Blog Post 7

Blog Post 7

Prompts

• Identify the risks and benefits of engaging with a public audience in a media space – What are the risks for a public figure or person in a position of trust (educator, lawyer, government official)?
• Further your thoughts by exploring how employers use social media policy to hire, terminate or suspend individuals who use social media inappropriately or contrary to employer expectations – how would you address negative replies and critiques reflective of your personal values and employer social media policy? Can you provide notable examples?
• How do notable individuals use social media?
• What are the benefits of being in the public eye and having a PLN? (career development in the public eye)
• Building community with online tools provided by the employer can be limiting, what are the perceived restrictions and benefits of having social media directly associated with employment?
• Delivering information in a connected society requires verifiable resources, how does one build a PLN that can be consistently relied on?
• How do those, who are veteran storytellers, minimize risk in sharing misinformation?

Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash

In recent years, with the development of technology, social media and networking tend to be more and more popular in our daily work, study, and lives. In week eight, we talked mainly about how to balance our PLNs and public discourse in a public space. In my opinion, there are many benefits of engaging with a public audience in a media space. For example, first, its an effective and valuable opportunity for us to connect with other people globally. It allows us to keep in touch with people who have different backgrounds directly. Second, by engaging with a public audience on social media, I can not only learn from their ideas and experience, but also can expand my own thinking. It will be quite important for me to learn from and share new knowledge and experience. However, for a public figure or person in a position of trust, there are also some risks. For example, they need to make sure that the information that they post on social media is accurate and real. Fake news or information will mislead their readers seriously. Moreover, from the perspective of an employment, this point will also be important. For example, our employers may look at our personal accounts in order to gain new perspectives of us from our daily lives and from what we post on our social media accounts. If we post fake news, it will affect our employment negatively and seriously. Also, when we receive negative replies and critiques reflective of our personal values and employer social media policy, we need to adjust our attitude and understand that all different perspectives should be accepted and respected.

Many notable individuals use social media to share their personal experience and reflections, but others use it to earn income. Many brands or companies cooperate with notable individuals who have plenty of followers to sell their products or services. It’s a kind of “win-win” situation. The brands or companies use the influences of notable individuals to promote their products and services, and the famous individuals can earn money by marketing the products.

Moreover, in my opinion, there are some benefits of being in the public eye and having a PLN. For example, it can help us to learn from other people globally and expand our own thinking clearly. From Sophie Lui’s interview in week eight, she also expressed that social media encourages people, she included, to continue to learn from a wider intellectual world. Also, as she mentioned, it is important and meaningful to remain relevant in the public eye as well because it will help more people to be interested in the posts that you shared and follow your account.

Additionally, when building online community with social media tools, which are provided by the employer, there are some perceived restrictions and benefits of having social media associated with employments. For example, first, using the social media tools associated with employments will make working become more efficient. All the information, which is posted and shared on the social media tools will be directly related to work in order to help people to improve their work as well. Also, your followers on the social media tools will be your colleagues directly, so you can learn from each other. However, the online tools provided by the employer will be limiting because they will not allow you to share your ideas or opinions, which are not related to your work with other people in the world freely.

In my opinion, when delivering information in a connected society, it is important for people to build a PLN that can be consistently relied on. From our course material, Hirst states that “social media platforms are now a space of ‘news-like’ information rather than hard, verified news” and “this ‘news-like’ information is not rigorously fact-checked” (Hirst, 2018). Therefore, when building a PLN and delivering information on social media, it will be important, meaningful, and valuable for people to make sure that the information is accurate and real in order to make it become much more reliable. For example, you can share your own experience and your reflections instead of sharing something you do not know very well on your social media tools. The more reliable your posts are, the more your PLN can be consistently relied on. Also, if you share your own experience or your reflection, you will minimize risk in sharing misinformation on your social media platforms as well.

References

Hirst, M. (2018). Navigating Social Journalism: A Handbook for Media Literacy and Citizen. Retrieved from: https://www-taylorfrancis-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/books/9781315401263

Miller, J. (2020). EDCI 338 A01 – LUI, Sophie. YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T4jOdKd12I&feature=youtu.be