#MDA20009

When the term crowd sourcing comes to mind often what people will think about is popular funding campaigns on crowd sourcing pages such as Kickstarter, with campaigns for example a company named Pebble Time who are watch makers whose campaign funding accumulating to a record $20,338,986 (Zipkin, 2015). But in regards to this week’s topic, crowd sourcing will be discussed less in regards to the accumulation of funds by a large number of people, but instead more about acquiring information into a given topic by receiving this information from a large number of people through the internet and social media platforms. This method of accumulation of information is becoming widely popular in times of crisis due to the circumstances that is a time of crisis.

In a time of crisis, using Japans Earthquake and Tsunami disaster in March 2011, with an estimated 300 billion in accumulated repair costs (Shah, 2011), the damaged occurred from the earthquake and resulting tsunami caused major damage to the countries communication systems. With the nation’s main communications being down, in response to the crisis, online media and communication technologies were applied to deliver information and to organise action. An example of this crowd sourcing using online media and communication technologies in result of the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami disaster was the Ushahidi crisis map, in which thousands of reports were made stating different crisis zones and damages that had occurred and mapping this information across Japan (Meier, 2011).

It is the use and development of online technologies that is so pivotal in response to any form of disaster, with the need for its use apparent across the world. It is these technologies that become vital when all communication systems are down, with social mapping such as Ushahidi’s technology freeing up otherwise crowded call centres in response to the public seeking information on the crisis. With the development of future technology, one thing is for certain and that is the use of crowd sourcing techniques to gather the information within these platforms to spread facts and data quickly and efficiently.

References:

Meier, P 2011, Crisis Mapping Japan’s Earthquake and How You Can Help, Ushahidi, Nairobi Kenya, Viewed 20 January 2017, <https://www.ushahidi.com/blog/2011/03/16/crisis-mapping-japans-earthquake-and-how-you-can-help>

Shah, A 2011, Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Crisis, Global Issues, Viewed 20 January 2017, <http://www.globalissues.org/article/794/japan-earthquake-tsunami-nuclear>

Zipkin, N 2015, The 10 Most Funded Kickstarter Campaigns Ever, Entrepreneur, Irvine CA, Viewed 20 January 2017, <https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235313>

MDA20009: A Letter into Social Gaming.

Dear Sir,

Since the origins of man, games have been a fundamental part of human psychology which derives from our very own cognitive, emotional and volitional processes. As human beings, we have created and played an immeasurable amount of games which are diverse in nature and vary from culture to culture. While the first known games were once played with knuckle-bones by ancient civilizations, man has since created complex games in the form of cards, puzzles, numbers, words, and board games. While such games were mainly played within one’s own private and social sphere, they were often viewed as a source of entertainment, education, relaxation and social interaction.

Through research, I learned that our concept of games took a revolutionary turn in the 70s through the development of electronic digital technology by producing commercially coin-operated arcade games, computer games, and gaming consoles. One of the first arcade games was called Pong and was like a virtual ping pong game. This was followed by games such as Space Invaders, Pacman and Galaga, and that most games were often limited to two players at a time and played at arcade venues or at home with friends. With this new-found world of electronic and digital games, gaming became a lucrative commercial enterprise and trend across many cultures; and eventually led to the rise of online gaming in the mid-90s through the development of the internet as games such as Quakeworld and EverQuest.

Nevertheless, online gaming has become a social phenomenon in the 21st century and has led to vast online networks and gaming community. People from different cultures and all over the world interact and play each other through multiplayer games, and that thousands of players can play the same game simultaneously. It is not uncommon for players in Australia to be playing with individuals from different countries, and all from the comfort of their own private sphere via the computer, mobile device, or through social media. What’s more interesting, online games provide an artificial world that allows individuals to role play as to create different identities, virtual capital and engage in activities which would not be accepted or normal in the real world (de Zwart & Humphreys, 2014, 81-82). Online games have also become a full-time profession for many individuals and groups who receive economic rewards and social status by competing in tournaments, marketing and developing. Alas, playing online games can be addictive and individuals are often entangled in the world of simulacrum, struggling to negotiate their various identities and reality itself.  

However, the gaming community is somewhat different to other social media communities, being that are governed by the rules and terms provided by the proprietors of the game. While these rules and terms provide a guideline for expected behaviors and conduct, they are also combined with norms that are often negotiated and established by players themselves (Suzor & Woodford 2013). If individuals go against the proprietors and norms of the players, they can be banned and exiled from such games or community (de Zwart & Humphreys, 2014, p. 87-94). Alas, such governance is often difficult in the virtual world as we have come to learn, and that proprietors often encourage and cooperate with the community as to mitigate such unruly behaviours through creating forums, virtual councils, and methods of reporting and monitoring (Suzor & Woodford, 2013; de Zwart & Humphreys, 2014, 86-83).

As I reflect on this week research, online games provide a good way to connect with people across the globe and be part of a network and community. However, most games have been digitally re-invented, and I am left wondering if the future will consist of people who will only interact and play games in a virtual world rather than the real world.

Yours Sincerely

Miss D. Halliday.

References:

de Zwart, M & Humphreys, S 2014,’ The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online’, Cultural Studies Review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 77-99.

Global social media: case study China

Wow, what a task the China Government sets itself. 

Thinking back on the reading and working in IT I cannot fathom how a human-powered workforce could really be responsible for deleting posts by users. I am not sure if I am bothered by the amount of time it must take for this workforce to do their job, the sheer amount of data that they must trawl through or the Government ensuring that people’s opinions and thoughts aren’t freely expressed. Maybe it is my Australian culture that rings the alarm bells - where is the freedom of speech. 

After writing the above, I am suddenly brought back to reality. This is China, not Australia. Now I am going, to be honest here I work in IT, in a school, where we block facebook.  I have a range of tech-savvy students as well as not-so tech savvy student, I can block IPs and DNS to the cows come home, the reality is - if they want to access a site, they will find a way. So, from my experiences, I think that there is a range of extremely skilled individuals residing in China and I am sure that they have the skills to hack the system. Another example is NetFlix, I know individuals accessing the US site for years when NetFlix used geo-blocking, they found another way. That being said, China is continually evolving their technology to address these issues - a bit like a game of cat and mouse. 

Getting back on topic, though.. why do China feel the need to censor their social media sites? Better yet, block sites such as Facebook - one of the world’s leading social media site. In some ways, they are restricting the spread of digital communities to people living only in China? 

Hi to anyone and everyone reading, thank you if you are taking the time to read my second installment of my weekly blogs! This week and next week’s content we will be covering will be to do with digital citizenship, due to the scope of information this topic will be split in half and completed next week. For this week the topic being covered is the politics and civic cultural aspects of digital citizenship and next week covering the activism and protest aspects to round out my insight into discussion.

Before discussing what the politics and civic cultural aspects are it is important to distinguish what is actually being referred by the term digital citizenship. A digital citizenship or a digital citizen is an individual who participates and engages in society and politics through an online format such as social media platforms Facebook and Twitter (Mossberger, Tolbert & McNeal 2008, p.1), this form of sharing is described as amateur political comments and can be communicated through a simple re-tweet, sharing content or writing a post themselves. Where politics and civic cultures connect with digital citizens is through this online community, in which topics can be discussed and shared as a member of society or used as a tool by political parties as part of their campaigns. With growing trends in millennials being 2.5 times more likely to adopt new technology such as social media (Fromm, 2016), political presence has become a necessary tool in political campaigns to catch the audience of young voters through social media. This new form of political presences is not only effective, but also a cheaper alternative to traditional forms of advertisement such as television and radio. An example of social media being used for effectiveness and price efficiency is James Mathisons political announcement video that he would be running against Tony Abbot for the Sydney seat of Warringah, and although having only a self-described shoe string budget was able to generate 720,000 views, way surpassing any other liberal or labor adverts who have a considerably much larger budget (Wadsworth, 2016). With social media still showing increased growth patterns of 9.3% in 2016 (Rosen, 2016) the increased development of engaging digital citizens will only continue to rise and so will the role it plays within a digital campaigns. But with this increase in political awareness so does the awareness and scope of everyone’s opinion and perspectives, this is where activism and protest are having a major impact with the growth of digital communities and digital citizens. With this topic leading into our next week’s discussion this is where this week’s blog ends! But until then, I hope everyone enjoyed reading and we will continue to talk again next week!

Thanks.

References:

Fromm, J 2016, New Study Finds Social Media Shapes Millennial Political Involvement and Engagement, Forbes Magazine, New York NY, Viewed 7 December 2016, <http://www.forbes.com/sites/jefffromm/2016/06/22/new-study-finds-social-media-shapes-millennial-political-involvement-and-engagement/#369e7dad15de>

Mossberger, K, Tolbert, C & McNeal R 2008, ‘Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society, and Participation’, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, pp. 1, Viewed 7 December 2016 <https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=LgJw8U9Z0w0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=digital+citizenship&ots=DWXxxXgGYp&sig=ue5l8f3BPPuxemoHLEns0QtTzGg#v=onepage&q=digital%20citizenship&f=false>

Rosen, J 2016, Social Media Growth Statistics, Business 2 Community, Viewed 7 December 2016, <http://www.business2community.com/social-media/social-media-growth-statistics-01545217#jmZpkqwvQV3xxesM.97>

Emergency services, for example, but also mainstream news media, are making innovative use popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube during times of crisis. Facebook has implemented a feature called ‘Safety Check’ that helps you ‘connect with friends and loved ones during a disaster’ (Facebook 2016). “If you’re near a major crisis, you can tell friends if you’re safe and check to see if they’re safe, too” (Facebook 2016), which has proved to be helpful in the event of natural disasters like floods and earthquakes that would cause mass causalities and injuries. This feature is great for locals, but probably most beneficial for travellers who don’t have immediate access to their loved ones, letting both their family and friends know their status, but also emergency services and crisis management teams in their own country and the country they are travelling in.

Using social media to crowdsource information in a crisis when traditional crisis communication channels like radio and television cannot is a new but innovative method. It was once considered an entirely unreliable way to source information, however now, although taken with a healthy degree of scepticism, is utilised more frequently when the source is closer to the disaster than traditional channels can get themselves. The method of crowdsourcing was seen in the Australian media recently during the 2011 Queensland floods, in which Twitter was used “to find and disseminate information” (Bruns et al. 2012, pg 7). Bruns et al. also found that 50-60% of #qldfloods messages were retweets, the act of passing along existing messages on the platform, and thereby making them more visible. Leading accounts including the Queensland Police Service Media Unit, ABC News, and the Courier-Mail also joined civilians in sharing of messages on the platform, significantly amplifying each message’s audience reach (Bruns et al. 2012, pg 7). Bruns et al. reports that the disaster forced media outlets to use sources closer to the site of the disaster, civilians and Twitter users, whom shared their own experiences and observations, often by including photographs and videos in their tweets (2012, pg 7). This visual access that would have otherwise been dangerous for emergency services to attain provided vital information during the crisis (Swinburne Online 2016). Both cases of Twitter and Facebook being used to crowdsource important information in times of crisis demonstrates the merit social media can have when collecting or providing important information.

References

Bruns, A, Burgess, J, Crawford, K & Shaw, F 2012, #qldfloods and @QPSMedia: Crisis Communication on Twitter in the 2011 South East Queensland Floods, Arc Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, pages 7-10, accessed 8 January 2017, <http://www.cci.edu.au/floodsreport.pdf>

Facebook 2016, Safety Check, About, accessed 8 January 2017, <https://www.facebook.com/about/safetycheck/>

Hello to my vast reach of readers, this is my first post of many in regards to looking into the world of all things digital. With posts ranging from social media and social gaming to various crowd funding projects, my aim is to help share a little knowledge and hopefully shed some light on topics throughout our eight week journey.

Being my maiden post I will be covering multiple subjects in order to attempt to hook you, the reader into reading my ongoing posts throughout the weeks. The topics we will be looking into are digital communities and how it forms the foundation of various different platforms, and how social theory is used to analyse the behavior patterns of humans to attempt to understand modern online trends. Looking into digital communities revolved around the question, what holds a society together when most of us are strangers to each other? A question asked in the 19th century by Ferdinand Tönnies (Heberle, 1955) is still relevant today in questioning how communities form. In asking this question, Tönnies distinguished two forms of sociality in society being an individual being a part of a state or company with rights and rules which is formed through rational will, and community being associations one would make out of an individual’s choice which can be as simple as seeking friends. This community aspect is what we will be looking into in regards to how digital communities are defined and formed and how social platforms are developed and used through individuals striving to form said communities.

Digital communities can simply be described as a number of users within a single technological domain, using this domain to interact with other people in early digital forms of online chat rooms such as MSN messenger which launched in 1999 (Engel, 2014). Although MSN may seem prehistoric to today’s users of social media, it was revolutionary at the time with this being the very first step past phone calls which could be expensive especially if long distances. With MSN being an early example of a digital community being made up of a single domain, in modern times communities are made up of digital platforms through the use of different technologies to support a user’s engagement in their community and to support their activities (Sillence & Baber, 2004). A common example of modern digital communities is Facebook, which has a wide variety of technologies from instant messaging to audio and visual sharing all within the one platform. All these different features are known as affordances and describes the uses of a platform in what they can and can’t do, but when a developer is designing a platform and the different affordances included, users involved within its community can create a new set of affordances or uses in which the developer wouldn’t have envisioned (Boyd, 2010). These varieties of affordances either developed by the designer or by the community itself are what creates value for a platform which has led to the media rich online world we live in within the modern era.

I hope you enjoyed reading my introductory post, in next week’s post I will be diving into a bit of blog inception through discussing blogs within a blog and how it fits into our theme of digital communities. Hope everyone enjoyed reading,

Thanks!

References:

Boyd, D 2010, “Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications.” In Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites (ed. Zizi Papacharissi), pp. 39-58. Viewed 27th November 2016

Engel, K 2014, The Rise and Fall of Instant Messengers, Who Is Hosting This, London United Kingdom, Viewed 27th November 2016, <http://www.whoishostingthis.com/blog/2014/10/22/instant-messengers/>

Sillence, E, Baber, C 2004, Interacting With Computers, Oxford Journals, Oxford United Kingdom, Viewed 27th November 2016, <http://iwc.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/1/93>

Heberle, R 1955, Ferdinand Tonnies’ Contributions to the Sociology of Political Parties, American Journal of Sociology, 61(3), 213-220, Viewed 27th November 2016, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2772133>

The rise of technology has seen a vast movement in the way that readers access news and current events. This is particularly evident when reviewing a range of popular Australian news websites, that significantly changed between the 2001 and 2010 elections when print media “re-purposed” their news websites to incorporate more interactive features (Young 2010, p. 205).  When contemplating this information, my thoughts wander to “The Mercury”, website which is  the major newspaper in Tasmania and its constant redevelopment. In particular, the bold headings, interaction features, information and colourful images. Reflecting on my experiences, I tend to only notice “trending” news events on Facebook and when I require more information, I will seek out the news website as I believe this is the most current.  

I think that this is a common belief held by young adults, in response nearly all major party candidates use some form of social media during their campaigns (Kushin & Yamamoto 2016, p. 613). Young adults can express their political views through a range of online activities, including making online donations, expressing their attitudes and beliefs through posts, status updates, and blogs as well as participating in online polls and surveys (Kushin & Yamamoto 2016, p. 614).

Researchers have suggested that the use of Twitter by politicians can affect civic engagement, it has been proved that the average Twitter user is significantly more likely to visit a campaign page if directed through Twitter (Davis 2016, p. 89). From the weekly readings, I have gained an insight into the rise of technology and politics. From the live stream of the recent US election debate to continual political areas being increasing explored through social media.

I think that there will continue to be a growth in these areas, which could potentially engage youth people to stand up and raise their opinions, explore their ideas and ultimately learn that through the use of these mediums - they have a voice. Donald Trump posts interesting and often controversial tweets throughout his election campaign, these posts gain immense attention, often for their inaccuracies and blatant disregard for respect of people. Why does Donald Trump do this? Its very simple, its gains attention, which gains traction, which ultimately keeps him in the news and trending forums.

I really enjoyed learning about politics and social media and from my research there are many journal articles that continue to delve into this area.

This journey into cyber territory through Digital Communities these last few weeks has brought up both personal, familiar questions about the role of networking and social media in daily life and previously unchartered waters of critical thought in regards to its ever changing purpose. Though I held strong views about the darker aspects of technology and media, academic exploration has uncovered perspectives that have challenged my presumptions and woven a more rounded view of its place in our lives. I have arrived at a middle ground, knowing that its complexity is mostly beyond my comprehension, but that engaging, analysing and self reflecting is of great benefit, since ignorance and complacency is what encourages its darker nature.

Week 1 asked for critical thoughts in regards to the idea of being always connected online, yet disconnected socially and physically. I began to ask, at what point does online connection compromise valuable real-life physical connection? And at a time so saturated by digital connection, what sort of connection can be defined as real or not real? These themes of discussion highlighted the increasing rise in addiction, fear and anxiety around being alone that is perpetuated by social media and digital connection. I believe this epidemic is the main cause for concern, since emotional wellbeing of individuals and consequently humanity at large is the ground from which functional society arises. 

Interestingly, Week 2 elaborated on the concept of community and society by referencing the past definitions of each, and looking at the ways in which online social engagement is attempting to create it’s own communities that are decentralised and based on shared interests between individuals, in comparison to towns where community is built from individuals with varied interests. Since digital communities can surpass boundaries of location, race, age, religion and gender, the potential of meaningful, global connection and mutual learning between individuals is increased. Alternatively, digital communities also have potential to remain as bubbles, creating fragmented and polarised online groups that see little need to engage with alternate opinions and ideals. These ‘bubbles’ are further governed by the hosts and platforms on which digital communities establish themselves, which knowingly determine the accessibility of content and affordances available to its users, which asserts a high level of control over the ability of communities to communicate freely.

If we look at the way Ferdinand Tönnies observes social evolution, we could suggest that online groups will only remain successful as communities if they escape commercialisation and government control, since he asserts that meaningful community was disbanded by the desire for money to be used more profitably, which is where mercantile trade lead to capitalism. These leads me to question ones desire behind their use of social media, and whether one is consciously or subconsciously striving for longterm profitable gain, perhaps through likes and followers as social currency that will potentially lead to work etc, or whether we are looking for a deeper, more meaningful connection that they are physically lacking due to capitalism and a dissolved sense of community.

In Week 3, we explored affordances and privacy by comparing platforms and sites, with a specific focus on Reddit, or Reddit Gonewild, an amateur pornography site with intended nondiscriminatory codes of conduct that unfortunately slip into the discriminatory category. By actively engaging in the affordances of various platforms, I started to further consider the meaning and importance of usability, especially privacy. Though I assert that privacy is a fundamental right, I couldn’t help but ask myself why I thought it was important. What am I afraid of if my online privacy is breached? Are there areas that my naive mind is failing to comprehend? When a woman posts a nude photo online, are her consequences greater than her male counterpart due to the potential for stalking, trolling and recrimination from family or workplace? And if so, is not online privacy in this instance a feminist issue?

These first few weeks were an excellent foundation from which to explore further in these weeks ahead. I also took time out to work on my group presentation about blogging, an interesting social experiment in communicating with others online without so much as a picture as reference! Hopefully by probing, enquiring and experimenting, we can start to make sense of this creative monster we have made for ourselves.

All the best to my peers!

Image by Eleonora Arosio, 2016 

References

Boyd, D 2012, Participating in the Always On Lifestyle, in Mandiberg (ed) The Social Media Reader, NYU Press, pp. 71-76.

Gillespie, T 2010, ‘The politics of platforms’, New Media & Society, vol. 12, no. 3, Sage.

Interaction-Design.org 2011, Affordances (Don Norman, 1994), 15 February, viewed 7 November 2016, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Zb_5VxuM>.

Murthy, D 2013, Twitter: Social Communication in the Twitter Age, Polity, Cambridge.

Siapera, E 2012, 'Socialities and Social Media’, in Introduction to New Media, pp. 191-208.

TED-Ed 2013, Connected, but alone?- Sherry Turkle, 19 April, viewed 7 November 2016, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv0g8TsnA6c>.

van der Negal 2013, 'Faceless Bodies: Negotiating Technological and Cultural Codes on reddit gonewild’, Scan Journal of Media Arts Culture, vol. 10, no. 2, Macquarie University.