Assignment 4 Link Page

Here are the links for my final assignment. Included are links to my blog posts and my groups work, the Cyber Stompers Instagram page. I hope you enjoy the posts I have written as well as the final work.

Cyber Stompers Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/cyberstompers/

Google Document Containing Post Files: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1V6f8GQkXI5-l1roaWHsReaWGFnx23eXV?usp=sharing

Assingment 4 Blog Post 1: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cameronrowbury/2021/05/28/assignment-4-blog-post-1/

Assignment 4 Blog Post 2: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cameronrowbury/2021/05/28/assignment-4-blog-post-2/

Assignment 4 Blog Post 2

Following the adjustments made to our Instagram account, I felt it appropriate to reflect on what we have done, how it has shifted my views on social media and the potential for the future if we were to continue to work on this project. When it comes to how I look at social media prior to working on this task, my mind normally would look towards creative and marketing-based ventures rather than pages or accounts centered around common issues and helping people.

When it comes to what I think we did well with this concept was attempting to apply tactics that I understood would normally be used for more “influencer” style Instagram accounts and using these tactics for an account that’s focused on the wellbeing of others. This culminated in our approach of trying to make the content as varied as possible, not only in terms of the format but additionally in terms of style. The use of both statistics as well as appeal to emotion was critical for a balanced page. If we only catered to one style, we could reduce the number of potential followers, as people tend to gravitate towards different styles of content. So, I personally felt that we managed to strike a strong balance between the two. Since we were using an Instagram account, we had to ensure that our content had an appealing visual style, as this platform emphasis the importance of visuals. So, we did our best to make our videos and our more text heavy posts appealing to the eye through our selection of certain fonts and colours.

Prior to this assignment I haven’t really engaged with Instagram. So, this helped develop my understanding of the platform, how a good Instagram account should look, what type of content should be produced, all whilst researching an important issue. This project certainly was rewarding in that respect. I feel this has in many ways improved my perception of not only Instagram but social media broadly, it’s clear that it has a potentially great capacity to make a positive difference in the world rather than something that’s more focused on business, personal branding or artistic endeavors. And whilst I feel all of those things still hold a great deal of value and can be intertwined with trying to better the lives of others. I have gained a stronger grasp of how the use of social media can be used as a tool for making positive changes in people’s lives.

Cyber Stompers Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/cyberstompers/

Assignment 4 Blog Post 1

Following our presentation our group received some feedback for our social media page. We were very happy with the positive response we received especially from the members of Sensis. We were very glad that we laid a strong foundation for the account. One of the strengths our account exhibited was the variety of content. This was something that we would go onto increase and improve upon throughout the next few weeks. However, it was still clear from the feedback we received that we had a bit of room to grow in a few areas. We had to change the ways we viewed the way we approached our posts, some of our content and the resources we used to help create our posts.

For starters we released that it would be a good idea to help personalize the account and our posts by having a “meet the members” post that shows off some members of the team. We continued this more personal approach by posting small stories that people have shared of their experiencing with cyberbullying. We ensured that these stories protected the anonymity of those involved but we still believed that it added a sense of community and reality to our posts. We still maintained the use of statistics and advice but we believed that providing more variation of content would help make our page more appealing to wider audiences, which of course for this type of Instagram page is very much a focus.

Interactivity was something that we also sought to improve upon. We came to understand through our foundational knowledge as well as our research that more opportunities with interactivity is a very effective means of increasing engagement with social media accounts and the messages and ideas that they present. So, our stories included more opportunities for followers to provide feedback and engage in the subject matter. When it comes to social media as opposed to other forms of more traditional media, it’s the ability to interact and engage with people online rather than just simply being spoken to which makes it potentially so much more captivating than other forms of media. So, I felt that it was a good move to not only attempt to create content for people to view but also to interactive with. Thus we included more opportunities such as Q&A sessions for followers to ask questions and engage further with the topics.

Additionally, we included a link tree on our account which provides visitors/followers of the account links to various sites that provide advice and statistics. We believed that this inclusion was a good idea because of how it can help legitimize our information as well provide people who are being or have been affected by cyberbullying some outside means of assistance. We believe that giving followers more opportunities to look into the topic outside of our posts is a good idea as it can provide more in-depth research and analysis that might otherwise be hard to compress into the more brief and digestible content found on our Instagram.

Cyber Stompers Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/cyberstompers/

Making Sense of Social Media – Assignment 2 Blog Posts

This is a compilation of my 3 blog posts for Assignment 2 of Making Sense of Social Media.

Blog Post 1:

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cameronrowbury/2021/04/24/making-sense-of-social-media-assingment-2-blog-post-1/

Blog Post 2:

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cameronrowbury/2021/04/24/making-sense-of-social-media-assingment-2-blog-post-2/

Blog Post 3:

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cameronrowbury/2021/04/24/making-sense-of-social-media-assingment-2-blog-post-3/

 

Found within this link is a collection of our various example posts, stories, video interviews and carousel posts. My work is specifically the “Static Post Example”. These posts would be uploaded to an Instagram account.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1V6f8GQkXI5-l1roaWHsReaWGFnx23eXV?usp=sharing

Making Sense of Social Media Assingment 2 – Blog Post 3

Blog Post 3

When it came to our social media strategy, we decided to showcase various types of posts that could be found on the Instagram account. We created a Video Post, an Instagram story post, an Instagram carousel post and lastly a static post. What’s great about this approach of making different styles of posts is that you increase your chances of engaging more people. As some people may prefer to watch the video posts whilst others prefer Instagram stories. So, by providing a variety of posts it helps to appeal to more people, which is particularly important when trying to spread information and messages.

When it came to the post, I personally worked on I created the static post. For the static post I made it a mixture of both a mission statement as well as an advice piece of some basic means of handling cyberbullying on Instagram. I focused on the Restrict, Report and Block functions of Instagram. Now whilst these a very basic functions of the platform sometimes its good to reinforce and contextualize the use of such features. Whilst I was aware of the report and block functions, prior to researching I did not know about the restrict function. Additionally, I think that promoting taking actions such as the three I mentioned is a good thing as it addresses the problems that people face rather than ignoring it.

Making Sense of Social Media Assingment 2 – Blog Post 2

Blog Post 2

Initially our group looked at cyberbullying on social media broadly, we found that according to the sensis data 27% of social media uses have witnessed cyberbullying and that 16% of users. After seeing such statistics, we decided we should investigate a specific platform rather than being too broad. To explore this topic more thoroughly our group after long discussions decided that it would be wise to focus on Instagram and create an account on the platform. According to the Sensis data we were provided from 2018, when it comes to Australian social media figures 45% of people on social media use Instagram. This is a rather significant figure, as that is a rather large proportion of the online population using this particular platform. When it came to the age of our target demographic we again turned to Sensis. According to the Sensis data we found that 75% of 18–29-year-olds use Instagram, this was the largest observed demographic in regards to age for the platform. We believed that due to Instagram’s popularity amongst younger users (teens and young adults) we would focus our attention on this demographic, both when it comes to research and the posts we make.

Making Sense of Social Media Assingment 2 – Blog Post 1

Blog Post 1

Upon being given the task to investigate aspects of social media. Our group decided that it would be interesting to investigate the topic of cyberbullying and its relation to mental health. We additionally wanted to specifically investigate cyberbullying on the platform of Instagram, with some additional research on other popular platforms. We decided to focus our attention on the platform of Instagram because we believed that we could yield more specific information and results. Our group decided that question would be “How does online bullying on Instagram affect a user’s mental health?”. We wanted to investigate how cyberbullying occurs, who is affected by it, what its effects are on people and how to avoid and handle cyberbullying. We felt that this was a very compelling topic to explore due to the growing presence of social media in our daily lives as well as the fact that we believe that understanding and exploring an issue that many people face can be beneficial to all those involved. Cyberbullying is an issue that we believe warrants attention especially for the younger demographic that we have in mind as it could prove to be vital for the development of young people. For our Instagram page we decided that we would call ourselves the Cyberstompers, we believed that the name was simple, catchy and represents the values of the page.

Making Sense Of Social Media – Assingment 1 Blog Posts

Post 1:

When it comes to my interpretation of what the term social media entails, I would say it covers the following. Social Media refers to platforms that facilitate people’s ability to connect, share and distribute content, seek out interests and new people, network, grow one’s personal business and brand. All of this can be for personal and/or business purposes. This interpretation is founded on my personal experience as well as on two sources: Enterprise Social Media: Definition, History, and Prospects for the Study of Social Technologies in Organizations (Leonardi, Huysman and Steinfield, 2013) and Social media definition and the governance challenge: An introduction to the special issue (Obar and Wildman, 2015)..

The first takes a business savvy approach by stating that social media are “Web-based platforms that allow workers to communicate messages with specific coworkers or broadcast messages to everyone in the organization.” (Leonardi, Huysman and Steinfield, 2013) Whilst the later acknowledges the difficulties of defining social media as “the speed at which the technology is expanding and evolving, challenges our ability to define clear-cut boundaries around the concept” (Obar and Wildman, 2015) and that in order to create a valid definition we should “identify the following commonalities among current social media services” (Obar and Wildman, 2015).

In regards to the Sensis reports I have learned a variety of interesting information regarding social media. Firstly, I found it particularly interesting when it came to the percentages of social media platforms being used. I did not expect Facebook to remain so prominent, I was expecting it to be overtaken by platforms such as YouTube, Instagram or Tik Tok. Perhaps these assumptions were formed on the basis of a ‘younger’ naive understanding rather than looking enough at the big picture. What still surprised me was by how large a gap Facebook had with other social media platforms. The 2nd closest platform in terms of use was YouTube with a 35% gap.

I also did find some of the statistics concerning branding on social media interesting. I didn’t realise how much age was a factor as younger people noticeably are more comfortable and receptive to advertising. I would have thought that younger users would be more resistant to such things, but I was wrong. Overall, I very much enjoyed reading through the Sensis data, it was both insightful and fun to read.

Bibliography:

 

Post 2:

When it comes to being inspired through social media, I would often refer to many of my favorite fitness related social media pages and ‘influencers’. I think that social media is a great tool for informing and inspiring people due to how quickly and how specifically you can create and post content. I have found myself often inspired by the likes of Larry Wheels, Jeff Cavaliere and Eric Bugenhagen.

These content creators have made themselves known through their videos that charts their success in the fitness industry. They all started out doing simple videos of themselves doing workouts and attempting difficult tasks and feats of strength. They all differ in terms of training styles and goals, yet they share many similar attributes. Larry Wheels focuses on strength competitions and growing his own brand, Jeff Cavaliere is about teaching gym activities for safety and fitness. Eric Bugenhagen meanwhile appears to be focused on showmanship and fun, with training to boot. Yet all three share the same domain on social media in regards to their presence in the fitness niche.

Without the reach of social media These online fitness influencers/content creators may not have been able to accrue such a following as easily as the have. I have had the pleasure of watching these people struggle, grow and overcome immense physical challenges and this has inspired me when it comes to many facets of life. Additionally, I find their success on social media fascinating, I believe it can reflect one of the most empowering aspects of social media broadly. The fact that individuals can go out and create content that inspires and impresses others without the requirement of having a huge costly production crew is really astounding, and it gives more people a chance to gain success whilst exploring their passions and inspiring others.

They each have a variety of social media pages across different platforms for the sake of brevity here are their YouTube channels:

 

Post 3:

When it comes to my work within this studio, I hope to utilise my current knowledge of social media which is founded on previous classes such as Alternate Mobile Media as well as personal experience and independent research. This combined with new information from this class as well as the Sensis data will help shape my upcoming assignment work. I believe that when it comes to looking at how to create positive campaigns on social media I think that I could learn a great deal from the Sensis Data as well as other sources of information that I shall come across in this class.

In relation to my previous social media examples (from blog post 2) I suppose I want to also see how social media can be used to enrich and better people’s lives. I have often felt that social media is often discussed in a negative light so I think it would be good to instead see how it can be beneficial to people. This could be in the form of spreading information about issues that effect people or it can be giving inspiration or advice to people in need.

When it comes to the Sensis Data, I hope to learn about more ways to create effective methods of advertising and campaigns (e.g. Spreading awareness). I would want to focus on how to use the analytics of social media sites to achieve this. By looking at what sites gain the most traffic, what audiences have the best attention rates, who is most likely to click on links, and what the most successful cases of attempting similar goals have done. I understand that Sensis cannot give me all the answers I am looking for, yet I believe that it will be a valuable asset towards my work within this studio

Future Play – Assignment 4

Social Inspector Demo – Cameron Rowbury 720p from rmitmedia on Vimeo.

For my project in assignment 4 I have designed a game that is focused on social media and how it is moderated. It is a game that can not only help users of social media better understand the platforms they use, but it can also be used as an education tool for those who are not as literate with the use of social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. This makes the game ideal for not only those on social media but also for children and that are older that might not have much knowledge or experience with such platforms.

What I learned when engaging with is assignment was the many things I had to consider when constructing a game such as this. Platform, accessibility, user interface design, gameplay complexity, imbedding educational elements and how all these things interrelate. To me it was imperative that for a game such as this that it was easy to access, understand and interact with, whilst retaining its educational value. I had to learn about how I could engage players with something interesting whilst still educating them at the same time, essentially having the players partake in a form of critical play.

Probably the most important idea taken from the course when developing my game was the work of Mary Flannagan particularly critical play. Critical play was at the forefront of my gameplay experience as the player you are constantly being considerate of your actions and its social and political implications, as it is required if the player wishes to succeed at the game. In order to achieve the best rank possible, the player must ensure they are making the right decision, they must analyse not only the post on screen but where its coming from, the context and its potential interpretations. This is something that cannot be done passively, it is a very active minded play experience.

Additionally, a key aspect I had taken from the course is the social and political implications of the game. The game was born out of frustration with the errors and misbehaviour on social media platforms. Misinformation, targeted harassment, inappropriate content, and extremism are issues that unfortunately are commonplace, so it is the goal of the game to specifically help players identify and understand how and where it can be found on the internet. In a way I would classify my game as a game for change as its goal resides in education as well as addressing issues found in our modern media landscape.

In regards to what didn’t work, some of the concepts I had originally conceived for the game where a little difficult to implement and ultimately unnecessary when it came to the goals of the project. I am specifically referring to a political compass element that would based off the posts you judge attempt to show the player certain biases as too what posts would receive more or less severe actions taken against them. This is something that could be implemented however I feel that it isn’t entirely necessary to the project, instead I decided to approach the game from a more neutral perspective in which objectivity, social media literacy and decision making were the prime objectives of the play experience rather than showing the potential biases of the player.

When it comes to something I would do differently I would want to try and make a larger variety of posts with more complex and difficult decisions to be made by the player, as well as making them more realistic. I even considered using real posts at some point and even now I wonder if that would be a good idea, it would at the very least be more immersive and potentially educational.

Assignment 2

Image

Video Reflection:

One of the recent exercises we had been tasked with was a sequence which would show us making our bed in a roughly 30-40 seconds. For this exercise I wanted to go the opposite route of my previous exercise in terms of shot quantity and make my sequence as simple as possible. This meant that I had decided to only use one shot. There were many ways I could go about editing this sequence, I could take the footage and edit it into only showing highlighted key moments, I could have used zoom in’s, at some point I considered of just cutting together using the sounds as the transition points. Instead of these concepts I had decided to choose something simpler. Inspired by montage sequences in many YouTube videos and films that follow construction I decided to do a rapid time lapse. This meant that I could use the one take and it didn’t matter if I made small mistakes when filming, as long as everything was in frame and the shot composition was good the image would look alright. I decided to not use a time-lapse mode on my phone when recording as I wanted to learn how to do this in editing, plus this would mean that I had a lot of freedom of how fast the video would appear in relation to the run time. This was not a complex edit and I managed to figure it out with relative ease and a bit of googling. However even after the visuals were taken care of one thing still needed work, the sound. The main issue was once the video was compressed into a time lapse the sound was ruined, so much like the time-lapses seen on television and YouTube I had decided to use music. I selected some fast, high energy jazz music to give the video some sense of fun and speed. Overall, I really enjoyed making this short video, I got the chance to make something I’ve never done before and learn new editing tools. I very much enjoyed the project.

Scene Deconstruction:

For my scene deconstruction I have decided to take a look at the paperwork scene from Hot Fuzz. In this scene the protagonist has to process a group of underaged drinkers at the local police station. Edger Wright when making the film Hot Fuzz wanted to parody the action cop genre through the lens of a small English country town cop film and this is most apparent in this scene. In order to replicate the intensity of the police action style the scene uses fast cuts with harsh transition effects between each shot. The framing and composition are constantly changing zooming in an out never lingering on a single shot for more than 5 seconds, replicating the action films at the time (just in a mundane setting). The use of sound effects to heavily emphasise things such as the flashing of the camera and the scribbling of a pen on paper (a common trope of an Edger Wright film). The sound effects are used as well with the transition between each cut making the scene very energetic. This coupled with the use of a rock song makes the harsh nature of the scene come full circle. The small amount of dialogue also is a great showcase of how the action cop genre is being injected into the setting as when the protagonist meets the police officer already inside the station he is calm and cheery, whilst the protagonist is very self-serious. When the protagonist is asked “do you really want to process the lot, my pens running dry?” he replies with a over the top “not a problem” as he whips out two pens and clicks them together. All this is done to create a comedic effect as it attempts to make the simple process of taking pictures and filing paperwork seem “cool” despite the events that are being depicted in actuality being rather boring. This style is shown throughout the rest of the film and the scene is also continued at the end of the film. This scene was actually praised by real police officers as it reflected elements of police work that is not normally shown in cop films. Whilst this is a short scene of the film it is an excellent showcase of the style of film it is parodying, as films that exist within the action cop genre would never have a scene like this especially not in this style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k6byT5Sn8k&t=1s

Colour Grading:

For the colour grading I had decided to work on my making the bed sequence. For this I decided to attempt 3 different styles of colour grading. The first edit features high amounts of colour saturation to brighten up the image. This not only makes the sequences appear more bighter, but it also adds vibrancy to the image, this can be seen with how certain colours such as blue become more distinguish. I can see how this can be done to create more striking images but also how to take something seemingly more mundane and give it more character. The second edit is a greyscale version of the sequence, I had decided to try this because I was curious how experimenting with the sharpness of the image and how to effect it with it in black and white. This makes the image of course look far more simplistic but its clear how its use can be to add character and create a stylistic appearance. The third edit used a lot of sharpening and playing with the hue tool to create a green matrix filter effect. This strange appearance did in my opinion contrast with the content of the video itself however I did find this interesting as adding a strong tint of varying colours can clearly alter the feeling of the video. I would probably apply this sort of colour grading to something more serious in tone rather than a light-hearted sequence such as this. If I was to select one of these colour grading variations it would be version 1. This is due to its subtle changes to the picture to make the images more vibrant and fun, which suits the sequence well. Also, the other two edits clash with the tone of the video making them more distracting than anything.

Examples of the three colour grading variations can be found below