I’ve just finished reading Isoifidis & Nicoli (2019), Johnson (2018), Xu & Saxton (2018) and Rampersad & Althiyabi (2020) and let me tell you, I am shook!
Firstly, there’s this idea rolling around in my mind that:
the cycle of becoming more open and more progressive as a society has
spurned the creation of and an increase in our social media use and platforms which have been
subverted by deliberate misinformation, ‘deep fake’ propaganda and advertising, scams and attempts to steal identities and fraud, which in turn has
created or strengthened a ‘populist culture‘ who are disconnected from real-life human connections in their personal lives and who
find connections in and devotedly follow misinformation groups like ‘QAnon‘ (or perhaps the ‘MAGA‘ supporters) and who then
do wildly subversive things like commit domestic terrorist acts of violence and insurrection at the American capital and similar acts all over the world,
followed by claims that the ‘Black Lives Matter’ or ‘Antifa‘ groups were responsible for actions from what were clearly ‘QAnon’ or ‘MAGA’ supporters. (And why am I using the word ‘supporters’ rather than ‘fanatics?’ I want to be impartial. Yet, we are not discussing sporting teams, but more the socially de-railed and disenfranchised).
In fact, just typing the misinformation groups into this post sends shivers up my spine and I am at a loss at how to help solve what has become a terrible global situation. The Iosifidis & Nicoli (2019) research was particularly prophetic, pointing out that social media platforms would not be able to do the culling of misinformation and violent / violence promoting groups or individuals and that governments will need to step in to legislate means to protect the majority from these sorts of acts of the minority. Yet, if governments step in, they will try to control the information to suit their own ends. They will try to propagate their own power and profit, we know enough about history to know this to be true.
It’s a sticky situation! And just like I was glad that I was taking Digital Citizenship during the COVID outbreak, so too am I glad that I am taking INF506 in the social media outbreak of 2021! I am definitely going to include discussions on building relationships offline, how to build information literacy skills and how to use social media in a healthy way into my library lessons in the future.
References
Iosifidis, P., & Nicoli, N. (2019). The battle to end fake news: A qualitative content analysis of Facebook announcements on how it combats disinformation. International Communication Gazette, 82(1), 60-81. doi: 10.1177/1748048519880729
Johnson, B. (2018). Archiving Al Qaeda- The role of libraries in protecting free speech and open systems. Computers in Libraries, 38(7), 22-25.
Rampersad, G., & Althiyabi, T. (2020). Fake news- Acceptance by demographics and culture on social media. Journal of Information Technology & Politics,17(1), 1-11. doi: https-//doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2019.1686676
Xu, W., & Saxton, G. D. (2018). Does stakeholder engagement pay off on social media? A social capital perspective. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 48(1), 28-49. doi:10.1177/0899764018791267
OLJ task 1: Social Media and Society – Journal Article Analysis
Self Esteem and Social Media, a Reflection:
I’ve selected the article by Lavrence & Cambre (2020) because it (and a few other of the articles provided) brings up another issue (in addition to those I mentioned in my previous post – not part of this assessment) with social media use: self esteem. The world of online interaction is a reflection of our 3 dimensional ‘real’ world, but it isn’t itself particularly ‘real.’ There has been a lot of research behind the use of magazines and their impact on the self esteems of various people. Men, young men, women, and just people in general. It makes sense therefore for the content to remain influential, despite the mode of delivery changing from printed magazines to electronic forms and social media.
Just as history has been written by the winners and images have been photoshopped and filtered, so too should we expect social media to be rife with filters and propaganda style imagery. To pretend that social media is responsible for the concepts of “raced, gendered, classed, aged, abled” information belies the historical examples of these issues in our society. The only thing that has changed is the mode of delivery and as educators we must help our students be aware of these issues so that they can identify them and discredit or stand up to them where necessary.
I particularly liked the phrase: “(we must) recast validation for appearance as a primary source of female empowerment through ideologies of online visibility” (Lavrence & Cambre, 2020, p.3). In terms of editing ‘selfies,’ I personally find them empowering. I occasionally play with the filters and then take a ‘real’ (unfiltered) photo in order to ground myself. I can generally tell when I need to get more sleep or apply creams to my skin or frizz gel to my hair from these experiences but don’t particularly notice my esteem changing. Nor do I notice my esteem changing when I see digitally enhanced images on the internet. Celeste Barber is a great master at this as well on Instagram – often copying ‘fake’ videos and images with more realistic versions. We still need validation for our appearance, we still need empowerment and we need to recognise different ideologies of online visibility, and we can still do these things with ‘selfies.’
I had not heard of ‘rinsta’ and ‘finsta’ but the concepts are interesting. I like to change photos sometimes because the normal camera filter does not represent the true beauty that I felt in that moment. Sometimes it is a selfie and sometimes it is a sunset. I consider these slightly edited images real, even though I also use the #nofilter on those occasions were the original represented near perfect reality. I think it is important to help our students develop their ‘digital forensic gaze’ (Lavrence & Cambre, 2020, p.11) to help them maintain a more stable self-esteem, particularly those who identify as cis-women, but as we’ve seen in the magazine era, not limited to cis-women.
Introduction to Social Media – Reflection on INF506 Module 1
Is social media good for us, or do we perceive it to be bad based on (possibly) outdated perceptions of healthy interaction?
I’m no stranger to social media. I have accounts on all of the top platforms, although I find Twitter a more boring version of Facebook and rarely check it) and even have my own Facebook group (#teacherswhoknowme). I am, in fact, questioning the benefits given the amount of time I spend on it instead of doing other, more traditionally ‘productive’ activities.
Yet, growing up, I was addicted to reading. I thought nothing of spending entire days in bed reading a stack of books that I checked out from the library, or later in my teens, books I’d bought in used bookstores. I even had a best friend who shared my love of reading and we’d chill in her room for entire weekends reading or going to bookstores and libraries. It seems a weird thing to do now but at the time, it never occurred to us. It probably saved us from the pursuits of boredom that impact teen behaviour today. (e.g. We weren’t hanging out at the shopping mall, smoking cigarettes or creating graffiti, etc).
Furthermore, my brother and I grew up playing outside a lot, as typical in the childhoods of the 1980’s and prior, but I remember when we moved in to live with my dad that my step mother lamented that we spent too much time on the sofa watching TV. What they did not take into account was our ‘social capital’ (Lampe, 2015) had changed. We no longer felt confident to roam outside freely and we preferred to stick together in our new environment. Similarly, the social capital of today’s youth has changed.
Nothing remains static in this world, why should socialising methods? Apart from the need for our society to increase their levels of physical activity to negate the health impacts of a sedentary lifestyle, why shouldn’t we be able to socialise primarily via diverse social media platforms, spending‘time and effort’ building friendships in this environment, particularly if ‘communication of all forms builds relationships’ (Lampe, 2015).
This reminds me of the readings on ‘participatory culture’ / 21st century learning skills.
Another change to society is that social media allows us to have more ‘weak ties’ (Lampe, 2015) with a larger amount of people, building the amount of information to which we have access makes collaboration easier, and improves access to information for those who may have limited access in their physical environments.
Yes, I probably spend ‘too much’ time on Facebook. And I can definitely say that this is related to the stress I feel on particular days, living in a new house that needs renovating in a new town with my children increasingly occupied in their own pursuits and my husband having to commute and spending more time at work. I need the connection and I need it to be familiar. I just need to remember to have a healthy work – life balance!
(Note: Some colleagues don’t like to use Facebook / social media for work purposes as it has the potential to cross over their work – life balance)
Social Media and Education
Akcaoglu & Bowman (2016, 2.1) are spot on when they say that the use of Facebook by educators creates “more interest in and perceive(d) more value in course content, (with students feeling) closer to the course and perceive(d) their instructors as more involved.” [However it is important to note that if I try to utilise Facebook in a primary school setting, it will not be for the use of my students as they are all ‘under age’ by the terms and conditions created by Facebook (and Instagram, etc) and I will therefore have to be creative in enabling global connections for my students.]
Personally, I am glad to not have to use the discussion forums anymore as the students waffle on. With Facebook, we are all used to ‘soundbites’ or snippets of information, scrolling on when we see long posts so I’m hopeful the waffling will be minimal with this course. (Save the waffling for your blog, I say!)
I am also reminded of the readings from Digital Citizenship, where we need to use 21st Century Learning devices for 21st Century learners…
Social media influence and misinformation
Gruzd, Wellman & Mai (2017) offer important points regarding social media, in terms of its influence and misinformation. Advertising (influence) is difficult to spot – in fact, individual people advertise on social media often just as well as corporations – and do so without cost to themselves. YouTube and Instagram have become renown for their social media ‘influencers’ (people who make a living using their personal social media platforms as advertising on behalf of larger corporations and even governments or those with political agendas). ‘Alternative facts’ or misinformation (lies – as I prefer to call them) are now as rife as hidden advertisements on TV, junk mail in the post and spam emails once were. As educators, we must help our students recognise these traits and use social media responsibly!
Lavrence, C., & Cambre, C. (2020). “Do I Look Like My Selfie?”: Filters and the Digital-Forensic Gaze. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120955182
