Beware of Fakes on Twitter!

Twitter, a free micro-blogging and social networking service that enables its users to send and read messages of up to 140 characters to their followers and people their following respectively, these messages are better known as tweets (Ahmad 2010). With 105,779,710 registered users, an estimate of 300 000 people signing up everyday (The Huffington Post 2010), Twitter is known as a popular source of information and communication that is globalizing the world. However, Twitter.com is not a reliable source of information.

The Twitter bird, one of Twitter.com's popular logos

(image source: http://seevirtual.wordpress.com/ )

Hackers and impersonators are causing a rapid decline in Twitter’s credibility. On Twitter, anyone can sign up with his or her desired username and profile picture to portray someone else, or hack into someone’s account and pretend to be that person. For example, Britney Spear’s twitter account was hacked into 3 times, and one of it portrayed her as worshiper of the Devil (Leyden 2009). These actions are possible because of Twitter’s poor verification system, as it is impossible for Twitter’s relatively small staff to verify each and every user (Owen 2009).

A print screen of Britney's hacked Twitter account. The Tweet that the

hacker posted up was 'I give myself to Lucifer every day for it to arrive

as quickly as possible. Glory to Satan!'

(image source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/12/spears_twitter_hack/)

These actions can be seen as a parody or a threat to many, because if identity stealers are serious about ruining one’s reputation, they can go to the extend of addressing personal issues to cause extreme humiliation and distress. However, parodies can be a healthy way of poking fun, but only if it does not cross the boundaries of impersonation (Owen 2009).

hackers and impersonators imposes a threat

(image source: http://perso.wanadoo.es/dbo_castilla/varios/varios-ingles.html)

Twitter’s unreliable source of information can also affect journalism. For instance, an impersonator of the Dalai Lama opened a Twitter account portraying to be the Holy Dalai Lama. When several journalists and bloggers found out, they immediately reported the the Dalai Lama’s debut, only to correct their reports when it was revealed to be fake. This incident. This situation draws attention to journalist’s respect for the integrity of information. "News is very different now and you want to get the news out there as quickly as you can," she said. "And though it's no excuse, there aren't people in the middle of the night standing by their phones to verify a story.," quoted by Lidja Davis, regular writer for ReadWriteWeb (Owen 2009).

An impersonator of the Dalai Lama

(image source: http://pondstonecommunications.wordpress.com/category/social-media/)

As Twitter and the trend of citizens journalism continues to rise, the importance of understanding how it works becomes more important. We should all be cautious and understand the lack of integrity of information that we find on Twitter because not only may the news be unreliable, but so are the user’s identities.




References:
Ahmad, A 2010, Is Twitter a useful tool for journalists?, Journal of Media Practice, Vol. 11, No.2, pp. 145 – 155.

Bosker, B 2010, Twitter User Statistics Revealed, The Huffington Post 30th April, as viewed 11 November 2010 < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/14/twitter-user-statistics-r_n_537992.html >

Leyden, J 2009, Twitter fights celeb imposters with Verified Account scheme, The Register 8th June, as viewed 12th November 2010, < href="www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/12/spears_twitter_hack/">www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/12/spears_twitter_hack/ >.

Owens, S 2009, How Celebrity Imposters Hurt Twitter's Credibility, Media Shift 20th February, viewed 12 November 2010 < http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/02/how-celebrity-imposters-hurt-twitters-credibility051.html >

Sexism in Advertising

Definition of SEXISM

1: prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially: discrimination against women

2: behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex

(source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism )

According to Enloe (1989), gender relations ‘makes the world go round.’ It is hegemony that masculine dignity and feminine sacrifice are seen as essentials to sustain the works of the world order (Cohen & Kennedy 2007). This form of advertising reinforces the ideology that the male gender is the more dominant one, and has an advertising discourse that sexism works.

Gender stereotyping in advertising is not a new issue, there have been, and still are numerous ads that have a sexist or insulting tone or content to it and it is mainly affecting women. The widespread usage of these images has been accepted as part of the landscape of modern times and is recognized as an effective form of marketing (Perera 2010 & Gifford n.d.).

The concept behind this peripheral route of advertising is that sexist ads may not directly make the audience want to buy the products, but it will gain their additional attraction time to expose them to the products (Artz, Munger & Purdy n.d). According to Lundstrom and Scilimpaglia(1977), four of the most used gender stereotypes of women in advertising are:

1. That a woman's place is at home.

2. That women don't make important decisions.

3. That women are dependent on men.

4. That men regard women primarily as sex objects.

Examples of sexism in advertising include WKD’s world cup advertisement, with their slogan: "THE OFFSIDE RULE FOR GIRLS: IF THE FLAG'S UP, IT'S OFFSIDE," which insults the intelligence of women (Perera 2010). Another example is Hoover advertisement for their vacuum cleaners, which reinforces the ideology that women are responsible to clean the house. However, the most used form of sexism in advertising is the hegemony of idealized bodies and sexuality (Artz, Munger & Purdy n.d and Lundstrom & Scilimpaglia 1977). For examples of ‘sex sells’ ads, click here.

WKD's advertisement that portrayed male dominance

(video source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGCax1MQi_Q&feature=player_embedded )

Hoover's advertisement that portrays women's

responsibility as the cleaners of the house

(image source: http://beverlyhillshoneys.com/category/battle-of-the-sexes/)

Sexism in advertising is constantly degrading women, it generates the audience’s negative feelings towards women from the ads and is causing a continuous struggle for gender equality (Cohen & Kennedy 2007). The first step to reducing or eliminating these practices is for consumers to complain and demand authorities, such as UK’s The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), to regulate this form of unethical publishing (Perera 2010). In order to achieve social cohesion and social progress, society should learn and recognize boundaries, such as the fine line between sexy and sexism, to avoid further gender bias and discrimination.

(image source: http://www.cafepress.com/+no_to_sexism_35_button,306046026)

References:

Cohen & Kennedy 2007, Global Sociology, Palgrave Mcmillan, New York.
Gifford, A n.d., 15 Ads That Prove Sex Sells, InventorSpot, as viewed 11th November 2010, <http://inventorspot.com/articles/ads_prove_sex_sells_5576?page=1 >.

Merriam-Webster 2010, Sexism, as viewed 11th November 2010, < http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism >.

Perera, K 2010, Time to kick sexism out of advertising, Guardian 29th June, as viewed 11th November 2010, < http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/29/kick-sexism-out-of-advertising >.

Artz, N, Munger, J & Purdy, W 1999, Gender Issues in Advertising Language, Women and Language, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 20 -26.

Lundstrom & Scilimpaglia 1977, Sex Role Portrayals in Advertising, Journal of Marketing, vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 72 – 79.

Facebook and the Rights to Privacy

The theory of ritualized media – ‘the media are not just consumed for informational or entertainment purposes, they are also habitually used as part of people’s everyday life routines, as diversions and pastimes’ (Debatin et al. 2009).

Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site with over 50 million users worldwide is a globalizing trend in modern times. The usage of Facebook has become a habit for many and the statistics of Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD) patients are increasing over the years since its launch in 2004. Despite the danger of addiction, Facebook is often criticized for their privacy shield. (ABC 2010 & Renganayar 2010).

one of Facebook's logos

(image source: http://www.tcd.ie/disability/projects/DS3/index.php ).

Facebook has admitted that it as been breaching privacy policies by allowing user information to be spread to advertising companies. It was found that many of the social networking sites’ popular applications access information about the members of Facebook and their friends, to companies to build detailed databases for online tracking purposes. Authorities of Facebook.com declared that the social networking site will take action against these issues, and will disable applications that is involve in the violation of the privacy policies (ABC 2010).

A Facebook user's personal information being accessed

(image source: http://danielfive.com/facebook-design-sucks-facebook-users-facebook/)

The Facebook iceberg model illustrates two parts of Facebook usage, the visible part and the invisible part. The visible part, innocent user profiles and social interactions are only a small part. Whereas the invisible part of the iceberg illustrates the filtering of personal information and the data from interactions from the visible part, for business purposes (Debatin et al. 2009).

The Facebook Iceberg Model

(image source: Debatin, B, Lovejoy, J, Horn, A & Hughes, B 2009,

Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences,

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 15, pp. 88.)

Besides using Facebook unethically as a tool for business growth, it can also impose greater danger. For instance, one cannot control the postings, stalking and information extraction of third parties. In a case study, an unknown person hacked into Brian’s Facebook account. The hacker changed Brian’s “interested in” to incorrectly imply that Brian was gay, changed his password, his ‘interest in,’ his profile picture to an inappropriate one and also targeted his friends. The hacker made comments on the walls of Brian’s friend’s to further imply that he was gay, and also tag Brian’s girlfriend in a picture of a donkey. These were publicly humiliating for Bryan (Debatin et al. 2009 & CBSNewsOnline 2010).

(image source: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/s/sexually_harassed.asp)

Many Facebook users understand these dangers, but their high gratification in ‘Facebook-ing’ overweighs the high risk of privacy invasion that not only affects the user, but his/her friends and family as well (Debatin et al. 2009). In my opinion, users should make full use of the privacy controls to prevent invasions.

References:

ABC News 2010, Facebook admits privacy breach, ABC 19^th October, as viewed 10^th November 2010, < http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/19/3042594.htm >.

CBSNewsOnline’s channel 2010, YouTube, as viewed 10^th November 2010, < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GimEDFj4Hno&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh+div-1r-3-HM >.

Debatin, B, Lovejoy, J, Horn, A & Hughes, B 2009, Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 15, pp. 83 – 108.

Renganayar, C 2010, Do you have Facebook Addiction Disorder?, New Straight Times 1^st August, as viewed 10^th November, < http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/02cdsns2a/Article/ >.