The Digital Sphere

Despite not hearing much about China’s social media landscape, it is undeniable that it holds a major presence in China and large importance on Chinese citizens. China’s major social media channel Qzone, has about 200 million – 300 shy off Facebook users in the US. China’s large social media presence influenced the largest e-commerce market in 2014, topping America’s 200-billion-dollar e-comm market. However, despite having a large social media presence and lots of social media users, China’s censorship laws have been responsible for inhibiting citizens access to information in past times. 

China is no stranger to strict online censorship. The Golden Shield Project (also known as ‘The Great Firewall of China’), originally implemented in 2000 began on the aim of creating a sophisticated database of all Chinese citizens personal information to improve the security of the nation. Since then, The Great Firewall of China and other censorship laws have seen that Facebook, Google, YouTube and other major social media channels to be blocked. 

Granted, this sort of censorship does seem harsh to an outsider, sitting at home reading this blog from their MacBook Air, whilst listening to music and Facebook open on another tab. But it’s not all bad for China, they still have social media that’s actually pretty sophisticated and stuff us westerners should actually be jealous of. Baidu, Weibo, WeChat, QQ and Youku are all social media platforms that are similar to western social media channels that offer 1 to 1 communication, content sharing and other means of communication. Qzone, a popular Chinese social media platform, allows users to modify their profiles with pretty colours and unique themes, making them stand out from other profiles. I don’t know about you, but this is pretty cool. China doesn’t have it so bad; they can still communicate with each other.

Our desire to game, to joke and to escape into a world that is different to our normal one is part of our nature. Gaming allows us to participate in something that is free, separate to the time and space of the normal word, has an uncertain result, governed by different rules or constrictions expected in the real world and is make believe. Subsequently, we find we are also participating in something that is unproductive. 

We tend game in a social manner, that is with other people, and this is called social gaming. Social gaming is a popular trend within the 21st century that involves people playing the same game together at the same time. Social gaming can take form in sports, chess and online games. Online games have taken off in the last few decades and has seen the evolution of popular gaming sites such as Fornite, COD and much more. EVE Online is an example of a popular online social game. EVE Online is what’s known as a 'massively multiplayer game', which means that hundreds or even thousands of users can take part in the same game world at any time. 

The concern for such games cannot be denied. Users spend thousands of dollars of real money converted into game currency to help improve their experience and skillset online. In January 2014, it was estimated that one of the most significant battles in EVE Online costed users $300,000 USD. 

As mentioned above, one of the main reason’s players play games is because of their rules. Rules allow people to be confined to a space that is different to what they would expect to find in the real world. As such, this is a great appeal for online gamers as the possibility to explore a new landscape of rules is open. Inadvertently, this also allows gamers to break rules and thus providing them with a feeling of rebellion that would also not end them up in real life jail. As such, we find that rules give users a new opportunity to explore a new reality and escape into it and therefore feeling freed by these rules. 

Social media has significantly increased our ability to access health information online and given us a way to connect with online health communities which helps strengthen our understanding of health. Social media has made it easier for public health messages and information to be spread to larger audiences. As such, this means that more and more people are increasingly looking to social media as a way of finding out about health information. 90% of older adults surveyed in America use social media platforms to find and share health information. Moreover, people find social media affordances such as podcasts, Facebook videos, blogs, YouTube videos, Facebook groups and Instagram health influencers are extremely effective at engaging with audience about health facts and information. 

One of a main benefits social media provides the health industry is its ability to filter out unreliable and false health information found throughout search engines. Ever go on google when you’re sick, type in your symptoms and it comes up with some ridiculous you’ve never even heard of before and pretty sure the word is not even from this universe?? Don’t worry, we all have and luckily for you, social media can help. The Dr Norman Swan podcast, ‘Health Report’, is a weekly podcast posted on the Dr Norman Swan website that “brings clarity to health and medical issues from social, scientific and political points of view”. Information from real doctors and proper health experts means there is more opportunity to find reliable health information online. 

Also, if I hadn’t mention already mentioned - social media MASSIVELY increases health campaigns exposure to the public. Health campaigns such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was heavily influenced by social media due to user participatio  by dumping a bucket of ice-cold water on their head. Additionally, many celebrities and public figures participated in the cause including Bill Gates, Kim Kardashian and Lebron James to name a few. Of which generates buzz and online conversation which leads to more awareness of the cause. Moreover, the heart foundation is another way in which social media increases our ability to access health campaigns. World Heart Day is a foundation which acts to reduce cardiovascular disease by 2025 and is led by individuals posting selfies of them doing physical activity or exercise on social media. The selfies are meant to encourage others on social media to be active and thus reduce cardiovascular disease among society. Additionally, celebrity television host Queen Latifah participated in World Heart Day and shared her experiences with cardiovascular health on social media. By doing so, Queen Latifah sent a clear message to her fans that she was a big supporter in the cause, encouraging others to come aboard and support the cause.

Crowdsourcing is the process of pulling individuals and groups of individuals together for the purpose of sharing information, resources, knowledge and beliefs about a particular subject, event, issue or situation. In a crisis situation, crowdsourcing is important as it can help people find safety, solitude and understanding about a key event or situation a time that suits them. Crowdsourcing in a time of a crisis involves the power of the internet and social media to virtually harness the power of individuals and bring them together in support of a disaster. Crowdsourcing (in a time of crisis) works by lots of people reporting on the crisis. These people reporting, usually live and work in the area and is it their job to bring you vital information that can save your life. The benefit of crowdsourcing on social media is that it doesn’t rely on traditional mediums such as television, radio or newspaper to get information across to people. Instead, it requires a mobile phone or tablet which can generally be accessed by everyone from anywhere at any time. Did you know, there is more access to mobile phones than there is access to toilets and clean water in any country in the world? So, if you are questioning social media’s ability to facilitate crowdsourcing, don’t, coz’ all you need is a mobile or tablet and I think we’ve got that covered. 

The 2010 Haiti earthquake is an example of how crowdsourcing was used to help save lives. Crowdsourcing during a crisis is also seen on Facebook through a feature available to users called ‘Community Help’. The feature allows people to give people affected to a natural disaster access to food, shelter and transport. With over 2.13 billion active monthly users, it is obvious why Facebook is a good platform for people to look for support following a crisis.

In the case of Ushahidi, a crowdsourcing software company founded after the events of the 2007 Kenya election, aims to provide its clients with recent, up-to-date and reliable information regarding crisis events or situations occurring in the area. Ushahidi focuses on giving people a voice for the people and providing more opportunity for those involved in decisions to listen and respond effectively in a time of crisis. Ushahidi ultimately wants to give people a real time pulse on the events unfolding that have a direct or indirect impact on their safety and wellbeing. Ushahidi has made it clear that they don’t wish to undermine humanitarian efforts in their practice, rather work with people in order to provide the best information possible in a time of crisis.

“All a troll wants is to inflict pain, ridicule, and humiliate a targeted person”. This is true for trolls, they are "people who deliberately provoke others online. By saying inflammatory and offensive things. They live to make people upset and angry” (Blog Hoot Suite)

According to CNET, there are 5 types of trolls that exist online today:

The first: Old-time Nobody The second: New service addict The third: Bar friend The fourth: The stranger The fifth: The ghost

As well as trolling, there is racism/derogatory comments and just plain anti-social behaviour. It happens on nearly all social media sites. No more than the case of Justine Sacco when she tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”. Shortly after, the hashtag started #HasJustineLandedYet because people were waiting for her to land and check her phone. When she did land, she wasn’t happy with what she found. There were so many comments made against her that she actually lost her job, in the space of the 9 hour flight to Africa. Someone was even waiting for to at the airport to take a photo of her to prove she had checked her phone and received the backlash (recode.Net.2019).

A recent tweet from Israel Folau making homophobic comments on Twitter. Folau received public backlash from these tweets and lost his rugby contract and now longer is part of rugby Australia. Recently, he defended the comments saying they reflect his christian beliefs. (https://twitter.com/izzyfolau)

On a different subject, after Adam Goodes got called an “ape” on national television, the former AFL star took to social media to speak out about his struggle about the comment. (ABC, 2013). This example shows how social media can be an opportunity for people to speak out about the things in society and life which affect them. “These cases demonstrate some of the affordances of social media sites in contexts of public conflict, including their ability to extend anti-racist publics beyond those present at the specific time and place of the racist act whilst also highlighting the ‘counter-provocative’ potential of these interactions”. (Social Media Conflict, 2015).

Whilst Sacco’s tweet was intended to be a harmless joke that didn’t take it’s intended effect, Folau was saying what he believes - and Goodes was speaking out about particular struggles that he copped at an AFL game. They are all are examples of online identity and of how these people are exercising the freedom to express themselves online.

In all of this, both racist tweets and trolls, the question lies - should these tweets and trolls not be allowed to be posted on social media? Should they be immediately removed before anyone sees them? Or should people have the right to post what they want?

A recent statement made by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said “I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators. By updating the rules for the internet, we can preserve what’s best about it — the freedom for people to express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things — while also protecting society from broader harms”.

It’s difficult to say if we should block every bad comment on social media, because online identity should be allowed and people should be able to say what they wish. There is definitely a fine line between what should be allowed and what should be closely regulated. However what is certain is that people should feel comfortable in saying what they feel online. 

References:

Social media nowadays has been seen to spread awareness about particular events or situations the public feel strongly about. In 2010, the ARAB Spring brought to light the many disappointing and corrupt things about the Tunisia Government and the general tension across the middle-east at the time. Having started by a man who “set himself on fire” because of a harassment claim that was never processed or looked at by his government, the Burning Man quickly become an internet sensation with online videos, photos and other content being shared quickly within the Tunsian region. The fire started because of Facebook videos being shared online and other people clicking and reacting to them. The moral of the story is that without Facebook these things would have never spread as fast as they did and the burning man would never have gotten the reaction out of the people he wanted.

Another example of this sub-activism, which is a term coined by Maria Bakardjievaa to describe “everyday political discussion and persuasion, which is increasingly conducted via social media”. So, sub-activism in 2019 are things like Facebook donation pages, Facebook discussion pages about politics and Twitter in general. Twitter is probably the largest source of political discussions found anywhere. Whilst the content on Twitter may not be as large and out there as lighting yourself on fire, you can still bet it can get pretty firing at times. The 2016 presidential debate between Hilary and Donal Trump got pretty firing at times with GIFs, memes and just nasty remarks being thrown at each left right and centre all over Twitter targeting both candidates. So, we know these sorts of activism like hash tag activism and sub-activism exist on Twitter but do they actually do anything? Critics question whether hashtag activism leads to real change as users are simply indicating that they care, rather than taking specific action to make a difference. Which leads us to the word “slacktivism”. You know those donation or charity pages on Facebook that people can like or donate money to? That’s an example of slacktivism. It’s when people like something on Facebook (for their own morality) but aren’t actually going to end up providing any time or money to help because they don’t really care about it.

Okay so now that we’ve gone through examples of activism and sub-activism on social media sites, now I will tell you about my favourite example of protest in the past. Will Connolly A.K.A. “Egg Boy”. One of the first things Will did and nobody seem to notice this was pull out his phone and start recording smashing his egg on Frasers head. This is one of the best things because it suggests that he is protected by social media because he knows he will get a reaction from people and that people will support him on social media. We are now seeing a barrier of protection from social media that provides people will comfort knowing that they can do something “naughty” and get away with it because social media will always be there to support you. This example of protest will always go down as one of my favourites because he pulled out his phone and started recording because he knew that people would join in with him without ever having to be there. This is protesting at it’s finest.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Bouazizi

Social media is now widely regarded as a tool for politicians to gain a lead upon their opposition, especially during election times. Social media, as we all know, can get words out very quickly. Which sometimes hasn’t always been a good thing for politicians. In January of 2018, Christopher Pyne announced on Twitter that the government would be spending money to make Australia one of the top ten global defence exporters within the next decade. After, a comment was made from a person from the Twittersphere saying this is an outrage and that Australia shouldn’t be spending money for “tools of death and destruction”. As we can see here, there is an immediate negative reaction to something happening inside government which could only be made possible through social media. The word gets out very quickly now with social media which makes it very easy for others to respond and grow a very negative opinion about something and get others on board too, which is most likely hated by politicians.

Whereas in the past, if Christopher Pyne wanted to announce something he would have had to explore other media alternatives such as tv or newspaper which gets things out much slower and as such public opinion is a slower process too.

As much as they probably hate the backlash they get from social media, it’s proven to not be all bad for politicians. In 2012, Barack Obama raised around $690 million through online donations including social media, email, and website donations for his campaign for precedency breaking the record for amount of money raised in a campaign, ever. So social media can be very beneficial for politicians if you are smart about it.

In talking about smarts, it’s pretty apparent that Mr Donald Trump has not been smart about his use with social media in the past. As most of us are aware, the 2016 election saw Donald Trump taking a different approach at winning over votes. The result of the scandal we can say that this is not a case of political success where a politician has used social media to one’s advantage. Whilst it did help him get elected, the fact that we are talking about a scandal involving DT means to say that Donald Trump was defiantly not carefully nor responsible in using social media during the 16 election.

Perhaps this was a great way to begin his time in office, starting off with a bang and using his one still greatest tool he uses for his job to get him the job in the first place. Yes, if there is anyone, we can say uses social media as well as anyone it’s Donald Trump. He is constantly trending on most social media sites including Twitter and he is now looked upon as a celebrity which is good for business.

My first Tumblr post we will be discussing whether Tumblr is a social media site or blog site. What first comes to mind when I think of this is what’s the difference? According to Walker Rettberg, J. (2013), blogs are “decentralized” websites that are “often running on their author’s own domains and connecting haphazardly to other blogs”. He continues by saying blogs are a more “implicit social network” with the idea of sharing other blogs to create more links to and from the website. On the other hand, social media is a more “centralized” website, using its own domain and sharing content connected back to the site. In this case, Tumblr is considered more a social media site because it uses the domain Tumblr.com.

Furthermore, Tumblr is set up like a social media website. The site lets users message others, get notifications and follow people who share similar interests. As such, Tumblr is here again considered a social media site than a blog website.

However, despite its domain and the structure of the site, Tumblr has blog-like features. But I’m not talking about “micro-blogging” Walker, Rettberg, J. (2013). I’m talking about real blogging; the way blogging used to be and was designed to be. Where blogging introduces “countless avenues to express one’s passions” Walker Rettberg, J. (2013).

Tumblr gives its users the option to communicate with their audience in a creative and self-expressive way with the use of images, GIFs, videos and other forms of media.

Moreover, they do this in a space that (for the most part) is free from hateful and nasty comments. One of the ways Tumblr separates itself as being another social media platforms is through the lack of importance it places on comments in blogs. In my opinion, comments can make people feel bad for what they believe. So by Tumblr creating an environment where comments are not the focus, leads people to feel safe to express themselves without coping criticism from others online and becoming shut-down. And in my opinion, this is allows for true blogging to happen.

There is a real lesson to be learnt from Tumblr. Not everybody is going to agree with you and what you post online. But it’s not your indifferences that make you creative or inspiring. No, in fact it’s your differences.