Summary
In the article "Where social media isn't ubiquitous," Levi (2012) brings up two reasons for the lack of prevalence of social media in some areas. The first being lack of support for the native language and the second being the lack of Internet access. There are areas where the 2nd language is supported, allowing the users to gain access, but in other areas, it is purposely omitted to prevent political implications.
Reader Response
Levi (2012) suggests that the lack of prevalence of social media is due to the political situation of the countries. Indeed, political disputes in the country would affect the prevalence of social media; these disputes may result in a disruption of internet access and a lack of support for the language used on social networks for fear of angering the larger political party. However political situations that arise in the form of censorship will also result in the lack of prevalence of social media in the country.
Sometimes, the government tries to prevent social media from being ubiquitous through censorship. Censorship is often put in place to prevent politically sensitive contents from spreading both internally and externally. In a way, it is the government’s way of maintaining political stability. This is evident when Egypt temporarily blocked social media Web sites such as Twitter during its protests in early 2011. (Bamman, O'Connor, Smith, 2012) Censorship in China through the “Great Firewall of China” (GFW) prevents Chinese residents from accessing foreign Web sites such as Google and Facebook. (Bamman, O'Connor, Smith, 2012) In this case, the Chinese government set it up to prevent the Chinese citizens from accessing foreign social network sites. In my opinion, social media is quite ubiquitous in China as the Chinese have come up with their own social network platforms such as “Wei bo” and “Qzone” which functions like Facebook and Twitter.
Levi (2012) suggests that 'Facebook’s policy is not to add support to a language which is used by a national group in a contested territory – especially if recognition is likely to annoy a powerful and large party with a vested interest.' This would explain why Facebook uses 'Traditional Chinese (Taiwan)' as a language option rather than recognizing 'Taiwanese' as a language. Because China and Taiwan are in a dispute regarding Taiwan's sovereignty, if Facebook recognizes 'Taiwanese' as a language, it would seem as though Facebook is taking a political stand. Therefore, social networking sites tend to be selective in supporting languages, for fear of the political implications of their actions. However, this does not lead to social media being less ubiquitous in countries where their language is not recognized as they are still able to use social sites by using the languages that are similar to their native language. In the case of Taiwan, they would then be able to use 'Traditional Chinese (Taiwan).
Other times, the political situation in the nation does not allow for social network sites to take root due to the lack of internet access the country. In the article, Levi cites Myanmar as one of the countries that lack internet access due to the political situation in the country. Myanmar is one of the world’s “least connected countries” (Greene, 2013) and this is due to the massive coverage gaps, glacial connection speeds, and exorbitantly high service costs, putting the Internet beyond reach of 98% of Myanmar’s citizens. (Greene, 2013) Since Internet is not accessible to the majority of the citizens, it is impossible for social media to be prevalent in the country.
In conclusion, the level of accessibility to the Internet is highly dependent on the political situation of the country, therefore, politics play a significant role in deciding the prevalence of social media in a country.
[546 words]
Bamman, D., O'Connor, B., & Smith, N. (2012). Censorship and deletion practices in Chinese social media. First Monday, 17(3). doi:10.5210/fm.v17i3.3943 )
Greene, W. (2013, May 11). Myanmar’s Promising Experiment With Internet Freedom [Web log post].Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/techonomy/2013/11/05/myanmars-promising-experiment-with-internet-freedom/
Levi, D. (2012, July 24). Where ISN'T social media ubiquitous? [Web log post].Retrieved from http://www.etondigital.com/where-isnt-social-media-ubiquitous/
Hi!
ReplyDeleteContent:
1) We feel that your thesis statement was not clear. The thesis was not concise enough to deliver a strong point across. We feel that the portion below can be shortened.
" Indeed, political disputes in the country would affect the prevalence of social media; these disputes may result in a disruption of internet access and a lack of support for the language used on social networks for fear of angering the larger political party. However political situations that arise in the form of censorship will also result in the lack of prevalence of social media in the country."
2) The second paragraph of your response seems contradicting. The idea of social media being ubiquitous in China was rebutted by your own opinion. Which does not seem to support what you are trying to convey to readers.
Organisation:
We feel that your organisation can be improved by a great deal once your thesis has been strengthen as the ideas and examples lack fluency in supporting your thesis. As a result, you could not form a strong conclusion.
Language:
1) "2nd language" should be spelled out full.
2) The capitalisation of "internet" should be consistent throughout the writing if you choose to do so.
3) The cited idea was not clear due to the placement of the in-text citation. We feel that it should be as such:
".......[insert idea you wish to cite]...... (Greene, 2012)."
Cheers,
AA (Asyraf, Anvis, 2015) :D
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Charmaine, for this effort. I think you have some interesting ideas here. At the same time, it seems to me that your summary is incomplete, or that you don't **clearly** report the main ideas.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, as your peers have noted, you don't seem to have a clear thesis. You start the second paragraph as follows: "Levi (2012) suggests that the lack of prevalence of social media is due to the political situation of the countries. Indeed, political disputes in the country would affect the prevalence of social media…." For me what is unclear is the referencing to "the countries" and then immediately to "political disputes in a country." That sort of usage causes some lack of coherence for us readers.
You do, however, present lots of good detail in your reaction as you discuss Myanmar and Taiwan in the context of their social media situations. That's a real strength here.
One language issue:
1) Your write: The first being lack of support for the native language and the second being the lack of Internet access. >
Is this a complete sentence?
I look forward to your next draft.