong, it was still jam packed with many horror film clichés, but the film also seemed to be making a very important comment on the dangers and repercussions of trolling and cyberbulling in today’s digital world- which made me recall the story of Amanda Todd.

On September 7th, 2012 a young girl named Amanda Todd uploaded what would be her second and final video through her YouTube channel, Thesomebodytoknow. The content of the video was basically a nine minute point and shoot style video in which she held up cue cards that outlined her struggles with online and physical bullying and then just over a month later she was found dead in her family home as a result of suicide. What makes this specific video of interest in relation to this topic of online bullying is the light it shone on the online practice of ‘trolling’- a prominent feature throughout many social networking sites. Best described as an individual who through a mixture of vicious commentary and obscene remarks, will try to provoke other members of the same networks into ridiculous arguments that often lead nowhere (Herring, Sluder, Scheckler, Barab, 2002).

 The often unclear motives of these ‘Trolls’, as these individuals have been dubbed, have often been a subject of discussion in today’s media landscape, with many psychologist even attributing their motives as an attempt at recognition and power. In looking at this phenomenon in context with Amanda Todd’s aforementioned YouTube video, which to date has over 150,000 comments, it stands as a good example as to what level these trolls will steep to- nothing is off limits. Comments such as “Stupid bitch kills herself over trivial shit, burn in hell you useless piece of shit, actually a benefit to society we don't have to give you pills to be a pill popper any more, stupid cunt, thank fuck you killed yourself.” By YouTube user OneLoveOneUnited and “I know who she is, she is stinking dumb bleach drinking whore” by YouTube user Ernest Germann.

I think the Amanda Todd case and the countless of other examples of online bullying bring to the forefront a very ugly side of the interactions that take place within our digital communities. Although it is perhaps one of the most predominant affordances of social networking sites that their members be able to offer critique, comments and opinions through their generally free for all comments sections, which begs the question. Are practices such as trolling an unfortunate and unavoidable expectation within the collaborative culture of our online communities?

 REFERENCES:

 1.      Herring, S, Job-Sluder, K, Scheckler, R & Barab, S, 2002, ‘Searching for Safety Online: Managing “Trolling” in a Feminist Forum’ in The Information Society, Taylor and Francis, p.p. 371-383

2.      McCosker, A, 2014, ‘Trolling as Provocation: Youtube’s Agonistic Publics’ in Convergence, Volume 20, Issue 2, Sage Publications, p.p. 201-217