West-Coast Learner

Author: vicstudent

Blog Post #7

March 7, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Identify the Risks and Benefits of engaging with a Public Audience in a Media Space

Engaging with a public audience using social media comes with many benefits and risks. In Jody Vance’s interview, she mentioned some of the benefits such as how social media helped her build trust, reliability and reputation with the public audience. Social media gave her an opportunity to network and build up her brand to make her more authentic and reputable to people as commentator. In Jody’s case, this helped her even receive a job offer where she was contacted through a private message. However, this does not apply to all occupations and professions. For example, lawyers and government official might have to be more careful because their social media posts might be probed more thoroughly. This was one of the risks that was mentioned Jody’s interview, where she mentioned that engaging with the public audience can help build up your reputation over long period of time but can crumble in a heartbeat due to one mistake. Moreover, another risk using social media for public engagement is that the connection formed might not be at a deep level unless you go out of your way to meet in real life.

How to best address negative replies and critiques reflective of your personal values and
employer social media policy?

Engaging with a public audience will mean that there will be possibility to receive negative feedback and critiques. When this happens, it is important to stay calm and reflect on your personal values. It is easy to loose your cool during these types of situation and engage with the critiques in a negative fashion. By reflecting upon your values, it is important to stand by them and back them up. However, if the critique is inappropriate then it is important to ignore or delete the comment if possible. Sometimes, your employer might require you to not argue with critiques in a manner that paint them in bad way. Users should also be careful deleting replies made by your followers because silencing a crowd can make them more upset and leave more negative messages. In Jody’s case, she mentioned that she received lot of criticism because she was a female in the sports reporting industry. However, she stayed by her personal values and push backed confidently.

How do notable individuals use social media? 

I want to give examples of some prominent athletes that use social media to not only promote their brands but also in the form of advocating for changes in their society. NBA player LeBron James is a good example where he would voice his concerns for racial inequality and police shootings in the United States. This shows that social media can be used more than just networking or building your brand but also advocate for positive change in your society.

References:

  1. Hirst, M. (2018). Navigating Social Journalism: A Handbook for Media Literacy and Citizen Journalism (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.4324/9781315401263
  2.  MILLER. (2021c, February 28). EDCI 338 – JODY VANCE. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgZOJgJkdyI

 

Blog Post #6

February 28, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Photo by dole777 on Unsplash

Community Engagement in Public Communications

Reading through chapter 4 has shown me that how social media have changed how people engage in advocacy and other community related engagement. This can be seen today how politicians and other celebrities goes out to social media platform such as Twitter and Facebook to advocate for change in our society. The shift from physical advocacy engagement to the online one has occurred in a time where social media gives you opportunity to connect with billions of people around the world. This means people can directly spread their message with their followers and help promote it widely if your followers share with others. In the interview with Markiel Simpson, he explained how he was able to reach out to his targeted audience by using Twitter. In Markiel Simpson’s case, he used his Twitter account solely for advocacy engagement and didn’t share any personal stories. This helped build up consistency and allowed users to follow him because they agreed with Simpson’s sentiment. Due to this, Simpson was successful in promoting black representation in school curriculum and build up a base that made this reform possible. Another important point Simpson made was that social media allows you to build up a network that wasn’t possible in the past. This network comes handy for advocating for changes in the community and helps organize events such as fundraisers to help raise money for the cause. Social media have allowed people who are not well represented in the community and are disenfranchised to have a voice that can be amplified and be heard by lot of people in their community. PLN amplifies this by having followers share the original message causing more people having access to the message. However, the ease of communication between people through social media have meant that more false information can be spread. Therefore, it’s important by the community to recognize what’s true and what’s false. Recently, we have seen that this can be dangerous which we saw in the storming of the United States Capitol. It is really important to distinguish between true and false information otherwise there can be consequences.

Personally, I believe PLN is a great way to raise awareness regarding multiple topics we face in our community. Topics such as climate change, racial inequality, social injustice and economic issues can be discussed in social media and raise awareness of these issues which lot of the people didn’t know much about.

Reference:

Clark, J., & Aufderheide, P. (2013). A New Vision for Public Media – Open, Dynamic, and Participatory. In J. Pooley, L. Taub-Pervizpour, & S. C. Jansen (Authors), Media and social justice (pp. 55-67). New York: Palgrave.

Miller, Jesse. “EDCI 338 – 2021 – 02 – 22 Markiel Simpson.” YouTube, 22 Feb. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCSpm1Lx8-A&feature=youtu.be.

Blog Post 2

January 31, 2021 / / 0 Comments

What is a Digital Identity?

A digital Identity can be described as a person’s online identity that consists of the person’s attribute and personal information. These set of data helps form an identity that can be shared online with other users. Information such as your favorite hobby, your background, information about your career and even a selfie can be used to create an online identity which leaves track of your data (Jawed). The users can decide the type of digital identity they want to create. For example, the user might choose to create a profile for professional networking such as in LinkedIn or create a profile where they want to connect with their friends and family such as in Facebook. The users can choose how they want to be portrayed online by sharing information that is relevant to the identity they want to create.

How do Personal versus Professional approaches to digital identity affect Social Media Use?

For social media users it is important to distinguish these approaches as misusing them can have consequences. For personal use, it is normal to share images and content that you feel comfortable to share among your friends or with your family. However, some of these information might be inappropriate for professional use and could jeopardize your career. For example, sharing political messages online might cause your boss to be upset or could affect your chances to be hired after an interview. If you are taking a personal approach, you might think more about your personal lifestyle outside your career and what you like to do as your hobby. You might want to share jokes or contents that you or your friends might find funny. For professional approach, you might post content that is only related to your career. Maybe you are a sports journalist and you only post information about professional sports or an immigration attorney who tweets information only about changes in immigration laws.

How do digital identities converge in networked publics?

Converging between different types of digital identities have become more common as social media’s influence and power have grown. Nowadays, it is more difficult to separate your professional identity with your personal identity as you tend to use same platform to connect with their friends and colleagues. This leaves sensitive personal information exposed to people in your professional networks. One of the drawbacks to this is that your digital identity might not be authentic to the people who view your profile (Spracklen). They might perceive you in a wrong manner. Sometimes, if you are lucky this perception can also have a positive impact on your colleagues or your boss. Therefore, it is important to keep track of these two identities.

Can a Digital Wallet provide trust in Networked Publics?

As technology keeps evolving, digital wallet have become a very important medium to do financial transactions, such as transferring money or online shopping. As it is becoming more common to use these tools to make digital transactions, more sensitive information is being utilized online which is at risk of being hacked. Identity theft is a big problem and can become a big issue for digital wallet users. However, if banks and government tries to protect the users, and the users are cautious when using digital wallet, then more trust can be built long term.

References

Jawed, Saira, et al. “Digital Professional Identity: Dear Internet! Who Am I?” Education for Health (Abingdon, England), vol. 32, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 33–35. EBSCOhost, doi:10.4103/efh.EfH_232_17.

Spracklen K. (2015) Identity-Making and Social Media. In: Digital Leisure, the Internet and Popular Culture. Leisure Studies in a Global Era. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137405876_6

Blog Post #1

January 24, 2021 / / 0 Comments

What does it mean network to use Social Media?

Networking through social media gives us the opportunity to build powerful connections and networks which are vital for our professional and personal lives. These networks formed in social media means that we can maintain and control them based on our personal preference and needs. According to Gutierrez, PLN is about sharing, learning and communicating with other people throughout the world without any restrictions such as time or physical presence requirement. This allows people to network and stay active with very little restrictions allowing them to build stronger connection than ever before. However, being active in social media means that there is a possibility for users to make wrong decisions on what to share and what to avoid (Boyd). This is why it is important for users to understand the risk of having our online data exposed and what consequences there might be if sensitive information is posted.

How are we motivated to participate in networked publics?

Personally, the biggest motivation for me to participate in networked publics is how seamless and easy it is to connect with others throughout the world. Sharing thoughts and ideas to the other side of the globe have given me the opportunity to learn stuff that I would have never learned and have given me motivation to pursue further with my learning. This process allowed me to understand other cultures, viewpoint and information that I would have never received if there was no social media. According to Gutierrez, PLN motivates people by participating in networked publics for learning new topics. I agree with the statement and the motivation is amplified by how easy it is to connect with others. Moreover, we can change our connections whenever we like if our interests changes (Brinke, Rajagopal and Van Bruggen).

What are the Risks and Rewards for Public Communication?

This have been a big topic recently regarding how safe our data is with the big social media companies. Due to how integrated social media have become to our lives, lot of our sensitive information is at risk to be misused. The privacy risk is a big issue that can prevent people from using social media. However, the rewards are plenty and if you are cautious on what you share, then the networks gained can be invaluable. It is important to note that we need to keep fighting to protect our privacy as allowing big social media companies act without consequences can lead to issues in the future.

References

Boyd, Danah. “Networked Privacy.” Surveillance & Society, 22nd December 2012. Web.

Kamakshi, Rajagopal et al. “Understanding personal learning networks: Their structure, content and the networking skills needed to optimally use them.” First Monday (2012). Web.

Gutierrez, Karla. What are Personal Learning Networks? 21st June 2016. 18th January 2021. Web.

Introduction

January 19, 2021 / / 2 Comments

Hello Everyone,

My name is Muhammad Haque  and I am a fourth year student in UVic currently studying Computer Science. I am currently living in Washington DC and taking online courses due to the pandemic. I am originally from Bangladesh but moved to the US when I was in High School. After graduation, my plan is to attend graduate school somewhere in North America to complete Masters in Computer Science. I transferred to UVic from George Mason University on 2018 to pursue BSc in Computer Science.

This course was recommended by one of my friend because I don’t enjoy using social media regularly and don’t maintain any large presence in any social media platform. For example, I use Facebook or Twitter maybe less than 5 times a month. I find that this is one area where I can improve on and help me in my future endeavors. Hopefully, this course will teach me more about social media and how to use it effectively.

Below is a picture of myself taking in front of the Washington Monument.

Picture of me in front of the Washington Monument

I wish everyone good luck and hopefully it will be a fun semester working together.

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