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Digital Event

[EVENT] What can social media tell us about society? by @NatCen at @TwitterUK #ESRCFestival

Social media data is of great value to researchers. What people say on platforms such as Twitter can tell us a great deal about society’s attitudes. It can also allow us to capture reactions to political events in the moment. However, since the Cambridge Analytica scandal – which involved data from millions of Facebook users being mined and used for political ads to sway the 2016 US presidential election – people are more sceptical of how their data is used.

For the last two years the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) has hosted an event at Twitter UK as part of the Festival of Social Science, run by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

This year the event will focus on how social media data can be used in research that benefits society, as well as what ethical considerations there are in this field. It will also look at how things have changed since last year in this incredibly fast-moving and topical field. Eventbrite

I’m featured on the @NatCen ‘Twitter Moment’

And my collected tweets (37) are here:

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Digital

#FollowFriday: Using Twitter in Learning

twitter-iconInteresting story in THE, with Rosie Miles, who I heard from at Winchester in the past:

Dr Miles used Twitter, she said, as a kind of “ludic learning” tool, allowing students to connect with Victorian literature in a very 21st-century way.

Students adopted Twitter personas based on fictional characters: Dr Jekyll became @Doubleface1886, while Dracula’s enemy Van Helsing could be found at @Istakevamps, and Dorian Gray at @Consciencefree1.

The role play allowed students to connect with their characters and become more digitally literate, according to Dr Miles, who spoke about the experiment at Bett 2015, an annual education technology conference held last week in London.

Read full story.

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Academic Digital

Should McCann Twitter abuser have been doorstepped on TV? for @ConversationUK

mccann

A recent piece, published for The Conversation UK, under Creative Commons licence (republished on Durham University):

Should McCann Twitter abuser have been doorstepped on TV?

By Bex Lewis, Durham University

Brenda Leyland, a 63-year old woman from Leicestershire who had been accused of publishing a stream of internet abuse about the family of missing child Madeleine McCann, has been found dead in a hotel room.

Her death raises important questions about the wrongs and rights of how we handle people who express unpalatable views online.

Leyland had been exposed in a Sky News report as the person behind the Twitter account @sweepyface, which had been used to post offensive messages about the McCanns. These included the accusation that Madeleine’s parents were responsible for her disappearance. When confronted by a Sky News reporter about whether she should have posted such messages, Leyland said: “I’m entitled to do that.”

Days before Leyland’s death, BBC Radio 4 ran a story about how the police were investigating abusive social media messages sent to, or published about, the McCanns. Madeleine’s father Gerry McCann featured, suggesting that these messages are fuelled by press reporting. He added that he thinks more people should be charged for internet abuse and revealed that his family tends to avoid the internet because of the nature of threats and insults they receive.

For obvious reasons, the McCanns had encouraged a high-profile press campaign after Madeleine’s disappearance. But without answers about what happened to Madeleine, conspiracy theories have abounded. Brenda Leyland was one of many to discuss the McCann case online. As Rev Pam Smith, one of my Facebook connections said, are we really saying that people are not “entitled” to share adverse views online?

Leyland said she “hoped she hadn’t broken any laws”, but the Malicious Communications Act 1988, which covers Twitter, notes that it is an offence to send messages to another person which are “indecent or grossly offensive”, threatening or false. If the message is intended to cause distress or anxiety to the recipient, they breach the law.

We have to consider whether Sky has a case to answer in this particular situation too though. The broadcaster’s correspondent approached Mrs Leyland on her own doorstep in a live broadcast. She evidently had no idea that she was going to be confronted or that the footage would be broadcast to the world.

Whether or not we like what Leyland had been doing, she was clearly just one of several people who had been expressing their opinions online. She was certainly not the worst. Is doorstepping people, outing them on TV, and ensuring that their face circulates the internet, really the answer? Had Sky done any research into this woman before they put her face in the public domain? Did they know anything about her mental state? Did she just have the misfortune to be the first person who could be made an example of?

Her case carried echoes of the recent media treatment of Cliff Richard. The BBC was heavily rapped for broadcasting live from his home as police raided it. The police of course need to investigate such stories but it is a worrying sign of our culture that trial by media and even trial by gossip appear to have become acceptable.

Media ethics are typically concerned with truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, public accountability and limitation of harm. After the Leveson inquiry, there has been increased emphasis on press responsibility. But in a time of rapid media change and fast-moving news, broadcasters must ensure they too meet their ethical responsibilities.The Conversation

Bex Lewis does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Categories
Life(style)

Tweet Featured on #BBCSML

bbcsml

Today’s programme was pre-advertised as:

Should there be a ‘fat tax’ on sugary drinks and fast food?

This week the government announced a new healthy food school meal initiative across England. This is part of the solution to tackle the growing obesity issue facing the UK. A quarter of British adults are now thought to be obese. The NHS spends around £5billion a year on treating conditions linked to obese patients. Prof Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England, told a committee of MPs that “we may need to introduce a sugar tax”.

Would you support a new tax? Should we pay more for unhealthy foods? Or, would this be a case of a nanny state telling us what we should eat?

You can have your say by voting on the question now online or live via SMS during Sunday’s programme: Should there be a ‘fat tax’ on sugary drinks and fast food?

I sent a tweet several days ago – and I think Graham’s were too. As I continue to work with Beyond Chocolate, and think about all the reasons that we eat other than because we’re hungry, an interesting watch. In many ways a ‘fat tax’ doesn’t seem to make much sense, but if that money encouraged food industries to use ‘proper ingredients’ rather than cheap ingredients such as palm oil it might make some sense… we can live in hope – my tweet was slightly ironic I think!

Thanks Vicky for picking up the emotional eating line – was worried amongst the group emphasising education, which seems straightforward, but research has shown that people’s ideas of what is ‘healthy’ change over time, or people return to ‘calories in = calories out’ and I’m not sure it’s that simple either… bits to chew over!

Categories
Digital

Basic Instructions for Twitter #MediaLit14

Keen to get all participants at #MediaLit14 participating in Twitter, so sending out simple instructions ahead of time: