Digital Identity, Research, & PLN – Taking your PLN from the local community to the global community

-Consider how you can use the PLN interactions of this course to further your digital identity post-term. What does it mean to have a digital identity in your industry of choice and can your current PLN be used to help professional development post-course?

-Additionally, as you progress through the steps of your career, can your PLN be relied on to open professional opportunities?

PLN interactions is a practical learning strategy that I have more concepts learned after taking this course. To further apply my digital identity in the study of my program, I realize the connection between people is positive. On the internet, we all have different aspects of ourselves. We distribute professional digital identity and personal digital identity to protect our privacy and avoid disruption of life. PLN asks us to play an inclusive character and be humble to those critics and Network residents. PLN is about participation in a different group of people. In the most important and difficult process of our life, job searching, People have more opportunity to find the most interesting position for them if they are involved in the PLN. Due to many jobs in the job market are even never available advertised. These jobs are fulfilled through the internal referred and professional network. On the Internet, information is more rapidly exchanged. For my undergraduate study and career planning, I can easily observe what specific companies are, what they are hiring for, what skills and experiences they prize most. If you are an introverted personality and feel difficult to establish your PLN, you can start with people you know. It is awful when you walk into a room and ask for the business card of many strangers. But you can learn from your current circle of classmates, colleagues and friends in order to expand your circle of specific company, industry or career path. As we studied in this course, Jody Vance shared her story to introduce to us that volunteering can expand our network and gain skills. We have to find a meaningful social activity to engage in social connection. PLN is more about giving than taking. You have to set a goal about what you want to offer to people you’d like to know. You can inspire people through an idea where you are expertise, or sharing resources that you are interested in or you think someone is interested in. You can take a class and explore PLN by building connections with other students as well. As a fourth-year student, I found the PLN gives people power and support them taking further steps to their career. 

Why Media Literacy matters in your PLN

– What is media literacy?

Media literacy refers to people’s choice ability, understanding ability, questioning ability, evaluation ability, creation and production ability, and speculative response ability when facing all kinds of media information. Media literacy refers to citizen’s ability to interpret and criticize media information, as well as the ability to use media information for personal life use and social development. It is an important part of civic literacy and civic education in modern society. With the new communication mechanism, social media has a huge impact on the pattern of information communication and has a growing role in real society. The communicational property of social media also put forward new requirements for the media literacy of the public, media operators, government agencies and officials.

– Why is it important?

In the era of entertainment, the public prefers fast-food like reading, the neglect of rationality and logic, and the blind pursuit of emotional resonance has become the key to the success of the Internet celebrity. Whenever the news is twisted, most people are exhaustless happy to be the judges and critics. We often say that idiom, “Rumors stop with the wise.” When mass media and We-media come to our eyes, most of the public seem to be used to passively accepting and listening to them. Nevertheless, readers not only have to equip the ability to classify and screen the content producers with media literacy, but also should maintain a critical and questioning attitude towards social media.

– Why is it dismissed?

In the context of information society and knowledge economy, media literacy is dismissed as users are easily trapped in the feeling of freshness of social media. The emergence of various new media forms provides more communication channels and produces more diverse content. However, the use of these new media and information requires the support of various new technologies. Users need to understand all different digital platforms and media literacy, improve the ability of information dissemination. They need to realize the operation of media information acquisition, selection, analysis, production and dissemination to handle personal affairs. 

Why should you aim for varied views but the factual consensus in your PLN?

The Internet has erected many walls that everyone only cares about their own topics. Since then, people have lived in a parallel universe and have no concern for other people’s world. It is difficult for people to summarize the most important and factual consensus from the perspective of the whole society. In my PLN, I will advise more personal media communication skills involved. For instance, democratic consultation and public decision-making strategy will promote social connection and development in civil society.

Open dialogues about media literacy and factual information can create conflict, why does this happen?

Different people have different cognition, knowledge background and educational level on social media. Social media could have biased in judging things. For example, some people thought the outbreak of COVID-19 was a plot of Bill Gates to eliminate the population of humans. On Feb 13th, 2021, a Texas winter storm caused power outages. They thought it was “fake” snow because people claim the snowballs are not melting after they burned by lighter. People on the Internet claim 5G tower spread the virus and burn it. Do you think it’s the lack of education? How can we popularize common science and control public opinion, refute rumours? Leave it under my blog. 

As the carrier of information dissemination, we must strengthen the digital construction of self-discipline principle and media ethics, and enhance the credibility of the media. We should avoid the excessive commercialization and over-entertainment of media. PLN should carry forward the role of creating compelling and effective communication, and adhere to the correct guidance of public opinion and value orientation. 

What is the benefit of having a PLN that values media literacy? 

At present, the field of the Internet is expanding. With the rapidly increasing number of Internet users and the downward shift of media rights, every individual who has media literacy in PLN has the opportunity to release information. Network problems and crises are becoming more and more profound. Media literacy aims to eliminate the occurrence rate of network attacks, network violence, network terror, privacy leakage, pornographic information, rumours and slander occurrence.  In fact, media literacy has become a new topic in the field of global digital governance, and media literacy education has become an important part of cyberspace governance.

– How does a PLN give power to messaging for an individual or community?

PLN gives the opportunity for individuals who engage in spreading the knowledge. In the era of information, citizen’s life, work can not get away from information production, information reconstruction, information analysis and information transmission. PLN is considered a carrier of creative inspiration. For instance, People collaborate in a group project analyze a problem and writing a report, the appearance of positive feedback will happen first on a particular group member, then the others will inherit the active interaction when they troubleshooting the project. In the online community, open teachers advocate free, open, transparent knowledge society and continuously contribute thought-provoking points of view to make the society move forward to a better place. 

–Education occurs in so many environments beyond the classroom, how does social media help expand education and associated needed communications?

With the development of technology, there are also changes in the way of living and communication, and the property of the PLN expandability also meets the learning psychological expectations of people in modern society especially in the pandemic. Therefore, when the PLN as a new form of communication impacts the traditional communication activities, and with its openness, participation and interaction, it promotes the diversification of communication subjects. From my perspective, social media move our education to a bigger range of the world. At there, we are able to get in touch with people who have backgrounds that not only broaden the horizons but also encourage us to associate needed communication.

– Community communications go beyond blogs and social media shares, how does a PLN help and hinder the development of thoughts and ideas in education discourse?

Research has shown that social media can help students learn through various social platforms, teachers and students can integrate social media into daily class, making the course more interesting and attractive, and increasing students’ participation. Students are engaged in interacting in the efficient social media PLN(e.g, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook)  because it is the most familiar and the most frequent tool students use. Social media is also available for research and data analysis which can provide enough evidence for the survey. Students can use a poll, a questionnaire, or even a simple question to gather people’s opinions on education discourse.

– How does the use of PLN raise awareness opportunities in education?

The use of PLN enhanced the communication between parents, students, teachers, associator and research personnel, reduce the spatial communication cost. In colleges, social media can help education groups absorb new information, update knowledge reserves carry out better-teaching work with time changes. They can also use Facebook, Twitter, etc. to spread and share school-related news events or other important announcements. Social media play an increasingly important in rapidly developing fields, so there are many potential opportunities to integrate social media platforms and tools into students’ learning. Teachers should use various methods to integrate these social platforms into course assignments and raise the awareness of PLN usability in order to keep students up with the development of the digital world.

– What is the role of social media in education?

Social media extends teachers’ office hours and facilitates interaction between teachers and students after class. For students who have no chance or student are ashamed to ask their own problems in the public classroom, social media provides them with a relatively private platform that can raise their own confusion. In high-level education, social media can become an effective approach to contact and communication with students. Through this informal way of communication, we can show the different aspects of teachers and establish a more harmonious relationship between teachers and students.

– What are some problems with social media communications in education settings?

The problem with social media communication in an education setting is that students need to create a blog to share the learning experience they are educated on and market it as a product. Then they need to conduct market research on customer segmentation and find the fastest distribution channel. To minimize the risk of social media especially for teenagers, social media should take responsibility for data privacy and build up the juvenile protection mechanism to avoid the distribution of violent game advertisements and pornographic advertisements.

References:

1. Miller, Jesse. “EDCI 338 – BRAD BAKER.” YouTube, uploaded by MILLER, 04 Mar. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy63SmEpvCw.
2. Learning networks: Harnessing the power of online communities for discipline and lifelong learning. (2008, October 22). Some Assemblage Required. https://djon.es/blog/publications/learning-networks-harnessing-the-power-of-online-communities-for-discipline-and-lifelong-learning/

Balancing PLN & Public Discourse

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)?

Today, the total number of global social media users has reached an all-time high and is still growing. You are one of them reading this article. People enjoy the efficiency of social media and indulge in it. However, the relationship between people and social media is not a single enjoyment or entertainment, but a double-edged sword. When we are using social media, people can find all our contacts anytime, anywhere, free and fast. In contrast, we are easily found by the public too. Daniel Trottier encountered a common situation in the interview. The interviewees frankly said that they joined Facebook and maintained a “positive” state on it, largely due to a kind of social pressure, because it is a kind of reciprocal activity. People living in this Internet feel more and more depressed and anxious. In the paper age, the information is more reliable, readers do not need to do too much information screening as the work is completed by senior editors and publishers instead. This explains why we feel newspapers had generally higher quality. In the age of digital media, things are suddenly different -social media has replaced traditional media. The most inspiring thing about social media is decentralization. There is no longer a single newspaper or a publishing house with authority, social media platforms provide opportunities for everyone to voice aloud but it does not accomplish the responsibility of traditional media information screening.

– How to best address negative replies and critiques reflective of your personal values and employer social media policy?

Research proves that feedback drives performance and leadership. (Tasha Eurich, 2018) Positive feedback is not as effective as negative feedback made by superiors, employees, and peers. To avoid reflective critiques make us defensive, aggressive, and self-conscious. So do not rush to react to the feedback, wise Bolger usually takes a few days and weeks to push past the emotion and make responses. Critics are brutally honest who argue the most valuable information which promotes people to recognize and improve weakness. With respect to employer social media policy and my personal values, I would like to hear more critical comments which I like to adjust and enhance my ability. For employer social media policy, I feel most of the company have eliminated the negative opinion of their product which relate to the market strategy. If they take it seriously and put effort on update the product, I would say it is the positive meaning of negative replies and critiques.

– How do notable individuals use social media?

Jody Vance said she volunteered for the first PGA tour and meet Scott Moore who gives her a great opportunity to become the first female sports broadcaster. I am very inspired by her story that she gained such a chance with the PLN. On social media, it’s more about Darwin rules which only the best on social media will survive, earn eyeballs and attraction because the “low pay” and  “no pay” of journalism have eliminated the full-time journalist, instead, the gig economy spawned the freelancers who tout for the subscriber and marketing the wares.

– What are the benefits of being in the public eye and having a PLN?

PLN is a good life teacher which offer unlimited information, online resources and various website. Having PLN in the public presents the opportunity for community communication, learning, collaboration. People in the PLN can be much more different who contribute knowledge supported by credentials, research, argument, and they do not hesitate to teach you. In that connected world, we can share ideas, receive feedback, develop concepts and execute work.

– Building community with online tools provided by the employer can be limiting, what are the perceived restrictions and benefits?

Most businesses have social media involving recruitment, building public relationships, engaging employees and developing strategic tools. Social media not only increase the efficiency of employers to sharing knowledge but also offer lots of experience shared by professionals. Employees have potential problems when using the individuals’ social media accounts related to data, network, product security. Employers will control the usability and accessibility of social media by publishing policies and legal rules. The public relations department in the enterprise has the power to shop the way in the formulation, communication and implementation of social media policies.

– Delivering information in a connected society requires verifiable resources, how to build a PLN to rely on?

Find and connect trusted people to build a network of PLN and share interests and passion. PLN provides a broader side of knowledge and education. PLN involve many communities not limited but space challenge like classroom, city, country. The digital world combines professionals from different filed. Social media integrate our life with the international world and expand social connection. People are interested in touch with places they had experienced such as school, shop, coffee shop. Similar experiences make people comfortable which help them open mind, inspire them to find passion and happy which help us to build a related PLN.

– How do those, who are veteran storytellers, minimize risk in sharing misinformation?

We avoid being misled by invalid information in the age of explosive information. A veteran storyteller has the ability to extract core information from the mass of them. Everyone should start thinking about and proactive about the ability to filter information. When we read an article, we do not need to read every single work rather focus on the quality, reliability, timeliness of the information. We can find most status by reading the abstract, summary, introduction and conclusion of an article. That’s what we acquisitive, filter, and manage the risk of sharing misinformation and reuse them.

References:

1. MILLER. (2021c, February 28). EDCI 338 – JODY VANCE. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgZOJgJkdyI

2. Hirst, M. (2018). Navigating Social Journalism: A Handbook for Media Literacy and Citizen Journalism (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.4324/9781315401263

3. Eurich, T. (2018, August 6). The Right Way to Respond to Negative Feedback. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2018/05/the-right-way-to-respond-to-negative-feedback