Issue 16: April 2014 - Haigazian University

2014
QUOTE of the Issue
April
“You are what you share.”
Charles Leadbeater *Innovation Expert and Associate+
Issue 16
Editorials
Beware, Social Media?
Social media, the fad of the decade, facilitates our daily communication and exposes us to new businesses and
job opportunities, but we should be cautious while using it in order to avoid catastrophes in our future life.
Social Networks, Bookmarking sites, Social news, Media sharing, Micro blogging, and blog comments and
forums are the six types of social media that we tend to use on daily basis. The most popular of these are
Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter.
Of course, social networks put us in contact with our friends and colleagues at anytime and anywhere. For
our professional life, for example, instead of browsing through business cards to remember a certain person
we met at a conference or lecture, we can easily find him/her via LinkedIn. LinkedIn also introduces us to
companies and other individuals who are in the same field. Our online résumé, career history,
recommendations from others and creative portfolios can be shown on our LinkedIn profile. Meanwhile,
business owners can advertise their products via Facebook and Twitter.
However, we should always be careful when and how and with whom we use social networks. We should be
careful while posting pictures or profile pictures. Some pictures and discussions might harm us not only socially
but many times professionally also. The groups that we join, events that we attend and the posts that we write
on Facebook can greatly reflect our beliefs, interests and concerns.
On the other hand, if we overuse social networks, face-to-face interaction will be endangered; in fact, a
student could not identify a classmate’s face although he knew her online. If we don’t set a goal for our websurfing, we will drown in floods of information. If we do not pay attention to the small print before clicking
“accept” to a certain application or a website, we only jeopardize our privacy, and perhaps our social life and
careers.
Ms. Sahar Hamzeh, Instructor of Communication Skills
An e-publication for a better university life
OR Dialog Letter
HAIGAZIAN UNIVERSITY
ADVICE of the Issue
ANSWER of the Issue
What is Cyber-bullying?
Slonje and Smith (2008) define Cyber-bullying as “an aggressive, intentional act or behavior that is carried out,
repeatedly and over time,” through modern technological devices, such as, mobile phones or the internet (e.g.,
picture/video clip, phone call, text message, email, chat-room), against a cyber-victim who is cannot defend
him or herself. It has several features: it is not a face-to-face experience, it is difficult to get away from it, it can
reach a large audiences, and it provides the cyber-bully with some degree of ‘invisibility’ and ‘anonymity’.
Burns (2012) lists the most important tactics that Cyber-bullies use: “1) social exclusion; 2) flaming (by posting
hostile messages); 3) outing (by posting and displaying sensitive personal information); 4) email threats and
dissemination (by inspiring fear); 5) harassment (by sending hurtful messages); 6) phishing (by tricking, persuading or manipulating the victim to reveal personal information); 7) impersonation (with the veil of
‘anonymity’); 8) denigration (by posting cruel rumors, gossip and untrue statements in order to damage the
victim’s reputation); 9) e-mail and cell phone image dissemination; and 10) images and videos.”
Slonje, R., and Smith, P. K. (2008). “Cyberbullying: Another main type of bullying?”. In Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 49, 147-154.
Burns, J. H. (January 17, 2012). “10 Most Common Cyber Bullying Tactics”. Retrieved on March 12, 2014 from
http://bullyproofclassroom.com/10-most-common-cyber-bullying-tactics
WEBSITE of the Issue
http://www.saferinternetday.org/web/lebanon/home
APPLICATION of the Issue
TED
© HAIGAZIAN UNIVERSITY — Orientation Office
OPINION of the Issue
Social Media – The Apocalypse
By Alexander Heneine
On Facebook, a teenager, going through puberty ever-so-proudly, posts a halfnaked picture of herself, takes perverted comments as compliments, and starts
conversations, with middle-aged men looking to stay in touch with their expired
youth. Is this what we have become?
Technology, although facilitating our daily lives, does not necessarily make it
better. Just like a chocolate bar might be easier to devour than resist, social
media often provides the self-satisfaction teenagers seek nowadays. Who
wouldn’t want that? The answer to that question is this: the educated and
informed… Apart from studies that show social media can literally make you
dumber (CNN, 2009)1, rarely do we see the younger generation use platforms as
a source for information and knowledge. Social media is portrayed as a way to
bring the whole world together, connecting those of both common and conflicting beliefs in order to bring out the best of all. Is this why girls talk about
their breakups, make a fool of themselves, and judge based on the number of
“likes” they get? Is this why guys bully each other just to portray a status that
exists only behind screens? The integrity of our belief systems is put to the test.
Our failures as individuals reflect our societies’ failures as instructors to future
generations. Teenagers develop a need to do whatever it takes to be socially
accepted, and often fall and will continue to fall into the trap that has been set
up by companies and governments to control our mindsets and ideologies. To
“Twit”, commonly known as to “tweet”, is, as a verb, “to mock… to talk in a
chattering fashion as if a fool being mocked.”2 Brainless and random uploading
of photos and information contribute to the dangers children face. Stalked and
spied on, while parents remain unaware of what their children are doing online,
children are exposed to manipulative strangers who blaspheme, disrupt, and
destroy our children’s cultures.
Throughout the ages, teenagers have been in need of guidance in every step
they take as they nourish, and just like in every other aspect, they are in dire
need of supervision in whatever they choose to perform on the internet. We
must insure our children’s safety, as they are prone to many dangers, from shifts
in beliefs to complete brainwash, as social media incessantly hypnotize the poor
and mislead peoples of the future.
“Is social network platform hypnotization the new clinical therapy or is it the
new decade’s plague?”3 The disease has been spreading for a long time now,
and is targeting the people who are most vulnerable. Make sure it doesn’t
happen to you or your loved ones.
References:
1.
2.
3.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/ptech/04/14/twitter.study/index.html
http://revellian.com/2008/06/28/the-twitter-conspiracy/
http://blog.thoughtpick.com/2009/04/social-network-brainwashing-be-vewy.html
ACKNOWLEDGMENT of the Issue
THANK YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK
Ibrahim Al Sakhle | Fidaa Bouzeineddine | Makram Masri | Taimour Shamseddine | Shant
Kupjian | Tsolag Ossepian | Harout Agopian | Emile El Ghoul | Najah Saoud | Robert Mesrob
Der Mesrobian | Armen Bakkalian | Nour Kabbara | Sandy Fahed | Sarah Mashoumishi | Lori
Agopian | Manar Hammoud | Bianca Hout | Ghinwa Monzer | Mirna Ghimrawi| | Jacqueline Tamar Boyadjian | Tsoler Sayegh | Marwa Sinji | Patil Dedeyan | Sirvart Bardakjian |
Nairi Bodroumian | Mona Ramadan | Eman Saleh | Talar Estepan | Christine Simidyan
PROVERB of the Issue
Was du allein wissen willst, das sage niemand.
What you want to keep a secret, tell no one.
*German Proverb+
MISTAKE of the Issue
 I look forward to meet you.
 I look forward to meeting you.
BOOK of the Issue
YOUTUBE of the Issue
James Lyne:
Everyday cybercrime -- and what you can
do about it
“How do you pick up a malicious online virus, the
kind of malware that snoops on your data and taps
your bank account?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSErHToV8IU
The Culture of Connectivity: A
Critical History of Social Media
Author: “José van Dijck is a professor of Comparative
Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Van
Dijck's research areas include media and science, media
technologies, digital culture, popularisation of science
and medicine, and television and culture. Her latest
book, titled The Culture of Connectivity. A Critical History
of Social Media, was published by Oxford University
Press (2013)”.
H AI G A Z I AN U N I V E R S I T Y
Table of Contents
O R I E N T AT I O N O F F I C E
PHONE: (01) 353010/11/12
[ext. 245]
HU Box: 1020
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RIAD EL SOLH 1107 2090
Chapter 1: Engineering Sociality in a Culture of Connectivity
1.1 Introduction
1.2 From Networked Communication to Platformed Sociality
1.3 Making the Web Social: Coding Human Connections.
1.4 Making Sociality Saleable: Connectivity as a Resource
1.5 The Ecosystem of Connective Media in a Culture of Connectivity
Chapter 2: Disassembling Platforms, Reassembling Sociality
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Combining Two Approaches
2.3 Platforms as Techno-cultural Constructs
2.4 Platforms as Socio-economic Structures
2.5 Connecting Platforms, Reassembling Sociality
Chapter 3: Facebook and the Imperative of Sharing
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Coding Facebook: The Devil is in the Default
3.3 Branding Facebook: What You Share Is What You Get
3.4 Shared norms in the Ecosystem of Connective Media
Chapter 4: Twitter and the Paradox of Following and Trending
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Asking the Existential Question: What is Twitter?
4.3 Asking the Strategic Question: What Does Twitter Want?
4.4 Asking the Ecological Question: What Will Twitter Be?
Chapter 5: Flickr between Communities and Commerce
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Flickr Between Connectedness and Connectivity
5.3 Flickr Between Commons and Commerce
5.4 Flickr Between Participatory and Connective Culture
Chapter 6: YouTube: The Intimate Connection between Television and Videosharing
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Out of the Box: Video-sharing Challenges Television
6.3 Boxed In: Channeling Television into the Connective Flow
6.4 YouTube as A Gateway to Connective Culture
Chapter 7: Wikipedia and the Principle of Neutrality
7.1 Introduction
7.2 The Techno-cultural Construction of Consensus
7.3 A Consensual Apparatus between Democracy and Bureaucracy
7.4 A Nonmarket Space in the Ecosystem?
Chapter 8: The Ecosystem of Connective Media: Locked In, Fenced Off, Opt
Out?
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Locked In: The Algorithmic Basis of Sociality
8.3 Fenced Off: Vertical Integration and Interoperability
8.4 Opt Out? Connectivity as Ideology
© HAIGAZIAN UNIVERSITY — Orientation Office