The Dark Side Of Social Media

In days long past a high school student could walk into a new school and pick the bullies within their first day.  The big kid poking fun at students two years younger than himself, or the group of girls looking down their noses at everyone they consider beneath themselves, which is usually… everyone.

However in today’s school yard much of the bullying takes place online, which mean…

1. It’s less visible to teachers or other authorities.

2. It doesn’t end when the bell rings.

3. It is stored forever and can be seen by a much wider audience.

Now, not to belittle what goes on at schools, because we all know the effect this cyber-bullying can and has had on young adults, but when you take this mentality out of the school yard to actual adults it’s possible to end up with something like the London street riots.

Social media played a major part in this uprising, as a mob mentality gripped the streets of London (Olenski 2011).  What set this apart from many other uprisings was that a lull in what was happening in the streets did not necessarily mean the mob had lost interest or moved on.  It had temporarily moved online where anger was redirected into more rioting.

Beyond the mob mentality, extremest groups use the internet to communicate and cause havoc, both online and offline.  With the ease and immediacy of online communication, these groups are able to run negative campaigns or to quickly organise illegal actions before authorities are able to get a wind of what is going on.  However at present it seems there is no active recruitment efforts by these groups and children are not being targeted (Ray & Marsh 2001).  It seems individuals generally make contact with these groups through forums and chat sites when contact is made through the internet.  

With all this going on, why don’t governments attempt to control it?  The problem is to control, or censor these incidents you need to censer the entire internet.  And without disregarding the magnitude of that undertaking, the other problem is this takes away an individuals online freedom.  Instead awareness needs to continue to be raised.  Websites such as StopCuberBullying are helping students to understand the realities they face and the potential issues with a large online footprint.

Individuals need to be aware allowing a free flow of information can provide huge benefits, but the same mediums that made Kony famous, or raised over $700 000 for a bullied Greek bus driver can also be used to harass fellow students and co-workers or spark mob mentality behaviour.

Olenski, S 2011, ‘The Dark Side Of Social Media’, Social Media Today, 15 August, viewed 11 February 2013, <http://socialmediatoday.com/steve-olenski/336775/dark-side-social-media>.

Ray, B & Marsh, G 2001, Recruitment By Extremest Groups On The Internet, First Monday, Vol 6, No 2, 5 February, viewed 11 February 2013, <http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/834/743>.

Taking Advantage Of Produsage

As a music producer I have had my work remixed, both with and without my consent.  I have also remixed others work, again, with or without consent.  This is the way of the music business and has been for a long time.  While it may seem to take control and potential profits away from the original artist more often than not artists are embracing this ability to share and are creating opportunities for other artists to create their own interpretations through remix competitions or just releasing individual parts of songs.  At it’s extreme the artist Beck recently released an album as just sheet music encouraging fans to upload their own interpretations of the tracks to youtube without even having heard the original tracks.

As this produsage branches out into other fields businesses could look at taking advantage of it.   Individuals could take photos, or create art within boundaries defined by a company to be included in a television commercial or ad campaigns can be designed in a way in which fans can interact and recreate the ad.  

As technology advance the ways in which interaction through editing can be achieved are becoming greater with a smaller barrier to entry.  While creating a viral campaign is not always straight forward, if a company is prepared to embrace produsage and interact with consumers there is a greater chance that an idea will spread.

Apologies for the lateness of this entry… I guess the internet doesn’t stop for illness.

Can Second Life Become Mainstream?

In 2007 Second Life was the darling of the social media landscape.  After IBM purchasing property in the online world and American Apparel opening the first Second Life shop newspapers and blogs devoted numerous columns to it’s current and future success.  In this year the number of people joining the site jumped from 450 000 to 4 million with many new shops from real world brands opening, however since then the interest has been steadily declining and if you visit the American Apparel store now within Second Life there is a big closed sign on the front window (Hansen 2009).

American Apparel in Second Life

Closed for business after just a year

What happened?  And why does marketing seem to be unsuccessful inside this social platform as opposed to Facebook and Twitter, which have become marketing mega giants?

According to Tateru Nino, one of the world’s leading experts on Second Life, the media built the platform up as something it wasn’t and was never meant to be (Marshall 2011).  Then when it failed to become this it was either savaged or shunned by the same channels who had built it up.  While it remains today the largest virtual world it cannot come close to rivalling Facebook and Twitter which boast 800 million and 175 million users respectively.

But let’s look more closely at Second Life itself.  While many experts claim the learning curve of setting up and understanding how to operate within Second Life is a turn off with numerous accounts being setup and very quickly abandoned.  Perhaps though there is a deeper problem here and rather than not understanding Second Life the general population (gamers excluded) don’t understand or accept sims.  Just have a look at fellow blogger Lisa Dooley’s post on the issue.  

While Facebook and Twitter are an extension of the user, creating a sim in these types of world is creating an alternate version of yourself.  People have been doing this for years, through dating sites and other websites, but unlike dating sites, it is not yet considered mainstream.  To make Second Life mainstream Tateru Nino says “Mainstream doesn’t mean most people use it.  It means most people don’t think it’s weird… iTunes? We thought that was weird. Now we don’t” (Marshall 2011).

So is it possible to make a world in which users create avatars and live a virtual life away from reality not weird to the mainstream? 

Society shunned the internet when it was first invented, Parisians shunned the eiffel tower when it was first built, even Melbourniourns have only accepted Federation Square inside the last few years.. So perhaps all Second Life needs is more time.  Then again, perhaps not everything is meant to be accepted and one life may be enough for most of us.

Hansen, L 2009, ‘What Happened To Second Life’, BBC News Magazine, 20 November, viewed 29 January 2013, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8367957.stm>.

Marshall, G 2011, ‘Whatever Happened To Second Life?’, Techradar, 30 September, viewed 29 January 2013, <http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/whatever-happened-to-second-life-1030314>.

Has WikiLeaks Become The Julian Assange Show?

While Bradley Manning faces ‘aiding the enemy’ charges, with the enemy being WikiLeaks, Julian Assange is sitting down for dinner with Lady Gaga.  At the same time a paywall put up on WikiLeaks in order to help fund court cases has been met with great hostility, especially from fellow hacktivism group Anonymous who lashed out at Mr Assange in a twitter discussion (Robles 2012).

This brings up the interesting issue of personality within activism.  What level of individuality is appropriate and what does it take for the public to become disenchanted with a good cause due to inconsistencies in the personalities running it?

If we take, for example the ‘Kony 2012’ campaign…

After releasing what became the most watched video in internet history and receiving over 20 million in donations and merchandise revenue, Invisible Children’s founder, Jason Russell had a meltdown on March 15^th in which he was detained by San Diego police.  While the public didn’t necessarily lose faith in the cause (to make Joseph Kony famous).  They did lose faith in the leaders of the movement resulting in it’s quick downward spiral.  On April 20 instead of waking to posters and stickers covering cities, the world woke to an almost embarrassed silence (Ferrier 2012). 

Similarly…

When WikiLeaks began publishing throughout 2010 and 2011 the name Julian Assange was much less known than the name WikiLeaks.  This allowed for the documents leaked to do all the talking and take centre stage.  Today though, Mr Assange has become a personality and the public opinion of him is shaping the public opinion of WikiLeaks.  These opinions spread quickly through social networks and blogs.  It’s much more fun to write about whether Mr Assange is guilty or not of charges brought against him, about his meetings with various celebrities, or his intentions to create a new political party than it is to explain the complexities and possible ramifications of various leaks.

With activists relying heavily on digital media to widely distribute their campaigns or leaks, it pays to understand how the group mentality of social media can be easily swayed.  Sports people are taught this from the moment they hire an agent and have become wary when posting to twitter or other social networks as backlash can be unrelenting.  While Julian Assange seems to have the public’s interest at heart in his use of social media to spread WikiLeaks some would argue there is too much of his own personality in the campaigns.  His personality may resonate with some, however WikiLeaks minus his intense personality seemed to resonate with most.

Beckett, C 2012, ‘Why Doesn’t Julian Assange Leave WikiLeaks?’, London School of Economics and Political Science, 24 August, viewed 21 January 2013, <http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2012/08/24/why-doesnt-julian-assange-leave-wikileaks/>.

Ferrier, A 2012, ‘Kony 2012: The Biggest Social Media Experiment In History Ends In Failure - So Why Is Nobody Talking About It?’, mUmBRELLA, 23 April, viewed 21 January 2013, <http://mumbrella.com.au/kony-2012-the-biggest-social-media-experiment-in-history-ends-in-failure-so-why-is-nobody-talking-about-it-86939>.

Robles, J 2012, ‘WikiLeaks and Anonymous: Will they kiss and make up?’, The Voice Of Russia, 19 October, viewed 20 January 2013, <http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_10_19/WikiLeaks-and-Anonymous-Will-they-kiss-and-make-up/>.

Respect For Politicians Easily Swayed By Social Media

As the saying goes; trust takes years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair.  

In the political arena of yesterday when a politician broke the public’s trust the party would convert to damage control, doing all they could to spin the event in a positive outlook for themselves.  This was generally one way traffic and could therefore manipulate the public without strong public opinion to counter it.  Not so anymore, social media has given the public a very loud and oftentimes boisterous voice with which to air their misgivings with political figures.  Nowadays trust is not just broken with an individual but with a large community and those individuals in the community are only a click away from the truth, or the opinion of others who have built up there own amount of trust within the community.

This means for today’s politician to remain relevant it is important to have a clear, concise overview of what they stand for and be able to stick to this path.  It is far too easy for the public to discover inconsistencies in an individuals promises and use social media to show this.  Opposing political parties use of this tactic has flooded websites like Facebook and Twitter with these shortcomings contributing to the cause of a lack of interest in politics today.  It seems the Australian public is becoming either dis-engaged or negative towards our politicians and their various campaigns (Keane 2012).

To counter this lack of interest and involvement politicians need to take a positive outlook when it comes to social media and use it to connect with communities.  Creating a static website is no longer a valid strategy and whatever forms of communication are used they need to be monitored (Howard 2012).  Web 2.0 has setup a system where the public expects to have there concerns addressed when they are raised within a social media context.  By answering the public through this medium and keeping a concise agenda a dedicated politician can earn the respect of the public themselves and hopefully separate themselves from the backstabbing and rumour mill that has caused this disconnect with public and politicians in the first place.

Howard, A 2012, Connecting With Communities, Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government, viewed 13 January 2013, <http://www.acelg.org.au/upload/documents/1345603527_Connecting_with_Communities_ANZSIG-ACELG_August_2012.pdf>

Keane, J 2012, Social Media Protects Democracy, The University of Sydney, viewed 12 January 2013, <http://what-matters.sydney.edu.au/topic/keeping-politics-honest-with-social-media>

Interesting Analysis Of Social Media In 2008 and 2012 Elections

Can Cute Cats Help Your Cause?

What do LOLcats and successful digital activism campaigns have in common?  

While the answer to this is unlikely to feature in any standup comedy routine it could be vital to the success or failure of your cause’s campaign.

Digital activism campaigns are more extensively taking advantage of the internet and how easy it is to spread an idea.  From Greenpeace and World Vision to more controversial political campaigns, these organisations are diversifying their message across multiple platforms.  Bur what happens when a government dislikes the message and tries to shut you down?

This is where promoting your campaigns on Facebook and the like can have huge advantages.  In 2008 Ethan Zuckerman began discussing his ‘cute cat theory’ which states activists should promote their campaigns in the same domain that people post pictures of cute cats.  Why?  Zuckerman claims most internet users use the net and social media for harmless activities.  One of the most popular of these being looking at or posting pictures of cute cats, turtles, or any other creature deemed potentially adorable.  Therefore for a repressive government to block your campaign on these websites they would also have to block access to the cute cat pictures potentially causing much more of an uproar than if they were just blocking your website or local network.  This allows potentially controversial campaigns to continue to exist without threat of closure by an authoritative organisation.

Shutting down a popular public platform can cause a much larger backlash than shutting down a smaller one which means while a website dedicated to a cause with an active community may be beneficial, by moving the discussion to a larger platform any chance of it being taken down is diminished.  A small community of passionate political supporters unfortunately will not cause as big an outcry as a worldwide community of cute cat lovers.

Combining this with social media’s sharing capacity and it seems very appropriate to build a campaign using these mediums.  A facebook page or youtube channel has the ability to greatly widen an audience, and the more people in your audience the more people may decide to involve themselves in change.  While social media is still very new, it is already becoming an increasingly popular tool for activism and one that can potentially change the world.

Heninger, N. (2011) Telex and Ethan Zuckerman's "Cute Cat Theory" of Internet Censorship. Freedom to Tinker, [blog] July 22, Available at: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/nadiah/telex-and-ethan-zuckermans-cute-cat-theory-internet-censorship/ [Accessed: 6 January 2013].

Kessler, S. (2009) Why Social Media Is Reinventing Activism. Mashable, [blog] October 10, Available at: http://mashable.com/2010/10/09/social-media-activism/ [Accessed: 6 January 2013].