Social Media Reflection Paper

Throughout the semester I have worked on a variety of things in social media class: experimenting with new social platforms, a research paper, doing something courageous. We have also discussed a variety of topics such as the do’s and don’ts of social media, the risks and the benefits of social media. This paper will reflect upon these different aspects.

For social media techonology I chose three new platforms to experiment with. My chosen platforms were twitter, snapchat, and LinkedIn. When I began to experiment with twitter, I simply had an account, I followed no one, and no one followed me. Slowly throughout the semester I began to follow other people and others followed me back (I wish some would go away). By the end of the semester I have 17 followers and am following 56 people. I think this is kind of weird honestly because I only know about half of those people following me and only a few of those I follow. I suppose social media is a lot about getting to know people you don’t know. My second platform of choice was snapchat, which we later found out, might not really be a social platform at all, it’s up for debate. Snap chat is different, you send a photo and can view it for a few seconds, and then it’s gone. Just like that.  I have received quite a few cats photo’s, and a wide range of selfie’s. I’m just saying selfies, are not the most desirable pictures, often times, they are way bad. I tried a selfie the other day, and yeah, not so much for me. My last chosen platform was LinkedIn. LinkedIn was probably the platform that I visited the least, which makes no sense because it’s probably the most useful. On LinkedIn I was able to make a few connections with people, but beyond that it was ignored. I will say I was really hoping for more guidance in LinkedIn, and how to use it to my advantage. I have enjoyed getting to know some new platforms and intend on continuing to use them, I also have begun to experiment with others on my own. I recently began experimenting with Instagram, I think that I like this platform above all; it seems to have less drama, and more happiness than the rest.

I have research women in game design this semester which was enlightening. I’m glad I did it. I was so informative and helpful to deciding where I want to go in life. After my research I think I can be quite happy without it. The research paper however, also gave me a great window to do something courageous. I reached out for my paper to the women in games jobs (wigi) for interviews. I was able to collect a total of four interviews with women that work in the industry. It was fun to make those connections, and I am glad that I did so because it was a very informative experience in different ways.

We also touched on the do’s and don’ts of social media. We had multiple class discussions, and in the end we really just decided that when using social media we should be using the same etiquette that we use in our day to day lives. It really boils down to “treat people how you want to be treated”. If you don’t want your personal information aired on the web for anyone to access then you shouldn’t do it to someone else.

We also discussed the benefits and risks of social media. When using social media there are always risks such as “going viral” in a bad way, if you say something and it offends people, there is a possibility that you might not make it our fully intact. Although there are good things about social media as well, different accounts of news, longer reach personally and professionally, free marketing, charity, and ways to get and find help.

Ultimately this semester we have focused on a broad range of social media technology topics and applications. I believe a lot of this is common sense, unfortunately apparently many people don’t seem to understand common sense, and hopefully they begin to understand social media to a better extent before they get to much further. I believe I understand social media and it’s importance and risks a little better now than I did at the beginning of the semester, but I know there’s still a ton more to learn.

Research Paper Intro

Since the beginning of time women have been repressed, held back, yet held to a higher standard than men. The excuses that lie behind …………. In 1777 the thirteen original states passed a law to keep women from playing a vital role in the building of this country. The right to vote; it was snatched from our hands by men who believed that we were not logical enough and overly emotional to which Abigail Smith, the wife of the second president of the United States and the mother of John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States wrote to her husband in warning,

---

“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”-Abigail Smith in letter to her husband 1777 (Digital History Id 2267)

It has been over two hundred years since Abigail’s warning to her husband and women have continued to live up to her expectation over and over again. We have since then began to change the rules by which we have previously been bound. We have over come the nasty stereotypes men have thrown at us: we have educated ourselves and proven our thinking patterns are not to blame, but instead the lack education that men had with held, they told us we were weaker because of our body types and overall appearances, yet during the Industrial Revolution it was women who heeded the call to work in factories (https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/jackson-lincoln/essays/women-and-early-industrial-revolution-united-states) showing that while we may look different and appear to be a weaker sex the blame lies with the lack of opportunity offered us by men. Women will continue to change the game by debunking any stereotype that can be thrown at us. Once again women are being called to action, once again women are heeding that call; the call to technology and game industries.

Research Intro Points

Women have been changing the rules for over a hundred years.

We continue to do so in a multitudes of ways.

Women have been repressed and held back, yet held to a higher standard.

Our thinking patterns have been questioned and blamed.

Our motherly instincts have been blamed.

Our emotional attachments have been blamed.

Our physical appearance has been pin pointed as a weakness.

Something Courageous Continued

I had have had two responses to my facebook post on wigi. My something courageous seems to have paid off. I’m glad I took the step even though in the past I haven’t had much success with it. This may be beneficial to me in a multitude of ways in my future if I continue to build my connections and encourage strong relationships.

Game Changers: the women who make video games

Three of the biggest game releases of 2011 were written by women. According to a study done by TIGA a non-profit organization that represents the game industry in the UK, women make up only a minuscule 12% of the gaming industry in Britain, and this is also reflected in America and Canad by other surveys. It is the authors belief that the beginning of games being dominated by men lies to the simple fact that it was men creating the games, stemming from engineering technology and computer science. Of course there have always been women in gaming, even during the “80’s computers and dingy arcades” reign, but now women make up 49% of gamers (in the UK) according to Internet Advertising Bureau. Yet this increase simply isn’t reflected in the game industry as a whole, especially not at senor levels.

Mitu Khandaker programmer and owner of Tiniest Sharks, states that, women typically can point alot of things in games and say, “that’s not for me.” It could be anything from the over sexualized females to the over all bad attitudes of most male dominated gaming communities. She then refers to the Dead Island incident where gamers found code referring to a skill in the game called “feminist whore”

The article goes into how the gaming communities are changing from exclusive to all inclusive with the new technologies available to people, such as WII an inherently social gaming console, facebook games, and mobile app’s. He states that as the audience widens so should the potential developmental staff creating these games. Women are not simply working on family friendly social networking games, but also on the high entertaining adventure games with deeper plots and story lines.

Mary DeMarle, the co-writer of Deus Ex, who was an aspiring fantasy and sci-fi author before entering the industry, says: “We bring an altered perspective, I suppose, a different way of looking at things. And the more women become involved in games, the more that will filter into them.”

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/dec/08/women-videogames-designing-writing

Tired of Rules: Video Game Design, Women, and the Language of Formalism

The article discusses how women have been fighting for equal right for over a hundred years, and men’s first response to women trying to break into new fields is that women don’t have the same capability of logical thought processes that men have, using this as an excuse to hold women back. The author uses a quote from Sen. George G. Vest, 1887 to show that this is not a new issue, and men have felt this way since women began to fight for the smallest of rights including, voting.

“If the voters of this country could think always coolly, and if they could deliberate, if they could go by judgment and not by passion, our institutions would survive forever, eternal as the foundations of the continent itself […] What we want in this country is to avoid emotional suffrage, and what we need is to put more logic into public affairs and less feeling. There are spheres in which feeling should be paramount. There are kingdoms in which the heart should reign supreme. That kingdom belongs to woman.”

She also goes to quote Jesse Schell’s explination for women’s “sudden interest” in games.

“The introduction of affordable computers gave us a type of game that had all social aspects removed, had most verbal and emotional aspects removed, was largely divorced from the real world, was generally hard to learn, and offered the possibility for unlimited virtual destruction. It is hardly surprising that early computer and videogames were primarily popular with a male audience. As digital technology has evolved to the point that videogames can now support emotional character portrayals, richer stories, and the opportunity to play against real people while talking to them, the female audience for videogames has been commensurately growing.”

She states that in her experience these claims that it’s the “technology” that’s sexist against women rather than the people creating them are common. She follows with a disbelief that men are intentionally “leaving women out”, but says that the common reasoning that these men share is that women shouldn’t be involved because they aren’t smart or logical enough to be let in.

View at Medium.com

LinkedIn Update

I have been working on a project to upload to linked in, here’s a quick peek.

Hope you like it.

Twitter Update

As I have been on twitter for a while now, and regularly checking and posting. I thought I would post some of my results. I now have 14 followers (I started with 0), I am following 42, and am currently trying to use tweetdeck. 

Do Something Courageous

I did my something courageous today. I am seeking help and guidence from women currently in games jobs, and I posted on the wigi (women in games jobs) facebook seeking interviews for my research paper. I am excited to see if any body replies. I am hoping that this will bring some fruitful results.

Women Remain Outsiders in Video Game Industry

This article discusses that while the video game industry is changing, it really isn’t happening as fast as it should be. Only about 11% of employees in the industry were women in 2005, that number has went up to about 20% however, most records are showing that this increase is due more to women filling positions in HR and similar career positions, rather than an increase in the technology fields. In Marleigh Norton’s experience at a conference, it’s funny to show women inappropriately in power point slides, she states that, “If you are a woman in the industry, there are all these little signals that you are not part of the club, that this is not your tribe. After time, it wears you down.” Women in the field often times run into unfair treatment including: harassment and hostile atmospheres on a regular basis, and are subjected regularly to occurrences of topless models and S&M themes at professional networking events. The article also states that there is a large gap in wages between women and men in the industry. Women in the industry that program make an average of $10,000 less than men in their fields, while female game designers make an average of $12,000 dollars less than their male counterparts. In November women in the industry began to speak out on twitter in response to a simple question, “Why aren’t there more female game designers?” The repsonses were all a little familiar.

“Because conventions, where designers are celebrated, are unsafe places for me,” wrote Filamena Young, a game designer and co-owner of Machine Age Productions in Orange County, Calif. “Really. I’ve been groped.”

“Because I got blank stares when I asked why a female soldier in a game I worked on looked like a porn star,” responded Caryn Vaino, a user interface designer in Seattle.

Amy Kuafman however has a different veiw, and says that outsides a few “honey’s and dears” that she has not felt the same as our other examples, but she believes that, “There is a sense that we need to cater to a certain demographic, and it seems to be based on these very antiquated attitudes towards women.”

David Engel, Nuukster’s chief executive has had a hard time getting applicants in the technology fields of the industry, he gets plenty of resumes for artists, but rarely see’s a woman’s application for programing and other open technical positions. Many executives in the industry admit that the female perspective is so important because nearly half of gamers out there are women, and the the fasts growing demographic are women 18 and older. Jen MacLean, former chief executive of 38 Studios, Curt Schilling’s bankrupt video game company states that, “Now, there is a recognition that women exist as consumers,” and believes that now that business is “growing up” the environment will improve.Examples of this in major conferences are: sexual harassment policies put in place and the elimination of “booth Babes” used for marketing.

View full article from Boston Globe.