Week 8 Blog Post

Celebrities & the Rise of Instagram

When social media innovator Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion, it made news around the globe. Not only do a multitude of celebrities from around the world constantly use and promote the application called Instagram, but 150 million people have follow in their footsteps. Instagram is an application that launched on the Apple iPhone in October 2010 and has now become one of the most popular applications, mainly due to the ability of users to see into the real lives of their favourite celebrities. It allows a user to upload a picture, choose a specific filter and share with their friends onto their Twitter or Facebook pages. It has recently introduced a new version of the application which allows you to share videos, which has been used quite frequently by many celebrities.

According to David Marshall, the ‘best way to understand this proliferation of the public presentation of the self is through the term specular, a two-way mirror of projection on to the screen and the circulation of and interaction with those images and texts into the wider world’ (Marshall, 2010). David Marshall is stating that celebrities may have two persona; their public and private identities. This is clearly true when we see how a celebrity promotes themselves on the internet. It must be hard for celebrities to act as their true selves when they are so conscientious of how they will be portrayed and if they are being shown in the best light.

Kim Kardashian recently used Instagram to show the world the first picture of her child with Kanye West, which received 1.5 million likes and went viral on the internet only seconds after it was posted. Miranda Kerr uses her Instagram to upload pictures of her beauty routine and subsequently promote her organic skin care line, Kora. Paris Hilton has used Instagram to promote her new album and also shows off her fabulous lifestyle, where she travels, parties and sees her celebrity friends. This is quite different to Miranda Kerr’s photographs, which are usually of her son, Flynn, or her favourite inspiration quotes or pictures of nature. Both celebrities have very different public personas, however it can be questioned as to whether they are similar in their private lives?

Rihanna is an example of a celebrity who does not hide her true self on the internet. She constantly publishes raunchy pictures and provocative images on her Instagram, including her in a bikini and drinking alcohol. It is therefore questionable whether celebrities are being truthful on Instagram or whether their personas are merely an improved representation of themselves in order to gain popularity. 

Week 7 Blog Post

Interactivity and Social Media

iii.In the reading this week, Joost Raessens examines the participatory media cultures of computer games with attention to the concepts of multimediality, virtuality, interactivity, connectivity. With regards to (at least) one of these concepts give an account of a non-game participatory media culture that you are familiar with (social media, mobile phone, blogs, etc). Remember to draw on further research on these concepts to expand your analysis.

In Raessen’s article ‘Participation’, three domains of participation are explored in relation to the cultural production of computer games and their participatory media cultures. Raessens examines the participatory media cultures of computer games with attention to the concepts of multimediality, virtuality, interactivity and connectivity. A non-game participatory media culture that I am personally familiar with is using my mobile phone.

Mobile phones allow interactivity between you and the entire world. On a ‘smartphone’, such as an iPhone or Samsung, you can interact with your family and friends across the world, as well as access the internet and interact with anyone. The opportunities are endless! I use IMessage to connect with my family and friends via text message and can speak with them at any time of the day regardless of where I am. I also use Facebook to connect with friends from highschool and family and friends who live overseas. If I want to talk to someone who is overseas, I am able to quickly open the Skype application and I can see their face and hear their voice with one click of a button, regardless of their location. I also use Intagram and can follow what my friends are up to and I can share with others what I am doing in my everyday life. This has created a kind of immediate interactivity, as I have constant access to my mobile phone as which allows me to connect with my family and friends at any time.

I recently had a friend travel around Europe for 2 months, and without social media, we would have never spoken. We were able to speak everyday via Skype and Facebook chat and I was able to see their happenings via Instagram, which made me feel as if I was a part of their journey. Without social media, I would not be able to interact with as many people as I do and enjoy using my iPhone to interact with my friends and family every day.

Week 6 Blog Post

The Rise of Blogging and Employment

Growing interest in the examination of the patterns of interaction and content creation in which social media users engage in has increased since the rise of social media (Bruns et al., 2011). Within the past decade, various websites have been created to give everyday people a chance to become a blogger and there is an endless list of the topics which are being written about, one being employment. One example is a young female who started a fashion blog named ‘Tuula Vintage’, where her friend took photographs of her wearing outfits that she has styled herself. This has led her to many opportunities, as she now promotes herself on many different forms of social media and has received praise from designers, as well as styling jobs, modelling contracts and gets to attends New York fashion week.

However, when employees use blogs to speak badly about someone in your workplace or vent about a horrible day at work, it can be harmful to their career. The article by Richards and Kosmala draws on blogging as the empirical space for exploring the cynicism of employees towards their work place (Richards & Kosmala, 2013).  Work blogging was first discussed in management and organisation studies in relation to employment law, and debates have been focused on attempts to consider whether these practices should be seen as reasonable and potentially protected form of employee expression (Richards & Kosmala, 2013).

According to Schoneboom (2007), work blogs may constitute a ‘counter-hegemonic force to that of the employer’s ideology’ and do so by creating parodies of work in addition to the anonymity afforded by such communication technologies (Richards & Kosmala, 2013). Richards (2008) argues that work blogging should be ‘viewed as an expanding forum for self-organised employee resistance and misbehaviour, rejecting a reductive view of blogging platforms as forums for Cyber-waffle’ (Richards & Kosmala, 2013). In my opinion, both of these arguments are valid, as blogs may disagree with the ideologies of their employers and can vent their frustrations anonymously in order to protect themselves. I also believe that blogs should not be a ‘forum for Cyber-waffle’, as that seems unprofessional and may lead to your dismissal should it be taken too far.

Personally, I believe bloggers should use their blogs to gain popularity and exposure in the workplace, rather than speaking poorly about their current workplace. This can easily be discussed with a family member or a friend and does not need to be placed onto the internet, as this can create unnecessary dramas.

Sources:

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=tuula+vintage&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=6rJEUsrrJIa_kgXEzoHwBg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=899&dpr=1#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=ZhCz-G5RvvAESM%3A%3BHKUrOoxsggw4_M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.maurieandeve.com%252FBlog%252520P%252FOctober%2525202012%252FIMG_0807.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.maurieandeve.com%252F_blog%252FMaurie_and_Eve%252Fpost%252FThe_Look_Tuula%252F%3B850%3B1275