Blog post #3
How does social media use in public discourse potentially challenge advocacy communications?
Social media create a virtual community that is like the physical community, where people form groups based on interests, beliefs, and other factors. In addition, the magnitude of the community is much greater as it can connect people together regardless of geographical location. This creates a potential threat, in which people can easily share hatred, harmful opinions, or fake news on purpose through social media. On the other hand, the anonymous nature of the internet (maybe not fully anonymous, but less transparent) intensifies the unscrupulous languages used on social media. This can ultimately lead to manipulation and exclusivity, where the minorities (in terms of politics, culture, religions, etc.) are targeted and being attacked by the “insiders”.
How diverse is your existing PLN?
There are two strategies that I expand and develop my personal learning network:
- Face to face
A great way to build your personal learning network is to find out if anyone around you is doing innovative work in your field. In addition, find out what you can offer (EDCI 338 12:15-12:19) so that the contribution is bilateral and learn from each other. After the conversation, I usually ask the person if they have any connections that he/she thinks may be interested to connect with me. - Blogs, experts’ reports, news articles
Blogs, reports, and news articles are also great learning resources. I search topics that I am interested in and bookmark the sites so that I can visit them routinely. Also, I take part in the conversation and comment on the blogs that I read. I believe this will allow me to get the most out of it and maybe lead to a chance with the author for a face-to-face chat.
In your PLN, are you learning from a variety of voices?
I reach out and learn from people with all kinds of backgrounds. This helps me to be more open-minded and intercultural apprehensive. Moreover, people have their own interpretations of things based on their past experiences and backgrounds. Learning from a variety of voices allows me to look at the world through different lenses and allows me to be all-rounded.
How does social media engage in advocacy communications?
Social media promotes collaborative communication, not only the like-minded but also the people on the opposing side. For example, when social media is used to support political advocacy work, social media can strengthen the collective by disseminating information about the cause, strengthening the relationship between supporters, promoting participatory dialogue between group leaders and supporters, and increasing the speed of collaborative communication. However, social media is also served as a virtual forum for the opposing side to share their opinions.
Reference
Moore, Shelley. “EDCI 338 – 20 Minutes Moore.” Youtube, uploaded by MILLER, 30 May 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeSV0rUl1bA&ab_channel=MILLER
June 10, 2021 at 3:24 pm
Hi Sail,
Nice post! I really like how you listed your existing PLNs in two categories;
For face-to-face strategy, I think it’s a very direct way to find the same interests or learn from each other from friends around you, which is very rewarding.
For articles, blogs and reports, when reading the content of these platforms, absorbing knowledge can also output values, as you said, most blog forums will have discussion boards, different readers will have different views opinions, when readers gather together because of the article, they can discuss different issues so as to develop their own PLNs.
June 12, 2021 at 1:07 pm
Hi Sail,
I like your way to introduce your existing PNL in two aspects, although we are mostly focusing on the PNL on the internet because of the pandemic, however, since we are having more opportunities to have face to face communication in the following days and semester, I think we might need to pick up the face to face PNL back later. There is no doubt that online learning can be really diverse and convenient for us to share and absorb, we should combine our PNL in real-life so that we can have an integrated PNL. I noticed that you mentioned the anonymous nature of the internet, although it might lead to manipulation and exclusivity, it is also the reason why people are more active in the network compared to real life. I think the anonymous system definitely proved more opportunities for people to share their opinions and meet up with the like-minded on different issues and topics, people don’t need to care about their identity in real life and can only focus on discussing issues.