a French view

It's all over the news. As a European citizen, and currently in my social media full-immersion mode, not sharing this information with my FSU class was not an option. A few days ago, Twitter decided to withdraw from the EU (European Union) Code of Practice on Disinformation. The Code has been created in 2018 and gathers around 30 volunteer entities such as Meta, Google, Mircosoft, TikTok, NGOs and fact-checkers. As its name implies, its goal is to prevent and act against disinformation online and thus through social media. As of the end of August, every online platform will have to respect the Digital Services Act (DSA), including the fight against disinformation. If social platforms do not play by the rule, they might encounter issues ranging from fines (up to 6% of their total revenue) to a banishment from the European Union. The news raised intense debates among French journalists, with some very relevant questions related to the status of social media in our societies. Among ot

Influenced by the topics we were to explore this week, I paid extra attention to the students I am dealing with indirectly at my institution. I am working in a higher ed institution as an ID and support staff for faculty, where my work requires me to design and develop learning experiences in regard to an audience belonging to what is often referred to as Generation Z or Centennials. Hence, a current and frequent mistake I and faculty make is to assume that, because those learners are born in a very productive digital era, they are looking for more activities related to their supposed hectic connected life. This week, we got to receive some feedback from students about a hybrid module we developed for freshmen. We were asking them how they feel about the hybrid mode, the interactive support and the collaborative activities organized online between face-to-face sessions. The first results we collected so far were in some way surprising as many students felt uncomfortable with the intera

This week's exploration put three critical topics on the table: the hive mind, the digital natives/digital immigrants theory, and the debate surrounding produsage. Readings, discussions and repeated dives on social media resulted in a personal complex mindmap where innovation and traditions are intertwined in a controversial framework. On one hand, the affordances of computers and the Internet allow individuals to access readily information presented in various formats and offering multiple perspectives. Online spaces rapidly evolved into produsage environments that encouraged content consumers to bring their own input to the table, enriching the debate at a community scale. Yet, on the other hand, advances in technologies are frequently pointed as being responsible for shaping a generation of digital natives, unfitted and reluctant to traditional instructional strategies and conventional settings, and self-developing through unverified information and uncontrolled communications c

Source:  Gloria Celeste Pérez Last week, as I started walking in the corridors of social media, I reflected on the power of analogies to describe those digital spaces, their rules, and the emotions human beings could feel when interacting with other human beings and hosted content. One analogy that came back frequently was the Hive Mind. At first, I thought this metaphor was essentially comparing Web 2.0 to a physical space hosting a group of people bringing their knowledge, ideas, and opinions and sharing them with others to bring new concepts and ideas. Yet, some of this week's readings helped to understand that the Hive Mind could actually refer to the "negative effect of an over populated Collective Intelligence, also known as Artificial Intelligence"( Living in a Connected World/The Hive Mind and Collective Intelligence ). In other terms, the Hive Mind appears when the flow of ideas and opinions brought in a given environment reaches a saturation point, overwhelming

 While exploring Rainie and Welmann's book, Networked: The New Social Operating System, the authors mentioned how the Social Network Revolution impacted many facets of our life, including healthcare. One impactful example illustrating the power of networks on human health is the New York Times "Diagnosis" Magazine written Dr. Lisa Sanders. In her columns, Dr. Sanders shares the story of patients she encountered in her work. All these patients present invalidating symptoms with no clear and definite diagnosis. By publishing those stories in the newspapers and on social media, individuals from all over the world take part in the investigation and ask questions, submit hypotheses, and even run some tests to dig deeper. Others report similar symptoms as people suffering from seemingly similar affections. Overall, a network specific to every patient's story develops and in some cases, a diagnosis eventually arises. You might have read some of these stories in the NYT or b

  Hive, connection room and water cooler Weird association of words? If you think of social media, maybe not so much. My exploration this week got me through 2 interesting readings. The first one focused on produsage, a participatory mode found on Web 2.0 that "enables all participants to be users as much as producers of information" ( Bruns, 2008 ). The second one presented a framework of seven functionalities of social media that firms could rely on to promote their reputation and sales and even ensure their survival ( Kietzmann et al, 2011 ).  These papers had two very different focuses but were both successful at discussing abstract and somewhat complex concepts thanks to simple and efficient analogies. Interestingly, both resources relied on the hive and its honeycomb structure to support their view. As stated by Seeley (1995) , "the term mind predates social media and references the complex group communications of honey bees" . Jones (2017) refers to the Hiv

Where am I? For me, starting a blog has been basically like getting into Rick's shoes in the first episode of Walking Dead. Waking up after several weeks of coma, and realizing the world is completely different and you need to quickly learn the rules in order to survive. Of course, not all of my world has changed since I activated my Blogger Account. But entering this unfamiliar space is definitely getting me out of my comfort zone, and I must admit I have no clear idea of how to approach it. Unlike Rick, I don't feel I need weapons to survive for episode 2. But like him, I am fully aware I need directions and support to understand how I can find my way through Web 2.0. These first days in EME6414 required me to dive into a struggling introspection. Though I have been writing posts on several social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and one post or two on Twitter a few years ago), I never thought of creating a blog. Maybe because I don't see what more it can bring me. T