jennifergracia

[jennifergracia]

CASE  STUDY IN SYRIA

Syria is a country located in southwestern Asia near the east coast of southwestern Asia. The Syria area about Golan Heights was once the territory of Israel in 1967. Its capital, Damascus, is located in the oasis at Mount Qasiyun on the Barada River (Salibi et al. 2020). Syria is one of several countries that have internet restrictions. The Syria telecommunication market is a government monopoly. Even though it controls 55% of the country’s cellular phone market, many small private telecommunication organizations still rely on government support and rules. Syria gives internet access to 20% of its total population with 56kb connection speed through dial-up with less cable dial-up and fiber connection.

Most Syrians use social media to connect with other Syrians, such as spreading information or opinions. Also, to raise awareness about politics inside and outside the country. Moreover, they also use it to create a public sphere, activists, and youth leaders, but only a few Syrian people participate. Although they are given a little freedom to use social media, they must avoid content related to internet regime challenge or human rights because they will get penalties such as accounts getting blocked, people get arrested, and even killed. In addition, Syrian authorities believe that those contents can weaken the national morale.

Syria has blocked around 240 sites which are email services such as Hotmail and Yahoo, along with hosting user-created sites on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others. So, by limiting internet usage to Syrians, authorities believe it will have a more significant efficient effect than the potential costs to arrest activists and block accounts and sites (Tkacheva et al. 2013, pp. 74-81). Nevertheless, Syrians have tried to use VPN to avoid getting penalties for breaking laws. However, it is not adequate for some social media platforms such as Netflix. Moreover, even if Syrians manage to get accessed, they still need an activation code from a text message, and the message cannot be sent to Syria number, which leads to blocking their users unless they have numbers from friends who liveaboard (‘Under international restrictions, Syrian cannot access online platform’ 2021).

I personally think that during the covid 19 Pandemic, the internet has become an essential tool to interact with other people in a long-distance communication so that people will not get contagion and also beneficial for the country not to have spent high treatment for the large number of citizens who get the virus. During this pandemic, Syria allows its citizens to have internet access to more than 3TB from TSF (an international non-government company that focuses on humanitarian crises) to strengthen their mind against COVID-19 because of psychological distress (‘Northeastern Syria: hospitals run out of funds and supplies as second COVID-19 wave hits region’ 2021).

References

‘Northeastern Syria: hospitals run out of funds and supplies as second COVID-19 wave hits region’ 2021, ReliefWeb, 5 May, viewed 18 May 2021, <https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/northeastern-syria-hospitals-run-out-funds-and-supplies-second-covid-19>.

‘Under international restrictions, Syrian cannot access online platform’ 2021, The Arab Weekly, 19 March, viewed 18 May 2021, <https://thearabweekly.com/under-international-restrictions-syrians-cannot-access-online-platforms>.

Salibi, KS , Irvine, VE , Smith, CG , Hamidé, A-R , Scullard, HH , Hourani, AH , Ochsenwald, WL , Commins, DD , Gadd, CJ & Polk, WR 2020, "Syria", Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 June, viewed 23 May 2021, <https://www.britannica.com/place/Syria>.

Tkacheva, O, Schwartz, LH, Libicki, MC, Taylor, JE, Martini, J & Baxter, C 2013, Internet freedom & political space, RAND Corporation, California.

#MDA20009 #Week 11

[jennifergracia]

SOCIAL GAMING

Gaming has many definitions, but for this topic, gaming refers to console games that can be played through online or mobile devices with social elements. Social games usually are played by many types of people regardless of ages and genders. However, studies find that most social game players are played by people with early middle to middle-aged (‘About social games’ n.d.).

Social gaming has been popular in the online pastime, and its market has reached billions of dollars since 2010. Also, the covid-19 pandemic has created the rise of social game users to keep them entertained as the majority of people spend their time at home and have less face-to-face interactions. For example, In February 2020, there are more than 284.3 million mobile games have been downloaded in China (Hartery 2021). There are three characteristics of social gaming. Firstly, it allows gamers to play in multiple players either in the same or rival team at the same time. Secondly, it also needs to have social platforms to facilitate social interactions involved action-based in letting platers have conversations about ongoing game same and its goals and discussion-based to let players communicate general topics. Lastly, awareness of other players’ presence, actions, and accomplishments (Logan 2021).

PUBG (Player Unknowns Battle Ground) has grabbed many people in the world's attention in 2018. Originally, PUBG was an online multiplayer computer game. However, with the availability in the mobile phone, it increases the number of players as phones are affordable. India is one of the country examples that use PUBG other than just playing the game. Studies find that around 46% of Indian players use the voice chat feature to discuss game tactics and non-related PUGB topics. They also find that 70% of players pay up to Rs 370 for the game items and fewer numbers for more than Rs 1,400 (Mukherjee 2018).

Some people believe that PUBG teaches life lessons such as teamwork, leadership, and others through communication. Therefore, strong communication makes leaders lead their teams to stay alert with the opponents and receive suggestions to receive a victory. PUBG provides a career for well-performed and competitive players in which they can receive a monthly salary once they are accepted into the organization. Even though PUBG lets players have online social interaction, it can cause a loss of real-life social interaction because of addiction. For example, a player who chooses PUBG as his career will spend most of his time in his room for hours (Adhikari 2020).

References

‘About social games’ n.d., ISGA, viewed 15 May 2021, <https://www.i-sga.org/about-social-games/>.

Adhikari, A 2020, ‘PUBG mobile l positive and negative effects – non-biased review’, GameUpNews, viewed 17 May 2021, <https://gameupnews.blogspot.com/2020/06/pubg-mobile-positive-and-negative.html>.

Hartery, D 2021, ‘The future is social: everything you need to know about social mobile games’, Adjust, 12 May, viewed 17 May 2021, <https://www.adjust.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-now-about-social-mobile-games/>.

Logan, B 2021, ‘Social gaming – a usability usage’, Spotless, viewed 15 May 2021, <https://www.spotless.co.uk/insights/social-gaming-usability/>.

Mukherjee, A 2018, ’40 per cent players use PUGB as a social communication channel: research’, India Today, 12 December, viewed 17 May 2021, <https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/features/story/40-per-cent-players-use-pubg-as-a-social-communication-channel-research-1407582-2018-12-12>.

#MDA20009 #Week 10

[jennifergracia]

FANDOM

I believe everyone has joined at least one fandom. As for me, i have joined several fandoms that have taken my interests. In the fandom, the members are very friendly to each other and create several fun events for members to participate.

A fandom is a group in which it is filled with fans with the same interest, such as music, book, and video groups. In the fandom, members can engage actively do creative works regarding the material (‘Fandoms: what they are and how to get into it (or not)’ 2019). For example, fanfictions can be in the form of written stories that are made by fans based on original creators' characters.

In the 1960s, a star trek fandom was done in creating their work in fanzines or conventions in which they need to wait for approval to be released with other creations. Nowadays, the internet has allowed fandom to be spread widely and more accessible (‘Fandom and participatory culture’ n.d.). Social media is one of the media that allow fandom to see and interact directly with their favorite celebrity or production account. It also makes it easier for fandom to meet and share their common interest without a face-to-face meeting. Furthermore, it allows fans to be participants and viewers to their celebrity or producers.

Moreover, it helps businesses improve and create products by receiving fans' opinions, which leads to mutual benefits, businesses to gain more revenue and fans get the product they wanted. However, it can ruin relationships with producers in different cases as they think that fans do not appreciate the creators' products.

Black Panther is one of the Marvel movies which has reached 425 million dollars worldwide. The trigger behind this movie is that the MCU fandom from African American community has voiced their thoughts regarding creating a movie about a person of color over the years.

On the other hand, social media fandom can be bad such as toxic fandoms. For instance, the final season of Game of Thrones has created a big commotion in which the GOT fandom is not satisfied with the season, and over 1 million fans demand the creator to remake it (Nielsen-Castro 2019).

In conclusion, social media can positively affect fans in which they can give opinions directly so that their voice will be heard to the producers' such as Black Panther's case. However, it can give a negative effect, such as in The GOT's case, as some fans lack respect to producers and writers' creations.

References

‘Fandoms: what they are and how to get into it (or not)’ 2019, Hundred Life Design, 5 July, viewed 9 May 2021, <https://www.hundredlifedesign.com/fandoms-what-they-are-and-how-to-get-into-it-or-not/>.

‘Fandom and participatory culture’ n.d., Grinnell College, viewed 9 May 2021, <https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultural-theory-and-theorists/fandom-and-participatory-culture/>.

Nielsen-Castro, A 2019, ‘Two-way fandom- a positive or negative bi-product of social media?’, Medium, 20 May, viewed 9 May 2021, <https://medium.com/the-public-ear/two-way-fandom-a-positive-or-negative-bi-product-of-social-media-4e1ccbb9e041>.

#MDA20009 #Week 9

[jennifergracia]

CROWDSOURCING & CROWDFUNDING

Crowdsourcing

Definition of crowdsourcing is a process of collecting information/skills/resources from a group of people. It has already been used before the internet was invented, which is around the 1700s. For example, the British government did a rewarding event involving many people to find a ship’s longitude in 1714. Another example, the first oxford dictionary was created by a group of scholars in 1884. Even though it is difficult to find expertise volunteers to write different topics, social media allows everyone to join crowdsourcing. Therefore, social media allows people to access mass online labor forces to find employees or workers find the information. It also allows asking questions/feedback to other people as well as finding and organizing available knowledge efficiently. However, since everybody can give information, there is no guarantee that the data is credible. Also, it can be challenging to administer numerous outsourced workers.

Nowadays, crowdsourcing can be in mobile crowdsourcing, which involves portable devices to collect data from many people through apps such as google maps. Google maps provide information regarding the location and distance covered for the driver to navigate. Users also allow giving feedback to improve or report about the malfunction of the app (Bradley 2017).

Besides, creative outsourcing is an event to select the best design from the crowd. For instance, in 99design, creators can make requests from clients worldwide from designing logos, websites, and others in which the selected designer will get the payment according to his/her wishes (Quingley 2015).

Lastly, Crowdfunding is another form of crowdsourcing in which people can gather other people who have the same ideas and beliefs to raise funds (Zende 2015).

The meaning of online crowdfunding is collecting money from a group of people via an online platform. It emphasizes communication in which the communication is from updating fundraising profiles regularly to have more transparent data to potential investors. It also can widen the network if the users are the most active fundraisers at the funding portals’ homepage, newsletters, or shared posts by other users. Nevertheless, there is a possibility that the funding will fail due to negative feedback, such as asking any people for their comments on social media. In crowdfunding also has scammers whereby many successful raise projects are not done well from the expectations (Startups.com 2018).

There are four types of crowdfunding sites:

A debt-based site is peer-to-peer lending about contributors who contribute the work with receiving payment in return. For example, FundedHere is a Singapore debt and equity crowdfunding platform since 2015. For debt-based, it allows investors to lend money from it legally with a rule that they need to repay the loan according to the time intervals and interest rate.

An equity-based site is about contributors (startups) investing money in other companies in replacement for shares. As the example mentioned earlier that FundedHere is also equity crowdfunding. It allows investors to invest in startups in exchange for equity shareholdings (FundHere 2021).

A reward-based site is a promised reward in exchange for supports such as product priority access from contributors. For example, Kickstarter is a reward crowdfunding site that allows users to offer tangible rewards to their backers with rules to create something to share with others.

A donation-based site is a chartable platform with tax-deductible. An example, GoFundme is a medical donation for a loved person, and it is a free-cost platform (SGXChannel 2017; Vissers 2019).

References

Bradley, B 2017, ‘How crowdsourcing tools are building more powerful maps’, Geotab, 15 March, viewed 1 May 2021, <https://www.geotab.com/blog/crowdsourcing-tools/>.

FundHere 2021, Glints, viewed 1 May 2021, <https://glints.com/id/en/companies/fundedhere/dcbc1c77-d5ef-4bfb-bd97-f5b1498614a6>.

Quingley, JT 2015, ‘Forget Uber, a design crowdsourcing site is shaping Asia’s gig economy’, Tech in Asia, 28 December, viewed 1 May 2021, <https://www.techinasia.com/99designs-design-crowdsourcing-asia-gig-economy>.

SGXChannel 2017, Your guide to understaning crowdfunding, 3 April, viewed 1 May 2021, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voF1plqqZJA>.

Startups.com 2018, ‘Crowdfunding: pros and cons’, 11 May, viewed 17 May 2021, <https://www.startups.com/library/expert-advice/crowdfunding-pros-cons>.

Vissers, J 2019, ‘Types of crowdfunding for businesses: rewards, equity, debt, & donations’, Merchant Maverick, 17 October, viewed 1 May 2021, <https://www.merchantmaverick.com/types-of-crowdfunding/>.

Zende, N 2015, What is Crowdsourcing ?, 21 March, viewed 1 May 2021, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIUFz4DwuK8>.

#MDA20009 #Week 8

[jennifergracia]

PUBLIC HEALTH CAMPAIGNS & COMMUNITIES

Public health

Governments, public and private sectors, NGOs, international companies, and society are responsible for public health. Public health focuses on improving society's health, including physical, mental, and social well-being. There are three core areas for public health, which are protection, promotion, and prevention. The purpose of protection is to protect society's health, such as handling contagious viruses, maintaining environmental risks, and guaranteeing healthy workplaces. Promotion plays a role in improving society's health, such as helping social health workers. For prevention, it purposes to stop health issues before they happen, such as screening and vaccination. In order for public health to run well, it needs to have excellent governance, which includes certainty of policies and methods about public health (‘Regulation 17: good governance’ 2019). Moreover, Advocacy's purpose is to affect people and encourage and commit to the health intention. Next. Capacity is to have a sufficient, well-trained, and strengthen public health workforce. Lastly, it must have the correct information to promote health actions (Let’s learn public health 2017).

Public health champaigns on social media

Millions of people already have social media accounts such as Facebook: 2271 million users, Instagram: 1000 million users, and Twitter: 326 million users. Therefore, Social media is the best option to create health campaigns to influence many people.

An example of a social media health campaign made by Matt Damon with the title "The Wait for Water". People use #givethemtimeback to create awareness that women in the developing country need to spend six hours to collect water. The campaign's purpose is to gain donations by delivering a message that many people worldwide have difficulty accessing clean water.

#Loveyourcervix on Twitter is another example of a digital health campaign aiming to prevent cancer diseases in young women. The campaign aims to encourage young women between 25 to 30 age to do cervical screening and expand knowledge about HPV.

Moreover, there is an Instagram campaign about mental health topics using the hashtag #HereForYou. The campaign’s purpose of engaging people involved in tackling the mental health stigma by telling their past mental health struggles (Butteriss & Bradley 2019).

Advantages and disadvantages of using social media for public health campaigns

As mentioned earlier, there are millions of social media users. There will be a high possibility for many people to see public health campaigns. In fact, in the past year, 80% of surveyed patients use the internet to search about healthcare. Besides, it does not need much cost to create a social media campaign so that everyone can spread information about health topics freely.

However, there is the possibility that people will deliver false information. Approximately three of the top ten shared health stories in 2018 were misleading information, and most possible, 70% incorrect data to be shared than the fact. Furthermore, because everyone can release new news, it cannot control the number of false information be shared (Clark 2020).

References

‘Regulation 17: good governance’ 2019, Care Quality Commission, 23 May, viewed 25 April 2021, <https://www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-providers/regulations-enforcement/regulation-17-good-governance>.

Butteriss, C & Bradley, J 2019, ‘The world’s best public health social media campaign’, Bang the Table, 4 April, viewed 25 April 2021, <https://www.bangthetable.com/blog/public-health-social-media-campaigns/>.

Clark, M 2020, ‘The pros and cons of social media in healthcare’, Etactics, 13 February, viewed 25 April 2021, <https://etactics.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-social-media-in-healthcare>.

Let’s learn public health 2017, What is public health?, 15 June, viewed 25 April 2021, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_eWESXTnic>.

#MDA20009 #Week 7

[jennifergracia]

DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP 2: ACTIVISM & PROTEST

Are you an activist?

Most people would not call themselves activists because they may think they can get arrested for joining the public protest. Well, this statement is not wrong. Being an activist does not require a huge audience to gather in one place to do the demonstration. Activism can be in many forms, such as writing letters to politicians (‘What is Activism?’ 2021).

So, what is activism?

Activism is an activity in making good changes for the community or the world, and it usually discusses political, social, economic, and environmental issues (What Is Activism? 2014). This technological advancement provides many digital platforms to deliver and collect information as well as creating digital activism. Compared to street protests, digital activism is low-cost and risk. Moreover, it motivates people to participate in the country's major issues. Even though digital platforms are efficient to connect with people with the same belief, those can create disadvantages, such as people who agree with the public protest on social media may only click the support button and do nothing. It can also create more issues since online can appear as anonymous to resent other people as they like (Subramaniam 2020).

Digital activism on social media

Social media has become a great tool to create public awareness about a country’s issues, leading people to take online activism action. Twitter is one of the social media examples that mainly used for digital activism. On Twitter, people use the hashtag to spread information as short and memorable phrases allow people to create group formation.

The proof effectiveness of Twitter hashtagging can be seen from the tragic event in Ferguson, Missouri, about a police officer who shot Michael Brown, the 18 years old black teenager, as the reason for self-protection purposes. With #Ferguson, it has reached around 7.8 million participants for this case in a week. It also added #Handsupdontshoot to be a reminder of how discourses about racial issues are essential.

Moreover, a case turned into a global concern as 5 million people, Michelle Obama, and Malala Yousafzai took pictures with posters written #Bringbackourgirls to mention the Boko haram kidnapping of 200 females in Northeastern Nigeria. However, the case did not turn well as it did not give the desired result. Therefore, many people dropped to mention it on Twitter.

The other case is using Twitter and Facebook in #Icebucketchallenge to increase awareness of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). This hashtag invites people to choose to donate to this disease or shower themselves with a bucket of icy water. The fundraising was a success, but it created critic as it was promoting water waste (Segovia 2014).

References

What Is Activism? 2014, What is Activism?,  31 December, viewed 6 April 2021, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGSErdWDzio>.

Segovia, CR 2014, ‘Political hashtagging: is online activism effective?’, Brown Political Review, 4 November, viewed 6 April 2021, <https://brownpoliticalreview.org/2014/11/political-hashtagging-is-online-activism-effective/>.

Subramaniam, P 2020, ‘Cover story: digital platforms keep the activism flame burning’, Edge Marketing, 30 November, viewed 6 April 2021, <https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/cover-story-digital-platforms-keep-activism-flame-burning>.

What Is Activism? 2014, What is Activism?,  31 December, viewed 6 April 2021, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGSErdWDzio>.

#MDA20009 #Week 6

[jennifergracia]

DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP 1: POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT

Do you know that social media has already been used to communicate with a large audience by a politician since 2008?

The United States’ president was called Barack Obama, used social media to educate, entertain the public and form his legacy. In 2017, white house officials also used this method to attract public attention. They believe presidents should not only rely on press conferences or interviews with a journalist to deliver messages to the public as most Americans nowadays receive news online (Freking 2017).

What is political engagement?

You may hear or read this political definition about “who gets what, when and how”. It can be interpreted Politic as material goods distributions during post-world war II. However, this term has been opposed in few decades because politics is not about distribution, but it also involves culture, identity, and others. So, politics can refer to the governments or its citizens' activities that attempt to affect a country's settings (Boswell 2020).

Political engagement involves the wide society in political activities such as election voting, discussing with other people on issues, helping the political campaign, and others. By engaging in political activities, citizens can influence politicians' actions directly and indirectly (Uhlaner 2015, p. 504).

Social media + politic = 100% good???

Social media is an internet communication tool that allows people to create, share content and interact with the public immediately. In politics, social media helps in citizen engagements and builds public trust as it helps citizens keep informed with critical information, policy, and issues such as telling citizens to stay at home/ less do activities outdoors during pandemic covid-19. It also allows politicians to see analytic data of people who have seen the news based on their demographics and help specific situations. For example, during a presidential election, politicians can message people who have not voted for their candidate yet. However, there are some drawbacks to social media. Bots can disturb politics by giving unreliable sources and even affecting election outcomes because they can create fake profiles that no one may not know whether the people are real. Moreover, it may make people stay to their perspectives as they only search or see others' same ideas (Bromfield 2018).

Malaysia is considered one of the most digitally connected countries. Social media has already become a norm for Malaysians to deliver information, fund-raising, sharing ideas, and other activities, including politicians. In fact, the opposing party won the 14th general elections named Pakatan Harapan for using social media to gain citizens' trust. Social media helps to engage young people to participate in politics. It recorded that during the 2018 Malaysian election commission, the ages between 21 to 39 have voted for 41%. Social media also helps raise people's voices to be heard, such as the trending #PulangMengundi which means voting at home. Furthermore, it brings people to connect, for example, in the election with some Malaysians living abroad who cannot participate. Nevertheless, it can have disadvantageous effects such as false reports, bots, edit political leaders' photographs. For instance, #UndiRosak is used on Twitter to corrupt the vote (Debra Grace 2018).

Overall, political engagement and social media are mutually beneficial to each other. Combining both can give all users good experiences because it gives many advantages, such as delivering important news fast. Despite this, it can also give bad experiences if some users use it for fun purposes, such as giving fake news to cause a panic situation for citizens.

You have reached the end of my post; thank you for reading it!

References

Boswell, C 2020, ‘What is politic?’, The British Academy, 14 January, viewed 30 March 2021, <https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/what-is-politics/>.

Bromfield, S 2018, ‘Pros & cons of social media in politics’, Uloop, 7 May, viewed 30 March 2021, <https://www.uloop.com/news/view.php/263903/Pros-amp-Cons-of-Social-Media-in-Politics>.

Debra Grace, LJ-E 2018, ‘Social media and politics in Malaysia’, YourCommonwealth, 24 May, viewed 30 March 2021, <http://www.yourcommonwealth.org/social-development/democracy-participation/social-media-and-politics-in-malaysia-election/>.

Freking, K 2017, ‘Obama makes his marks as first ‘social media’ president’, The Seattle Times, 6 January, viewed 30 March 2021, <https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/obama-makes-his-mark-as-first-social-media-president/>.

Hudson, M 2020, ‘What is social media?’, The Balance Small Business, 23 June, viewed 30 March viewed 2021, <https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-social-media-2890301>.

Uhlaner, CJ 2015, ‘Politics and participation’, International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences, vol. 18, pp. 504-508.

#MDA20009 #Week 5

[jennifergracia]

IS TUMBLR A BLOG OR A SOCIAL NETWORK SITE?

Most people may hear the word “Tumblr” and even use it in their daily lives. However, not everyone knows whether Tumblr is considered a blog or a social network site. In this post, I am going to answer the topic question.

First of all, what is a blog and social network site?

Blog

The blog has already been around since 1994 that started because of the rise in computer users. The creator, Justin Hall, made the first proper blog named "Links.net." Most people referred to it as a personal homepage in which individuals shared their daily activities, such as personal opinions about events they had encountered. In 1997, many people started noticing its existence, and the name changed to "weblog" by an early blog influential, Jorn Barger, as reflected from the process of logging to his web. The programmer named Peter Merholz changed the term name to "blog," which was the shortened word from the last term in 1999.

The blog has features that can add texts, pictures, videos, GIFs. As most people put their personal information on the blog, it provides a feature that allows them to set their blogs to be accessed privately or publicly. If the blog sets public access, anyone can see the blog from the link provided in various social media, such as websites, emails, and even online search engines. Moreover, it can perform as one long page or each post as the owner blog wished, and the postdate sets as backward chronological order in which the current post will appear first (Spencer 2017).

Social network site

The first social network site was called “SixDegrees.com” in the year of 1997. Its purpose was to connect with other people by sending messages. It had features that allowed users to create their profiles and group of friends. Even though it was popular with millions of users, its service closed in 2000 because of complaints from new users as it did not provide other activities except chatting and adding people.

A social network site (SNS) is a web-based service that allows people to create their public and semi-public profiles, as it also allows to see users' connections with others in a bounded system. There is also a term named "social networking sites" to indicate building relation by communicating with people. A social network site has a feature that can identify a person's friends, followers, and contracts.  It also provides the owner to set his profile privately, publicly, or for certain people. Next, it allows users to give comments or private messages to other users and even enables people to photo or video sharing (Boyd & Ellison 2007, pp. 211-215).

So, is Tumblr a blog or a social network site?

Before jumping to the main issue, it is necessary to know some information about “Tumblr”.

From the video, it can conclude that Tumblr is a blog as it gives users to put their personal information. Furthermore, it has similar features to the blog, allowing users to add texts, pictures, and others in their contents and customize their pages to their liking, such as posting information about a user's favorite dessert. Tumblr is also a social network site as users can interact with other users and look at others' pages, such as following other users (Planet Nutshell 2011).

That is all from me; thank you for reading it!

References

Boyd, DM & Ellison, NB 2007, ‘Social network sites: definition, history, and scholarship’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 210-230.

Planet Nutshell 2011, What is tumblr?, 16 June, viewed 27 March 2021, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C47FUM6lgk>.

Spencer, J 2017, ‘What is a blog? – a guide to understanding the concept of blogging’, Make a website hub, 26 June, viewed 27 March 2021, <https://makeawebsitehub.com/what-is-a-blog/>.

#MDA20009 #Week4