Week 2

Week 2 question

Choose at least two out of the six of the following terms of reference to make further comments about the site you have been reviewing and the services it offers:

·   Trustworthiness of the site

·   Reputations of members

·   Ownership of content

·   Moderation of risks

·   Management of content

·   User interface and customisation.

Once again use screen captures and your own words to document and interpret what you see. Note that if you do copy statements or policies from a web site these must be in quotation marks and the source URL referenced.

With screen captures, make sure you note the URL where you sourced the image and, the date viewed, as part of your caption.  Greater marks will be awarded for appropriately using and referencing the textbook.

This week I have decided to discuss the social network site Instagram and the way in which the site moderates the risks face by users and the trustworthiness of the site. 

http://instagram.com, viewed 28th July 2016. 

With social network sites being a relatively new phenomenon, the privacy and security of such sites is a significant and complex issue (Hinton & Hjorth 2013, p.49). The way in which a site handles the information presented to them by users reflects on the trustworthiness of the site. Instagram offers variety of control options to users. Through personal settings, Instagram allows users the option of revoking third party access to their information. Instagram also allows the user control over who sees your photos and whether or not you share them on third party sites. This is all stated in a transparent manner in the site's privacy policy. Appeal, usability and trustworthiness all add to the reputation of a site (Holmes 2016, p.10). Instagram has a simple appealing layout and is very user friendly. In my experience I have found Instagram easy to use and have had no experience with technical errors. The policies in place and the transparency with which they are presented add to the overall quality and trustworthiness of the site. 

https://www.instagram.com/about/legal/privacy/, viewed 29th July 2016.

It is also an expectation of a SNS that the site moderates the risks faced by users. Instagram has several terms and conditions in place to aid in the moderation of risks. You must be over the age of thirteen to activate an account, you are not allowed to create an account for anyone other than yourself, lewd photos, discrimination, cyber bullying and spam are all prohibited and Instagram retains the right to terminate you access at any stage if it is deemed that there has been a violation in your terms and conditions. This is all outlined transparently under basic terms. 

https://help.instagram.com/478745558852511, viewed 28th July 2016. 

Social network sites can be both one-directional (fans or followers) or bi-directional sites;sites which require confirmation of a connection from both users (Boyd & Ellison, 2007 n.p.). While Instagram is for the most part a one-directional site with people 'following' each other, it offers users a privacy setting that allows their interactions to become bi-directional. I believe this is another way in which the site allows users to moderate their risks. 

Overall based on my interactions with Instagram and the readings that I have been presented with in this course, I find Instagram to be a trustworthy site that I feel moderates the risks faced by it's users. 

References:
Boyd, D.M, & Ellison, N.B 2007, Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), pp 210-230. 

Hinton, S & Hjorth, L 2013, Understanding Social Media, Sage Publications, London. 

Holmes A 2016, Week 2: Building community online, course notes, DGTL12002: Understanding Social Media, CQUniversity e-courses, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au 

Week 6 Social Graph

Week 6 question

Personal comment about the advantages and risks involved in social graph technologies

What are the implications for you and your privacy, with respect your own personal data and the integration of it by Social Graph technology in Facebook and other sites ?

As a post to your blog, labeled 'Week 6 Social Graph', discuss these issues. Using readings from this week and other items you may have researched for yourself about 'Social Graphs', Discuss the pros and cons of this kind of personal data interlinking.

Minimum 125 words - Maximum 500 words

The Facebook Graph API is Social Graph technology that represents people and their connections to everything. Axon (2010, n.p.) explains that the Social Graph allows sites and other applications to share information about users in order to tailor their experience to each users interests. This means that whenever you connect to a site via your Facebook feed, any personal information that you have made publicly accessible on Facebook can be accessed by the third party site. 

The major pro to technology such as the Social Graph is of course increase connectivity and the ease of which users can traverse the links or relationships between users and sites. 

In terms of my personal data and the integration of it by Social Graph technology, previously I would not have thought that I could be very susceptible to the interlinking of personal data. My Facebook profile is set to the highest privacy setting and therefore I had thought that I had limited the access to my personal information. However after researching the Social Graph, I think that most people would be unwittingly revealing a lot about themselves. Every linked clicked on can provide connections and personal data through the Social Graph. Through 'liking' various posts that pop up on your feed or being tagged at a location or in a post, users are revealing facts about themselves without even realizing the data can be manipulated. I have been surprise to learn just how easily data can be accessed and I think the design of the Social Graph makes it difficult to keep track of the information you are publishing to it. This is to me the biggest con of the technology, the limited control afforded to users over the tracking and publishing of their personal data. As Fox-Brewster (2016, n.p.) points out the Social Graph limits ability to extract oneself from the hugely searchable network, even after an account is deleted, Facebook still keeps personal information for 90 days, or even control your role within it. 

References:

Axon, S 2010, Facebook's Open Graph personalizes the Web, http://mashable.com/2010/04/21/facebook-open-graph/#LuS28XCJR5qW, viewed Monday 29th August 2016. 

Fox-Brewster, T 2016, Facebook is playing games with your privacy and there is nothing you can do about it, 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/06/29/facebook-location-tracking-friend-games/#3566f7d63348, viewed Monday 29th August 2016. 

Week 5

Create and publish a blog post showing a site of significance to you via Google Maps. Do not publish your home address. If you are adventurous you could even document a trail of some sort. Embed the map in your blog or a post a link to a Google map for your week 5 blog post. There is information on how to do this in the week 5 tutorial instructions.    

Lake Maraboon or Fairbairn Dam located south-west of Emerald in Central Queensland (Sunwater, n.d.).

It a sight of personal significance, as I lived in Emerald for three years before relocating to Toowoomba this year. The Fairbairn Dam was a spot where you could enjoy relaxing extracurricular activities and watch a beautiful sunset.

http://www.queensland.com/en-us/attraction/fairbairn-dam-lake-maraboon, viewed  16th August 2016.

 Visitors to Fairbairn Dam can participate in boating, skiing and other water activities, fishing or enjoy a BBQ at one of the several facilities provided.

Fairbairn Dam is 19 kms from the Emerald CBD and 59kms from Springsure.

Please click to expand the map provided above.

For more details on Google Map API, click here.

References:
Sunwater n.d., Welcome to Fairbairn Dam, viewed 15th August 2016,
http://www.sunwater.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/14695/Fairbairn-Dam-visitor-info.pdf

Week 5

Week 5 question

For this exercise you must:

 Research and find out some information on what the Google Maps API is and then explain this in your blog post (referencing your sources by linking to them).

According to Google (developer.google.com/maps), Google Maps API is "a popular and powerful mapping API that provides a wide range of services and utilities for data utilization, map manipulation, directions and more". Essentially it a application programming interface that enables you to display and customize maps on your website (w3schools.com). It is customized for smart phones and the embed code is easily found and inserted into a website.

References:

Google Maps API, https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/tutorials/ 

w3schools.com, http://www.w3schools.com/googleapi/

Week 4

Week 4 question

Referring either to one of Aaron Koblin’s projects from exercise 4.1 above, the “one frame of fame” website linked below, or another you know of that employs crowdsourcing, briefly discuss whether or not you think it is innovative in terms of social media, produsage and crowdsourcing. Refer to concepts introduced this week in the text book, the lecture and course resources. Be sure to provide a link to the site you are writing about in your blog. Also make use of an image if possible. With screen captures, make sure you note the URL where you sourced the image and, the date viewed, as part of your caption.

URL: http://www.thejohnnycashproject.com/# 

As suggested by Hinton & Hjorth 2013, p.62, crowdsourcing focuses on the utilization of users as a group working together to produce materials. The website, The Johnny Cash Project, is a crowdsourcing site that asks users to produce and submit a portrait of the legendary Johnny Cash. The site then uses portraits to produce video content. The website employs crowdsourcing as a way to produce content rather than to offer a solution to a problem. As the sites says, "As people all over the world contribute, the project will continue to evolve and grow one frame at a time".

http://www.thejohnnycashproject.com/#, viewed 9th August 2016.

The site offers a unique take on paying homage to a popular icon. However in terms of types of innovation, if we look at the internet as the organisation, this site is merely a product modification of sites that we have seen before (Holmes A 2016, p.4). User generated picture content and video compliations is not a new concept to the internet and while this site does offer unique take, by degrees of innovation, it is hardly a major one.

The Bruns coined definition 'produser' (Hinton & Hjorth 2013, p.59) is in play here as the users of the site are also the producers of the content. The site is also not particularly innovative in terms of 'produsage' as websites that rely nearly entirely on user-generated content, such as YouTube and Facebook, are not new ideas.

Overall in my opinion, The Johnny Cash Project, is a very cool website however not an overly innovative one.

References:
Hinton, S & Hjorth, L 2013, Understanding Social Media, Sage Publications, London. 


Holmes, A 2016, Week 4: Innovation and collective creativity, course notes, DGTL12002: Understanding Social Media, CQUniversity e-courses, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au 

Week 3

Week 3 question

In 2009 CumminsNitro, a Brisbane-based advertising agency, won multiple awards across the international media landscape for their groundbreaking campaign for Tourism Queensland: Best Job in the World. The campaign was unique in the way it harnessed traditional media advertising (positions vacant advertising) and linked this with various kinds of social media interactivity. Through inviting video applications the campaign utilised what Bruns calls “produsage” and others have called “crowdsourcing”. It also made sophisticated use of the viral connectivity that can result from online social networking. Then, once the social media success became newsworthy, the campaign also benefitted from the traditional current affairs media attention, amplifying the overall impact and effect.

This campaign formula was so successful that it has been expanded recently to include other states, each with their own tourism ‘caretaker’.  

Visit the links provided and discuss in your tutorial group or online. Write a review analysing the types of interactivity that the campaign engaged.

Once again use screen captures and your own words to document and interpret what you see. Note that if you do copy statements from a web site these must be in quotation marks and the source URL referenced.

With screen captures, make sure you note the URL where you sourced the image and, the date viewed, as part of your caption.

Minimum 125 words – Maximum 500 words

https://vimeo.com/5456947, viewed 5th August 2016

The "Best Job in the World' was an advertising campaign that successfully amalgamated traditional media and online social networking. The campaign utilised various types of interactivity to achieve a viral advertising campaign that, as stated above, generated 8 million website visits and over $US 150 million in media coverage.

Interaction as a product was the building block for this campaign. The campaign started with advertisements being placed in newspapers around the world. This lead to users logging onto the website specified and generated the initial interactivity between people and computers.

The campaign included interaction as a process in the form of interaction between people through mediated channels. This was when the message was spread through traditional media, when the message was delivered to people via a newsreader. The message was also shared across the web via a number of platforms. The success of the campaign also resulted in face to face interactivity with participants meeting each other and press conferences being held.

As Holmes (2016, p.10) states, 'many contemporary social networking sites that have demonstrated remarkable growth are those which encourage participants to create, contribute and share media'. So perhaps some of the success of the Best Job in the World campaign can be attributed to the fact that it encouraged user generated content in the form of video applications. The campaign encouraged users to participate and also made videos available for people to share.

References:

Holmes, A 2016, Week 3: Interactivity, course notes, DGTL12002: Understanding Social Media, CQUniversity e-courses, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au 

Week 1

Choose a social media site that you are a member of and say why you engage with it and what you get out of it. If you are not a member of any site, choose one to observe and answer the same question regarding the activities that you observe – or, you may choose to say why you do not normally engage with social media. You are encouraged to use your answers to exercise 1.3 to frame your response.

Instagram is a social media site that I engage with on a regular basis. In the six families of Fred Cavazza’s ‘Social Media Landscape’, Instagram falls under ‘sharing’ (Holmes 2016, p.15). The site exists as a platform that allows user to share snippets of their lives through pictures and more recently short videos. 

Instagram gives users the chance to create an online presence through pictures and videos. I personally use the site as a way to keep up to date with friends and family as well as to follow celebrities, brands and personalities. It is an example I believe of what Yochai Benkler was talking about when he said that social media sites allowed for "a thickening of pre-existing relations with family, friends and neighbours, particularly those who were not easily reachable in  the pre-Internet-mediated society" (Holmes 2016, p.3). Through Instagram, I am afforded a glimpse into the activities of people's lives in a way that I did not have prior. I also enjoy that my feed consists only of pictures and videos posted by other users and is not cluttered by other links/advertisements etc. in the same way that my Facebook feed is. I enjoy that I can curate my own feed to a certain extent through choosing who I follow and who I ignore. 

I am more a passive user of Instagram. I enjoy scrolling through my feed several times a day but only upload my own content rarely. Through observing my relationship with this social media site, I have found that I mostly engage with Instagram as a way to 'keep up' with what other people are doing.


References:

Holmes, A 2016, Week 1: Social Media topical introduction, course notes, DGTL12002: Understanding Social Media, CQUniversity e-courses, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au