Digital communication breakdowns are not only common, but they are also commonly misinterpreted. The convenience of social media from its rapid communication and sense of anonymity behind a screen can also be its downfall. People who misinterpret and respond to someone else’s post or someone who posts information with a misinformed source hold significant power. The difficulty that arises from social media is its tendency to promote the “mob mentality”. A significant example of this took place in 2017 when a professor from the University of Arkansas was falsely accused of being seen leading a nationalist white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, VA. Professor Kyle Quinn is a biomedical engineering professor at the University of Arkansas and was in Arkansas the night of the rally in Charlottesville. However, a misinformed social media participant noticed a man wearing an “Arkansas Engineering” shirt at the rally and mistakenly identified this man as Kyle Quinn. Following the rally, Professor Quinn received massive amounts of hate mail and even emails from his university inquiring whether he truly was involved in the rally or not, as it would absolutely bring a terrible reputation to the University of Arkansas as well as Professor Quinn. Professor Quinn quickly reacted, informing the media of where he was the night of the rally and how he could not have been the man seen in the photo. Nonetheless, the individual who posted the picture on Instagram, created a viral and hateful post that quickly spread throughout the internet and could have cost Professor Quinn his job and his career. This breakdown could have been easily avoided, as the only way the user validated their tweet was by comparing two images and assuming that the two individuals were the same. There wasn’t any fact-checking, or even cross-referencing done in order to validate the user’s assumption. Instead, they quickly posted the picture and allowed the internet to spread the image (and assumptions accompanying it) throughout social media. The user knew their audience, they knew how quickly people react to this issue, and granted if the professor had been present at the nationalist rally it should have been detrimental to his career. However, he was not there and the user who posted the picture seemed to want attention more so than justice. A more respectful and thoughtful approach to this situation could have been contacting the university to report the possible allegation and allow them to investigate, or simply take more time personally investigating the allegation before placing it out in the social media universe. This situation reminded me of the story Jon Ronson referenced in, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, where a man is fired from his job due to crude comments he made at a tech conference. That moment was captured by a woman who took a picture of him and posted it on Twitter detailing what he was saying. While the exact details of these two situations differ, the overarching concept is similar. Both users who made the post on social media felt as if they were using social media as a medium for social justice, expecting the individuals to be shamed for their actions. However, what both users failed to recognize was the severity of their claims and the impact it placed on both of these men’s careers. Employers are represented by their workforce, if members of their workforce are negatively viewed, that translates to the employer. Therefore, often times whether the allegation is true or not, the employers have to take action in order to save their reputation and business. What both social media users should have realized in these two situations is that their voice on social media is loud and can often cause harm to others. While we may think that public shaming is all that can result from “exposing” people, the possible ramifications are much larger and more severe than this.
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My webpage and logo were created with the intention of having a direct connection to Hamlet and the local community it has been presented to. Both items are meant to be symbols of this particular play and the group that performed it for the Nashville community. I wanted the logo to include the name of the Nashville Shakespeare Performance Archive so anyone visiting the site from outside of Nashville would know what this subsite was connected to. However, I also wanted to use dark imaging and a lot of contrast in order to emphasize the nature of the play. Considering Hamlet has a pretty dark plot, I wanted my logo and webpage to reflect that. This way, the audience can get a glimpse of the emotions felt when watching the play simply from looking at the logo or website. Specifically, the logo was meant to be something straight-forward, that immediately tells the audience exactly what they can expect from what this logo represents. I tried to use the books in the logo as symbolism as well, representing the strength of the kingdom Hamlet lives in. Meanwhile, the red book tilted toward the others is meant to imply that it will knock the other books over, just as the greed and evil knocked over the kingdom in Shakespeare’s play. I chose to make the words “Hamlet” larger and in red compared to the words “Nashville Shakespeare Performance Archive” below it because I wanted Hamlet to stand out to the audience and catch their attention, then after I had drawn them in, they could clearly read where to find this production. With the webpage, similar to the logo, I chose to combine multiple dark-colored elements to represent to the various audiences the connotation behind Hamlet. I wanted the website to feel user-friendly and easy to navigate, which is why the tabs are in white and bold lettering. However, I also wanted to keep a more sinister feel which is why the images are in close proximity to each other and the site almost feels a little unorganized. This alignment creates a feeling of chaos that I feel mirrors the chaos in Hamlet’s mind.
Here is a link to my video profile of my houses dog, called The Life of Ty.
https://vimeo.com/294022004
For my website, I chose to use one of the CSS layout templates that the W3 schools provided. Initially, I wanted to use a template from another site, which may have made my website look a little cooler, however, I found it very difficult to understand all of the code. Some of the larger templates had what seemed to be endless amounts of code. I am content with the simpler template I chose. It gave me the freedom to control what I wanted on the site; and pushed me to truly understand what I was doing as I created this website. As I created my website, W3 Schools and YouTube were my close companions. I was able to use these sites to quickly find the information I was looking for; whether it was something as simple as finding a different border for an image, or something more complex like figuring out how to differentiate between 4 different HTML pages with one stylesheet. Nonetheless, I have found myself slowly growing very fond of this medium and am proud to say I feel like I’m beginning to understand it. However, while I am pleased with my website, I would not say it is identical to the picture I had in my head.
My ideal website is similar to the one I have created; however, it was going to have more advanced features and feel more similar to the professional websites we typically visit. I quickly found, however, that the features I wanted to add required code in JavaScript. I had no idea what JavaScript was or what exactly it did, and I feared flirting with it and possibly ruining my entire site. I feel so close to being able to create my ideal website, I just need more practice and focused learning. Perhaps after I finish this course and feel even more comfortable coding I will pursue JavaScript and go back to update my website. The audience this website is attempting to communicate with the most would be prospective employers or recruiters. I did my best to use the visual and spatial modes to make the site feel appealing; and then quickly direct them to either contact me via the contact form or be viewing my resume and reaching out to me on their own. I paid the most attention to my spatial formatting and the images I included on this site. While parts of my website’s spatial arrangement may not be superb (as it was limited by operator knowledge and ability), I feel that it still has an appealing feel to it, overall. My hope is that the inviting pictures and quality arrangement will impress my audience and lead them to share my site with others. In addition to focusing on the visual and spatial modes, I believe my main design focus was on alignment, organization, and proximity in some regard. As I added images and text, I was very aware of how the overall spacing of the site felt and was constantly analyzing the space, trying to find the best fit for each aspect. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed creating this website. I plan on attempting to continue to learn code, eventually understanding JavaScript, and continuing to update my website as I progress through life. Technology is everywhere today, and it seems to record just about everything. I was introduced to technology at a fairly young age. While the technology I was exposed to was quite different from the technology today’s children see, I still gained the familiarity and necessary understanding to participate in the early days of social media. Social media sites like Facebook were popular among my friends and I in our middle school days; it served as the place to tell everyone you were, “…captain of the cool kids” or wish your friend a happy birthday with some embarrassing pictures you had of them. This was the start of a new way to create your personal footprint on the world, one that lasts forever. Social media has certainly served as the data archive for my online presence, if I had to choose three separate platforms that have acted as the foundation to my online presence I would select Facebook, Twitter, and Apple Music.
Apple music has been around for a long time. The old iTunes days were a little different than today: paying for individual songs or buying an album, rather than paying a subscription for unlimited music. While this may not have been considered a social media and I may not have explicitly shared my iTunes playlists publicly, I do remember my friends and I sending our favorite playlists back and forth to each other. We had playlists for every scenario: whether we were at the pool, playing sports, on a road trip, there was even one to help pass the time for the occasional detention (not very proud of that last playlist). I still use Apple products, so I still have access to my old iTunes account and I can see all of the old songs I’d saved and playlists I had created. It’s fun to look back on what I used to listen to and occasionally share the playlists with my friends today who are lacking in a certain area of their musical literacy! While my friends and I created and shared playlists, we also joined Facebook. I can vividly remember my friends and I doing the math to figure out when our birthday needed to be in order for us to be eligible to sign up for Facebook, (you have to be 13 to sign up for Facebook, yet for some reason at the time it seemed comical to say we were 60). Scrolling through your Facebook profile can be both reminiscent and haunting. I enjoy seeing old pictures of a younger me, with old friends in my hometown. However, I am not a fan of my 6th grade haircut or the awkward comments I made while attempting to talk to a girl on Facebook. While it seems that Facebook started as a site similar to what Twitter is now, I have transitioned into mostly posting pictures on Facebook, so my family and friends can keep up with whatever is happening in my life. Facebook served as the dominant social media platform for me until I arrived in high school. Yet, once I got to high school and created my Twitter profile I was immediately active. Initially, I kept my profile public in the hopes that a good tweet could go viral and I could be Twitter famous for a few days. I found myself tweeting random thoughts to seem profound, at famous people hoping to get their attention, and weird jokes that I don’t really understand anymore. Unfortunately, the Twitter community did not react as excitedly as I expected to my tweets. Since then, I have conducted multiple full-profile investigations in hopes to delete some of the most embarrassing tweets, but who knows if they actually ever completely go away. My presence on Twitter today would amount to favoriting or retweeting tweets from famous people, my friends, or sports highlights. I don’t choose to express myself through actual tweets nearly as often as I used to, rather I enjoy reading others’ tweets and following different news throughout the day. One of the common messages paired with how technology could ruin our generation, is how what you post on the internet is there forever and can be found with enough effort. Countless warnings from professors, parents, and even friends that made a mistake on social media have cautioned me into paying close attention to my digital presence and maintaining a positive, professional image. After using social media for some time and realizing that my weird posts were showing up whenever someone searched my name on the internet I went private. My online presence, today, is mostly private, however, the tweets from the old days still linger and I’m sure would reappear if someone was willing to look hard enough (please don’t commit yourself to that). Overall, while I would have to say my total online presence is fairly small, I am pleased with the image I have created for myself and the archived data I will have to look back on throughout the years. Sam Molli |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
November 2018
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