Stick it to the Man

When deciding on a restaurant on a given Saturday night there are a few things I like to consider: cuisine, location, atmosphere, and quality. As a starving college student it is imperative I find a meal that is worth my time and money. Menus are confusing and biased and it is hard to say whether a lone critic has good taste or not; however, today I don’t even consider these sources. Before making decisions about local businesses I always turn to some user reviewed site such as Davis Wiki or Urban Spoon for assistance.

The blogs, tweets, and online review sites are helping consumers like me every day. The power of being constantly connected has given authority to the costumer to write about his or her personal experience. Users have the ability to log in to these sites and write critical reviews on any product or business and what is written will be heard; essentially, a more effective comment card.

The review forums have sparked a new form of blogging: the mother blogger. A New York Times article discussed the online community that has formed from mom bloggers across the country. Moms have the ability to speak out and help each other. They offer up suggestions from what products to use on stains to eco-friendly decorating tips.

Online communities have brought all types of consumers together. A few online reviews can make or break a business. Thanks to these sites, we can express our opinions and anyone can hear it. So thank you Davis Wiki, and all of its supporters; my dining decisions just got a lot simpler.

Microblogging

Sometimes we all have a story worthy of more acknowledgement than what Facebook or Twitter can provide. Microblogging websites are the leading medium of choice for sharing these stories with the world. You can discuss embarrassing moments, complain about misfortunes that have befallen you, and share funny experiences on these websites. After posting stories on these sites, viewers are free to comment on them. A few commonly-visited microblogs include FMyLife, MyLifeIsAverage, and Lamebook. The comments can have a significant impact on the self-esteem of the person who posted the story, and this medium of sharing experiences can lead to cyberbullying as well.

FMyLife, or FML, is a website that allows users to post embarrassing stories, most of which have extremely unfortunate outcomes, and each stories ends with “FML”. Viewers can vote “I agree, your life sucks” or “you totally deserved it” on each of these posts, as well as add comments. Here is an example of a post on FML:

“Today, I saw an elderly man fall in a crosswalk, so I jumped off my bike to help. As I helped him across, the light turned green. I then watched across a 6 lane street as someone stole my bike. FML.”

MyLifeIsAverage, or MLIA, is a website similar to FML, except it consists of posts about average experiences in a person’s daily life, all ending with MLIA. Some of the posts also parody ones found on FML. On MLIA, a reader can vote either “average” or “meh” on a post, as well as add comments. Here is an example of a post on MLIA:

“Today, I died from not passing on a chain mail. This is the 117th time this has happened. MLIA.”

Lamebook is a website that is similar to FML and MLIA in nature except that the person who posts the piece on Lamebook is not always the person involved in the story. Lamebook is a collection of typos, poorly planned photos, and embarrassing conversations found on Facebook. Most of the posts are hilarious, and viewers are always free to comment on them.

Now that we have a fairly good understanding of how microblogs work and what they stand for, I am going to discuss the implications they have for users, viewers, and society as a whole. One article on nowpublic.com refers to FML as a “crowd-generated psychiatrist” of sorts, which is an accurate assumption. Internet is the best outlet for bad events in your life. You always have an audience, and the comments allow for feedback from the readers or your post. The fact that anyone can just vent on a website and usually get support, acknowledgement, and understanding is very powerful. Additionally, readers usually find humor in these stories, as well as comfort in not having the same experience.

There are some detriments to this system of sharing experiences online. Comments posted on the stories aren’t always endearing and helpful. Some can be very harmful to a person’s self-esteem, and cyberbullying definitely begins to creep in as a result. I read a post on FML a few years ago where a guy posted about his parents walking in on him having sex with his boyfriend. He had not told of his homosexual tendencies until this happened. Many of the comments were very hurtful because of the guy’s sexual orientation, and the comment thread effectively became a battleground for the war on the rights of homosexuals.

A person doesn’t always have a desirable outcome when posting a story on a microblog, but when they do, the acceptance and understanding by the audience can be very rewarding. The humor provided to the reader on these websites is also a plus. Readers and users of microblogs must conduct themselves responsibly and respectfully if these websites are to ever have more positive atmospheres.

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Nu Txt

The entire purpose of this blog - Constantly Connected - is to analyze what it means to be constantly connected. However, there is very little focus on the “language” of constant connection, if you will. Emoticons and shorthand text are becoming more and more prominent, especially among the younger generations. I cannot go onto Facebook and look at any of my younger friends’ posts without observing “u” instead of “you,” “r” for “are” or “our,” “2” for “two,” “to,” or “too,” and so many others. Often, it makes me cringe. “These people are butchering the English language that I know and love,” I think to myself, and I am certain that many share that view.

However, as a student-designer who works with text as well as imagery, I can understand the value of this shorthand as simply the next stage in the evolution of language. Emoticons, such as the smiley face depicted by a colon and a close-parenthesis or :), are the perfect example of this step. Just like the ancient Egyptians or Chinese cultures, which used pictographic images to symbolize “things,” emoticons are being used to symbolize emotions (see image). A well placed emoticon can perfectly supplement the meaning of a text or instant message.

Fun Fact: according to National Public Radio’s “Wait, wait… Don’t tell me,” President Abraham Lincoln is supposedly the first to have harnessed the power of emoticons, by making a ;) – or a “winky-face” – in his speech to signify a pause for laughs.

Once one gets past the traditions and stodginess of English as we know it, one can see the advantages of txt shorthand: it’s fast, readable, and efficient. Plus, it doesn’t rely too heavily on proper punctuation, grammar, or spelling, meaning that everyone can easily participate. And, really, what good is the internet if it’s not democratic?

Are Blogs Dying Out?

According to The New York Times, blogging may soon be a relic of the past. Particularly with younger generations, blog use is declining. Instead, Facebook and Twitter are being used to serve the same expressive purpose.

With Facebook and Twitter, users can be certain that their content will be viewed by someone, while blogs generally have low view counts. In addition, blogs are considered to be more of a commitment and typically have more structure than a quickly typed status update or 140 character Tweet.

Older generations, however, are clinging to their blogs.

Among 34-to-45-year-olds who use the Internet, the percentage who blog increased six points, to 16 percent, in 2010 from two years earlier, the Pew survey found. Blogging by 46-to-55-year-olds increased five percentage points, to 11 percent, while blogging among 65-to-73-year-olds rose two percentage points, to 8 percent.

In addition, Tumblr still describes itself as a blogging site, though many users are unaware. Despite its description, Tumblr is used mainly for photo uploading. This would indicate that it is the users of a technological service who truly determine the nature of the product. Tumblr can call itself a blog for as long as it pleases, but if users only upload photos, is it really a blog? I think not.

Facebook and Twitter cannot be said to be fully cannibalizing the blog business though; many use these outlets to promote their blogs rather than replace them. Still, how many of us had ever contributed to a blog before this course? Perhaps Facebook and Twitter have evolved from the blog mania that characterized the early 2000's? Technology of course must evolve with societal needs, so this should probably be viewed as technological progression rather than mourned as a dying art.

Gender and Online Forums

Anonymity is a central aspect of the Internet and the constant connectivity it affords. By identifying oneself by an ambiguous handle and a made-up avatar, one can escape prejudices and discrimination based on appearances, race, and gender. However, some of these aspects of identity are manifested in behaviors that cannot be easily hidden by a unisex user name.

This is illustrated by a New York Times report analyzing recent demographic studies by Wikipedia. The survey revealed that approximately 87 percent of the people who edit Wikipedia are men. The Times article cites experts who explain this gender gap as a result of "an ideology that resists any efforts to impose rules or even goals like diversity, as well as a [hard-driving hacker] culture that may discourage women," or as a result of "women [being] less willing to assert their opinions in public." The former theory implies that diversity is actually discouraged in free-form internet forums simply because it is a goal that "real-world" institutions often promote. The latter suggests that even when people are freed from their identities online, their personalities still dictate their actions.

Catherine Orenstein with the OpEd Project (an initiative to increase diversity in media), another expert consulted by the Times, also addresses gender identity. She attributes the Internet taciturnity of women to their tendency to focus on themselves as individuals, rather than the worldly value of their knowledge, when posting information to public forums. She offers the example of self confidence: "'do I know enough, am I bragging?'" This would suggest that men are more likely to share their knowledge with less concern about what others will think of them. Conflicts such as this are personality features correlated with gender that are still evident on the Internet.

Congruently, 2010 study in Information, Communication & Society found that although women often appreciate the value of anonymity to conceal gender, they feel that it is "associated with feelings of distance and barriers to effective communication" (Martey 1222), which seems to be a feminine social concern. Martey also cites 2002 research by Postmes and Spears which concluded that "gender identity and roles, even in anonymity contexts, can influence perceptions of both the self and of others" (1221). This implies that gender does indeed result in differentiated online behavior.

This correlatiom is also reflected in some older data about words commonly used by male and female bloggers. The statistics indicate that women often write about their personal lives, as evidenced by the high frequencies of the words "husband" and "mom." Men are more likely to write about politics ("democracy") or technology ("Linux"). This demonstrates a similar principle. The topics about which the writer is expected to have expertise are generally left to male bloggers, and more free-form, personal topics are dominated by female bloggers. The results of a similar study in 2010, presented graphically, indicate this gender gap has not closed much since 2007, when the statistics were collected. The Wikipedia study is further proof.

This raises some interesting questions about how gender differences on public online forums will change in the future. Perhaps people will start behaving differently online in order to make the anonymity more complete, widening the rift between Internet and "real-life" personalities. This would increase the degree of homogenization of Internet-mediated communications, but also continue to allow people to overcome prejudices and discrimination.

The other side of this is that people might begin to use linguistic or behavioral cues to break down the barriers of anonymity. For instance, a cyberbully might learn to identify female users by the way they word messages or strategize in online games and make sexist comments to hurt them. This is an obvious negative effect, but maintaining gender identity online would have benefits as well.

Any path that Internet culture takes seems unpredictable, evincing a mixture of positive and negative effects. This is why it is so interesting and scary to watch social evolution within and around burgeoning forms of technology.

Tunisia: Trouble in Paradise

Flash back a little more than one month ago to December 17^th of 2010—Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old Tunisian citizen and recent college graduate with a computer science degree, had started a fruit and vegetable stand to make ends meet. There was already a sense of unrest n the air as Tunisia was supposedly undergoing some of the worst unemployment rates in recent history as well as a spike in food prices across the country.

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Due to Mohamed’s lack of a vending license, authorities shut down his cart, confiscated his wares, and were even said to have slapped him around a bit. In protest over a lack of jobs, Mohamed set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, in front of a government building in an act of self-immolation. I seriously doubt that he had any idea of how great the scope of events his actions sparked would turn out to be: Mohamed became a symbol of resistance in the Arab world as several others copied his self-immolation protest in Algeria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. While he survived the initial suicide attempt, he died later in the hospital after a visit from the President Ben Ali.

Mohamed’s death turned out to be the United States’ equivalent of “the shot heard ‘round the world” in 1775. Thousands took to the streets in protest of the government and of how the country’s leader received 90% of the vote over multiple elections and had been in power for over twenty years along with the issues mentioned in the first lines of this post.

This might have all fizzled out with the government either making a few concessions to smoothen out relations thereby calming down some of the more moderate protestors, or simply with the passing of time. The government’s reaction, however, would be their undoing. According to a BBC article published earlier today, between January 8^th-10^th, there were dozens of reported deaths during the protests.

Many have referred to this movement and these protests as a social media, and more specifically, a Twitter revolution. There is some credence to these claims as protesters organized and spread the word through their use of Twitter and Facebook. There is no doubt that technology and the newfound connectivity between Tunisians, in how their plight was played out in the eyes of the international community, played a huge role in the sacking of the interior minister, the dissolving of the parliament and Ben Ali’s subsequent flight.

Many claim, however, that it would be inaccurate to attribute this revolution to social media as there was already great dissatisfaction with the government and how Ben Ali and his wife’s families seemed to own every big business in Tunisia. Apparently they possessed extravagant wealth even as the rest of the country struggled to get by. Condoleezza Rice, in a state visit to Tunisia during the Bush administration, praised the country for its stability. The price of this stability, however, was limited freedoms in press and television as well as an excessive display of propaganda around the capital city.

But would the protests have been remotely as successful (I’m using the word “successful” very loosely as the killings were inexcusable) without mobile phones, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs? I don’t think so. But what really charged the atmosphere for us in the United States (who in general are oblivious to the struggles of those outside our own country) were the videos rife with acts of violence posted online as well as the cables released by WikiLeaks which assert, in detail, the corruption of Ben Ali’s administration.

Here's Obama's take on the situation:

"I condemn and deplore the use of violence against citizens peacefully voicing their opinion in Tunisia, and I applaud the courage and dignity of the Tunisian people. The United States stands with the entire international community in bearing witness to this brave and determined struggle for the universal rights that we must all uphold, and we will long remember the images of the Tunisian people seeking to make their voices heard. I urge all parties to maintain calm and avoid violence, and call on the Tunisian government to respect human rights, and to hold free and fair elections in the near future that reflect the true will and aspirations of the Tunisian people.

As I have said before, each nation gives life to the principle of democracy in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people, and those countries that respect the universal rights of their people are stronger and more successful than those that do not. I have no doubt that Tunisia’s future will be brighter if it is guided by the voices of the Tunisian people."

But there’s little value in arguing the case, what matters is what lies ahead for Tunisia and its people, and whether there are further implications for other oppressed nations and whether these tools promoting connectivity will play a role in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead. Already there is evidence of this as Slim Amamou, one of the most prominent bloggers in Tunisia, accepted the post of Secretary of Youth and Sport. He has promised to keep the people updated via Twitter and would like for other cabinet members to also use Twitters as a means of communicating with citizens.

Currently, with no opposition leaders taking the mantle of leadership, Ben Ali’s Prime Minister has taken control and the future of the country is uncertain, though he has promised to step down as soon as elections are conducted democratically. I suppose all that’s left to do now is wait and see what’s next.

*UPDATE*

Professor Pruitt has brought it to my attention that there is a discrepancy between my source, International Business Times, and NPR with regards to Mohamed Bouazizi's academic standing. In my post, I stated that he had graduated from college with a computer science degree, but the more recently published article from NPR says that he had dropped out of high school. Wikipedia agrees with NPR.

Also, I read an article titled "Tunisian TV boss arrested for 'treason' as popular station that supported deposed president is closed down." I highly recommend checking it out if you want to follow up on the country's progress.

Other sources:

• http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/arab-bloggers-cheer-on-tunisias-revolution/?hp
• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/world/africa/18egypt.html
• http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/01/14/tunisia.protests/
• http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/social-medias-role-in-tunisias-revolution_b12963