APC.presentation.final

Understanding Social Media

by: Lucian Raymond BlagaYunki LeeNazzareno PetriniJose Rene Alvarez Ricardo

• The Dangers of Social Media• How to Protect Yourself on Social Media• Key Theories of Communication

Agenda

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• It is a great medium for interactivity and community building

• It can be used to judge other individual's credibility

• It offers us another facet into our “friends'” lives, as we may learn about them through their online history

Social Media Can Be Used Effectively

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• Marks the melding of a space-binding technology with the emerging time-binding culture that marks a shift in our society.

• Through social media, you can establish a pattern of online behaviour that others decode and interpret.


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• Your activity on social media builds a personal brand that lends you credibility and reinforces your social, professional, moral and community status.

• Having a digital footprint you can be proud of can help you get jobs, make friends build credibility.


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Despite all the great aforementioned aspects of social media, there are risks to consider, especially if you are not cautious or savvy.

These risks are both of a socialand technical (IT) nature.

Social Media Has Its Risks

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• You lose precious data, like pictures and documents, thanks to malware.

• Your computer may suffer damage (even physical).

• You risk spreading malware to your friends.

So What Can Go Wrong?

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• Your credentials and logins can get stolen.

• Your reputation may be tarnished.

• Your relationships can be harmed.

• Your identity can be compromised and stolen.

• Your financial accounts can be compromised.

• Your job or educational standing may come to an end.

• Your own safety can be

compromised

So What Can Go Really Wrong?

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• Everything that you post on social media (and the Internet in general) is permanent!

• Your data is stored on a series of servers located in the social network’s headquarters or data centres.

Data on the Internet Is Permanent

• The data that you share with your friends will also be stored in their browser’s cache.

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• Whether you post a picture, video or music file, or even a simple comment, you do not have full control over it.

• Data can be altered and used against you, then spread among hundreds, thousands or even millions of people.

You Are Not in Control of Your Data

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• Unless you really beef up your computer, network and account security, your data on social media can be intercepted by others.

• Even then, someone can just look over your shoulder and see your screen’s contents.

Online Privacy Has Limits

• What you post on social media can still be accessed with the correct hyperlinks.

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• Posting too much

• Venting and negativity

• Posting graphic, political, religious or controversial material

Risky Behaviours on Social Media

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• Posting pictures or videos with moments of impulsive behaviour, such as:o Drunken excesso Sexual experimentationo Drug takingo Embarrassing situations


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• Posting potential evidence of crimes in which you are involved, such as:o Thefto Assaulto Vandalism


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• All the previously mentioned risky behaviours can have a negative impact on your future career and relationships.

• Today, employers look up potential employees on social networks!

• Keep in mind that people on social media are generally strangers that can easily profit from your missteps.

People on Social Media Are Strangers

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• It is quite possible to keep your reputation intact, your identity safe and your data away from those that would use it against you

• You can protect yourself on social media!

• All you have to do is police your image and…

It Is Not All Doom and Gloom However

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• This one needs strong emphasis:

Only add people whom you met or whose accounts you verified to your social media!

Don’t “Friend” Strangers

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• Think several times before posting anything, especially if it is risqué material.

• And while at it, avoid over-posting and over-promoting.

• Avoid rants, venting and negative comments.

• Don’t post sexual, religious, political or graphic content.

Ways to Protect Yourself

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• Be aware of people taking photographs, videos or audio recordings of you, without your permission.

• Inform the photographer/videographer that you do not authorize publication of your image. Be assertive.

Protect Your Right to Privacy

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• It is best to avoid posting personal information altogether on social media. Some very common pieces of info revealed on social media are:o Your birthdayo Your address and phone numbero Your relatives (and even friends)o Your petso Education you attendedo Your workplaces (unless it’s LinkedIn)

Protect Your Sensitive Information

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• Be careful of being coaxed into compromising situations, especially when you attend parties, casinos, resorts or clubs

• Being under the influence of alcohol, drugs or just simply the music can lead to impulsive and unwise behaviour.

Avoid Compromising Situations

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• Never fight with anyone on social media.

• There are plenty of people, so called “trolls”, just eager to pick fights with you or harass you.

• If someone is harassing you on the Internet, just block and report them. Simple as that.

“Don’t feed the trolls”

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o Use really strong passwords (and perhaps a password manager).

o Secure your computers and network with firewalls, antivirus software and encryption.

o Avoid unsafe websites, short links and email attachments.o Be wary of “free” content. Nothing is truly free, there is

always a catch. A malware catch often.o Be careful with social media

“apps”.

Consider Your Computer’s Security

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• These days, social media sites feature security settings that let you control your privacy. Explore them!

• Also group your contacts.

• And always read EULAs before signing up social media sites.

Even More Technicalities

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• Well… it’s easy!

Just change your identity!

Or just use a fake identity online…

What If It Everything Goes Sour?

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• The average person believes that society is indeed affected by the media, while he or she is personally not.

• In fact, most people remain extremely interested in media effects and equally confused by them.

Key Theories of Communication

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• There are some key theories that explain the effects that media have both on societies and the people that inhabit them.

• Despite being posed as mass communication theories, they have also been applied to interpersonal and converging media.

Key Theories of Communication

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Harold Innis's primary contributions to the field of communications was to apply the dimensions of time and space to various media.

Harold Innis' Theory of Time/Space Binding Media

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• Time-binding media

Time-binding media include clay or stone tablets, hand-copied manuscripts on parchment or vellum and oral sources such as Homer's epic poems. These are intended to carry stories and messages that last for many generations, but tend to reach limited audiences.


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• Space-binding media

Space-binding media are more ephemeral. They include modern media such as radio, television, and mass circulation newspapers that convey information to many people over long distances, but have short exposure times. While time-binding media favour stability, community, tradition and religion, space-binding media facilitate rapid change, materialism, secularism and empire


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The Medium is the Message

The medium of communication is actually far more important to the receiver's interpretation of the message than the message content

for example...

Marshall McLuhan Theories

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“Hey, (insert name of desired friend) lets go to the movies.”

• If you asked face-to-face this message is perceived as personal and intimate

• This is because the medium of a face-to-face communication creates a feeling of immediacy and psychological intimacy

The Medium Is the Message

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• If you asked this by writing a note, it is slightly less personal than face-to-face but your handwriting makes it quite intimate and having the message physically makes it more impactful

• If you asked this by phone call the message would be perceived at as personal but not intimate

• If you asked this by way of text message it may give the impression that your being spontaneous and asking on a whim

• The overall idea being expressed here is that although it is the same message the medium by which it is sent gives it a different value

The Medium Is the Message

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The Tetrad

This is composed of the four laws of media; these laws can be expressed as questions.

The Tetrad

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1) What does a new media improve or enhance, make possible or accelerate?

2) When pushed to its limits, the new form will reverse to its original positive characteristics, what is the reverse potential of the new form?

The Tetrad

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3) What earlier action, form, or service is brought back into play? What older/obsolete form becomes an essential part of the new form?

4) What is pushed aside and made obsolete by the new form?

The Tetrad

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Consider the cell phone:•It enhances the voice•It reverses into an “invisible leash”•It retrieves cries of childhood. “Mom, Dad - I want attention NOW!.”•It throws the telephone booth in to obsolescence

McLuhan knew the internet would take us into a true ‘global village’. Also, the awareness electronic media brings us would be accompanied by a sense of responsibility.

The Tetrad

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•Hot Media

High definition or explicit, leaving very little tothe user’s imagination (like a textbook).

•Cold Media

Has the opposite tendency of hot media. They are allusive, and leave a lot to the usersimagination (like a comic book).

Hot vs Cold Media

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Connecting the Dots...

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• The social media aspect of this comic is a demonstration of both how social media brings us together and also how it can be potentially dangerous. The comic itself is an example of what McLuhan would call “Cool Media” in that it leaves much of the deciphering of its meaning to the observer themselves, and can have multiple meanings and applications.

• What meanings can you gather from the image? How can you relate it to the slides you have seen so far? (HINT: connect it with points starting from the BEGINNING of he presentation)


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• In the situation depicted, a potential danger to social media is outlined, as many people forget that really everyone has access to the information on social media and can use it to whatever ends, they so desire, good or bad.


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• How can you relate a situation like the one depicted, to a real life situation? (good or bad)

• It also touches upon McLuhan’s “Tetrad” in which the use of smartphones extend our nature as social beings.

• How is this an illustration of the “global village” ideal McLuhan outlined, when speaking of the internet?


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• It also touches on McLuhan’s idea that “the medium is the message”, in that the message itself is a positive satire used to shed light on the potentially negative effects of social media.

• The medium, a comic, it something that usually isn't taken for its informational content but its potential to amuse, however because the presentation is closely linked to a medium that we don’t consider threatening we are more open to admitting that the potential misuses of social media are just as adherent to the will of those who would use it as such, as it is adherent to those who would use it in an accepted fashion.


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“Historically, companies were able to control the information available about them through strategically placed press announcements and good public relations managers. Today, however, firms have been increasingly relegated to the sidelines as mere observers, having neither the knowledge nor the chance—or, sometimes, even the right—to alter publicly posted comments provided by their customers. Wikipedia, for example, expressly forbids the participation of firms in its online community.” (Haenlein Michael, M. Kaplan Andreas, pg 1, 2010)

“Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media” (Haenlein Michael, M. Kaplan Andreas)

What are some of the pro's and con's you can see in this quote?


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The article (that the quote from previous slides) is in itself a representation of “Hot Media” in that it provides an abundance of information that alludes little in the points it is making, and focuses more on the concrete facts of social media and its relation to large firms or companies. It also demonstrates the ability of the “global village” to monitor itself.

Why do you think that it would be important for the "global village" to take steps such as this?


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The importance of this article, although it goes on to outline how firms and other corporations can go about making use of social media, is that it underlines the potential a message can have in shaping public perception and the ability for the public to now disseminate that information for themselves. Before the internet, information presentation, which usually consisted of an information delivery system with a “Top-down” focus has shifted to a system where information can now come from the “grass-roots”.

What are some examples you can think of that are representations of the "Top-down" method of information, and who implored them?


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This is important because now, whoever does the work, has the ability to show it to the world potentially unaltered or twisted to fit the views of those releasing it in contrast to the “Top-down” method. The fact that firms cannot edit posts, or information online that relates to their respected corporate body allows ALL messages to be heard, and receive the same potential for exposure.

Why is this an important aspect of social media?


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A theory that posits that mass media has direct, powerful effects on their audiences. Like television, radio and paper media, early mass media is a one side communication.

Bullet Theory

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Bullet Theory

Traditional mass media has direct, powerful effects on their passive audiences. According to bullet theory, people who are watched, say, violent movies would become violent, and those who read ‘immoral’ comic books would become immoral.

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• The mass media operates in a two-step process, mostly in interaction with interpersonal communication.

• People hear a message over the radio (say an advertisement), then they discuss it with opinion leaders (friends, relatives). Depending on the feedback, these people would either support or avoid what the message contained (such as a product).

Two-Step Flow Theory

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The theory that mass media effect are part of a complex interaction. Opinion leaders have their own opinion leaders, who in turn have their own opinion leaders.

Multi-Step Flow Theory

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• They demonstrate the importance of interpersonal communication in the effects of mass communication.

• Mass media does not operate in a vacuum. Instead their effects are filtered on their way to the recipient through the reactions of others.

Flow Theories

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Individual Differences Theory

A theory that examines how mass media users with different characteristics are affected by media. Certain users are more susceptible to some types of media messages than are others.

Diffusion of Innovations Theory A theory that identifies five types of people with different degrees of willingness to accept new ideas from the media. R

Individual Differences Theory

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• Innovators are the first individuals to adopt an innovation.

• They are willing to take risks, youngest in age, have the highest social class, have great financial liquidity, are very social and have closest contact to scientific sources and interaction with other innovators.

• Risk tolerance has them adopting technologies which may ultimately fail. Financial resources help absorb these failures.

Innovators

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• These individuals have the highest degree of opinion leadership among the other adopter categories.

• Early adopters are typically younger in age, have a higher social status, have more financial lucidity, advanced education, and are more socially forward than late adopters.

• More discrete in adoption choices than innovators. Realize judicious choice of adoption will help them maintain central communication position

Early Adopters

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Early Majority

• Individuals in this category adopt an innovation after a varying degree of time.

• This time of adoption is significantly longer than the innovators and early adopters.

• Early Majority tend to be slower in the adoption process, have above average social status, contact with early adopters, and seldom hold positions of opinion leadership in a system

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• Individuals in this category will adopt an innovation after the average member of the society.

• These individuals approach an innovation with a high degree of skepticism and after the majority of society has adopted the innovation.

• Late Majority are typically skeptical about an innovation, have below average social status, very little financial lucidity, in contact with others in late majority and early majority, very little opinion leadership.

Late Majority

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• Unlike some of the previous categories, individuals in this category show little to no opinion leadership.

• These individuals typically have an aversion to change-agents and tend to be advanced in age.

• Laggards typically tend to be focused on "traditions", likely to have lowest social status, lowest financial fluidity, be oldest of all other adopters, in contact with only family and close friends.

Laggards

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Individual Difference Theory

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• Assumes that people can learn behaviour by observing others, especially those portrayed in Mass Media

• The theory also supports that viewing prosocial models can teach constructive behaviours

Social Learning Theory

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• The Bobo the clown experiment, ran by Albert Bandura, which depicted two videos. In one, where adults treated Bobo violently, the reaction was positive and the adult was “championed”, in the other the adult was scolded. They were shown to separate groups of children.

• Those who watched the ‘championed’ video had

higher aggressive behaviour than those who

watched the ‘scolding’ video.

• Boys seem to be more affected by violent media

and girls seem to be more influenced by body image

Media.

Social Learning Theory

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Cultivation Theory

• Theory that states that media distorts and shapes our perceptions of the world.

• Advanced by George Gerbner and his colleagues at University of Pennsylvania.

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Cultivation Theory

• Gerbner’s research showed that individuals who watched a lot of TV had a perception of the world as being less safe, and more violent than it really is.

• This helps explains why there is an increasing tolerance for violence in society.

• This desensitization to violence leads to people being less caring of the feelings and reactions of others

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Agenda-Setting Theory

• Donald Shaw and Maxwell McCombs formed this theory in the 1970s.

• It states that the media does not tell people what to think, but what to think about.

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• The amount of attention the media gives an issue affects how important the users view the issue to be.

• Basically the media might not change what you think, but it can change your perception of what is important.

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Cumulative Effects Theory

• This theory says that media messages are reinforced through repetition and have profound effects over time.

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Cumulative Effects Theory

• Essentially what this theory means is that the different media outlets pick specific themes and messages and they reinforce them slowly over time.

• There is also a bandwagon effect.

• Due to the fact that the media plays such a dominate role in our lives, the views gotten from the media become the views of our society.

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Spiral of Silence

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• This theory also describes a ‘spiral of silence’ that occurs when individuals with divergent views become reluctant to challenge the consensus offered by the media; people unconsciously form perceptions of the distribution of public opinion; if they feel as being part of the minority, they are less likely to express their opinions, while people in the majority will tend to speak out confidently.

• Stay safe on social media and protect your privacy.• Lots of theories to remember for the exam:

• Harold Innis: Theory of Time/Space Binding Media• Marsh McLuhan: The Medium is the Message, The

Tetrad, Hot vs Cold Media• Flow Theories• Individual Difference Theory• Social Learning Theory• Cultivation Theory• Agenda-Setting Theory• Cumulative Effects Theory

Conclusion

Any questions?

Thank you for your time. Hope you enjoyedour presentation…

and

Good luck on your exams!

Thank You

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