n e w r a i n y

Enjoy your Sem Break! SEE YAA

Is the Social Credit System a way to instil good behaviour and provide safety to citizens? At what cost?

Let me tell you; China has a history of breaking its beautiful cultures and ancient history. The Chinese authorities and the government break their society for their own good and are not in it for the people. I'm aware of the wrongdoings of the CCP and that citizens fight for justice and freedom. Still, it gets silenced immediately in a censored country like China.

Firstly, let's talk about what the Social Credit System is proclaiming to be according to CCP; the system intends to monitor, put ratings, and regulate the different socioeconomic aspects such as financials, political, morals, and social behaviors of Chinese citizens in China. The Company also has a system, either settling for punishments or rewards based on your rates. According to CCP, they claim this will improve the social issues they have in their society. We praise the ones loyal and trustworthy to the government and bash the opposite through disciplinary actions. The Social Credit System also claimed to raise the economy of the country. (Cho 2020)

How does it work?

Every individual is constantly providing data for the government. Based on human tracking, a given social credit score will either increase or decrease if you follow the credit system's rules. The data collected comes from various sources such as your financials, interactions online, official records, search history, et cetera. The system is heavily relied on video monitoring and tracking your location as well as you in an aesthetic form via your facial recognition.

Many empty promises are there if you get rated as a high-scored citizen. The scores give you many privileges, which is absurd because these things mentioned are unsustainable and would not work in their society when there is no freedom of movement due to their Zero-Covid scheme. According to this Infographic by Bertelsmann Stiftung, once you have a high score, you will be rewarded with priorities in work and school admissions as well as public housing, taking tax breaks, free access to gym facilities and activities, and so forth.

On the contrary, if you are labeled as untrustworthy (low scores) by the government, you get suspended licenses and admissions, no freedom to travel by any means, public shaming on broadcasting TV and the net, and no right to government jobs and private schools. Your life gets tarnished if you are not an "Ideal" citizen. That does not promote good behavior, like controlling a population to satisfy the government's evil laws.

It's a way for CCP to control the citizens by restricting every right one could have. Imagine continuously being monitored for everything you do; if it is against the government, there is a punishment. That is not disciplining citizens; it is taking their freedom as a way of living in peace with their own choices and passions. We cannot compare their system to our social justice systems; we live by laws, but our rules, the severity of punishments they have for doing things that would be legal here; that's the volume we are speaking.

Reference

Bertrlsmann Stiftung, ‘China’s Social Credit System’, viewed 10 December 2022, <https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/fileadmin/files/aam/Asia-Book_A_03_China_Social_Credit_System.pdf>

Covid-19 and Gaming?

The Pandemic turned the world into a more digitized society; due to lockdowns and isolation, people tried to deal with their private personal time to the fullest. Some felt bored and tried to explore new hobbies, one of the common hobbies discovered among a large demographic was GAMING!

First and foremost, I was a gamer when I was seven. I played all these Lego and Cartoon Network Flash games, and I drifted apart from Gaming the older I got. I haven’t yet grasped the cause, but the person I am today does not play games. You may think, WOW, what a boring person, but I don’t know, it doesn’t make me any happier I feel like it’s a waste of time #unpopularopinion. Instead, I enjoy my environment, chilling, eating, and relaxing, the sloth I am.

What has Gaming to do with the Covid-19 Outbreak? Has the perception changed?

Gaming has become a part of the youth’s daily lives because it makes them feel a sort of escapism from reality, the coping mechanism of relaxation and thinking of other things than the scary, negative.

Another factor presented by Barr et al. (2022) could be the lack of socializing during the lockdowns. People needed a sense of interaction other than with their family members to improve their well-being. This was accomplished through multi-player games.

Before the Pandemic, people could not sit down and play games to the fullest, but when they had nothing to occupy with during quarantine, the time spent on Gaming changed 180 and created a sense of belongingness and stress relief.

Mental health-wise, Gaming positively impacted how individuals deal with, for instance, anxiety. Many responses from the youth clarified that the game Animal crossing saved their lives and put them in a good mood. The cognitive simulation mentioned that students could balance work and fun time without feeling burnt out and overwhelmed.

Even though I was not a part of these demographics, Gaming helped youth in terms of coping with Covid-19 and spreading more fun into life when it 

was its darkest period.

Reference

My experience with Fandom  

Some may not know my background, but I grew up in Sweden, where Asia and Asian culture was not so prevalent. Due to my mixed heritage of being both European and Asian, I traveled back and forth to Thailand and Malaysia, where my relatives live. Starting from 10 years old, I was exposed to Asian pop culture. I started gaining interest in the famous worldwide genre of K-pop as it is now, but back then, it had a limited amount of popularity. When I returned to Sweden, I emerged with K-pop songs and gained some form of obsession. Yeah, I have once been a so-called "Koreaboo" I wanted to dress like them, speak the korean language, and eat their local food. It became a tiny part of my identity, but I never intended to hurt anyone. I had never had this sense of belonging that I was Asian too. Still, once I found out more about Asian culture, I began to realize that I was brought up in an Asian household, too, and not so much Swedish after all. That’s when I started to realize and acknowledge my own heritage progressively (my malaysian/thai side). 

My classmates ridiculed me for liking K-pop because it was very strange to them. I then participated and started my dance journey through K-pop dances; it's remained on YouTube, but that's a secret unless you are a hacker to the max. You are welcome to watch it if you find it. I participated in the K-pop dance contest made by the idols themselves. Best believe I won 1st place in the Girl's generation – the boys' dance contest, I was 13 years old at that time, and that was one of my early successes. However, I cannot deny that I am still somewhat proud of myself for winning.

Girls Generation - The Boys Music Video 

Interestingly, something can touch you so much to the core that you go all in for it.

How did my Fandom make me interact and engage in communities?

Well, K-pop made me into blogging. My first Tumblr in 2013 contained content from my favorite girl group, f(x), a 5-member group with exciting concepts. This is where I kickstarted my digital design phase, which made me into editing photos and creates GIFS of my biases. Tumblr's engaging and awarding part was the liking, reblogging, and following aspects. I had active followers who reblogged my edits, making me feel excited and happy.

( Pretty Sulli, May you Rest in Peace)

As previously mentioned, I had my dancing journey through K-pop. There was a little community of K-pop dancers in Sweden that held dance party events where we could perform. It's similar to Swinburne's MICS, but this is outside school. It was located in an arena, and other fun activities were also present. K-pop brought many different communities because of shared interests and taught me a lot about diversity, self-progression, and fun. I might not have been this creative, passionate person if I didn't experience all this beforehand.

Today, I’m not partaking in anything strictly fan-based but I enjoy things with balance.

Before writing this post, I learned a lot about crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding, but here I am. Hargrave (2022) states that Crowdsourcing means gathering information, knowledge, goods, or services from a larger demographic. This function works through surveys and reviews to collect responses from social media platforms, mobile phone apps, and crowdsourcing websites. These come in both paid and voluntary services. The people working with crowdsourcing usually work as paid freelancers.

An example of when crowdsourcing works efficiently is the Waze traffic app because it functions as finding drivers an option to report accidents and provide real-time information about the roadways. That means a collection of interactive data trafficking from the population itself, which is very needy for the ones on the roads.

We also have the term Crowdfunding, which has a slightly different approach by promoting resources or money/funds to support individuals, charities, and start-up businesses. It is an open wage to supply for crowdfunding requests without any payback. Companies can also provide shares to their contributors.

I was interested in Crowdfunding. Then the question of Crowdfunding for a creative community, is that a thing?

Can Crowdfunding build a community for creatives?

Yes, Artists and creatives have the opportunities at this time of the year to open campaigns to support their work and build a sustainable community based on everyone’s opinions. Exeter City Futures (2018) The idea of proposing new concepts and providing a change in a community. This makes it an attractive way to engage and build a genuine community with much participation to spread awareness and engage in different projects. 

Crowdfunding opens a little dopamine boost for the participator to be able to dictate and further their wishes by doing micro-funding to their specific crowd-community. It’s a form of a democratic system led by the citizens for change. So, if a creative puts out its fundraising page, it indicates the creative is willing to support and spread their knowledge and art to the world. What also benefits are that Crowdfunding can also create outreaches to local businesses and more prominent companies for support, which results in sponsors, and partnerships, which starts this collaborative environment. 

(I’m not mocking fundraising just to be frank, but it is indeed a free way to gain money through your supporters and fanbase.)

Some examples of Crowdfunding organizations for creators are Crowdfunder, an individual platform, community, business, and commercial based. It is catered toward creative cultures and innovation. Based on the all-or-nothing model or keep what you have saved up.

Kickstarter, this is more niched to crowd raising for creatives such as film production, designing, and so forth. It works as a reward or follows the all-or-nothing model.

Indiegogo, focuses on the entrepreneur side of the spectrum and displays the development of designing technology from start to finish. They have a so-called marketplace where your products can be up for sale, which is their form of Crowdfunding.

Reference

Hargrave, M 2022, ‘Crowdsourcing: Definition, How it Works, Types, and Examples’, Investopedia, viewed 5 December 2022, <https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdsourcing.asp>

Yeah, I had a whole presentation about Public health with two of my groupmates, I can tell you I was too nervous and shaking but that’s okay :) 

Here’s a link to our Prezi presentation! Give it a click if you want to know more about Public health!

What is Public Health?

Let’s begin with defining the terminology public health, it is prominent anywhere we could think of because it concerns us human beings. Public health performs to provide knowledge to protect and prevent and improve the health of the population. This is successful through the promotion of healthy lifestyles, injury prevention, and proper research on occurring diseases. (CDC Foundation 2022)

Social Media has made it more accessible to retrieve health-related information!

What are the dangers of relying on social media for public health campaigns?

Abroms (2019) discusses public health in social media with the hope that technology will enable new ways to carry out public health surveillance and disseminate public health information. As a matter of fact, today's public health campaign includes social media aspects, including social media advertisement buys, the establishment of campaign fan pages on media platforms, and initiatives to encourage social media conversations regarding campaign topics. Social media use has also been beneficial in supplying social support to individuals struggling with similar medical and health conditions. Besides this, social media has emerged as an efficient way of providing behavioral counseling, for instance, cigarette smoking and other types of health behavior change.

We can agree that social media has opened the gates for health-related topics. Some could be taboo in specific communities, such as how mental health awareness has been normalized, for instance, in Europe. My home country Sweden has a very different perspective on mental health compared to here in Asia, where it is not talked about to the public. We use social media platforms to show most adolescents that it is okay to seek assistance if they are not feeling well regarding their mental health. It is also socially ingrained in a society where public health insurance covers all employees in the country by 31.42 percent of their income. (The Ceo Magazine 2022)

But what could be the dangers of social media, then? Too much publicity without any regulations creates widespread misinformation regarding general health-related topics. Merchant RM et .al (2021) say that misinformation becomes the enemy because it is hard to correct due to its massive spread in volumes. It is not acknowledged as a credible source of information. Still, the post's virality makes it relevant and appear as something agreed upon. The more problematic issue is that misinformation can also come from government leaders or trusted organized groups, which makes it challenging to handle. Social media campaigns are the culprit of the endless spread of misinformation online.

According to NBC News, there was a big spread of misinformation regarding cancer. With "doctors are hiding the cure for cancer, berries are more effective than vaccines, and eating instant noodles can kill you." Encouraging people who need medical help to use "natural" cures damages the affected demographic.

Reference

Abroms L, C 2019, Public Health in the Era of Social Media, American journal of public health, 109(S2), S130–S131. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304947

CDC Foundation 2022, What is Public Health?, CDC Foundation, viewed 4 December 2022 <https://www.cdcfoundation.org/what-public-health>

Ceo Magazine 2022, ‘The best countries for mental wellbeing’ Ceo Magazine, viewed 4 December 2022 < https://www.theceomagazine.com/business/health-wellbeing/countries-with-the-best-mental-health-care/>

Merchant RM, South EC, Lurie N. Public Health Messaging in an Era of Social Media. JAMA. 2021;325(3):223–224. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.24514

How do Art-forms and popular culture become symbols of a social movement?

Art Activism is a term derived from another form of expression of activism through an artistic medium and utilizes it. Because I’m not socially partaking in activism. Still, when I heard about the creative activism that challenges the creative way, I was instantly interested because, as a designer, I am a sucker for art expression and analyzing creative thinking.

By further investigation, Creative Activism stems down to the colonial rule of Britain during the 18th century that was evident in America, according to The Black Sheep Agency (2021). Some famous art activism pieces are the painting of ‘George Washington crossing the Delaware,’ which symbolizes the message of the Pro-American Revolution.

During the 20th century, it happened to occur a twist in the narratives of the art protests because this new era of creative activism addressed civil rights and the people’s dissatisfaction in society.

However, when we define art, it comes in different shapes, such as Murals, Drawings, paintings, et cetera.

One form of a progressive movement is the 20th-century protest art of feminism by the citizens who used their message through art by advocating FOR working women, femininity who were self-deprived from any sort of public political engagement such as voting. The infamous work of “Sash and strict Edwardian dress code” where a weapon and a symbol of feminism against their opposition. By any means, artworks like these have an extensive outreach today with their evolution.

(Three Suffragist, 1916 by Ed. Markel)

Another example of creative activism in the form of art is evident in Mainland China, where the voices of people are censored and silenced. The Guardian (2020) shows the way art speaks the minds of the citizens in China. One example of this phenomenon was the year 2020, with the Hongkong protest intending to fight for pro-democracy, which was shown as socially unacceptable by the law. The empty white paper sheets were the voice for the freedom of speech. And with the new protests in 2022, the white paper blanks came back with the same public message, and I’m sure statements like these become a symbol of bravery and fights for justice.

(White paper sheet activism, Anthony Kwan/ Getty Images)

Art speaks for itself and carries messages that cannot be directly criticized. The impactful messages become a powerful tool for people without freedom of speech and a threat to the higher-ups. The standard transmission in a large community creates a shield against the opposition. Art is in the eye of the beholder, as it is often said. It outlives the generic, standardized idea of society.

Reference

The Guardian 2020, Hongkongers find creative ways to voice dissent in pictures, The Guardian, viewed 4 December 2022, <https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2020/sep/29/hong-kong-people-find-creative-ways-to-voice-dissent-in-pictures>

Political Engagement

Political engagement is regarded as a cognitive process. This refers to connecting thoughts and recognizing new information in the realm of public affairs, which results in subjective reactions and action-related participation to ensure that the opinions are represented in cultural and political spheres. Political engagement is a requirement for political participation and would be essential for a dynamic civic culture. (Afromeeva et al. 2022)

Do social media assist in the advancement of political engagement?

Society is born into a political system. Political engagement allows the presence of an interactive audience. With the development of technology and higher education, social media is another integral part of society’s needs. It would not be surprising to see political posts on social media since it is a crucial topic that consecutively mentions all age groups. Social media has alternated between being for everyone in a culture of collaborative and participatory manner, By users and for users. (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010) The exchange of content matters to engage and gather similar opinionated people in one community. According to Nian Yan (2021), social media reallocates the power of a particular country’s population and its leaders. The major contribution of change is not solely through the leaders, but the people empowered by social media. Social media determines the outcome of who controls the new source of information, the distribution, and how it can be modified later.

According to Larsson et al. (2014), it is a requirement for political figures to provide a campaign site. Post-modern campaigning beyond election is a high trend. A real-life example of social media opening the gates to a more reachable audience is the Far-right Swedish Party, which goes by the name Sweden Democrats which strives in upvotes this current Swedish election 2022. Some background facts about the Sweden Democrats are that they have roots in the neo-Nazi as well as a nationalist stance which we now call the “racist party”. Their reason for success and the winning majority is due to their strategic online presence while the rest of the parties have an underperforming presence. SD, “Sweden Democrats” specializes in presenting polarized issues straight black and white says media strategist Brit Stakston; also, SD provides more engagement by putting English subtitles on the Election videos to reach out to international supporters. The more we research we see that SD has a Digital footprint that cannot be compared whereas they are active on several social media platforms such as Facebook, the Official website, YouTube and Twitter. (The Local 2018)

To conclude, yes social media helps political campaigns reach a wider audience and makes the communities engage in different discussions about our future country.

Is blogging still relevant in the age of Tiktoks and Instagram?

Before we head over to discuss today’s topic, we must dive into the terminology of blogging. The word ‘Blog’ is a website that allows for users and to digitally journal by posting posts that is viewed in a “reversed chronicle” manner. (Minaev 2021)

The information that is displayed can vary from personal to non-personal notes and media as in videos and images. (Merriam- Webster 2021)

Why was there a rising trend with blogging?

I believe the root causes for this online sensation is rooted back roughly 1000 years ago, when the society had no freedom of speech and any rights of spreading messages. It was acted upon as a threat against the government or rulers of the countries, if there was a leakage of an unconventional message, which differed and went against the societies morals it could cause your life. In addition, the human instinct to share newly knowledge and highlight unfairness in society has always been evident, as we usually call it the compassionate instinct that is distinct among the human population, by showing empathy and sympathy towards anyone than yourself.  

Undoubtedly, the revolutionized mindset could take this to a further level and blogging became the most intriguing thing to do on the web. A sense of connectivity of transcended emotions and feelings.

However, in this time of the days blogging isn’t the same as it once was, I suspect that blogging has become an intervention and doesn’t have the same purpose and affordances as in the beginning.

Blogs didn’t have its network, but it was a social media platform. Retterberg (2013) mentions platforms nowadays have been customized and focusing a larger part on images, brief language to fit the pace and mood of that specific platform.

It’s worth noticing the roots of social media platforms and that is why blogging is not dying yet.  It’s vital to track down important data regardless of when it was posted. It might not be the top priority for the younger generation because we have other platforms as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. But blogging has its own niche, target audience and dated history to tell.

Furthermore, Minaev (2021) states that according to the statistics there is over 570 million blogs registered around the world. Also United States set alone has a large number reaching 31.7 million in 2020. In addition, blogging is a useful in business matters whereas it engages and improves user audience and progresses its customers satisfaction and trust by frequently updating with latest news which holds the customers accountable.

We can conclude that blogging doesn’t assert in the same route as it once was, but we do need to acknowledge its existence and that there’s still rising numbers of newly registered blogs with a fixed content for a niched group of audiences.

Reference

Artem Minaev, AM. 2021, What is a blog? - Definition of Terms Blog, Blogging, and Blogger FirstSiteGuide, viewed 26 November 2021, <https://firstsiteguide.com/what-is-blog/>

Merriam Webster, 2021, Blog, <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blog>