I am surprised by your example about virtual avatars. You are definitely right that virtual avatars are not technological products for us to live in a virtual society. Instead, it is an approach for us to present ourselves from different aspects, such as appearance, preferred styles and personal interests. In addition, you mentioned in the second question that health practitioners can build professional identities. When they present generated healthy information, nearby communities would get scientific and useful medical professions. It is also a good example of professional approach to digital identity. All in all, your examples are insightful and concise.
As stated by Stoller in this week’s video, digital identity is your presence online, that is everyone you post or share how you are, how you engage with others, how you comment on specific events and so on. Simply speaking, digital identity is how you use digital tools for you and your social friends. When it comes to my digital identity, it is what my footprint on the web. Others can search my things that I do on the web, such as my portfolio, work, twitter and blog.
How do personal versus professional approaches to digital identity affect social media use?
Personal approaches to digital identity greatly relate to family photos, daily surprises, personal interests and insightful comments on news. As for professional approaches to digital identity, we mostly try to create a positive image of good attitude towards life and professional working skills. In my opinion, these two approaches can be closely related. Nowadays, HRs would like to read your personal social media to learn your hobbies and values. And then they can further compare it with the company culture.
How do digital identities converge in networked publics – what are the impacts and/or benefits?
Digital identities converge in networked publics. There are various of positive benefits. First of all, digital identity enables digital leisure, providing a communicatively rational way of interaction. Spracklen (2015) mentioned that he would follow certain blogs analyzing polling data ahead of the next General Election in the UK. Secondly, web users can conveniently get engaged with online community or groups with similar hobbies or interests. Thirdly, users can improve their relationship with friends or colleges through online communication.
On the other hand, there are negative impacts. Digital identity might cause financial fraud or identity theft. What’s more, users could not freely express their ideas since digital identity connects to their work. Besides, it is uneasy to balance the ratio of digital identity between personal life and professional work.
References
Spracklen, K. (2015). Identity-Making and Social Media. In: Digital Leisure, the Internet and Popular Culture. Leisure Studies in a Global Era. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137405876_6
I 100% agree with you that networked publics have redefined the place of physical interactions that limit individual participation. It is true that in the previous traditional learning environments, learners have to overcome distant problems. However, with the networked publics, learners can keep in touch with teachers and classmates at any time at any where. They can access to online reading materials and comment feedback. All these are convenient way to motivate online learners to have better academic achievement. Besides, networked publics provide more opportunities to boost our interest development. We can find series of groups about our interested topics. Also, we can communicate with like-minded friends to improve skills.
I am impressed by your blog since you summarized your three answers well. I agree with you that networked publics provide a convenient environment for us to communicate. Networked publics indeed help people share information and learn personally. For example, we are experiencing the negative effect from the pandemic, we can still gain knowledge through online courses and share our ideas through blogs. At the same time, we have to pay attention to private information. We have to raise our awareness of being network fraud or network violence.
Personally, I have a slight advice for you that when you use others’ ideas, you have to make sure you cite them correctly.
Based on the first video about personal learning network, we get to know that with the assistance of world wide web and the invention of Wi-Fi, people get more and more connected to each other and a huge wealth of information. Granovetter (1983) pointed out that network gathers people who think alike or have similar interests around the world into a heterogeneous circle. With the convenience of network, people would like to use social media to stay connected with friends, family and peers. They can share images, blogs, leave comments on others’ posts and so on through the medium of social media. Also, through social media, people can continuously lifelong learn (Johnson, 2008). Â
–Â How are we motivated to participate in networked publics?
People can actively participate in networked publics in various of means. Firstly, they can use different social media, such as Emails, blogs, and Facebook, to share personal information and get business public awareness. Secondly, we can have online courses through networked websites to gain more learning opportunities. These learning websites are efficient and low-cost, which provide more convenience to us. Thirdly, we can participate in different groups that we are interested in and find more friends who think alike.
– What are the risks & rewards of public communications?
There are numerous risks and rewards of public communications. When it comes to risks, we have to consider technologies. Currently, technology does not yet support the deeper understanding of networking practice. For example, the distinction between strong, weak and very weak ties with respect to content of the relationship is not always visible in online social networking sites (Attwell, et al., 2009). Also, networked publics more or less confuse the boundaries between publics and the privates and disrupt the previous social environment. Through public communications, we might get discriminated or verbally insulted by others. Some might even steal our accounts and encounter network fraud.
However, there are obvious rewards of public communications. Firstly, it is low-cost and convenient for learners to gain effective information. For example, if we want to know more about space, we can browse Youtube to watch related visual videos or take related online courses to expand our knowledge. Secondly, networked public communications can boost our relationship with friends and family. Although we do not meet each other face-to-face frequently, we can still have public communications.
References
Graham Attwell, John Cook and Andrew Ravenscroft, 2009. “Appropriating technologies for contextual knowledge: Mobile personal learning environments,” In: Miltiadis D. Lytras, Patricia Ordóñez de Pablos, Ernesto Damiani, David Avison, Ambjörn Naeve and David G. Horner (editors). Best practices for the knowledge society: Knowledge, learning, development and technology for all. Communications in Computer and Information Science, volume 49. Berlin: Springer–Verlag, pp. 15–25.
Mark Granovetter, 1983. “The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited,” Sociological Theory, volume 1, pp. 201–233.
Mike Johnson, 2008. “Expanding the concept of networked learning,” In: Vivien Hodgson, Chris Jones, Theodoros Kargidis, David McConnell, S. Retalis, Demosthenes Stamatis, and Maria Zenios (editors). Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Networked Learning (5–6 May, Halkidiki, Greece), pp. 154–161.
Hi everyone. My name is Zhaohan Tan. I was born in Harbin, China in 2000. My hometown is extremely attractive since it is a prosperous and dynamic city. Mixed with Russian culture, this city broadens my learning and inspirational horizons since I was young.
When it refers to my personal interests, I like cooking very much. I join a local cooking club and it arranges two online classes a week. It teaches nutrition, color matching and food ingredient with multimedia tools. When I have problems during cooking, I can have interactive feedback and assistance from my group mates in time.
In addition, I am keen on doing sports on a regular basis. For example, I go to the gym every two days. I keep jogging and yoga for a long time. It is not easy to keep learning different sports literacy. Besides, I make more and more like-minded friends. We set the time and do sports together. Sometimes, we share some decent instructional videos and blogs to keep healthy.
By the way, I like animals very much. For example, I have two dogs in my family. One is called “blacky”and the other is called “lucky”. They are my best friends and stay by my side. Sometimes, I would like to go to the zoo to see them in person. Whenever I look at the animals, I feel peaceful and comfortable.
I always like traveling. I enjoy planning the routines for a new place. I would search online about the local food and accommodation, in order to get the best experience traveling there. During the traveling, I would like to write a diary and take pictures. Traveling enables me to experience the culture differences in the world.
Currently, this is my third year studying in University of Victoria, majoring in economics. I am always keen on reading certain books related to social development and economic changes.
Looking forward to meeting and working with you guys in the following weeks!
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