Reflective Essay
(This is a reflection base on the project Record Life)
The invisible inequality in new media: Are we the voicer or the silencer?
Wanchen Sun
Word Count: 2150
May 07, 2023
While working on our group's portfolio, I was able to think more deeply about new media through the process of programming to build and embellish our webpage. In this essay, I will reflect on the new media platform for the portfolio. I argue that inequality has been a constant core feature of whether old media or new media, and this inequality is reflected in both data security and algorithmic bias.
The emergence of new media has been viewed more positively in our group research, with the idea that the changing form of media has opened up more possibilities for connecting the world. There is no clear definition of what exactly distinguishes new media from old media, and the line between them is more a subjective one for each individual (Menke and Schwarzenegger, 2019). In my opinion, the biggest difference between the two is the form in which the content is presented, and that all the other differences can ultimately be traced back to it. From offline dispersed distribution to online diverse aggregation, the world's information is tightly connected. Quarry Hill is not a well-known place, the records of its history are still hidden in the Special Collection of the University of Leeds, it can be said that almost no one except students and researchers of new media has come across this series of books. But after our webpage came out, anyone from anywhere in the world can find out about the area through the URL. Finding information on the historical residents of Quarry Hill is not easy, but things become easier if one wants to find information on the current residents. The new media platforms not only have detailed national statistics, but also the spontaneous sharing of life by many residents on social media, a record no longer influenced by wealth disparities as historical records are. In our group research, we found very few records of individual poor people beyond the names kept by the census. At the same time, because of the wealth gap, the poor did not have access to education and were deprived of the opportunity to record their lives on their own. diaries kept during the same period in the 1900s were mainly from people with social status above the middle class (Diary Life, 2017). The retrospective turn of the Internet has also made it less of a stand-alone cyberspace and more of a tool for studying society and culture (Rogers, 2019).
Nonetheless, I discovered the disadvantages of the new media during my research, which gave me a deeper awareness of its inequalities. Many things have changed from the old to the new, the medium has changed from the historical record to the mobile phone, but the feature of inequality has always remained. Although the media is not a figurative person, it does have power, or rather it is empowered. Where there is power, there is inequality.
In the age of digital media, netizens are chronically vulnerable when it comes to data security, our data on media platforms are all potentially at risk of being tampered with, lost, or compromised, and this came to me in a profound way when coding the portfolio. As an introductory coder, I often struggled with editing code, and it was clear that coding was a task that required extensive and systematic study to master. I realised that programming is the powerful heart of new media and that no platform can work without it, but this also means that media companies and coders hold the power. What if the average user wants to have a website of their own? They have to rely on websites that provide web templates and use other people's platforms to put up their own content. While users do own their own domain name, they have no idea of the code behind it. In this context, media companies can use their privileges to do whatever they want with the users’ information, and there is no guarantee that the content will change or even disappear. There was a case on Chinese social media where an anonymous box called ‘Popi’ had taken the social platform by storm, with users asking anonymous questions and waiting for answers. During its operation, the app was suddenly taken down and renamed several times. But after this process, the users’ previous interactive data all disappeared. Eventually, the application was announced as permanently deactivated in April and disappeared forever with the memories of all its users. In this sense, it makes sense that many people have nostalgia and consider old media to be more 'authentic' and reliable (Menke and Schwarzenegger, 2019).
If data loss is a small probability, privacy breaches can happen all the time. As privacy statements tend to be written in technical language, it is uncertain if social media users truly understand how their private information is being used, even if they have implemented privacy controls. If a social media site's policy states that consumers' personal information can be shared with third parties, a company may be able to access the personal information that consumers share on the site (Fox and Royne, 2018). Whereas under Quarry Hill people could only take notes with a pen, diaries are now available online, but this change seems to me to be more of a 'copyright transfer', where the flow of uploaded content is not controlled by the user themselves, regardless of how protective the platform claims to be of their privacy. In our group research, we referred to the ‘digital divide’ and there are still large numbers of refugees who refuse to use the internet because they do not want to be tracked, as well as vulnerable groups such as the elderly, the poor and the disabled who do not have access to media. ‘Technocolonialism’ is a concept that echoes the ‘digital divide’. The technological giants ‘generously’ provide free Internet and software to poor areas, while a lot of personal and regional data is retrieved for commercial analysis in order to obtain commercial interests and to squeeze the poor areas from the media channels. As we talk about the new media bringing more equal access to records, we have taken the presence of the media for granted rather than as a 'privilege'. At the same time, we have become so caught up in the pleasures and conveniences of the internet that we have lost sight of the perpetual 'digital exploitation' of users by corporations using the media. In a deeper sense, we have been acting as ‘invisible aphasiac’ without realising it.
In terms of algorithms, new media is showing a different kind of 'hegemony', with media companies having the autonomy to control the level of algorithmic recommendations for different contents. In the case of our portfolio, making Quarry Hill widely known through our website is just an idealistic situation. More realistically, users will not know about our website. The existence of our portfolio is no different from that of a document stored in a Special Collection without a promotional platform. Most Internet content is so dependent on algorithmic feeds that people are usually only able to view the content on the front page of the platform, with much useful information drowning in obscure corners. YouTubers or micro-celebrities are becoming subject matter authorities given their standing on the platform (Rogers, 2019). Bilibili, a trendy Chinese UGC platform, focuses on recommending bloggers who have signed up with their company and having their updates appear repeatedly on the front page, even if users are not interested. More than just technical intermediaries, platforms are considered institutional mediators who are 'shaping the performance of actors in the cultural field' (Wang, 2022). Their promotion of specific fields and bloggers can shape new trends, as exemplified by the popularity of vlogs in China. Top bloggers have a huge following and share the benefits of the platform, while the average user gets far fewer hits on their content.
Another Chinese phenomenal case that impressed me deeply was Tamdrin, a young Tibetan herdsman, who became an Internet sensation with his handsome face and clear eyes, garnering tens of millions of attention when a traveller shared his video accidentally on Chinese TikTok in 2019. It was discovered that his village was so indigent that he had to drop out of primary school to graze the livestock. Tamdrin has since been hired as a local tourism and cultural ambassador, and the government is now using Tamdrin's attraction to develop the area and fight poverty. This may seem like a positive example of media-driven social development, but it is important to note that Tamdrin has become a symbol of hometown promotion after he became popular, and his long-term online attention over several years was the result of the combination of algorithm and agenda. The media can promote an individual or an event with prolonged exposure, but it can also destroy a person by manipulation of public opinion or access to privacy. Such invisible boundaries of algorithmic privilege are creepy in terms of the disparity of power between new media and the individuals.
Moreover, we are supposed to draw greater attention to the aspects of algorithmic imaginaries that deal with the way algorithms embed social values in shaping the unequal possibilities and limits of the everyday (Benjamin, 2022, p. 51). This identity, or rather a 'prejudice', is evident in gender. It is sometimes positive, as when lesbians reinforce their identity and sense of belonging to a group through the #lesbian topic on TikTok (Nešović, 2021). But more cases point to its negative effects. Another Queer-related campaign, the ‘It Gets Better’ project, was not as effective and Berliner (2018) argues that both the project and Queer-related videos on social media focus on their own creative promotion, while the real pain points of Queer identity are not only not addressed at all but may also create more user fear. As D'Ignazio and Klein (2020) mention, even though Facebook is free to fill in the gender, it ends up classifying them as binary male or female in the background and then placing the ad content accordingly. There is also the case of ‘Xiaohongshu’ in China, where one of the most popular social media platforms, has an account set to male and a large number of sexy images on its homepage, while Bilibili automatically suggests games, sports and fitness channels for men and entertainment, food and fashion channels for women.
From individual values to the national and racial level, greater power emerges when two giants, the media and the government, join forces, both of which are also important constructors of the new media. Media is shaping nationalism through three mechanisms: Internet domain names, algorithmic bias and national ecosystems (Mihelj and Jiménez-Martínez, 2021). Particularly, the algorithms guiding some of the most widely used digital platforms have been shown to reproduce established gender, racial and ethnic biases. Individuals in the African American community who possess lower levels of education and income are excluded from participating in the digital community, not only is their voice barely audible but they are not hearing the wider range of voices that blogging allows (Schradie, 2012). In China, topics such as the Cultural Revolution, Falun Gong, Tiananmen Square Protests and pandemic protests are forbidden to appear on any webpage and the search engine will suggest positive reports from the official media, which is completely different from the search results in Google (Schneider, 2018). Because of the firewall restrictions, most Chinese netizens do not have access to information outside the wall. In this way, people's historical memory and sense of nationhood are tampered with over time. This ideological-based media control is intensifying and expanding under President Xi's administration (Repnikova, 2017).
The perpetual infiltration of individual consciousness by this media is frightening, as it disciplines people in all aspects of their lives, and finally, people will become the 'ideal netizens'. There does have a small number of people who resisted, as in the case of the Twitter resistance 'Fuck the Algorithm', which did grow its own team and gradually formed its own cultural group (Benjamin, 2022). However, does this act do more than awaken our consciousness? How effective our protests can be and how they can be more effective? It seems to be a long-term issue that is worth exploring.
In conclusion, this reflective essay unfolds from the platform of the group portfolio to consider the key feature of inequality embedded in new media. Empowered by media companies, tech giants and governments, both in terms of data privacy and algorithmic bias, new media acts like ‘The One Ring’ of infinite power, using the privilege underneath the unequal relationship to subliminally shape individual users and society. Our data privacy is not reliable, our cyberspace is only selectively connected. Also, our values, identities and national interests are all affected in a long-term and far-reaching way. How to undermine the inequality effectively may be an issue that can be discussed further in the future studies.
References
Benjamin, G. 2022. #FuckTheAlgorithm: Algorithmic imaginaries and political resistance. In FAccT ’22. pp.46-57.
Berliner, L. 2018. Producing queer youth: the paradox of digital media empowerment. New York: Routledge.
Diary Life, 2017. Digitized historical diaries & letters post-1900. [Online]. [Accessed 08 May 2023]. Available from: https://diaryfile.com/category/time-period/post-1900/
D’Ignazio, C. and Klein, L.F. 2020. Data feminism. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
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Nešović, D. 2021. Now You See Me: Visibility of the Lesbian Identity on TikTok. [Online]. [Accessed 08 May 2023]. Available from: https://networkcultures.org/longform/2021/10/08/now-you-see-me-visibility-of-the-lesbian-identity-on-tiktok
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