Social Media...and Teaching & Learning

The sinking of the Saewol happened 4 days ago near Jindo in South Korea while high school students were going to go school trip. It attracts tons of people’s attention through social media such as Facebook and Twitter. All of the posts is about the accident. Here is summary of the event. One of Korean broadcasting stations misreports as that the whole victims are rescued, but it really is not. It causes incorrect information on social media for agitative purposes. IN MY OPINION, It shows heroism caused by social media in order to help them in a psychoanalysis perspective. The social media turns into a warfield for the facts in an instant. The parents of the victims insist that the broadcasting stations are lying that the government is supporting an emergency rescue right after the accident; it looks like they need no more assistance in the work of rescue. As a result, the parents ask people to share these facts through the social media.

On the other hand, some SNS users raise their voices of confusion; what information must they believe in? The lesson at this time, I learn that problems of social network/media, that is FACTICITY.

Today’s social media accommodate services in that people could access to news as much as news on search portal websites or from broadcasting organizations homepages. People get discernment and learn how to think critically and judge the truth.

Now, around 270 students and people are waiting for the rescue under the sea...PLEASE pray for them.

Social Media & Politics

Today, social media influences politics. The governments of Republicans and Democratic Party have accounts on various social media, and they convey their news through them. As a result, voters can find them and participate in discussion to argue their thoughts and opinions. Here is some examples. 

In the case of North Korea, for instance, the government could control the citizens by blocking social media, so that the nation could keep their politics.

On the other hand, in the middle of 20 century, there was another example. Media such as movies and film gave people messages which were authors' thoughts about politics although they were not based on the online network, and they were close to one-sided messages. For example, Russian films were about Soviet policies, and Italian movies were used to convey their political ideology.

People can be exposed by enormous influences of social media in that they can be watching what the governments do politically because today's technologies of social media has been more developed than the past. In addition to, they are double-way interactions or bilateral websites unlike the past ones.

The current social media shows not only the government's situations, but also voters' position/conditions. For example, broadcasters can collect information about pre-investigation and the exit poll. According to the exit poll, it sometimes influences people. In other words, proper using of social media could be a good strategy to affect voters' minds like Barak Obama's twitter which took a portion of the 2008 presidential election.

Social Network & Activism

I knew that activists point out people who participate in social/political events. I found also that Advocacy refer to people who support those issues. In that the terms are used for political incidents through social networks, they are often used interchangeably according to the organization called Dosomething. Today’s social networks encourage PC users to engage themselves in sharing social/political opinions. People can see easily governments’ accounts, social associations’ pages, and political organizations’ profiles on the SNS. They can also check what they’re doing in real-time. Like said before blog about the SNS’ functions, they serve countless and easy buttons: to reply, to like, to share, and to comment, and so on.

SNS users can gather the strength via online; it’s easy to turn into political tendencies/biases. For example, in the last year, I could see lots of comments seem to be pros and cons when I researched 2014 obligation of Obamacare. Replies about the Affordable Care Act can be activism and advocacy depending on their contents. Therefore, in order to avoid becoming online-rallies, they have to take care of business whenever share the view.

Crowdsourcing & Crowdfunding

Crowdsourcing refers to collecting information or building data base from crowd, that is, amateurs. Crowdfunding also means the money from them. Their advantages encourage people to make services and share its benefit. Like online communication or collaboration via the internet, individuals can offer unlimited creative ideas. For example, Wikipedia is one of the crowdsourcing. There’s another example. Most people already know flash-mop videos by amateur users can be enough to convey a message. It points out, however, some drawbacks such as that it lacks of expert’s information. In addition, it’s difficult to manage them.

Did you enjoy this 2014 Sochi Olympic a few days ago? It’s issued that Jamaican bobsledding team attached great importance to the participation rather than the result. How do Jamaicans who living in a nation in Africa play bobsledding even they couldn't experience the winter? The answer is crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. People watching the movie called Cool Runnings (1993) donate the fund over the world. Furthermore, according to Wikitree.co.kr, it says, “the cheering song for Jamaican team is played 1,000,000 for a week.” It added, “They could participate in Sochi Olympic by crowdfunding.” It gives people a lesson that there’s not impossible challenge although they’re not professionals. Who knows if they could win or coming 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic or someday? By crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, and collaboration through the online, people recognized that they could overcome a stereotype; Jamaica can’t play bobsledding.

Communication and Collaboration

Social network service (SNS) users could share information easier, faster, and being widely used more than the past because of its function such as ‘share’ button on Facebook and ‘retweet’ one on Twitter. Those functions develop communication among users. For example, most companies create their web pages on the SNS to serve their clients directly. SNS enterprises focus on how much comfortable to use their own services to interact with others. This point becomes a significant part of keeping users.

Let me give you another example. Most college students who have lots of group works need a space to discuss without others’ interruption. They’ll find and use a SNS that offers the good one. SNS’ functions for collaboration, after all, exceed ones for communication. However, there are still some propaganda contents on SNS. As SNS is based on individuals over the world, there are limitations to check all users’ posts, so that it’s risky to share personal stereotypes or incorrect information. SNS corporations’ role, therefore, should encourage users to cooperate with each other while checking unsound contents. Furthermore, whenever people use SNS to share their thought or work together, they need self-censorship in order to keep the sound environment with SNS’ functions.

User Generated Content - Is It Creative Thinking or Stereotype?

       User Generated Content (UGC) refers to media contents made by its users no matter who is professional about it or not. Therefore, they are more subjective and include personal stereotypes. For instance, when someone wants to buy a car, he/she will see other consumers’ reviews. He/she makes a decision depends on the reviews. However, they are non-experts, so that they might be in all probability that they don’t know law well, especially about the copyrights. They support their opinions with experts' report without considering copyright. They might think that it is okay because they use a little part of them to make their thoughts creatively. According to Larry, he says that the laws limit people’s creativity on the media. On the other hand, people use others’ digital contents without the permission in their own thoughts. I think that’s why we have to ask ourselves if it is proper. For example, I saw a content which is a remix of the Sochi 2014 Olympics report video and porn. In this case, I think UGC violates defamation with a corrupt image and personal prejudices/stereotypes. In addition to, Internet bullying, celebrities’ scandals, and rumors are also derived from UGC. 

        I think the main point is how people use UGC. On the good side, it’s enough to motivate people to think critically and logically. It offers a chance to see broad fields. In my opinion, one of the best solutions is that UGC reveals the source of citing. American college students learn how to cite authority in order to prevent to commit copyright and get credits.

Social Media & Relationship

Today, we use countless Social Network Services (SNS) such as Facebook and Twitter, and we can easily see thousands of 'Likes' or 'Favorites/Following' about the posts, even by people who 'I' don't know. In addition to, it makes users interact with people across the world. However, do SNS really play a role to keep an online relationship as much as an offline relationship? The online relationship has ambiguity of 'real' friends and just "SNS friend." As SNS goes commercialized,—companies let people share their promotions’ posts and events—it's difficult that users say their own thoughts/opinions. In other words, a personal 'space' is turned into spaces which are kept under guard from others. Social media are influencing relationship in that people who are behind a monitor have gradually no regards each other.

            On Facebook, 6-7 seconds funny videos are in fashion. Recently, I saw one of them, which deals with joking ethnicity between a White person and a Black man. I think not only this one fosters prejudice, but also other similar contents are still posted which make stereotypes. In order to prevent SNS from being out of control, we must keep in mind how to manage self-censorship.