Jayden's Communication

As the Internet and Social Media grew over the years, the World Wide Web turned into a Wild Wild West, as digital communities saw conflict and harassment rise. The Office of eSafety Commissioner, NSW Department of Justice said that “a good digital citizenship is a person with skills and knowledge to effectively use digital technologies in a positive way to participate in society, communicate with others, and create and consume digital content.” Sadly more often than not we see examples of a bad digital citizen instead of a good one. 

In an article by The Conversation they said that online harassment is a form of violence, and that it stems from having or wanting power. “All violence is about a person or person(s) having power and control over another. The uses and misuses of technology are part of this daily power struggle, especially for girls and women. The solutions aren’t easy.” (Ostini & Hopkins, 2015).

It makes sense that women and people of colour are the most targeted online, as the harassment comes down to the power to attack wants to have or keep. 

The Guardian looked at its own comments threads for instances of hate. After looking at 70 million comments left, they found the 10 regular writers who receives the most hate and abuse were eight women (four white and four non-white). The remaining two were black men. The ten writers who got the least abuse were all men (Gardiner et al., 2016)

The way forward will be education, so many people joined social media without understanding its impacts. Some people joined social media in their teens, others discovered it in their 50’s. The one thing in common would be all age groups contribute to online harassment.

Gardiner, B, Mansfield, M, Anderson, I, Holder, J, Louter, D and Ulmanu, M 2016, The dark side of Guardian comments, Guardian.com, viewed 24 May 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/the-dark-side-of-guardian-comments

Fast fashion is bad fashion according to this week's lecture. The alternative, ‘Slow Fashion’, is not a new movement, it originated in the counter culture of the 1960’s, but has gained attention in the 1990s and 2000s, as we’ve become more aware of unethical working conditions. If you’re buying clothes at stores like H & M, Zara, Gap, Primark or Forever 21, that’s participating in Fast Fashion. The opposite would be thrifting, or buying clothes from brands that are child labor free and made by workers that gain a fair wage.

 In 2018 the brand Burberry admitted to destroying $36.8 million of its own merchandise, just so they could preserve its reputation of exclusivity. That doesn’t sit well with many when the global fashion industry accounts for 10% of the world's carbon emission. 

As explained by Mark K. Brewer (2019); “Fashion is among the world’s most polluting industries: it requires enormous quantities of raw materials, creates considerable levels of pollution, leaves a significant carbon footprint, and generates alarming levels of waste.” The materials used are causing havoc for the world, especially if you only wear an item of clothing a handful of times before being thrown out. 

One initiative that is finding ways to buck the trend of fast fashion is ‘Big Sister Swap’. The service runs so people can donate their clothes and receive the same amount of pre-loved clothes in return, based on sizing and style preferences. 

Personally I was aware of the problems in the clothing industry, but hadn’t been active in changing my shopping patterns. Companies like Big Sister Swap need more mainstream media exposure so more of the global population can be aware of what is happening and how we can change our ways. 

Brewer, Mark K. 2019, ‘Slow Fashion in a Fast Fashion World: Promoting Sustainability and Responsibility’, Laws 8(4), 24

Lieber, C 2018, Why fashion brands destroy billions’ worth of their own merchandise every year, vox.com, viewed 21 May 2021, https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/17/17852294/fashion-brands-burning-merchandise-burberry-nike-h-and-m

When digital games arrived they were things you had to play at an arcade or in your house. Both functions you play alone or with a friend that you knew standing or sitting next to you. Over the years and decades, the way people played evolved to playing your friends on the same game in separate houses, and then even further playing the game with people across the world you’ve never even met. 

These gaming communities have grown in the same way any community has grown in the digital age. People with common interests finding others online, where they might not have been able to in real life. In an article, “The pros and cons of being a gamer, as narrated by one”, the author Sabin Pascal (2019) says one of the cons is social isolation from real life interaction. To contrast in this week’s reading, “Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming”, T.L Taylor flips that idea and explains why streaming sites where you watch others play have become so popular. “That feeling—that I was not watching alone but instead alongside thousands of others in real time—was powerful.” (Taylor, 2018, p. 2)

As described in our lecture “The typical ‘gamer’ is generally considered to be white or East Asian, young, middle-class, and a man.” This can mean anyone who enters these communities that doesn’t meet this description will already feel or be seen as an outsider before any actual playing or skill is put onto display. The gaming world has long been known for its toxic language and behaviour. Can platforms like Twitch create a new world where the “typical gamer” could be anyone? 

Pascal, S 2019, ‘The pros and cons of being a gamer, as narrated by one’, medium.com, 11 February, viewed 5 May 2021, https://medium.com/@sabinpascal/the-pros-and-cons-of-being-a-gamer-as-narrated-by-one-8f3a2ed2a244

Augmented Reality is a technology that lets people superimpose digital content (images, sounds, text) over real-life scenes (Houston, 2021). The technology got a lot of attention in 2016, as the popularity of Pokémon Go increased, and has also been used by the US Army for training, and furniture stores like Ikea. As it is the basis of this week’s learnings, I’ll be focusing on Augmented Reality in the online beauty world. More specifically, face filters. 

Onezero.medium.com ran an article with the headline “Face Filters for Instagram and Snapchat Are the New Frontier of Surrealist Art”, but it isn’t so simple to classify this as just art. While AR can be used for fun images like giving yourself the look of dog ears or swapping faces with a friend, it can also be used in an alarming negative way. 

Isabelle Coy-Dibley describes “Digitised Dysmorphia” as how “the female material body and its transcending digitized-image are being considered in relation to specially prescribed types of femininity within a Western, patriarchal, mainstream, hetrosexual society” (2016). The idea that so much of our lives are spent online, if people are filtering their image to “improve it”, what happens when they’re not online and no isn’t a way to filter or improve themselves?

In a Vox.com article on the issue, they spoke to Dermatologist, Noëlle Sherber, where she revealed there is a new fad in plastic surgery where “people are seeking to permanently alter their faces, inspired by touched-up or filtered photos of themselves.” (Animashaun, 2018). 

The concern is alarming. How far will people go to change themselves, both online and in real life? Are people really happy after these changes, or will there be something they decide to filter or change in their life? 

Animashaun, C 2018, “Snapchat dysmorphia”: why people are getting plastic surgery to look like edited photos, vox.com, viewed 21 April 2021, https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/8/10/17434088/plastic-surgery-face-lips-photo-snapchat-dysmorphia

Coy-Dibley, I 2016, ‘“Digitized Dysmorphia” of the female body: the re/disfigurement of the image’, Palgrave Communications, 2:16040 doi: 10.1057/palcomms.2016.40

An influencer is someone who has the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience. (Influencermarketinghub.com, 2021). Beauty aesthetics have been around for many years, but in the age of social media they can be inescapable. With 71% of Instagrams billion monthly active users being under the age of 35 (Tankovska, 2021), it can be incredibly worrying who is being influenced, and are they being influenced in positive ways? 

According to Brooke Duffy (2017), “For influencers, the body plays a critical role in the ‘selfies’ that are the end product of their prosumer labour. For women who upload these self-representations to social media, conformance to heternormative prescriptions of attractiveness and femininity is fundamental in gaining attention.” 

These body image issues gained and inflamed through social media aren’t limited to just women though. The BBC listed “in a 2016 survey of more than 1,000 boys aged between eight and 18, 55% said they would consider changing their diet to look better and 23% said they believed there was "a perfect male body to strive for". (Morris, 2019). 

This lead to the creation that goes against this, and is steeped in the ideals of body positivity. The BBC reported on an Instagram account called “@bopo.boy” run by Stevie Blaine. It stated he "went head first into the body positive movement and saw that there weren't any men. I want to be the role model that I desperately needed that could have saved me 10 years of destroying my body." (Morris, 2019). 

The implications of this culture is overwhelmingly negative though. A report by inzpire.me revealed “half (47%) of surveyed influencers felt their job as an influencer had an impact on their mental health and 32% believes the platform gave them a “negative” impact on body image.” (Leighton, 2018)

Duffy, B 2017, ‘(Not) getting paid to do what you love: Gender, social media, and aspirational work’, International Journal of Communication, issue 11, 

Influencer Marketing Hub, ‘What is an Influencer? – Social Media Influencers Defined [Updated 2021]’, influencermarketinghub.com, viewed 18 April 2021, https://influencermarketinghub.com/what-is-an-influencer/

Leighton, H 2018, ‘Influencers Admit That Instagram Is Bad For Body Image, Mental Health, Study Shows’, forbes.com, viewed 18 April 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/heatherleighton/2019/12/13/is-instagram-bad-for-your-mental-health-body-image/?sh=46279431e554

Morris, J 2019, ‘The male body positive Instagram influencer who ditched his six pack’, bbc.com, viewed 18 April 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-47693925

The Hashtag, invented by Christopher Messina in 2007, changed the way we communicate online. In some cases tweeting online without the hashtag is like yelling out loud in your backyard, and hoping for a response. Whereas the use of hashtags will connect you with the people or groups you are hoping to get a response from. 

One of the most widely used hashtags in Australia is #auspol, short for Australian politics. As explained by Ariel Bogel, “The #auspol hashtag was there for all of Australia’s most recent political bloodbaths, including the unusual phenomenon of having five prime ministers in five years...While not all Australian political conversations on Twitter occur under the #auspol umbrella, it’s useful simply because it’s so generic.”  (Bogle, 2016)

Other examples of political hashtags that effected change in the real world are #MeToo, #BLM, #March4Justice and #ItGetsBetter. Hashtags are now used by politicians themselves, not just activists. During the 2016 United States Election, Donald Trump began to use the hashtag “Make America Great Again” (#maga when shortened) in their tweets. 

RiteTag looked into the use of the hashtag #maga in 2018 and found that “Twitter alone include: 1,304 unique tweets, 5,820,000 hashtag exposure, and 3,424 retweets with 14% of #maga tweets including images, 55% including links, and 51% including mentions.” (RiteTag, 2018)

Bogle, A 2016, #auspol: The Twitter tag that Australia can't do without, Mashable March 6  https://mashable.com/2016/03/21/twitter-australia-auspol/#4tvfXtsZUEqV

Reality television, defined by Allen as “a genre of programming that purports to show the unscripted actions of everyday people, rather than prepared dialogue by actors” (Allen, 2017), emerged in the 1990’s with such shows as The Real World and Sylvania Waters, but boomed at the turn of the century with hits like Survivor, Big Brother, Dancing with the Stars, and The Biggest Loser, that captured the attention of audiences. The change in viewing habits coincided with the widened use of the internet. Conversations about the shows would move onto discussion boards after the shows aired. These days people are on social media communicating with others while the show is still airing. 

The power of these discussions are explored by Tood Graham and Auli Hajru in their article, Reality TV as a trigger of everyday political talk in the net-based public sphere. People would assume that a discussion board based around shows like Big Brother or Wife Swap would be mindless or mundane, but they found “recent research suggests that these spaces host a variety of political discussions dealing with everything from health and the body to politicians and government. Thus, they are important because, like politically oriented communicative spaces, they too contribute to web of informal conversations that constitutes the public sphere, and such, should not be overlooked” (Graham and Hajru, 2011, p.19) 

The examples of social and political issues being learnt and discussed through reality television are endless. Some impactful topics that have been covered in the past twenty years are transgender rights and their struggles (Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Survivor: Game Changers), refugees (Big Brother Australia 2004), Racism (Big Brother 15 USA) and Sexual Harrasment & Misconduct (Survivor: Island of the Idols). 

The rise of social media now means that the story of these shows doesn’t end on screen, as we can follow contestants of the show on Twitter and Instagram. “Love Island’s producers have made little secret that generating audience engagement via social media has been a central aspect of their strategy. This approach seeks to elicit a feedback loop whereby television and social media content feed back onto each other in a cycle, driving audiences to engage with the show across multiple platforms” (Lips, 2017)

References

Allen, M 2017, ‘Reality television’, The SAGE encyclopedia of communication research methods, SAGE Publications, Los Angeles, USA

Graham, T, & Hajru, A 2011, Reality TV as a trigger of everyday political talk in the net-based public sphere, European Journal of Communication, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 19) 

Tumblr, a microblogging and social media networking website, can be seen as a unicorn among all other, and more well known, social media sites. Founded in 2007, it took inspiration from MySpace’s unique and personal user layouts, and the idea of sharing written content from older blog platforms like Blogger. The inclusion of tagging content, an ask function, and GIFs, make it easy to see how Tumblr became so popular. But it’s charm is in the fact that while being so popular, it can still feel very hidden, almost like it’s sitting on it’s very own island in the big ocean that is the World Wide Web. 

As Jessalynn Keller wrote in her piece, “Oh, She’s a Tumblr Feminist”: Exploring the Platform Vernacular of Girls’ Social Media Feminisms (2019, p.7), “The platform differs from other social media in several ways; perhaps most importantly, there are no personal profiles or networks of “friends,” meaning that many “Tumblrs” are anonymously created and owners are difficult to identify”. It’s easy to see how Tumblr became so popular, and how it primarily functions as a digital community. With the loss of your real life identity, it is easier for people to express themselves, to their full potential, without the risk of harassment or judgement. 

This point is driven home again in an article relating to how the LGBTQI+ community finds Tumblr as a safe place: “Tumblr plays an important role in identity work related to gender and sexuality. Our interviewees noted that Tumblr granted them access to other people whose shared experiences they could learn from and be affirmed by. These shared experiences were often absent in our participants’ social and friendship groups outside Tumblr, and served as a crucial resource for connecting to and learning from queer and gender-diverse peers”. (Byron et al. 2019, p. 2244-2245)

The key to Tumblr remaining as a digital community, that people want to be a part of is, it’s an online experience you can’t get anywhere else. Want to talk about Doctor Who with other fans, but too embarrassed that your family will see it? Tumblr is the place for you. Want to connect with other’s who aren’t heterosexual, but don’t want to be outed to your friends? Tumblr can be that safe space. 

Byron, P., Robards, B., Hanckel, B., Vivieene, S. & Churchill, B., 2019, “"Hey, i'm having these experiences": Tumblr use and young people's queer (dis)connections.”, International Journal of Communication, vol. 13, p. 2239-2259.