On Monday the 23rd April, we first learnt about ‘what is globalisation?’ in our Lecture. Globalisation is the linking of the local and the global. Whereby local happenings are shaped by what is happening far away. It is multi-dimensional and linked contacts to exchanges to interconnection to interdependencies. Places, people, cultures, economies and communities are all effected by globalisation. Aspects of globalisation are globally recognised brands such as mcdonald’s, pepsi etc. The internet helps this as it makes a capitalist consumer marker place. We were also taught about ‘Manifestations: People’ which talks about the movement of people around the world which is part of the process which defines globalisation. People travel as tourists, refugees, guest workers, students etc. The number of people as refugees has come to a crisis around the world. 59.9 million people face forced displacement in 2018.

During the seminar, we learned about social movements twitter has inspired: Globilsation has impacted the ways in which we live our lives for years. Protests have been taken all over the world way before the internet came into existence. Now due to how easy it is to access the internet and see what is happening all over the world and now makes it easier to keep up to date with social issues that you wouldn’t of normally seen without the access to the internet. Activists are now able to voice their opinions with ease from the comfort of their own homes. Some examples of how Twitter has aided the fight against injustices in the world – ‘#Yesallwomen’, ‘#Bringbackourgirls’ and ‘#Lovewins’. I found this seminar really interesting as it was about topics which apply to my use of the internet such as Twitter.

Monday 16^th April

During the seminar there was a group presentation lead by Danny, Jan, Raha and Daniel. They were teaching us about dataveillance and consumer discipline. I was looking forward to this presentation, as I don’t know much about ‘dataveillance’. I now know that it is essentially data plus surveillance, for example, being surveilled online. Furthermore, they told us a bit about the purpose behind dataveillance and how it varies according to the needs and wants of the information collector or owner of the organisations and companies that collect it. It could even be down to the understanding of consumers buying habits. We were also taught about the data protection act of 1998 and how it has had very little amendments from when it was created. On the 25^th May this year they are going to change this and make it so that you have more control over who touches your data. The companies will also have to give reasons for why they have your data and could be liable to punishment if they breach this. We will no longer be able to use survey monkey for our university projects as part of the new legislation is that our data has to be kept inside of the UK and survey monkey is an American website, so this will no longer be allowed. Overall, I found there presentation very interesting and left me thinking about my own data protection and what companies could have about me that I don’t know.

During week 6 on the 12^th of March, my ‘Media in the networked society’ module we discussed virtual communities. This was the first I had heard of it from an academic perspective but I found it extremely interesting as I could relate to it in many ways. We were told to read up on Boyd’s ‘It’s complicated. The social lives of networked teens’ and Johnston’s ‘Community and social media’. We then had to make notes on both before attending the lecture and seminar. Both texts talk about how it is being made easier for us to create communities online as the Internet is becoming more easily accessible.

During the lecture we spoke of ‘virtuality’ in detail as others in the class were left slightly confused by the readings. Maria then spent time in detail explaining this theory with examples that fitted to our lives in order to make it more relatable and consequently easier to understand. Again, making this module a good one for our age group. As I believe we are one of the generations that understands the virtual world the most and in the most depth as we are completely involved in it.

We also covered the history of the Internet, social media and online communities, which are an area I touched on slightly in a previous module, so found it easier to understand and get involved. I find learning about the history of the Internet extremely interesting, as we don’t know life without it, so it is somewhat mind blowing to think of a time prior to its existence.

On Monday the 18^th March it was our group’s turn to present about ‘privacy and the digital human’. Our group included Ellie, Jess, Alex and I. We set off the group project two weeks ago and met up to discuss who should do what so we covered everything in the module reader, after this we went away and worked on our own slides before coming together this morning to check it and go over it with practices before leading the seminar.

I was in control of defining ‘privacy’ and the ‘digital human’. I found defining ‘privacy’ a lot easier as it is easily written out online. However, the digital human is a concept that is forever changing and is hard to shorten down into one slide to explain quickly, luckily, BBC 4 has an ongoing series on this exact topic where they upload weekly audio clips of different aspects of the digital human. I used the sector called ‘bliss’ where Aleks Krotoski asks if there are some things we are better off not knowing. Matthew believes in Known Unknowns as people have a false sense of knowledge about certain topics that they search even though this is not always true. I personally have Google searched facts about things online and without a second thought I believe word for word exactly what I read. This has a lot of underlying issues as we make political decisions.

I found the group project fun as it helped me to learn a lot about my own privacy online and how I need to adapt it to be safer in today’s digital world.

Bibliography

Solove, D. (2010). Understanding privacy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Hindle S. 2003, “Careless about privacy”, Computers & Security, vol.22, no.4, p284-288