Opening Up
In a class titled, “Collaborating in Online Communities,” it came as no surprise when the first reading asked what collaboration is. To collaborate, one must have the intention to be open to other ideas and concepts, as well as having an open platform for the world to be able to contribute to your work.
In everyday life, I find myself stalking my friends on social media and personal blogs, commenting on their posts and seeing who they tagged in photos to further contribute to their pages. Although, sometimes the page they tagged is “private,” where I then have to either request to follow or not contribute at all. Personally, I feel that if I have to request to follow your page, you are not open for others to contribute to your work. While some may argue this setting is for security and privacy (see video: Social Media: A Loss of Privacy?), others, like myself, may view this as a media turn off, as I can no longer be a part of what is happening around me without permission.
In The Social Media Reader by Michael Mandiberg, it states, “Terms like “sharing,” “openness,” “user-generated content,” and “participation” have become so ubiquitous that too often they tend to be conflated and misused.” (Link: What is Collaboration Anyway?).
I agree with the statement Mandiberg wrote. I believe people only have one definition of the word openness. This is the complete opposite of any definition that exists, as you must be open to more than one definition. How would you define openness in terms of collaboration and media?
- Hannah Leigh Johnson
This was an interesting blog to read, Hannah! I like the outlook you took towards social media and how something as simple as making your account private or accepting a follow request leads to, or does not lead to, collaboration. I agree with you that those who have their social media private make it less desirable to follow them and see what they are doing or where they have been. Collaborating with others is important and I do not want to follow someone who I do not find interesting or do things that I can expand on. By putting your account of private it makes me question to even collaborate with you because I do not know what you are about to begin with. But with people I follow, it is because I see myself liking/commenting and even joining them in doing what they post about!
ReplyDeleteI found your perspective on social media and openness to be quite interesting! At first I thought of your response in a personal way, and my immediate thought was that someone may want to share with others, but not everyone. For example, they are open to sharing with friends, but not with the entire world. I also run public social media accounts for things that are more than just my personal life. When I see a follow from someone who has a private account, I am much less inclined to interact with them than if it had been a public account. I think you make a really good point that if you restrict your profile you're shutting yourself off to collaboration with others. If you and another person share enough interests to follow each other, you may want to collaborate in the future! Overall your response was an interesting perspective on the topic, and I can see collaboration from a different angle.
ReplyDeleteI think your blog post is very interesting Hannah! I find myself doing all the same things on instagram and Facebook. I never thought of it in the perspective of being on private but that point about not being open to the idea of collaboration is very true. thank you for giving a different perspective.
ReplyDelete