On Digital Communities

Gaming has a bit of a bad reputation, especially when it comes to the social nature of games, or conversely, lack thereof. Negative effects of gaming that are frequently quoted include aggression, addiction, poor academic performance and a sedentary lifestyle (Jana, 2018). But research from 2013 has found that social gaming can lead to an improved state of social inclusion, among other this such as dexterity, comradery and quick decision making and tactical skills (SIE)

After watching my partner play a myriad of social games, my perception of social gaming started to change for the better. Particularly when I saw him playing Overwatch. Overwatch is a first-person shooter game where you play in a team of six. At first, I was blow away by the representation; among the Overwatch characters there is “an old Egyptian woman, an autistic Indian woman, a bodybuilding Russian woman, a plump Chinese woman and a Mexican hacker woman” (D’Anasatsio, 2017). This was the first time I has seen this kind of representation in a video game, whenever I had seen women represented in the past, they were highly sexualised. And the first female video game character was not until Street Fighter’s Chun-Li in 1991 (Fandom, 2019).

But that’s not the only thing Overwatch is getting right. In June 2018, they updated their social features to include ‘endorsements’ where at the end of each game you can commend your team mates on sportsmanship, good communication and leadership in exchange for experience points. Game director James Kaplan seems to be actively trying to make the gaming industry, at least Overwatch, a more inclusive, and less abusive place. It was reported that within the month that this endorsement feature was added, “daily abusive players was…down 29% in the Americas and 22% in South Korea” (Fogel, 2018).

In Hinton and Catling’s critique of the diversity of Overwatch characters, they discuss the industries history of having a predominantly Caucasian male audience (2017). Despite the rise of female engagement in video games where they account for 40% of all gamers, they are still grossly underrepresented in the development side accounting for only 23% (Hinton & Catling, 2017). Overwatch is a massive player in a dismount from tokenism and the trope of women as rewards. The video below goes into more detail.

It’s great to see a shift in video game representation and consumption to be more diverse and inclusive. As this is a wildly popular social medium, it possesses an immense power to affect real social change and have a reputation of being inclusive and socially educational.

References:

D’Anastasio C, 2017, Blizzard Says Overwatch Wasn't Meant To Be Political, But It Isn't That Simple, Kotaku, viewed 4 February 2019 <https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/05/blizzard-says-overwatch-wasnt-meant-to-be-political-but-it-isnt-that-simple/>

Fandom, 2019, Chun Li, viewed 4 February 2019 <https://streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Chun-Li>

Fogel S, 2018,New ‘Overwatch’ Social Features Lead to Major Drop in Toxicity, Blizzard Says, Variety, viewed 4 February 2019,

https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/overwatch-social-features-toxicity-1202873951/

Hinton S, Catling D, 2017, Diversity and inclusion are the heroes in Overwatch, a runaway commercial gaming success, The Conversation, viewed 4 February 2019 <https://theconversation.com/diversity-and-inclusion-are-the-heroes-in-overwatch-a-runaway-commercial-gaming-success-75132>

Jana S, 2018, Positive And Negative Effects Of Video Games On Teenagers, Mum Junction, viewed 4 February 2019, <https://www.momjunction.com/articles/effects-of-video-games-on-teenagers_00352668/#gref>

This week’s topic really struck a chord with me and got me thinking about the way we interact with images online. What an amazing topic! Jurgenson’s Digital Dualism theory suggests that increasingly, the online world and the ‘tangible,’ ‘real’ world are connected through the use of ubiquitous, ephemeral imagery (2012). The idea that, as things are happening, the example he uses is snowy weather, they are already documented (Farman, 2014). This is something I see a lot, I work in a high-rise building in Melbourne CBD with 360-degree views and whenever the weather takes a turn, the whole office is at the windows, posting photos to Instagram, myself included. I always find it funny because, we are all experiencing it, so who is the intended audience? This idea of documenting your life as it happens is something unique to the increasingly mediated world of the 21st century.

What really inspired me about this week’s topic was the mention of ‘selfie culture.’ I searched ‘selfie culture’ on Google and YouTube and was inundated with articles and videos with viciously negative keywords and phrases like ‘narcissism,’ ‘the root of all evil, ‘resist the selfie culture,’ ‘addiction,’ the list goes on. I went to google images and saw the below:

Notice anything? It’s (almost) all young women being shown as vapid, self-obsessed…idiots? Why are young women being chastised for taking selfies? Even one article in defense of the selfie had this representation, as reflected below. My immediate reaction was one of anger because in my opinion, our ability to self-represent is a gift. Before the age of the selfie, we relied on magazines, films and television shows to represent everyone, and they let us down. We now live in an era where we can control representation and publish what we want to be represented. If a young woman, or literally anyone, takes a selfie and thinks “I look great,” then damn straight they should be able to self-represent. Isn’t that powerful? 

(The Odyssey Online, 2017)

So, I did some more digging. There is actually a lot of feminist literature in defense of self-representation in the form of the selfie. In the below Ted Talk by Mary McGill, she explains the cultural significance of the selfie on young women. McGill references Simone De Beauvoir’s essay ‘The Narcissist’ in which she questions why narcissism and femininity are always discussed simultaneously and notes that “narcissism is sometimes seen as the fundamental attitude of all women” (Tedx Talks, 2016).  She discusses how technology has given young women the chance to “share their reflection with other people in the hope that those people will see what it is they see in themselves” (Tedx Talks, 2016).  

For the first time, women and othered people are given agency over their own representation, and this is an incredibly important thing.

References:

Jason Farman 2014, Photography, Self Documentation, & Social Media: An Interview with Nathan Jurgenson, 16 June, viewed 4 February 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnPtZ5lKDHo>

Jurgenson, N 2012, Strong and Mild Digital Dualism, viewed 4 February, <https://nathanjurgenson.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/strong-and-mild-digital-dualism/#more-823>

Tedx Talks 2016, Young Women, Narcissism and the Selfie Phenomenon | Mary McGill | TEDxGalway, viewed 2 February <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb2J5eDoFko>

“Crowdsourcing” as first coined by Wired magazine in 2005, is the combination of the two words crowd and outsourcing (Derstine, 2018). Crowdsourcing is becoming increasingly easy to achieve through the powers of online communities. A criticism and issue with the process of analysing crowdsourced data is verification (Ford, 2012). While researching this topic I found myself questioning when exactly crowdsourcing is appropriate. If there is a concern that the verification of crowdsourced information is so time consuming that it may not be worth it, when are the instances that this risk is worth the information sourced? Saxon, Oh and Kishore’s research suggests that crowdsourcing is used when the collective knowledge of online communities is greater than the knowledge of limited professionals. Crowdsourcing can include anything from mapping during times of crisis, uploading user generated news pieces, or raising money for a pug with cancer (although the latter is a specific type of crowdsourcing called crowdfunding).

A great example of a crowdsourced project that raises questions of validity is Wikipedia, according to YouTube video “What is Crowdsourcing,” it was once stated that the Australian $10 note featured Richard Gere dressed as a woman (whatiscrowdsourcing, 2010) This is not to say that Wikipedia is not a great resource to find information quickly, but we all know to take some information provided with a grain of salt. For example, when researching this piece, I was careful not to look at the ‘crowdsourcing’ Wikipedia page.

(Wikipedia, 2019)

One of the best uses of crowdsourcing that I have seen is TraffickCam, an app in which you upload pictures of hotel rooms while travelling. These photos are added to a database to help combat and locate sex traffickers (TraffickCam.com, 2019). Since this is merely uploading photos of the places you stay in, should there still be the same concerns for validity of the uploaded images? At first, I thought that this is one crowdsourcing project that may not be at risk of invalid data, however we cannot rule out the possibility that successful sex traffickers are clogging the app with incorrect data.  

(TraffickCam, 2019)

While researching this topic I found several times that the definition of crowdsourcing is a business enlisting the help of the public to collect data (Ffoulkes, 2018). This made me think about data mining from companies such as Facebook, Ticketmaster, NAB and MasterCard as a form of unsolicited crowdsourcing. It fits the description of data sourced from the public for the benefit of a company. But, funnily enough, I struggled to find any research on this. Maybe I’m just overly sceptical and a little paranoid?

References:

Derstine, P 2018, The Power of Open Data and Crowdsourcing Analytics Elder Research Blog. <https://www.elderresearch.com/blog/power-of-crowdsourcing> viewed 4 February 2019.

Ffoulkes, C 2018, Crowdsourcing: Data mining algorithms sought for automated data extraction of literature, ADAS UK. < https://www.adas.uk/News/crowdsourcing-data-mining-algorithms-sought-for-automated-data-extraction-of-literature> viewed 4 February 2019.

Ford, H 2012, 'Crowd Wisdom', Index on Censorship, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 33-39

Saxton, G D Oh, O & Kishore, R 2010, Rules of crowdsourcing: Models, Issues, and Systems of Control, < file:///C:/Users/matilda.johnstone/Downloads/Rules_of_crowdsourcing_Models_issues_and.pdf> viewed 4 February 2019.

About TraffickCam 2019, https://traffickcam.com/about, viewed 4 February 2019.

whatiscrowdsourcing, 2010 What Is Crowdsourcing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buyub6vIG3Q viewed 4 February 2019.

Trolling is an interesting part of online communities. It has changed the way I analyse comments on social media feeds because a lot of the time, trolling can be hard to pick. I am close friends with people who are self-proclaimed ‘internet trolls’ and have spent much effort explaining to them that they don’t look clever or funny, they just look rude and nasty. But the thing about trolls is that they just don’t get that. To them, it is an aggressive technique for inciting self-reflection on the people who take the bait. To them it is “haha I sure got you!” but to the victims it is hurtful, dangerous, and often pitiful. I am fascinated by this radical difference of perception from either side.

dana boyd outlines a critical framework on how to assess bullying by Dan Olweus, that it in nature is aggressive, repetitive and within a relationship containing and imbalance of power (2014). I find this framework difficult in the analysis of internet trolls. Internet trolls often attack at random, which dismisses the repetitive argument. They are often very sneaky and particular with their language to try and bait their victims, rather than outright aggression. As outlined by Golf-Papez and Veer: “Trolling involves deliberate, deceptive and mischievous attempts to provoke reactions from other online users.” While it can be considered a form of bullying, it has distinct differences.

It’s not hard finding insightful and easy to consume content on internet trolling, which is indicative of its prevalence. The below video discusses how people become trolls, is it in our psychological makeup? Or can anyone be irritated into “getting a kick out of annoying someone” (Above the Noise, 2018)

This begs the question: do we need a set of rules and regulations to combat this phenomenon? In my opinion, this would only ‘feed the trolls’ as “negative feedback only stimulates a harsher response from trolls” (AsapScience, 2016). They love seeing people get riled up, if there were some sort of enforcement involved, then they would be getting exactly what they want. I have known trolls personally who get a kick out of being banned from Facebook for trolling. I think the best way to combat the troll is education. Knowing when to disengage the trolls is the biggest power of all. As posed by Above the Noise, are trolls born or raised? They suggest both. Admittedly, I have been in situations where I have found people’s online behaviour so irritating that I want to give them a taste of their own medicine. But it is important to stay above this behaviour. The below video offers a psychological breakdown of trolling behaviour.

If we ignore the trolls, are we trolling the trolls? 

(Smith, Estrada and Estrada, 2014)

References:

Above The Noise 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLggqoPEfJU, viewed 3rd Feb 2019

AsapSCIENCE 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zxy_dScjsM, viewed 3rd Feb 2019

Is the internet good for ‘real’ activism? Or does it merely glorify the hard work of the activists, giving a protest or movement it’s 15 minutes of fame? News outlets are very quick to label such activism as a “Facebook revolution” or “Twitter revolution” (Gerbaudo, 2012). Is the use of this language designed to undermine the cause of the movement and belittle the protestors? It rings fairly condescending to my ears. However, I believe the strength of the passionate activists transcends the condescension of the news outlets. After all, establishments such as broadcast News and other traditional media are often at the heart of what is being protested.

Such forms of digital activism such as ‘hacktivism’ (like Anonymous) and ‘leaktivism’ (like WikiLeaks) seem to want to gain publicity as a way of promoting their anti-establishment message, despite legal or other consequences. I have recently read about a form of online activism called ‘quiet activism’ where digital activists provide covert ways for people in policed states to access internet, for one example (Karatzogianni, 2016). Another example includes hiding links in Wikipedia sites. This sort of activity suggests that some protesters are in fact questioning the loudness of campaigns dubbed ‘Facebook or Twitter Revolutions.’ Alternatively, and I believe more likely, they understand the strengths and weaknesses of different media and know that in some cases, such as policed states, this sort of ‘make as much noise’ activism is potentially unsafe.

 An argument outlined by Gerbaudo suggests that social media’s main role in activism is the choreography of events (2016). Social media sites and their ability to reach mass audiences, as well as very targeted audiences, certainly do have their role in this side of activism. However, I do believe they offer a lot more. As a social media user, I have learned about many great causes through link sharing, Facebook status’, I have even had chances to contribute to smaller scale things like helping someone’s sick relative or pet. To me, a massive part of activism is getting the word out, and social media is great at this. My favourite example and a cause I am deeply passionate about is Oscar’s Law. This group rallied to have state law’s changes in Victoria to ban puppy farms and the sale of puppies in pet shops, and as of July 2018 this law has been enforced! Some good news to end the post on.

(Oscars Law, 2019)

I think there is a lot to say for online activism, I think I could write a thesis on it if I needed to! But, when it comes to spreading the word and getting people involved, the internet and social media are a great tool.

References:

Gerbaudo, P 2012, Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism, Pluto, London.

Karatzogianni, A 2016, Beyond hashtags: how a new wave of digital activists is changing society. [online] The Conversatio < https://theconversation.com/beyond-hashtags-how-a-new-wave-of-digital-activists-is-changing-society-57502> viewed 1 February 2019

Perhaps ‘mediated’ is the wrong word, which I borrow from Sally Young (2010), as politics has been mediated since have had the printing press. Here I will discuss politics in the internet era, referring to online communities and social media. 

Politics is an area that I know very little about. Which makes this week’s topic interesting for me but also quite difficult. I feel that I am constantly hearing or reading about social media and the internet’s effect on Politics, and how politicians are using social media more and more, but I never actually see much of it (aside from all of trumps covfefe like shenanigans that are repeatedly reposted, could we really discuss this topic without the infamous tweet?)

(New York Magazine, 2017)

So, this leads me to the question, as posed by Young (2010), has the internet actually grown political audiences? Or is it just giving the same politically savvy audience a new medium with new ways to engage and interact? Admittedly, I have found the internet and social media useful when I’m thinking to myself “what is going on?”, “what are all these headlines about?” or most recently “what is happening with Brexit?”. And as someone not particularly engaged with local or global politics, this is very handy. And honestly, I probably wouldn’t put too much effort into sourcing this information without the ease of Google. And yet, I have not had a change in behaviour when it comes to political matters. So, on an anecdotal level, I would suggest that while politically engaged people are seeing a massive change in ways to discuss politics, the audience has not really grown. 

Regardless, there is no doubt that the use of Twitter in Trumps presidential campaign has laid precedent for presidential candidates in future campaigns. In Hollinger’s article “Trump, social media and the first Twitter based presidency,” he discusses the shift in campaigning that Twitter has caused due to the ability to assert influence through likes and shares (2017). Trump himself reportedly attributed his use of Twitter for helping him win the election, and that he wouldn't have won without it (Baynes, 2017). If you think about it, Trump is the first president to clearly write his own Tweets. And even if a lot of it is gibberish, he does get the likes and shares. Is this something that politically engaged online audiences will expect to see from future presidential candidates? Is a lack of of social media savvy now a deal breaker? Does this equate to a more politically engaged digital audience? I don’t know, perhaps we will see in upcoming elections both internationally and local.

References:

Young, S 2010, 'News, political reporting and the internet', in How Australia Decides, Cambridge University Press, Victoria, Australia.

Baynes, C 2017, Trump says he would not be President without Twitter, The Independent. < https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-tweets-twitter-social-media-facebook-instagram-fox-business-network-would-not-be-a8013491.html> viewed 31 January 2019.

Hollinger, J 2017, Trump, social media and the first Twitter-based Presidency,  Diggit Magazine <https://www.diggitmagazine.com/articles/Trump-Twitter-Based-Presidency? viewed 31 January 2019. 

On the idea of anonymity online.

This week I read Emily van der Nagel’s article on the good and bad consequences of online anonymity. She used the reddit thread ‘reddit gone wild’ to discuss the anonymous way in which thousands of women publish faceless nude photos of themselves as an expression of anonymity. 

Two concepts that resonated with me were the idea of ‘context collapse’ as coined by Alice Marwick and danah boyd, and the idea that anonymity online is a powerful and important tool that can be used to obfuscate third party data companies. 

The concept of context collapse is the challenged faced when trying to communicate to a group of people online that are from an array of backgrounds and contexts and are therefore difficult to communicate to on mass as a social media user. I have certainly experienced this regularly, as I have a combination of my family and friends families, and even my mums colleagues young children following me on social media. I find it hard to discuss things that I find important like sexuality, sexism and media representation incase it is insensitive or inappropriate for my audience to consume. I feel that I have an internal battle of wanting to use these platforms to set an example and promote goodness or ‘facilitate the flow of information’ as van der Nagel describes is outlined by Marx (2013), and the idea of doing so anonymously was yet to cross my mind. 

The second thing that resonated with me was the concept of actively using anonymity to obfuscate third parties and data mining companies. As someone that works in advertising, this is something I come face to face with daily. I often hear of people using a separate email address to sign up for social media and the likes as to not disclose too much about themselves (and to avoid spam emails), however I am unsure of how well this practice works. In my experience, data mining companies track a device ID and dump you into a demo that is determined greatly by cookies on web pages ad location services. To be completely successful in this level on anonymity you would have to give up may beloved features of your favourite apps like Uber. Some food for though I guess!

References:

On understanding the concept of community in the online climate.

In Siapera’s chapter ‘Socialities and Social Media, she applies a selection of theories to help understand the dynamic concept of community, specifically relating to the modern era and the online landscape.  

The chapter was very thought provoking and was definitely successful in prompting me to think more deeply about the way in which we form communities and sense of self online. However, I found a lot of the theories and examples to be somewhat irrelevant to todays climate as many of the theorists and research referenced was from the 1990′s or early 2000′s. One of my favourite things about studying media is that it is constantly changing, and in particular social media is consistently being redefined and re-purposed by the way in which the users themselves interact with it. In the last 6 years since Siapera’s work was published, we have already seen a significant shift in online communities. 

There is a lot to unpack in this reading! I definitely jotted down several strong opinions while reading it. However, in this post I will discuss theories covered in subheading “Loss of Community?” 

Siapera outlines Sunsteins theory that online communities attract a consistent and homogenous audience leading to a lack of social diversity for members (2012 pp. 195-196). He seems to suggest that this is a bad thing with essentially no evidence or argument, using phrases such as “not good for society” and “a detriment to society at large” without following up those claims. To me, the fact that online groups attract the same people repeatedly is a great thing and demonstrates a sense of belonging. As discussed earlier in the chapter, these groups are non exclusive, they are very welcoming an encouraging of new members. This section of the chapter fails to take into consideration the types of interactions people face day to day outside of the online communities, with the likes of colleagues, peers etc. The fact that one can come home and find a place they truly belong and have the opportunity to speak to like minded people on things they are passionate about is a great thing. The end of this chapter summarises that communities are a way in which we relate to one another and the deep human desire to do so. I think this is a great expression of the role and function of an online community. 

To put this into context, the website Reddit serves as a platform for several communities to come together to discuss a shared interest. In my personal experience, I have used this platform to discuss fan theories of the TV show Black Mirror and have learned things about episodes that I would have otherwise missed. This is a show that none of my friends watch and I was finding myself with no one to turn to to discuss the shows themes and stories. We have the chance to engage in discourse about popular culture (or anything we want) with people who are passionate about it, which we may not get the chance to in our offline communities. 

I think we need to look at online communities as a positive way for people to meet each other without the constrains of distance and social stigma. They offer people a way to express themselves and meet like-minded people. Why is that not a beautiful thing?!

References: