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How social media use in public discourse potentially challenge advocacy communications

Despite the various benefits of social media on activism, various concerns have been raised on the right ways and times to bring it in for the benefit of advocacy. A number of arguments point to the fact that social media can excessively influence how activists as well as other participating citizens engage online in terms of the various technical social media policies and features chosen for implementation. Sporadic change of such policies often disrupts the activities of advocacy individuals and organizations. These means that there will be great difference between desired and achieved results from advocate activities.

My PLN’s Level of Diversity

Personally, my public network is quite diverse because it is generally impossible to control the people we interact with online. From my end, I can classify my network in terms of activities, hobbies and socio-geographic characteristics. This means that my network isn’t really diverse enough because often at times, I link up with people with similar interests and partake the activities that I handle. For example, I am a tech enthusiast so the people I interact with online are mainly in the tech world. Looking at sexuality for example, I am straight but not homophobic. So I usually communicate with individuals of the LGBTQ community, but I don’t share their passions. Socially, I am Chinese, but my Public network is global since I am an international student. Despite the racial differences, we are still connected by common activity which is education just as Moore & Leyton opined that unity is often built & sustained by diversity. But still, a huge portion of my virtual circle is Chinese. With that, it’s easier to understand how diverse my PLN is.

Learning From My PLN’s

Yes, Honestly I am getting to learn a lot from listening to number of voices on my social network. And this is good for me because I am gradually becoming tolerant while also getting to learn from individuals whom I wouldn’t possible learn from without online interactions. For example, with time I came to understand Canadian politics because of online interactions with individuals who had interest in a particularly common topic. Furthermore, I have greatly become tolerant and passionate of members from the LGBTQ community since I noted that they are also people who deserve the love and tolerance that everyone deserves.

How Social Media Engage in Advocacy Communications

Basically, social media act as innovative tools important for informing communities into a mobilized form of advocacy. Under proper utility, social media ensures builds up with community psychology principles by enabling individuals to contribute towards social issues dialogues and through effort collaborations individuals are able to build a sense of community. These opportunities ensure that players in a particular course are able to sustain their advocacy efforts in the occurrence of unavoidable challenges. In order to effectively engage supporters, it is important to first understand their interests then gradually build awareness which accelerates their interests to eventually ensure that they maintain active contribution. Case example is by joining facebook pages and groups in addition to following certain twitter feed gives individuals knowledge about a particular issue eventually increasing their interest towards supporting the particular cause.

References

One Without the Other: Stories of Unity Through Diversity and Inclusion – Shelley Moore and Leyton Schnellert
Introduction (Page 6-10) & Part 1 (Page 11-12). https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/lib/uvic/reader.action?docID=4832579&ppg=6

Digital Platforms that Develop Student Professional Network

Largely, digital platforms offer a lucrative chance to network considering that a large number of professionals spend their time online. First on the List is Linked-in. Linked-in is a professional network that offers a platform for professionals to socialise online and even take their professional networks offline if possible. This platform thus offers a chance for students to expand their professional networks since they can easily connect and communicate with individuals within their professional fields. Twitter is also quite important in networking. For example if there is hashtag about a certain conference, students can follow up to check individuals engaging in them and connect professionally. Facebook also offers a chance to professionally network ranging from infographics, discussion groups and trending topics which can be selectively chosen by students based on personal professional needs.

Digital Networking Considerations

What I would consider when creating digital networks as a student include the ability to connect with corporate decision makers as well as the ability to keep up with news and events that revolve around my field of industry. This is because besides connecting, communication is important and when having conversations with professionals, it is important to have sufficient knowledge at hand.

Creating My Digital Identity

The best formula that I would use to create my digital identity would be to have a clear plan on what I would be posting on my platforms. A content ratio would therefore come in handy such that half of my content should be a discussion on industry trending topics. The other half would revolve around the projects that I am currently undertaking as well a few personal experiences. With this, I can manage my digital ID besides the fact that in some instances, I would forget a few details about myself just as mentioned by Reagan & Jesse (2019).

Employment and Digital Identity

I honestly feel like it is inappropriate for employers to use digital content when considering prospective employees for opportunities. This is because our digital identities and content go beyond our current fields. For example, a number of people joined Facebook and Twitter back in junior high school before they could specialise on their current fields. This means that their digital content is barely related to their careers.

References

Privacy, Ethics & Security in Digital Spaces Developing Awareness of Privacy https://digitaltattoo.ubc.ca/quizzes/privacy-and-surveillance/ Regan, P., & Jesse, J. (2019).

Networking Using Social Media

Social media networking entails the process with which individuals build and sustain social and economic relations using technology. For this to occur, social media platforms such as Twitter, Telegram and Facebook since they enable individuals and corporations to interact with each other easily. This way, efficient relationships are built enabling smooth sharing of ideas, messages and information (Psychology Today, 2021).

Participating in Networked Publics

The greatest motivations towards social media networks are normally social and financial. For example, family members that are far apart use social media to keep in touch. Furthermore, people often connect with others who are often strangers but share similar interests through the use of lists, groups, channels and even hashtags. Economically, marketers use social media as a means of building brand awareness as well as sustaining customer loyalty to their brands. This is mainly because social media makes brands more visible to current customers besides attracting new customers to the company.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media Networking

Advantages of social media networking include the fact that family members and friends who have no physical access to each other can always communicate. Moreover, it connects individuals with strangers who share similar interests hence creating new partnerships. For corporations, new customers are easily attained. However, social networking comes with a number of loopholes including the fact that misinformation is rapidly spread across platforms. Such cases normally cause personal and brand image distortion. Additionally, creation and sustenance of a company’s image online can take time and also be costly.

Digital Identity

Digital Identity is a combination of information about an individual which are in digital forms. Such information is mainly attained through a person’s digital activities such as facebook likes and retweets in addition to personal attributes such as bank details and email address. Such information is normally used by computer systems to identify foreign agents since identify can be defined as a number of attributes that can be used to define a certain entity (Rannenberg, 2011).

Personal Vs Professional Digital Identity

Being an active user of social media services, there emerges a need for a balance between an individual’s personal and professional expectations. This is mainly because despite most employers being much interested employees’ skillset, they are gradually considering individual social skills and activities before offering job opportunities. This means that, even at the personal level, prospective employees need to stay vigilant and considerate of the comments and responses they post online in order to safeguard their professional image. Furthermore, individuals employed for online marketing programs have been noted to run multiple accounts catering for both personal and professional reasons. This means that such individuals need to be careful whenever posting in order to avoid the possibility of posting personal issues on professional platforms. Generally, personal versus professional approaches to digital ID has encouraged cautious use of social media by various individuals.

Impact of Digital ID’s in Networked Publics

Personally, I really feel like digital Identities on public online spaces are a silent encroachment to privacy. This is mainly because in most cases, the persistence displayed by some sites means that whatever one says today can be sought for and be available even after several decades later. Furthermore, searchability noted in various sites means that anyone can be located at any particular time and most probably be found. Replicability is also quite common in social media whereby posts and media can be copied and pasted across various platforms leading to high chances of misinterpretation. Eventually, the original owner takes all the blame. With such cases being common, repercussions include employees losing jobs for insulting others online or after posting date pictures online after calling in sick.

References

Psychology Today. Social Networking. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/social-networking

Rannenberg, K. (2011). “ISO/IEC 24760-1: A framework for identity management – Part 1: Terminology and concepts”. ISO. Retrieved 2015-12-05.