Social Gaming

He is Australia’s highest paid athlete and has just signed a new contract with the Philadelphia 76ers which is reportedly worth $178 million USD (ESPN 2019), but Ben Simmons like many guys his age of only just 23 love playing computer games. And there is now industries and even sports leagues now dedicated to this …

Public Health Campaigns & Communities

Thursday the 12th of September 2019. National R U OK Day. R U OK? Day’, a national day of action held here in Australia every year to remind people of the importance of connecting with and supporting those around them who may be troubled. A great initiative and an important question but more important are …

Crowd Sourcing In Times of Crisis

When Hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans in 2005, social media was truly in its infancy. Twitter didn’t exist and Facebook wasn’t even a year old. 1,833 lives were lost (Kates, 2006) and to this day the great city of New Orleans is still reeling from the disaster. Although the majority of destruction was done from the cities’ levies breaking …

Trolling and Social Media Conflict

Trolling is defined as creating discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people by posting inflammatory or off-topic messages in an online community. Basically, a social media troll is someone who purposely says something controversial in order to get a rise out of other users. Essentially, they are a schoolyard bully. And like school yard bullies …

Activism and Protest

Being able to speak out has always been an issue for some people, not because they don’t want to but because they haven’t been able to. Their voices wouldn’t have been heard. Or they wouldn’t have been able to gather enough support to make a difference. Although bigger social issues of history have been able …

Social Media in Politics and Civic Culture

I am just so fascinated by the penetration and reach in social media in this day in age. Especially how the data that we leave around on different platforms is used. Having watched the recent documentary on Netflix recently titled “The Great Hack” which explored how a data company named Cambridge Analytica came to symbolise …

Social Media Platforms and their Affordances

The accessibility of social media platforms and then their power to be able to open up the world to be a more open and communicative place is what I see as the biggest affordance