#weeklyblogs

A look into my last 15 days.

Imagine my surprise when I was told we were to be playing and then reviewing a game for this weeks blog post. The excitement slowly faded when I learnt just what game we had to play, Dwarf Fortress. A  procedurally generated fantasy game where the player is in control of a colony of dwarves. 

I had seen images of just what this game looked like, and for whatever strange reason, my friend was absolutely enthralled with this game. To set the scene, Dwarf Fortress’s interface and artstyle is entirely made from coloured numbers, letters, basically any kind of symbol that can be created from a keyboard. That being said, you can install mods and tilesets that make it look good and generally more enjoyable.

This game was widely confusing and extremely hard to get used to or even understand what was going on, I had to watch a couple tutorials (this series was good - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e82cu_G3aw) to set up my world properly. My overall opinion was that the game was amusing, if only for the fact that you’d see graphics like this in old 70′s arcades (and this game it still being updated monthly! Why stay with the symbols?!). In all honesty I did not get very far in this game, the appeal to games like this for myself is quite limited, when I do play a game like this it’s almost always because the artstyle. However Dwarf Fortress does have a certain charm about it, perhaps the artstyle has grown on me.

We’re in the 21st century. A few decades ago when our grandparents talked about the future, they probably thought – flying cars, time-travelling machines and cyborg assassins. Though we aren’t far off from cyborgs (cue Sophia the robot) and flying cars (Tesla), time-machines unfortunately could still be a few centuries away. But one thing’s for certain, no one 50 years back would look to the future and think: Social Media. 

If they had, could the cause of activist Martin Luther King Jr. reached highs beyond his time? If our present form of social media had existed during the 1950s American civil rights movement when this great man put his life on the line for the equality and human rights of African-Americans, would it have made a bigger difference?

Let’s find out.

What does social media actually do for activism and protest? Yes, it could be used as means of representation – a tool used by people for ‘citizen journalism’, and for organizing collective action in mobilizing people into getting on the streets for protests (Gerbaudo 2012), but does its act of “fixing dates” and “creating groups” really make a difference in mobilizing and organizing a movement? Well yes, because social media’s role goes beyond that. It is true that protests are successful thanks to the years spent by networks of activists working together to build a firm, solid foundation for this groundswell. Without the help of social media, these individuals managed to unite around a grievance and found symbolic matters to organize under where these symbols that serve as protests and movements’ catalyst typically take the form of a human, charged with emotion and story-driven elements (Sigal & Biddle 2015). 

But what happens when social media is added into the picture?

With the help of SNS like Twitter or Facebook to facilitate interpersonal connections across distance, the speed to find individuals and to learn from one another to develop common causes will definitely be increased. Not only does social networking sites empower people and enable them to gain greater access to information, they also provide more opportunities for everyone to engage in public speech in hopes to influence others into joining their cause. With this greater power to reach a wider audience, the ability to undertake collective action for a movement is therefore enhanced! Take our Bersih movement for an example. If it was not for the effects of social media buzz, the size of its rallies would not have grown from 30,000 in 2007 to 200,000 in 2015. 

Moreover, social media is where the construction of “choreography of assembly” – the emotional scene-setting and process guiding the physical assembling of a highly dispersed and individualized constituency (Gerbaudo 2012) – occurs. It is because of “liquid/soft leaderships” like the faces of social media movements: Alice Garza (#BlackLivesMatter), Alyssa Milano (#MeToo) and other influential social media activists that scene-setting of movements is able to happen more effectively for more members of the public to be inspired and encouraged into joining a cause. These individuals become the symbols of movements who are responsible in constructing common identifications among a socially diverse constituency and triggering emotional impulses among the public.

Additionally, the people’s emotional chord can be further struck through streaming or viewing graphic media contents of incidents kick-starting protests and movements on social media platforms, which would help activists recruit new followers to join their cause. This shows that sensitive content shared on social media along with the rest of social media’s affordances can be used to build and bring up a movement.

However, this does not mean that social media is Mr. Perfect for activism and protest.

Like everything created by humans and even humans themselves, social media’s affordances are not without flaws. Protest slogans like #AllLivesMatter, #BlueLivesMatter and #HimToo are proof of social media backfiring on activists. Due to social media’s “open-to-all” attribute, this makes it easier for backlash in the form of protest slogans to occur, just like how #AllLivesMatter and  #BlueLivesMatter were created by Caucasians to cast African-Americans as aggressors all because they felt excluded, discriminated against and was basically not used to something happening that did not revolve around them or around catering their needs. 

This shows that although a group of individuals misinterpreted a movement, it was ultimately social media that allowed these misinterpretations to reach the public and gave the public a platform to counter originally genuine movements based on misguided understanding. 

Furthermore, in regards to sensitive content shared on social media, most platforms use community policing mechanisms where users report others who violate a platform’s regulations to ensure that only generally-accepted content are shared online (Youmans & York 2012). This can actually work against activists as offended communities can abuse this function by reporting and removing contents they dislike or disagree with to censor views they oppose, which obstructs activists’ path to acquire more followers via sensitive contents shared. Also, automated social media protocols for discouraging “spammers” would also at times, disable or ban accounts with high volume of correspondence – working against activists by thwarting their attempt to reach more audiences. 

In worse cases where there is authoritarian social media use at play such as the Syrian Electronic Army, a hacker group aimed to deface, eliminate an target sites that host anti-regime content, the state’s power over social media will eventually be seen in the form of content restrictions to repress movements (Youmans & York 2012).

Despite its pitfalls in the face of activism and protest, I strongly believe that social media can be the tool to champion activists’ cause. With the right people doing the right things, the affordances of social media can be used to take the success of protests and movements to greater heights more so than its detrimental qualities can impair movements. Some of the right things that can be done for a movement to achieve positive change include appealing to the majority of the population, using celebrities or influential individuals as the spokesperson or the face of a movement and acquiring political backing or support which I think is the most crucial action a movement can take to ensure success.

“We can either win wars or win election”.

An article explained that the only way for current generations to make real change is either through going to war or overthrowing governments authorities that do more harm than good. It was written that contemporary protest is broken because people’s will is no longer the basis of the authorities making up the government. Many things can be attributed to this with the topmost possible cause, in my opinion, being human greed. The greed of elected representatives has blinded them from doing right by their people and has made them put their own needed before the needs of others. Thus, as the people, we must exercise our rights by voting in the right individuals into position of power. And as activists, they must begin networking and liaising with politicians to gain the support of individuals in position of power.

References

Gerbaudo, P 2012, ‘Tweets and the streets’, Pluto Press: London. 

Sigal, I, & Biddle, E 2015, 'Our enduring confusion about the power of digital tools in protest', Fibreculture Journal, Issue. 26, pp. 1449-1443.

Being a kid, my dreams were quite bizarre. I've dreamed of being a ballet teacher then eventually to a dentist, I wanted to be an astronaut even, when I learned there's one who had their footsteps on the moon. But, this one that I'm going to share with you is the one that I vividly remember wanting to have; A boyfriend. When I was thinking what to write for this blog, I couldn't reminisce what I wanted to have as a child until I remembered making my mom  to buy me a toy phone because I wanted to pretend talking and saying I love you to a non-existent person on the other line. I remembered playing with my barbies and dressing them up because they will go to a date with their boyfriends. I remembered initiating a  role play with my playmates and imagining what would be the feeling if we had boyfriends. It's quite a memory really, because my imaginary boyfriend before is Dao Ming Zu, the lead actor in the Taiwanese telenovela Meteor Garden. I guess this is one of the reasons why my parents forbid me to watch this show when I was kid, but because they air it around five o'clock in the afternoon and they are both working, no one's there to stop me from watching. (except if we have afternoon play sessions outside.)

I've always try to imagine things regarding my future. I really didn't know where my thoughts came as a child but they were pretty mature for one, but I think maybe they came from the afternoon telenovelas we watch everyday, since back then we don't really have gadgets except for a Nokia 3210. So every night before sleeping, I've always said to myself that someday I'm going to find a man that will love me like my dad loves my mom. A man that is as handsome as Dao Ming Zu. It's actually quite funny looking back, but hey, atleast there's a sign that I wanted a good future for myself.

You might be asking, did that dream come true yet?

How many of us have firsthand or secondhand experience of the conversation below?

X: What music do you like?

Y: I’m a fan of One Direction’s stuff!

X: Oh, you’re one of them [scorns]

And by them, X probably meant:

We sort of understand what warranted X’s negative reaction when it was discovered that Y was part of the One Direction – or Directioner – fandom. But before we dive into why one would rather get maced in the face than to admit to being part of a fandom, and whether it’s really all that bad, let’s first begin by answering the most basic question: What is a fandom?

The term fandom is popularly used by the younger generation as means of identifying oneself with a social group that is a fan base of any entertainment content in the form of TV shows, films, novels, music, games or even celebrities. Thus, to be part of a fandom of something, one must first be a fan. But in today’s world populated with people who are quick to judge, fans have become marginalized and are used to being mocked by the media. To be a fan now, is to be shadowed by social stigma that paints you (if you’re a fan) as brainless and borderline crazy; something to be avoided like a plague.

However! Digital Communities MDA20009 and I are here to present fans and fandom to you in a new and more positive light; to show the other side of fan culture that usually goes unnoticed or blatantly ignored – the side of it that views these media consumers as proactive, critically engaged and creative instead of over-the-top, obsessive and people-who-have-too-much-time-on-their-hands.

To understand this, we must first look into the participatory culture present in fan-fictions, fandom web forums and when game companies give public access to their design tools to source for programmers (Jenkins 2006). Members of this culture is defined by Jenkins (2006) as someone who’s comfortable with artistic expressions and civic engagement; supportive of the creation and sharing of one’s creations with others; has experienced some kind of informal mentorship whereby knowledge from those most experienced are shared with novices; believe the significance in their contributions; and feel a degree of social connection with other members. It should also be noted that contributions do not have to be provided by every member, but they should believe that they are welcomed to contribute when ready and that their contributions will be valued and appreciated. 

Based on this fundamental fandom concept, it would seem that the roots of fandom are pretty wholesome and inclusive. 

Yet, people still view fandom as the black hole that created a participation culture practiced by problematic people who attract other problematic people into the picture. They forget that participation is an action that has existed long before computers or the internet was created, and that their creation merely enabled people to take this action across the physical plane onto the virtual plane to be developed into fandom’s current participatory culture. Moreover, instead of focusing so religiously on how fandom is stupefying the next generation, more attention should be directed at how its participatory culture are opening doors for the same generation to forge their creativity, develop certain skills and knowledge and boost their self-confidence – all of which would benefit these youngsters in the future as working adults. 

And to those who have doubts about how fandom actually affords all these benefits, Henry Jenkins got you covered. 

In his blog about the participatory culture, he highlighted that people part of a fandom are already in this self-enrichment process through affiliations in online communities, expressions from producing new creative content, collaborative problem-solving with others to complete tasks and develop new knowledge, and circulations which shape the flow of media (such as blogging).

Besides, who’s to say that fandom’s contribution to a fan’s growth as an individual stops there? Who’s to say that fans can’t achieve higher levels of self- and societal awareness and become activists themselves?

And thus on the 12th day of Christmas, God gave us fan activism.

Based on its definition by Jenkins, fan activism can be understood as a form of civic engagement and political participation emanated from fan culture and are basically fan-driven efforts to engage and address civic, social and political issues. Using superheroes or fictional elements from novels for activism is a classic example of fan activism whereby people looking to promote social change are utilizing the emotional and imaginative properties of popular culture to connect more intensely with their supporters (Jenkin & Shrestovva 2012). 

And because popular culture – especially blockbuster franchises – are known and favored by many, it can serve as a common reference point for both protesters and casual observers and be used as an effective community-bridging tool for organizing collective movements (Jenkin & Shrestovva 2012). Additionally, this would make activism work more appealing and approachable to the younger generation who are usually excluded from traditional, ‘adults-only’ campaigns especially since social media is heavily used for for this new kind of social campaign.

But fans don’t usually wake up one morning and think, “I’m going to fight sex trafficking today.” What links fans with actual social or political activism and motivates them to be part of an activist group is the subject matter of each fandom aka the singers, the actors, the celebrities.

Some examples of celebrity-inspired fan activism for social causes include Alyssa Milano’s constant encouragement of fans to embrace female power and to stand up against sexual harassment; how Mark Ruffalo has never stopped being vocal on issues like sexual harassment and fracking in hopes to inspire fans to fight for the same causes; and BTS’ collaboration with UNICEF for an anti-violence campaign to raise funds and awareness among fans towards creating a safer, violence-free world for children.

Although there have been murmurs of discontent from fans who resist the idea of mixing something as serious as activism into simple, care-free fan activities, it is hard to forgo the beneficial elements of fandom in paving a path to social activism and influencing fans to use it for analysis, networking, mobilization and communication related to campaigns for social causes, which is ultimately a big plus for societies in general.

Hence, my verdict on the topic: 

Fandom and fan activism are constructive when it is viewed and understood from an objective, unbiased perspective. Moreover, I personally think that fandom comes very close to being the perfect instrument in facilitating fights for social causes because as mentioned in my previous blog about social media’s role in the activism world, individuals with fame written in their résumé aka celebrities tend to make good symbols of movements because of their widely established identity.

These famous faces – the subject of fandom – who are already admired, respected and idolized by many make good leaders in uniting people among a socially diverse constituency to come together for a cause. They can easily serve as the guitar pick used to struck the emotional chord of their fans, the face of movements that activists have spent most of their life fighting for, and the key to reaching millions and millions of people that can be made aware of the rising social issues that they otherwise would remain ignorant about....that is, if these celebrities are willing to stand in the limelight and establish themselves as a true blue activist, just like good ol’ Mark Ruffalo.

So, to all famed people out there: stay informed, stay aware, be a Mark Ruffalo (minus the anger issues).

References

Jenkins, H 2006, ‘Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide’, NYU Press.

Jenkins, H & Shrestova, S 2012, ‘Up, up and away! The potential of fan activism’, Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 10.

When asked about blogs, millennials would say Blogger, Wix or Wordpress; Generation z may go on forever about Tumblr and its latest memes. We get it, today’s generation knows a lot about blogs. So, what are they? Geert Lovink (2011) considers blogs as the epitome of “productive contradiction between public and private” as they exist as “public journals”. Blogging 101 would have you know that blogs at their outset, involved individuals logging journals onto their personal “web logs” which coined the term “blog” (Duermyer 2018). Blogs could be explained as a personalized self-expression; an accessible technological extension for the personal home page; asynchronous; mainly public; have entries that are time-stamped and appear in reverse chronological order (Week 4, slide 8) and are predominantly used for ‘citizen journalism’ as they:

Generally focus on specific subject matters,

has an area for readers to comment or respond to posts,

an archive of previous blog posts,

allows visitor subscription and can be managed by software where many features are automatically created (Saddington 2010).

In another light, social network sites (SNS) are comprehended as web-based services allowing individuals to create a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system; articulate a list of other users who they share a connection with; and view and cross their list of connections and those made by others within the system (boyd & Ellison 2007). Majority of SNS participants primarily seek to communicate with people they have pre-existing social ties with rather than to network or befriend strangers (boyd & Ellison 2007). If one were to ask a teenager – the SNS-addicts of our generation – on what to expect when joining an SNS, they would tell you to start by setting up a public or private profile and working on your home feed,

From there, you acquire friends or followers, 

receive likes and comments from other users, 

and participate in groups and tags (Nations 2018). 

But what exactly differs blogs from SNS?

Their central but sometimes interrelated differences are that blogging generates content to be kept on the blog itself while SNS enables users’ engagement about content (Gussif 2014). SNS traffic also typically comes from user-to-user interaction while blog’s traffic mainly occurs from searches done by potential first-time readers (Collier 2016). Additionally, while SNS posts tend to be shallow in media richness, short in length and are less descriptive, blogs are generally flexible with word count and media content format though it is still not the best medium to host 10-paged articles (Scheidies 2013).

And so, we arrive at the climax of the discourse – is Tumblr a blog or SNS? 

I say both. Maybe a little more blog than SNS, but ultimately both.

Tumblr, as I understand it, is a hub for pictures of someone’s daily lives; amusing memes and gifs; art in the forms of drawings and writings; and porn. All of which, I believe, are personalized self-expressions. At Tumblr-signups, we set up a profile (both blogs and SNS require the creation a public or semi-public profile) then gain access to our dashboard (an accessible technological extension for the personal home page), customize our blog theme (similar to working on our home feed on SNS) and explore Tumblr to find blogs to follow (Moreau 2018). 

Once familiarized with the Tumblr mechanics, we start liking or re-blogging followed blogs’ asynchronous content that are time-stamped and appear in reverse chronological order (both blogs and SNS are asynchronous and have posts that are time-stamped and appear in that order), maybe even start posting our own blog content to receive likes, re-blogs, comments (an SNS activity), to gain “mutuals” or followers (similar to SNS’ articulation of a list of users to share a connection with; acquiring friends or followers), and interact with other users (blogs have ribbons for users to send messages, comment or respond to entries which have also been adopted by recent SNS). And like SNS, Tumblr incorporates tags/hashtags. 

Moreover, microblogging – a combination of blogging and instant messaging enabling users to generate short messages to be posted and shared with publics popularized by Twitter, a SNS (Nations 2018), have been adopted by Tumblr users, further blurring the lines between blog and SNS. Thus, it is safe to say that Tumblr of 2018 is part blog, part SNS. 

Be that as it may, Tumblr’s blogging origins remain indisputable as it fundamentally focuses on specific subject matters, has a properly organized archive of previous blog posts and can be managed by software that automatically creates blog features. It also emphasizes on content generation rather than the enablement of user engagements about content, has the most traffic from searches than user-to-user interaction and are flexible with entry length and content format.

References

boyd, dm & Ellison, NB 2007, ‘Social network sites: definition, history and scholarship’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 13, issue. 1.

Collier, M 2016, ‘The key difference between your blog and other social media channels that most companies miss’, MarkCollier.com, viewed 27 September 2018, <http://www.mackcollier.com/difference-your-blog-social-media-company/>.

Duermyer, R 2018, ‘What is blogging and why is it popular’?’, The Balance, viewed 27 September 2018, <https://www.thebalancesmb.com/blogging-what-is-it-1794405>.

Gussif, A 2014, ‘Blogging vs. social media: here’s the difference’, Gussif Marketing Group, viewed 27 September 2018, <http://www.gusiff.com/marketing-posts/blogging-vs-social-media-heres-difference/>.

Lovink, G 2011, ‘Networks without a cause: a critique of social media’, viewed 27 September 2018, <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254810120_Networks_Without_a_Cause_A_Critique_of_Social_Media>.

Moreau, E 2018, ‘How to use Tumblr for blogging and social networking’, Lifewire, viewed 28 September 2018, <https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-use-tumblr-4049305>.

Nations, D 2018, ‘What is microblogging?’, Lifewire, viewed 28 September 2018, <https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-microblogging-3486200>.

Nations, D 2018, ‘What is social networking?’, Lifewire, viewed 27 September 2018, <https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-social-networking-3486513>.

Saddington, J 2010, ‘What is a blog? What is a blogger? What is blogging?’, viewed 27 September 2018, <https://john.do/blog-blogger-blogging/>.

Scheidies, N 2013, ‘The 20 biggest benefits of blogging’, Income Diary, viewed 27 September 2018, <https://www.incomediary.com/biggest-blogging-benefits>.

So, this week we have started our discussion with 4th and last P in 4P’s that is product. Under which we have talked about the marketplace identity which can be established upon three pillars and they are brand, product and service. A brand is considered as most valuable intangible asset that a business has and due to that it has became a priority for marketing executives. The we defined brand and brand equity after which we have moved towards CBBE pyramid which consists of six elements and they are named as Consumer brand resonance, Consumer judgements, consumer feelings, brand performance, brand imagery and brand salience. In order to achieve brand identity, the company should achieve two things and they are brand salience and brand awareness. Brand positioning depends upon or you can say lean on two pillars termed as brand performance and brand imagery. Now talking about the brand response which depends upon consumer judgements and the consumer judgements has certain parameters upon which it can measured and they are Perceived quality, Credibility, Relevance and Superiority. Finally, the company builds a relationship with their consumers and this connection translates into Behavioural loyalty, Active engagement, Attitudinal attachment and brand advocacy. We also talked about sustainability and its importance while building and designing a strategy. After which we discussed about the four types of industrial product lines and they are given below: -

1.     Custom built product

2.     Custom designed product

3.     Industrial Service

4.     Catalog products

In last we discussed about the four dimensions of a market definition and they are Customer function dimension, Customer segment dimension, Value added system dimension and technological dimension. New products that should be developed should consist of new technology and feature and apart from this they should be new for market. Then we studied about the classes of consumers/customers and they are as follows Innovators, Visionary, Laggards, Skeptics, Conservatives and Pragmatists.

So, this week we have started our discussion with market driven organizations and things that they focus upon are take an outside view, customer centred and they have an ability to see and predict the trend of market. We also discussed about the various hierarchy of strategies and they are Corporate Strategy, Business level strategy and Functional Strategy. Now talking about the roles in strategic decision making are Responsible, Approve, Consult, Implement and Inform. Then we studied about value network it is basically a network which enrich and complement the organizations example of this are Swiggy genie (which is a courier service). After this we moved our discussion towards balanced scorecard it is used to examine and measure the performance of each unit of business and used by manager in order to know about progress and areas of improvements. It measures the score on four different parameters and they are Financial, Customer, Internal business, Learning and growth. IMC that is integrated marketing communication is basically an approach used for creating a unified and seamless brand experience for customers across both traditional and non-traditional channels. The elements of IMC are Advertising, Website, Sales promotion, personal selling, direct marketing and many others. Then we discussed examples of Infosys and TCS that how these two giants communicate their message to their customers and other peoples. So, Infosys communicated its message on a global way whereas TCS conveyed the same message on a country basis way. Now let’s discuss that why do companies communicate? Because they do performance marketing communication and Halo building communication. Then we studied about its process and the communication mix and after discussing we got to know that personal selling efforts and personal communication efforts plays an important role in generating sales for B2B marketing as these efforts’ accounts for 70% of sales in B2B marketing. In last we have discussed about various budgeting practices and they are as follows: -

1.     Percentage of anticipated sales

2.     Objective and task

3.     Affordable