21540_Ruth

MAIIC student, city dweller, nomad, festival fan.

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540_Becky @20541_Mary The pressures on young people to present themselves on social media seem intense. Glad you are looking out for your son, Becky. It's great that he is dancing!

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

Dean places ideology at the centre of her views on the net, saying "publicity is the ideology of technoculture" (p.101). Do you agree that our interactions online have taken on aspects of publicity or public relations? If so, how does that affect politics and democracy?

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540_Becky Dean says (p.104) "nearly every item that enters the media stream has been tested, focus-grouped, prodded, and shaped to meet with, if not broad approval, then at least niche acceptance". I think this affects both personal and political expression. It doesn't seem very freeing.

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540_marion @21540Marni @21540Kathryn Yes. This was the thrust of my tweet about new ways of sharing and co-creating knowledge. We've been talking lots about tech concerns (all legitimate) but there's also public modes of interaction online that weren't possible before. The exploratory nature of it is exciting/scary.

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540_Emma Emma, good points re: social commenting and its limitations. I was thinking more broadly about how we "work through" topics and issues in new ways online. For example, changing ideas of public/private, or as Benkler says, "see for yourself" rather than "trust me".

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

Benkler talks about networked media (eg. blogs) as a "weighted conversation, not a finished good", enabling us to "work through" ideas in public (also discussed by Dahlgren). In your view, do online platforms open up new ways of sharing, debating, and co-creating knowledge?

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540Richard Benkler, writing in 2006, did suggest that media ownership could become a problem - referring to Google (p. 261). However, his argument re: the web's democratic effects is based on low cost of participation and network architecture. Media concentration curbs democratic potential.

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540Marni @21540Kathryn I agree that the web isn't a rational sphere at all. It's interesting that Dean equates the notion of the web as a "zero institution" with the empty signifiers of the nation-state and sexual difference, similar sites of conflict

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540Richard Well, I think this is certainly a group watching and then subverting government decisions, by deploying new media to take matters into their own hands. It's interesting how their tech-aware expertise blocks the reporting channel's intended communication function.

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

Benkler (p. 220) talks about the corrective effect of a networked environment and the web as a public watchdog - a claim often made by trad media. Do you see social/digital media as self-correcting, or socially-correcting, tools? What is public accountability online?

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540_Emma Yet, many social movements have used new media to claim their rights, tell their stories, fight back against oppressive government policies, and create sites of resistance that challenge the "party line". This way of holding power to account didn't exist before (2/2).

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540_Emma It's interesting seeing FB and other social media trying to stop voter fraud, foreign government interference, and political misinformation online. It's often too little, too late, after the damage has already been done. (1/2)

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540_Emma Benkler compares the TV era with the networked space. He still sees mass media as salient in the public sphere. The importance of newspapers, for example, was reconfirmed for me with all the fact checking done by the New York Times in the Trump era.

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540Richard @21540Kathryn Excellent survey and data Richard. I've already shared your link!😀It really gets to some of the core beliefs around vaccine hesitancy, and whether comms can actually shift those beliefs.

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540Richard What did Dahlgren call it? Talkative citizenry. We seem to be doing a lot more talking than listening in the public sphere these days. (2/2)

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540Richard I usually go to trad news sources for facts and editorial analysis. But digital/social media seem better tools for capturing the zeitgeist of public opinion, where ideas and opinions can circulate more freely. The discursive aspect of new media also seems important. (1/2)

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540Richard I usually go to trad news sources for facts/editorial analysis. But digital/social media seem better tools for capturing the zeitgeist of public opinion, where ideas and opinions can circulate more freely. The two-way, discursive aspect of new media also seems important.

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540_marion Leslie posted about anti-vaccine protesters in BC, now AB Drs are getting more active on the public vaccine file. I liked their move this week, and think it has potential. The AB govt has been absent since early Aug and can't seem to please anyone with their pandemic response.

[21540_Ruth @21540_Ruth]

@21540_Leslie Leslie, this is such an illustrative example of what's not working in the public sphere today. These protestors are sowing serious doubt, misinformation and mistrust of all authority (incl. science). Target government and even the CMO maybe, but health care workers? Ouch.