Social media and socialization

  Nowadays,  mass media has been labeled as the things that influence us the most.  As stated in the blog written by Geena Chan last week,  Listen to a broadcast on radio and even printed news and entertainment, these forms of media have in a way shaped our society.

  With the help of technology, the mass media has grown rapidly.  And also with the help of internet,  mass media has evolved into social media. Recently, everyone at some point is a product of media,  because media is everywhere . Mass media has successfully overcome our life.

  Social media at first is a tool of communication , but now It seems like changing our way of communication.  With social media and internet comes the social networks,  which is a platform that helps the user in maintaining or building relationships with people all around the world.

  As the world changes so rapidly , social media networks have evolved into a social community that mimics real world aspect like the Life2.0 game.  New technologies now affect how we converse and socialize as a culture.  If we continue to progress as a civilization,  these will preserve the basic principles of our socialization.  With this new technology use especially social media,  questioning of socialization skills arise.

  Socialization included many social skills that begins in infancy to adulthood for the purpose for functioning in society.  Social network sites allows us to find smaller groups within larger groups.  This gives an otherwise socially inept person a chance to participate in social dealings. I believe that the success behind social network sites are embedded in this concept . As socialization attempt to shape society,  social network sites attempt to dictate the way we interpret.  So, let's discuss about how does the common use of sns influence socialization?

The Extinction of Newspapers

How often do you read newspapers? Honestly speaking, not very often for me. Before I came over to Sarawak to further my studies, I still read the newspaper every single day as the daily newspaper is delivered to my home everyday. I do not have to go through the trouble of going out to purchase the newspaper. However after coming over to Sarawak, I have less accessibility to newspaper so I do not read them as often. Therefore, I moved over to online newspaper for my dose of “what is happening around the country and the world”.

It is undeniable that online newspaper is way more convenient than printed newspaper especially when you own a smartphone and also have the access to the internet, which many people do nowadays. With the advancement of technology, is it possible that the printed newspaper industry might lose it’s significance and status as the main platform for people to get information hence, go extinct? To me, I would say yes but not anytime soon.

According to Future Exploration Network, they predict that newspaper will lose it’s significance in 2017 in the United States of America (USA) which was last year, 2019 in the United Kingdom (UK). As for Malaysia, newspaper will lose it’s significance by 2029. They also predicted that by 2040+, newspaper will lose it’s significance all over the world. Looking at these data, it is obvious that the newspaper industry might lose it’s business.

Many have said that with technology, we are able to reduce on the usage of paper especially in the newspaper industry. This somehow “advocates” more of the newspaper readers to turn to online newspaper which will then reduced the sales of printed newspaper. With the sales reduced, newspaper printing companies might have trouble in sustaining their company not only due to the fact that printed newspaper are no longer significant but also because of the lack of income hence, cease the production of printed newspapers.

Although not everyone will move to online newspaper but when companies stop producing them, readers eventually need to move to online newspaper. When this does happen, that is when newspaper are truly extinct. If not then newspapers might be sold at a higher price as compared to now. However, I think that newspaper might not go extinct easily because there is still a generation- those who are 50 and above, that still relies on newspaper as they do no have access to the internet or the smartphone. In order for newspapers to be truly extinct, then this generation needs to be wiped out completely for newspapers to be extinct. 

Make use of Comparison

           With the advancement of technology, we can clearly see that more and more choices we can go for. For example, when you are using e-hailing service, there’s Uber and Grab for you to compare prices; while you are going to book flight ticket for a vacation, there’s so many websites await you to visit and so you are able to compare. From this point of view, one of the advantages from the emergence of Internet is it allows us to compare contents without putting much effort. 

Same goes to news portal today. By focusing on Malaysia, we have printed mainstream media. At the same time, they have their own digital news and website for subscription. Besides that, we have online independent media and also online news blog. Nowadays, we have so many choices for information gathering purpose. 

Regardless the “post truth era” which is resulted by social media that putting the world in chaos by sharing the fake news. Based on the credibility of news sources by the news portal, how many percent of the content would you tend to believe? How much are you willing to believe while viewing these news portals?

Malaysia Today is a Malaysian news blog owned by Raja Petra Kamarudin which is claimed for being value-neutral as it critiques both government and oppositions. (http://www.malaysia-today.net)

Malaysiakini is an independent online news portal which is launched in 1999 by Steven Gan and Premesh Chandran. It is published in four languages: English, Malays, Chinese and Tamil. (https://www.malaysiakini.com)

The Star is a Malaysia’s English-language mainstream newspaper and its major shareholder is the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) political party. It has its own online news websites as well. (https://www.thestar.com.my/)

                Of course, there’s more than these three news portals we have in Malaysia. And back to the question above: do you really compare their news contents like you compare the price rates for e-hailing services? 

               My answer is no. I do read articles from different news portals but I seldom compare their contents. But by taking Malaysia Today, it’s always objectionable to me. As I mentioned above, Malaysia Today critiques both government and opposition. However, the practice of this news blog is totally different from being claimed as value-neutral. Yes, it is neither pro-government nor pro-opposition, but it takes its own value and make judgement in the article to incite the feeling of dislike to certain people. And while viewing the comments, you are able to understand the meaning of “jump on the bandwagon”.

                Thus, I would like to strongly recommend you to Malaysia Today if you’re really a jump on the bandwagon person. But if you’re wise and willing to remain the so called value-neutral, please, compare the articles from both independent and mainstream media, this somehow trains your critical thinking.

The Darknet

Now a quick question to you before proceeding to the contents of this blog; what do you usually use the internet for? Well, for me I would say that the internet actually serves as one of my main form of entertainment- besides going out with friends. I actually spend a lot of my time serving the net to look for websites for me to watch movies, searching for pictures of that one particular K-pop idol from a particular boyband or even to go on YouTube to watch countless of videos. Of course, I still use the net to look for informations for my assignments and also my FYP and also to stay connected with family and friends that I can’t see everyday.

From this, it looks like the net may seem to be the best thing that human beings have ever created as everything is literally at the click of our fingertips. As you can see from statistics, it shows that internet users in the world are increasing every single year. It’s like the internet is always under our control as we can use it however we like. However, is the internet really always good? Obviously the answer is a straight up no.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you darknet, the evil twin of the internet. I read an article that perfectly describes the difference between the darknet and the internet; “if the internet is an ‘information superhighway’, then the darknet is a side street that does not appear on your GPS.” Through this particular sentence, it shows that is almost impossible for us to look for information of the darknet because it uses a different coding as compared to the World Wide Web.

So what is this darknet all about? Well the darknet is actually used for illegal activities. From weapons and drug trading to child pornography to whatever activities that are illegal. Again I quote the article, “the darknet is the playground for illegal activities.” Of course people will say that the internet is still a very good place that’s filled with unicorns and sprinkles cause they are not involved with any illegal activities. Well, let me lighten you up with another different story.

Google did a research and identified 780,000 of potential victims of off-the-shelf keyloggers, 12.4 million of potential victims to phishing kits and 1.9 billions of user’s username and password are actually available in the black market. It’s in fact just a matter of time before we get scam. Hackers are pretending to be big famous companies like eBay or Amazon to gain access to the user’s personal information by sending links to the users to reset passwords or saying that their account got hacked.

If this does not scare you enough, I am not sure what will. At least in the terms of the net. Many refers the internet to an iceberg; the small tip and visible part of the iceberg is the surface web but submerge beneath the ice, cold water is a very big chunk of ice which is bigger than the visible part is known as the deep web and dark net. Never underestimate the size of this ‘iceberg’ cause if you do, you’ll end up like the Titanic. So is the internet as good as it seems?

Derivative Works in New Era

With the wireless Internet connection, everything is on our fingertips nowadays. Globalization allows people to search, watch, share and create content than ever before. While focusing on creating content, have you ever thought of the grey area of online video content creation when it comes to derivative works and copyright? Well, before we get into that, let’s us expand our understanding on the “content-creator” in this new era.

Try to recall how people grant the great painter, Leonardo da Vinci; the great composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; the great sculptor, Pablo Picasso. In general, we grant them as artist. And no matter which era you are in, art exists in their own way to suit people’s tastes. Nowadays, some people simply put content creators as artists, “which doesn’t care audience size, monthly reach or engagement rate because art doesn’t work that way” (https://blog.dashhudson.com/influencer-marketing-content-creator-social-media-strategy-brand-marketing/). 

According to the statement above, it clearly shows that, development is really changing the way people are defining things. And when it comes to online video-based derivative works and copyright issue, it becomes more complicated. Have you ever thought about you creating something new by using part of an existing video and this may offer you the possibility to have a court session with the original creator? 

In April 2017, AmoGood (谷阿莫), a popular YouTuber from Taiwan, who has around 1.3m of subscribers, faced a lawsuit on the copyright infringement. What makes him famous is his recap videos of big screen films by summarising the plots humorously and sometimes making his own philosophical reviews about the films. 

Right after receiving the lawsuit, AmoGood immediately released a video to make clarifications. These recap videos were just like remixing released music. In his video, he claimed that the recap videos were video-based derivative works which only used a minimal portion of the original films and the sources were available on Internet. All these made up that his videos were claimed as fulfilled the fair use defence (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7icUXwJRaXQ).

Well, it’s obviously now, the grey area between online derivative works and copyright appears. While both party, the YouTuber and original work creator fight for their own recognition with their own definition and scale for originality, the thing becomes complicated. What’s more about copyright on these online video-based derivative works?

The only conclusion that I can made is subjectivity…

Self-Disclosure on Social Networking Sites: How far do we disclose?

Self-disclosure is the process of deliberately revealing significant information about oneself that would not normally be known to others. When one sense that the other person can be trusted with their information and engages in exchange of information, the more the person tends to share personal information, opinions, feelings, fears, as well as likes and dislikes and their deepest secrets despite the risks involved. The outcome may be positive which leads to progresses in the relationship or negative, which ends there and then.

On the other hand, Social Networking Sites (SNS) such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is a medium that allows people to connect with one another online. Most commonly with friends and family members, both near and far, acquaintances, sometimes strangers and even people that we barely know.

Regardless, the emergence of social networking sites has brought on an alteration to ways one self-disclose from “one-to-one” to “one-to-many”. “One-to-one” refers to offline communication that usually involves two people. Looking at social penetration theory, it takes place in stages, beginning with shallow and slowly evolving to deep levels and the more one reveals about themselves, the more closer the relationship becomes. Whereas, on Social networking sites it does not necessarily takes place as such, instead there is no reciprocity as to when talking face-to-face, in an offline setting.

Little do we know, that our frequent usage of social media we disclose a little something about ourselves. We may not realize this, but upon registering to join the social media sites as mentioned above, we reveal personal information such as our name, birthday, school, job, and the list goes on. Adding to that, Instagram has a feature known as the description box where the user is able to write anything they wish and as what I have observed, many people voluntarily give out their details for instance their hobbies, parentage, age and etc.

Apart from that, features such as status update, story update on Facebook and Instagram, captions, reveals a lot about a person. Over time, the audiences especially strangers, acquaintances and people that we rarely and never talk to knows something and details about us that not many people know (only our closes friends and families). It is common that people update their stories with activities that they do, food they are eating, places they are visiting, people they are with, but do we realise that we are actually feeding others with information that we most probably will never give when we talk face-to face? 

Despite the fact that we share most of our lives online, our problems, weakness, strength, opinions, I wonder, will we be able to reach to the point whereby we disclose our core and very personal information (secrets) online? The secrets that we will only share with the person or people that we trust? In my opinion, I would never be able to do such thing as it involves a great risk to myself, but I believe this question is subjective and there is no definite answer. What do you think? How far would you disclose?