## Reading Responses
### Set Two: *1 out of 5*

##### April 8th Fri: Bemused

Have you ever been scrolling through a celebrity's comments and then among the more normal and expected responses, there is a comment that is totally out of pocket or just embarrassing? Like, it is a serious post made by a creator and people are commenting “first like” and making comments about the creator's appearance or getting into fights in the comments. Online spaces often make it easier for people to act in socially unacceptable ways because it’s not a face-to-face interaction. Robin Dubar argues that in the web age, because people can comment from their living room, offices, and just off the street it enables a new and unique degree of ubiquity. Digital comments are hypertextual and often include context-setting links. According to Reagle in the 7th chapter of his book “Reading the Comments”, “These kids, they don’t realize what they’re doing. They don’t understand the implications. They don’t understand public space”. Comments are also reactionary and sometimes, people’s out of pocket behaviors end up being the most viewed responses which can lead to misconceptions by readers about what the original context was of the post which can lead to more off behaviors. Also, because comments aren't normally well thought about, they can be biased and wrong.

---

##### April 12th Tues: Algorithmic discrimination

When a graphic designer from Sweden was researching on google to find pictures of hands, she noticed that almost every picture she saw was of a white persons hand. There are similar outcomes of only white images when looking up words like, woman, man, or beauty. The graphic designer then found that the opposite was true when searching for things such as unprofessional hairstyles for work, where this time, the responding images were almost solely of black women.

Why does this blatant racism happen online? In the article, "Here’s Why Some People Think Google’s Results Are Racist" it is explained that the problem with racism in search engines is all to do with the algorithms. Although they aren't intentional, biases that exist within the media and on across the internet, end up being reflected within the algorithms.

The problem also has to do with media bias. The author from Buzzfeed explained that news reports about violent crimes are likely to be prioritized by the algorithm because they are widely clicked on and shared. Automatic image labeling done by the algorithm is why searchers get such biased results.

The problem can also lie with how the pictures that come up when searching are originally put into context. Search engines pick up on captions and tags put onto pictures from around the internet. Like in the example of only black women's photos coming up when searching for inappropriate hair styles, the photos that are presented are tagged with the word inappropriate.

---

##### April 19th Tues: Collapsed context

More than half of the world uses social media, that’s 4.62 billion people.

We as humans tend to change ourselves and how we display our personalities based on who we are talking to and where the conversation is happening, whether that be a school setting, professional setting, social setting or family setting.

The same is true for online communication, as explained by Marwick and Boyd, we construct how we present ourselves online based on who we think our audience will be. Online participants take cues from social media environments to create ideas of who their audience is (Boyd).

Constantly varying our identities based on who we think our audience is online shows that although the concept of authenticity is popular and well liked, it is a “temporally situated social construct that varies widely based on community”. In Boyd and Marwicks article, “I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience” they use the example of Grazian’s study of blues bars in Chicago. They describe how in this study Grazian defines authenticity as conforming to an idealized representation of reality and how for something to be deemed authentic, something else must be inauthentic. It is very possible to have multiple personalities and identities online, since we change how we present ourselves based on the audience and how we want to be seen.

---

#### Apr 22 Fri - Authenticity, work, & influence

Imagine that you're a micro influencer trying to become more relevant, but no company wants to give you a brand deal because you have never done one before. What do you do? According to Taylor Lorenz in “Influencers are faking brand deals”, the go to option is often faking it until they make it.

After looking through the assigned readings I wanted to do my own research to investigate how to spot a fake vs a real ad and brand deal. On LadyBossBloger a guest blogger explained how detrimental influencers faking brand deals can be to brands. There is a lot that goes into looking for an influencer. If influencers are telling the public that they are associated with a brand it can give the company a bad reputation if they aren't someone they want to be associated with. Some things to look out for when trying to spot a bad brand deal is whether the account is verified, how many followers they have, how engaged those followers are, this website also advises to look at the comments and how relevant they are. As well as if the influencer is attending networking events or interacting with any other influencer.

---

#### Apr 26 Tue - Pushback

Most of the world is connected through online services like email and social media, according to a curve by Reuters, 85% of people around the globe who are connected online send and receive emails and 62% communicate through social media.

There are so many ups and downs to online communication.

On the positive side of things online communication is convenient and easy, and it also is easily accessible. But online communication opens doors for people to be nasty to each other online.

Comments have the power of being very uplifting or very hateful, and there are a lot of nasty and hateful comments on the internet. Regale explains how it tends to be surprising because of the extent of the awfulness and how intense it is. Hate comments also tend to be the ones that stick with people after they are said.

But that doesn't mean that the web is completely bad. Like what Walt Kelly said, the web can still be a place of thoughtfulness and creativity.

Some people have been trying to opt out of the negatives of digital communication by turning off comments. Xeni Jardin wrote that "that just as there is value in connecting, there can also be value in disconnecting and just dealing with what’s going on inside our bodies and inside our minds''.

But although a lot of websites are getting rid of comments to avoid the negative outcomes, nasty comments still seem to slip through the cracks since they have become a normal part of life. But as Reagle states, there can be benefits from comments. Like well intended constructive criticism.