Public PLN – Balancing PLN & Public Discourse

Explore the video provided and reflect on the themes and questions above, reflecting on how you would curate your social media with a critical public audience

In this week’s video with Jesse Miller and Sophie Lui, Sophie spoke about her life before she used social media, where she used letters and phone calls to reach others in her professional life. In addition, she mentions the benefits of having a public eye and how she uses her digital identity on Instagram and Twitter differently. She uses Instagram as her personal account to display her daily life to her followers. Whereas Twitter is used to explore her professional and intellectual side by learning from others in her PLN or reading articles. Having a public eye on Twitter has allowed Sophie to stay relevant and learn from others, which she could not do as efficiently until she was on social media.

Identity the risk and benefits of engaging with a public audience in a media space – what are the risks for a public figure or person in a position of trust?

The risk of engaging with a public audience in a media space for public figures is the creation of fake news. According to Hirst (2018), fake news is the promotion of news articles via social media in a way that spreads by users, which is designed to influence or manipulate users opinions. This becomes problematic on social media when information can spread quickly to millions of users before the public figure has spoken about the news. Unfortunately, being the first to tell others is viewed as being right on social media (Hirst, 2018). Another risk that public figures encounter is privacy. Having a big platform means more information is displayed online, making it easier for people to create fake news or take information out of context. Therefore, public figures must be careful with the information they share online because these negative outcomes of social media can put their identity and career at risk. The benefits of engaging with a public audience is that it keeps public figures relevant as Sophie Lui mentioned in this weeks video (MILLER, 2022). Users online can keep up-to-date daily through the shared posts of public figures. The more information that is shared by the public figure, the more they stay relevant on social media. In addition, the benefits of social media use for public figures is the ability to build and learn from a PLN. With many users online, it is easier for public figures to reach others quickly and efficiently. They can also browse social media platforms and continuously learn from written posts. Sophie Lui mentions that one of the benefits of having Twitter is that it has allowed her to learn from others by reading articles or posts (MILLER, 2022).

How to best address negative replies and critiques reflective of your personal values and employers social media policy?

Sophie Lui addresses negative replies by muting them but not blocking them since it may give the user satisfaction (MILLER, 2022). I would start by accepting that there will be at least one person who disagrees with me or who may dislike me. This would allow me to change my mindset, so the next time I receive a negative reply or critique, it does not affect me as much. Although, if this is ineffective, I would mute accounts to avoid seeing these comments.

References

Hirst, M. (2018). A Handbook for Media Literacy and Citizen Journalism. Routledge. https://doi.org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.4324/9781315401263

MILLER. (2022 June 6). Sophie Lui – EDCI 338 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfcXgKLzOVM