Can you stay of the grid?

I would like to start this post with a quote from Surveillance studies(2007) by David Lyon that sounds like this “We are all in a sense implicated in surveillance, both as watchers and as the watched”. We live in a world where technology ubiquity has become a part of our life. We are watched almost 24/7, for example if you have a Tesco club-card and use it on daily basis, they know exactly when you were in their shop and what have you bought. Another good example that works on the same principle is the gym membership, every time you enter your code they know that you went at the gym and how long you stayed there. Nowadays even your phone of computer can be tracked by the IP address. Even the CCTV from the streets are watching us constantly. In the same time we are watching other people, we use Facebook, Twitter or other social sites to “check” on our friends or sometimes on people that we don’t even know. Sometimes we even stalk celebrities we love, using social media. Another way we could be watched can be seen in the TV series “Person of Interest” where everyone is monitored through cell-phones, e-mails or every surveillance camera that is, to prevent acts of terror before they can happen. So what is a human being supposed to do to stay off the grid? I found an interesting video on YouTube that shows you ways to stay of the grid. But is a disposable phone, not using credit cards and encrypting your data is enough to do it? In my opinion in our days is almost impossible to stay of the grid if you are a normal person, we are depending on technology to much. I think that staying of the grid in our days is possible only is you have large amount of money and live a simple life on an far far away island. What do you think?

Digital Politics

“The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu(1991:172) has argued that a lack of access among the general populace to the tools necessary for political participation has resulted in the concentration of political power as the province of a small elite. Although much has been claimed for the potential of new media technologies to promote democratic political participation,it remains unclear whether the application of these technologies in practices as apparently diverse as those of electronic governance, interactive entertainment and virtual socialisation indeed offer the popular dissemination of the technological and cultural capital which Bourdieu sees as essential to the process of democratisation…”(Charles 2012:27)

These days everyone has to keep up with the technology, even politics. In order create a relation with the younger generation, politics has linked with the most used social media nowadays like Facebook and Twitter and even Youtube.”In April 2010, four weeks before a British parliamentary election,it was reported that the UK Electoral Commission had collaborated with Facebook to encourage unregistered voters to enfranchise themselves.”(Charles 2012:30).So, social networks are crucial for the politics, without them, they could not connect with the people.Because everyone has now a smartphone or a computer and at least an account on a social network, this is the easiest way to win a lot of people on your side. A great use of digital politics can be seen in Barak Obama’s campaigns. At his campaigns he used Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube to broadcast the debates and a lot of campaign clips.He also knew how to use popular culture in his favour.We can clearly see this in clips like We are the ones or Yes we can. When he used popular singers and actors to make a collage style music video inspired by his speech in 2008.And as we saw his successful campaigns helped his became the president of the United States of America two times.

This could be a great example of how digitalisation helped politics evolve.In our days without the help of world wide web any campaign would be hard to win.

Why people don’t care about Facebook Privacy Settings?

Facebook Privacy Settings are crucial nowadays for most of us, especially if we want to make part of the social network and have a little privacy.But most of the people using the social network didn’t even bother to change their privacy settings or they don’t care, cause the “Friends” they have on Facebook aren’t even real friends.For them adding more and more “Friends” is like an achievement.”Boyd(2006:10) proposes that ‘by having a loose definition of Friendship,it is easy to end up having hundreds of Friends[…]Because of how these sites function, there is no distinction between siblings, lovers, schoolmates, strangers.They are all lumped under one category:Friends'”(Charles 2012:124).And even if they post personal things, they still get “Likes” from people that they don’t even know.For them Privacy Settings are not relevant,because they don’t think that posting on Facebook can affect their real life in some way.But in our days you have to be very careful with what you post on the social sites because this could affect you more than you think.More and more people are getting fired from work only because they were calling sick and then they check-in on Facebook at the beach or they post things like “I hate my job”.Another great example is the “Twitter Joke Trial” when Paul Chambers posted on his twitter this affirmation : “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”.Later he was arrested and accused of “sending a public electronic message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character contrary to the Communications Act 2003”.
So nowadays we have to be careful with what we post online cause this can affect our life more than we though.

Identity in Cyberspace

Sometimes when we surf the internet, we found ourselves in the situation to create a new account on a web site, to get access to some information or for other personal reasons , but creating a new account (identity) could be harder than we thought. What e-mail address should I use, the one I use often or the reserve one? Will this site spam me or not? Should I use my real name? What nickname should I use? This are some usual question that everyone encountered at the creation a new identity on a web site.

On the web anyone could became whoever he likes as Charles Cheung said “In real life we sometimes ‘give off an impression’ we regret.On our personal homepage, however, we can manipulate all the elements until we are satisfied: we can always experiment with the background colour, choose the most presentable head shot, censor the foul language accidentally written in the biography draft, and ponder as long as we like before deciding whether to tell their readers that our partner has dumped us” (Charles Cheung, Presentations of Self on Personal Home pages, in web.studies, p. 45)

For example you can create a Facebook account with the name of your favourite celebrity and pretend to be them, and some people could even believe you if you know how to play it.But that’s the exact reason why Facebook and Twitter created verified accounts for famous people. “We verify profiles or Pages to help you be sure that they are who they claim to be. Keep in mind that not all authentic profiles and Pages are verified and that you can’t request to have your profile or Page verified. You can report fake accounts that are impersonating you, your business or your brand.“(Facebook.com)

Even identity in video games had became nowadays a big problem, sometimes it’s hard to decide on what your character should look like or even, in some games what species or super powers should your virtual character have.Even the nickname is a big problem, especially in MMORPG games like World of Warcraft, almost all decent nicknames are taken, you have to be very creative and it could take you a lot.Sometimes it seems to be impossible to create the “dream” character. 

So, the internet helps you fulfil some of your dreams or in other words the web lets you be whoever you like to be. Like the perfect version of yourself.  

Social Media nowadays

Trading “friends” for food !

Last week Mr Claudio presented us some interesting Digital Marketing campaigns, but there was one that caught my eye. Burger King’s “Whopper sacrifice” is the one, I know that this is an old campaign and all, but I would like to talk about it. For the ones who didn’t heard about this “social movement”, it was something like this: Burger King created a Facebook app that gave you a coupon for a free whopper if you’d deleted 10 friends. In my opinion this is a great marketing strategy, think about it , you have at least 20 “friends” on Facebook that you don’t even know, so it’s not hard to get rid of 10 friends. After that you go to Burger King and get a free whopper. Beside that whooper you could use some coke too , and if you are there you can buy a pie too. So who wins here ? They gave you a free burger for 10 “friends” sacrificed, but you bought a drink and a pie. You couldn’t had bought anything, but they afford to take this risk. Basically what they did is bring you to them, and if you are there you will buy something for sure. In my opinion this is great Marketing.