Category: Myspace

1. Megan Meier Case:

1.1 Introduction of Case:

On October 17, 2006, a 13 year old American teenager, Megan Taylor Meier, committed suicide by hanging herself from a fan in her room. Megan had always been a victim of depression and anxiety. When social networking sites were on the rise, Megan wanted to be on popular site Myspace. Megan’s mother Tina Meier allowed her because her friends were on it. As soon as she joined the site, she received a message from 16 year old attractive friend “Josh Evans”. Josh became a very close friend of Meier even though they never met face to face. Megan discussed everything with “Josh”. Eventually, her online friend ”Josh” became aggressive to her, called her names and went on to spread derogatory remarks about her. One day, he sent her this text which proved very critical for her life

“World would be a better place without you”

This led to her having an emotional breakdown. Heartbroken, she went to her room and did not come back alive. On the day of October 17, 2006, she hanged herself with a belt from a roof fan.

1.2 Type of Crime:

Harassing someone behind a computer screen online comes under cyberbullying. Hence, it was cyberbullying.

2. Court Proceedings:

The case of “Suicide of Megan Meier” was initially prosecuted locally at United States District Court for the Central District of California.

2.1 Investigation:

Several weeks after her death, Megan’s parents were told of a woman, Lori Drew who was the mother of Megan’s old friend Sarah Drew. Megan was once friends with Sarah until Sarah thought that Megan spoke ill of her. Megan’s Parents found out that Lori created “Josh Evans” account. Even, Lori for once, admitted she knows the password of “Josh Evans” as a joke. With further investigations, a former employee of Lori Drew, named Ashley Grills was identified as the person who wrote these texts to Megan. She was also the writer of last message of “Josh Evans” after which, Megan did suicide.

According to Grills, Lori Drew was involved from the beginning and wanted to “mess with Megan” because Megan might have spread rumors about her daughter Sarah.

2.2 State Decision:

In December, 2007, Missouri prosecutors announced that they would not charge Drew in connection with Meier’s death. According to St. Charles County Prosecutor Jack Banas, there was not enough evidence to bring charges. [13]

2.3 Indictment:

On 15th may, 2008, Grand jury of the United State of District Court indicated Drew on 4 counts.

• The first count alleged a conspiracy arising out of a charged violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, namely that Drew and her co-conspirators agreed to violate the CFAA by intentionally accessing a computer used in interstate commerce ‘without authorization’ and in ‘excess of authorized use’, and by using interstate communication to obtain information from the computer in order to inflict emotional distress in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a) (2) (C). [13]
• Count 2, 3 and 4 allege that Drew violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) by accessing MySpace servers to obtain information regarding Meier in breach of the Myspace Terms of Service, on September 20, 2006 and October 16, 2006. [13]

2.4 Brief Report:

On September 4, 2008, the Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF filed a brief to dismiss the indictment. The brief main argument was:

• Drew violation of Myspace terms and conditions was not “without authorization” or “excess of authorized use” under CFAA.
• interpreting the CFAA to apply to a breach of a website’s Terms of Service would violate the Due Process protections of the Constitution

The brief was in favor to Drew’s motion.

2.5 Evidence and Arguments:

A former employee of Lori Drew, Ashley Grill that it was she who presented the idea to create the MySpace account and clicked to agree to the terms of service and that neither she nor Drew saw or read the terms. Reportedly, Grills reported received immunity for her testimony against drew.

At trial, Drew was acquitted of the charged felonies, but found guilty of lesser misdemeanors violations of the CFAA.

Prosecutors claim that the evidence shows Drew’s motive for allegedly committing computer crimes in an effort to cause intentional emotional distress to Meier.

Drew’s defense team argued in their motion to exclude that the evidence of Meier’s suicide should be found inadmissible because it is:

• irrelevant
• Unfairly prejudicial.
• the suicide does not go to any element of the crimes charged under the CFAA
• The government is seeking to admit the evidence with the intent of prejudicing the jury and to punish Drew for Meier’s death.

The government argued that the court should deny Drew’s motion because:

• Meier’s suicide is highly probative on the issue of Drew’s intent and provides context for Drew’s conduct after Meier’s death.
• The substantial probative value is not outweighed by the limited prejudicial effect. The government contended that Meier’s suicide helps prove Drew intended to inflict emotional distress on the girl. The government contends that the possible prejudicial effect of the evidence could be mitigated by voir dire and appropriate jury instructions.

Drew was charged with conspiracy and with three counts of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (‘CFAA’), 18 U.S.C. § 1030, after creating a fake MySpace account, purporting to be a teenage boy.

3. Decision:

The jury was deadlocked on Count One for Conspiracy, but unanimously found Drew not guilty of Counts two, three and four. The jury did, however, find Drew guilty of a misdemeanor violation of the CFAA.

Federal Judge Wu argues that the that the CFAA’s criminal prohibition against accessing a computer ‘without authorization’ should not be interpreted as extending to instances of individual violations of a website’s Terms of Service.

On November 23, 2008, Drew filed a motion for acquittal. On August 28, 2009, U.S. District Judge George H. Wu formally granted Drew’s motion for acquittal, overturning the jury’s guilty verdict. The Meier’s did not file a civil lawsuit.

4. Analysis:

4.1 Quality of Investigation:

This FBI led Investigation was started weeks after the death of Megan. However, with the neighbor coming up and telling Megan’s parents about Lori Drew’s account, the investigation became stronger. Lori Drew even said to one of the minors at school that knew about it, to keep his mouth shut. Her Daughter Sarah Drew and former employee Ashley Grills were also involved. As far as the investigation is concerned, it successfully led to identifying the actual characters involved in it, especially, main mastermind of Lori Drew. Hence, the quality of investigation was satisfactory.

4.2 Evidence Presented in court:

Former Employee of Lori Drew, Ashley Grills gave testimony against Drew which was slightly useful in court. She testified that Drew gave the idea to create MySpace Account as to find out whether Meier was spreading rumors about her daughter Sarah. According to Grills, Drew was involved from the beginning and told her to “agree to terms and conditions” of MySpace.

From the start of this case, there was a lack of evidence. As stated above, St. Charles County Prosecutor Jack Banas said that there was not enough evidence to bring charges. Evidence did not really play a major role in the decision because there was so little. There was no clear evidence that Lori Drew did make the Josh Evans MySpace account. There was no clear evidence that Lori did this as an indent to “mess with Megan” who was already a depressed teenage girl having suicidal thoughts.

There was no clear legal wording present in the constitution with respect to this case because it was first of its kind.

4.3 Opinion on Decision Made:

Although the decision made angered a lot of people and even me, myself was angered to let that horrible woman Lori Drew get away with it. However, in legal terms that seems like the best it was possible at that moment. Even the judge Wu was accepting any kind of evidence against Lori Drew. Also, no Legal Act about cyberbullying was present at that time. So it had to be dealt with Computer Fraud and Abuse act which does not consider suicide under charged crimes. So there were legal hurdles.

However, there should have been Cyberbullying act and this case should have been prosecuted under that act. If were to happen, Drew would never be acquittal of her actions. Interestingly, they introduced Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act but it was not passed later.

4.4 Investigation inside Organization:

Organization involved MySpace did not investigate internally. Which is quite right in my opinion. Since the fault lied in Drew mismanaging policies and terms of MySpace, the organization did no significant investigation not any change. In my view organization should be held responsible only if error lies in its software or so. And of course, people involved should be held accountable. Eventually, Myspace kept updating their terms of use just like any other website.

5. References:

1. http://www.dmlp.org/threats/united-states-v-drew
2. https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/criminal-law/criminal-law-keyed-to-robinson/void-for-vagueness/united-states-v-drew/
3. http://www.dmlp.org/threats/united-states-v-drew
4. https://www.wired.com/2008/05/lori-drew-indic/
5. https://www.wired.com/2009/07/drew-court/
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE3BCfqEZgc
7. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/us/25myspace.html
8. https://www.wired.com/2008/11/defense-lori-dr/
9. http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/united-states-v-drew
10. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/262221
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Megan_Meier
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Drew

The ability to interact with others concerned mankind for years. Humans were naturally created as socially dependant beings. As such, people were dependant on personal communication as a method to reinforce bonds. When personal interaction wasn’t possible, individuals developed various unique solutions to the problem. One such method was the use of hand-written letters to compensate for the lack of communication as a result of great distances between individuals. The letters were hand delivered from person to person until it had reached the intended recipient. This was accomplished more efficiently with the use of an intermediary delivery method, specifically the postal service. The first postal delivery system was presented in the year 550 B.C. This form of delivery service became common and modernized in later years. Centuries later in 1792, a new form of technology was introduced which was referred to as the telegraph. Despite their small size in length, this device permitted for a faster delivery of messages compared to the traditional means. As a result, the telegraph revolutionized how messages were communicated. It wasn’t until the 20th century which experienced a revolution in technology. During the 1940s, supercomputers were produced for which engineers developed networks. Eventually, this led to the creation of the popular Internet which introduced Internet Relay Chats (IRCs), the earliest form of online communication, as computers were normalized and integrated in various households. IRCs were utilized primarily in 1988 and were widespread throughout the next decade or so. This introduced a social media website to the public which was labelled as ‘Six Degrees’. Users on Six Degrees were provided the option to create a profile and add their friends. Using this concept paved a path for several other social media platforms (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace), commonly used today, to be introduced years later. With the invention of the social media platforms, arose many concerns. Specifically speaking, it had “corrupted” personal interaction between individuals over time. This concern was addressed at a debate which occurred at University of Oxford in the United Kingdom (UK). It featured two opposing views, proposition and opposition, on whether social media sites do in fact “corrupt” interaction among people. Both sides consisted of three experts in their respected fields, however one from the proposition and opposition will be concentrated on for the purpose of this discourse analysis. Emma Gannon, writer and broadcaster, proposed in favour of the corruption caused by the development of social media sites. Liam Hackett, best known as an activist as well as CEO of ‘Ditch the Label Hackett’, opposed against Emma and voiced his opinion against the proposed topic. The introduction was provided not to discuss who is correct, but rather to provide some insight on the controversial subject to determine various strategies and techniques utilized by both sides to convince the audience. Essentially speaking, to conduct a “discourse analysis” and recognize different signs used by the dominant debater which assisted in their persuasion to the house. The concept of signs is defined as, “anything can be a sign as long as someone interprets it as ’signifying’ something – referring to or standing for something other than itself.” (Chandler, Semiotics for Beginners: Signs, 2005, p. 1-23). When concerned with the effectiveness of a debater’s presentation, various aspects are taken into consideration. For example, how had the debater presented himself or herself? Had they positioned themselves as to invite the audience, or was their stance protective? It was evident that Liam was comparatively more confident with his opposition to prove social media does in fact connect people around the world.

Before presenting his opposing view, Liam ensured he was honest with his audience. Liam greeted the audience with a sincere salutation as he said, “thank you so much for having me here this evening to talk about something I’m really passionate about” (Liam, 0:19-0:24). This introduction allowed Liam to gain the attention of the audience. Before he presented his argument, he immediately expressed to the audience that he wanted to communicate about why he was “such a huge advocate of social media” (Liam, 0:27-0:29) with a story concerning his years as a student. Liam shared the fact that he experienced bullying at a young age and had confronted it for a decade. He “…didn’t have any mates. I’ve been hospitalized” (Liam, 0:39-0:41) as a result of the bullying and wasn’t socially active with others. He expressed the fact that he had “a computer and turned to myspace” (Liam, 0:43-0:46) as his escape from his difficult reality. Liam casually confessed to the audience the fact that he felt “really old talking about Myspace” (Liam, 0:46-0:50) and asked the audience if they recalled the social media platform. This allowed Liam to add a slight humor to his unfortunate story. He explained to the audience how he used Myspace as a social media platform to share his experience of being bullied. He added that he received messages from others who shared similar experiences of bullying and as a result “people were giving me advice and some people were asking me for advice” (Liam, 1:08-1:10). He expressed that as a young teen, he had absolutely zero confidence over the Internet. Despite that, interacting with others with similar experiences over Myspace had provided him with the confidence to speak his mind. As various other users witnessed this, it allowed them to create a community composed of individuals sharing similar experiences. In fact, individuals who were not familiar with each other united to join the community. The group experienced massive growth which allowed individuals to interact and discuss the difficulties they experienced. This resulted in the “birth” of Liam’s organization, ‘Ditch the Label’, which has become one of the biggest charity organizations focused to reduce bullying across the globe. To provide a standpoint of the organization, Liam expressed their goal to assist “1.5 million young people to overcome bullying (Liam, 1:52-1:54). This introduction provided the audience with the realization that social media did in fact contribute to Liam’s success. Not only that, but it allowed Liam to connect with an audience on an emotional level.

Several traits during Liam’s presentation which contributed towards Liam’s display of confidence consisted of his body language as well as his audience engagement. Tim Wall, Birmingham’s School of Media Professor at Birmingham City University, and Paul Long, Birmingham’s School of Media Reader at Birmingham City University, argued the fact power most likely responded with resistance if used evidently and aggressively. On the flip side, if the same use of power is exercised with less obvious and dominating, individuals will become more at ease within the directed power (278). That was the case with how Liam Hackett presented his opposing views to the audience. Liam remained calm, composed, and delivered his presentation with ease despite sharing the fact that he was in fact “bullied for 10 years at school…I’ve been hospitalized” (Liam, 0:37-0:41). This ability of Liam to remain composed while sharing his experience as a student displayed his sense of strength and courage. When individuals share personal experiences that had damaged them emotionally, normally, their tone of voice tends to rise. This was displayed in the debate which occurred at the same venue, Oxford Union, between Mehdi Hasan and Waters-Marie Waters. Hasan hadn’t tolerated the fact how the beautiful religion of Islam, which he practiced, had been slandered and misrepresented by folks due to several misguided individuals. As a result, he had displayed a slight moment of aggression due to the increase in his tone of voice. This was because he spoke of a matter that had personally affected him. However, that was not the case with Liam which proved quite effective for him. If This technique allowed Liam to get the audience on his side and construct an emotional connection with him on some level. The manner in which any speaker presents themselves before an audience speaks volumes before, they even utter a single word. For instance, if individuals are hunched or slouched, it may inform the audience you don’t confide in your abilities. However, Liam’s presentation of himself before the house immediately signified, he was confident in his ability to present his views. This was because he had opened his chest and set his shoulders back. This allowed him to appear relaxed while standing tall with one of his hands in his pockets and one to engage the audience. Liam’s open chest and stance immediately informed the audience he was prepared to answer any questions or address any comments that the audience may have. He had presented himself in a comfortable and balanced fashion with his weight evenly distributed and just slightly forward. Emma, however, was more protective of not as confident in herself. This was shown through her obvious use of her constant referral to her notes in her hand and her reserved posture. For someone who hadn’t been confident in their adolescent years, Liam proved his confidence in his ability to defend and invite others to listen to him as he proudly shared his experience. Furthermore, his use of his hand gestures along with his slight increase in tone allowed him to emphasize various points that he wanted to communicate to the audience. For instance, when referring to the famous ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, he used his right hand and gestured with force that the challenge “raised millions of pounds for charity. It created huge awareness for such an important cause” (Liam, 3:37-3:43). Liam’s incredible and effective utilization of his body language provided him with the ability to emphasize several points. Most importantly, it created an environment where he was able to connect with everyone and provide them a sense of comfort.

Michael Foucault, a renowned philosopher and theorist from France, coined the idea of “power/knowledge”, which he explained were deeply interconnected to each other. He expressed the fact that one was unable to exist without the other, that “power” and “knowledge” were not a to viewed as a separate identity of their own. According to his interpretation of “power/knowledge”, Foucault argued power is formed and utilized only through the means of procurement of knowledge, analyzing and interpreting information, and solid “truths” of the world. He emphasized that power was constructed through knowledge and utilized knowledge. However, the same knowledge was reproduced by power by transformation, and through the extensive utilization of knowledge, that influence of power “re-created” it’s unique set of ideologies. Foucault’s concept of “power/knowledge” had positioned individuals in an adamant position of power or authority as they contained “knowledge of particular discourses”. To illustrate the exercise of “power/knowledge”, Foucault outlined an example of an honest admission, in his work of ‘History of Sexuality’. He explained that the practise of “power/knowledge” to influence others was once a common tactic utilized by the church which practiced Christianity. The exercise of power had later become widespread towards the 18th and 19th century. Foucault had termed the time of the eighteenth century as the “repressive hypothesis”. During this time, the bourgeoisie had rose to position of power and authority. As a result, any such energy that was expended on conducting activities outside of the standard sexual relations between a married a couple, were immediately scorned and disregarded. In other words, to express any sexual desires of that of a homosexual was forbidden to avert any sex conducted between the same genders. Foucault explained that an admission was in fact a form of “power”. As such, many individuals had felt impelled and encouraged from the repression to express themselves truthfully and “speak from their hearts” regarding their “extra” sexuality. Although he may or may have not been aware of Foucault’s ideologies, this had resonated strongly with Liam’s story. He confessed to the audience that he had utilized the platform of Myspace to communicate to others about his sexuality as he expressed, “when I came out as gay I already had friends on the internet who were gay who could give me advice and support I didn’t have offline” (Liam, 2:20-2:26). Not only that, but the concept of “power/knowledge” to influence others, was one of Liam’s strongest characteristics. He liked using figures and examples to emphasize his argument of how social media does in fact personally connect others. This allowed him to demonstrate his knowledge for the subject matter to the house. He explained the fact that the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge had collected an enormous amount of donation it was able to collect thanks to people interacting on social media. He added there was an online petition which received over ten thousand signatures which campaigned for the redefinition of prejudice of a young Essex girl in the Oxford Dictionary. Using these examples strengthened his opposition to convey to the house to vote in favour of social media being a medium of bringing people together on a personal level.

The topic of whether social media platforms are effective or detrimental for personal interaction has been introduced in various discussions over the years. Both Emma Gannon, the proposition, as well as Liam Hackett, the opposition presented compelling views to the house. This debate however was designed differently as it consisted of three opposing views and three proposition views. However, through all efforts, it was reported that the house favoured the Emma’s proposition side. Despite that, the focal point of this “discourse analysis” essay was not to conclude who was right or wrong. Rather it was to merely analyze what strategies or signs the more dominant side utilized to sway the votes of the house in their favour. Placing the results of the debate aside and considering the debates themselves, Liam presented his arguments effectively just under ten minutes. Stuart Hall, a renowned activist of politics, as well as a theorist like Foucault, was awarded the ‘Fellowship of the British Academy’ (FBA). This award was given to those individuals who displayed excellence in the fields of social science and humanity. In his work labelled as ‘Representation’ (2013), he discussed the importance of signs and what they represent as he expressed, “Visual signs and images…are still signs: they carry meaning and this have to be interpreted” (Hall, 5). He explained his idea of interpretation using traffic lights utilized on an on-going basis. Hall expressed that the ‘GREEN’ light was taught and understood for on-coming pedestrians as well as vehicles to ‘GO’. However, ‘RED’ was taught and understood by individuals to ‘STOP’ at all costs. As a result, Hall’s concept of ‘representation’ can be applied in the context of the debate. Interpreting Liam’s presentation, it was evident he was confident and dominating compared to Emma. This was as a result of Liam’s effective use of his body language, his choice to connect with the audience on an emotional level through his story, his use of real-life examples, as well as his immense passion for social media which allowed him to connect with like-minded individuals. Not only that, but because of his knowledge of social media, it allowed him to construct a successful organization, ‘Ditch the Label’ as Foucault argued, “no power can be exercised without the extraction, appropriation, distribution or retention of knowledge” (Foucault, quoted in Sheridan, 1980, p. 131).

Works Cited

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Social media has gained attention for the past decade due to the increasing usage and the convenience of the internet and smartphones. This paper aims to study the main factors contributing to the acceptance of social media platforms by reviewing past literature on adoption models such as the Diffusion of Innovation (Rogers, 1995) and Diffusion in Social Media (Judge and Ostergaard, 2013). The paper examines the factors of adoption proposed by past literatures on technology and social media. Then, based on the literatures, this paper suggest that the network of an individual is the most important factor in the adoption of social media. However, the authority factor proposed by Rogers (1995) should not be underestimated.

Social media is a term that is very familiar with people around the world these days. However, the term came out just 40 years ago, in a handbook regarding network etiquette in 1982. As smartphone users increase annually (Statista, 2018), combined with the ease of access to the internet, usage of social media has become more convenient, and users can access social media mobile application whenever and wherever they want.

Social media today is becoming inseparable from our daily lives. As of 2017, the average time spent on social media daily is 135 minutes, a 50 percent increase compared to 5 years ago (Statista, 2018). In addition, these statistics also show that the number of users has also increased over this same amount of time. As of 2015, 76 percent of the US population uses social media, compared to seven percent 10 years ago (Chaffey, 2018). Social media has changed the way individuals and large organizations communicate over the last decade. People can stay connected no matter the distance and gain information from anywhere across the globe.

There are a wide variety of social media platforms that have been introduced over the past decade, including Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Instagram, and QQ (Statista 2018). The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors contributing to the acceptance of social media platforms.

To understand the factors affecting the acceptance of social media platforms, I looked at the factors of acceptance of technology defined by a renowned theory, the diffusion of innovation by Everett Rogers (1995). Diffusion of innovations is a theory that explains what factors attribute to the acceptance of technology and categorizes the general population into 5 groups of innovation adopters. The four main elements that defines the diffusion process are the innovation, communication channels, time, and social system. However, not all innovations go through this process, and many innovations that seemed beneficial to people were not adopted immediately or at all. One example would be the Dvorak Keyboard, which instead of our standard QWERTY keyboard, places letters we use more in the home row. Thus, what are the variables that determines the success of an innovation? In addition to the 5 main variables, what I thought was interesting was that the authority could also influence the acceptance of innovations. In the case of social media, we have a live example in front of us currently. Social media in China is shaped by its government, it has banned internationally used social media, and people can only use China’s version of Google, YouTube, and Facebook, namely Baidu, QQ, and Weibo.

Judge and Ostergaard (2013) proposed gaps in the innovation diffusion if applied to social media, stated: “As Rogers (2003) delimits his theory using agricultural technologies, we regard the fundamental differences between the products used in Rogers’ theory and those of social media, as the root of incompatibility in predicting the diffusion of social media.” Instead of the 5-stage process of adoption by Rogers (1995), Judge and Ostergaard (2013) introduced a in my opinion, a similar model of the adoption process for social media (the diffusion in social media). Instead of deciding right away whether or not to use the platform after being persuaded, Judge and Ostergaard’s model indicated that users will sign up and try the platform before fully committing to it. In most cases, signing up for social media platforms are free of charge (even though we all know it really is not “free”), encouraging users to explore the content.

The above model proposed by Judge and Ostergaard is used to explain from an individual’s level. Another phenomenon that they found was the bandwagon effect. If friends of an individual are already using a platform, then they are more likely to use it. An interviewee of the research done by Judge and Ostergaard explained that they are more likely to choose a platform that has poor usability, yet where their networks and friends are present, over a platform with good usability, but with fewer community members.

Judge and Ostergaard (2013) also shed light on the reasons why users might reject an already matured social media platform. A renowned case is Myspace, launched in 2003 with 18.5 million active users at its peak (Evans and Schmalensee, 2010). Everyone in the US are using Myspace until Facebook entered the market in 2008 and took over as the leading social media platform. Judge and Ostergaard (2013) referred to the discontinuance of Myspace due to three factors: activity, network, and content. Users liked the content (users will have to use real names) that Facebook offers, and slowly moved to Facebook. With more people using Facebook, the bandwagon effect took place and the whole community migrated to Facebook. Lastly, inactivity on Myspace eventually lead users to close their accounts. I believe the bandwagon effect is not a linear line, but rather like Roger’s S-curved diffusion process, since the migration was not slow and steady, rather it took off after a certain point in time. In the case of Myspace, I believe content was a factor that triggered the movement, but ultimately, it was the user’s network, community that set it off.

Conclusion

Social media has only risen to popularity this past decade, due to the rise of Internet and more importantly, mobile phones. Users can now share, upload, and view new content anytime and anywhere they want. From the reading by Tufekci in class, I learned that even social movements are taking advantage of social media. Although Rogers’s (1995) diffusion of innovations is the foundation of the explanation of adoption in various fields, in the case of social media, I believe the factors proposed by Rogers are indicators, not determining factors. On the other hand, I believe an individual’s network plays a greater role in the adoption of social media.

In addition, Kietzmann et al. (2011) proposed a framework that defines social media by using seven functional building blocks: presence, sharing, relationships, identity, conversations, groups, and reputation. Most of these elements have to do with the interaction and connection with other people. For example: presence has to do with the extent to which users know if others are available; conversation is the extent to which users communicate with each other; and reputation is the extent to which users know the social standing of others and content. Hence, I believe this indicates that the main factor attributing to the acceptance of social media is the network of the user. However, there is one factor proposed by Rogers (1995) that can affect the network factor: the authority element. It is a factor that can alter a nation’s acceptance model, and thus, should not be underestimated.

Reference

1. Chaffey, D. (2018). Global social media research summary 2018. Smart Insights.
2. Evans, D. and Schmalensee, R. (2010). Failure to Launch: Critical Mass in Platform Businesses. Review of Network Economics.
3. Judge, J. and Ostergaard, R. (2013). Diffusion in Social Media.
4. Kaplan, A. and Haenlein, M., (2010). Users of the world, unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media. Business of Horizons (2010).
5. Kietzmann, J., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I., Silvestre, B. (2011). Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, Volume 54, Issue 3.
6. Rogers, E. (1995). Diffusion of Innovations. Fourth Edition.
7. Statista (2018). Daily time spent on social networking by internet users worldwide from 2012 to 2017 (in minutes).
8. Statista (2018). Most popular social networks worldwide as of October 2018, ranked by number of active users (in millions).
9. Statista (2018). Number of smartphone users worldwide from 2014 to 2020 (in billions).
10. Tufekci, Z. (2017). Twitter and Tear Gas: the power and fragility of networked protest.
11. Wasserman, T. (2012). Google+ Users Spent just 3.3 minutes there last month. Mashable.

Introduction

Do not judge a book by its cover, a phrase that is usually said when someone is warning of incorrectly misinterpreting the personality by the look. If rephrasing this saying to match the technology age, it could be said the presented cover is the one people want to be judged by. Substituting cover with profile, the current situation in the world of cyber communication becomes clear and logical. The current trend in the internet today, that began as a form of interest communities and later turned into a cultural phenomenon, is social networking. This paper implements semiotic analysis to research MySpace site of Tila Tequila- an internet celebrity, a model, singer, actress and a TV host, available at www.myspace.com/tilatequila.

Social Networks

Social networks as a term is known for more than a decade, but relative to online communities it was actively used for the last two or three years. The idea is not new in principle, as any community of users can be called a network, even if it does not have the possibility to show “list of friends”. In the wide variety of all social networks, MySpace is distinguished by its personalization options. The user profile can become more than a place to communicate or put some photos and videos, it becomes the “cover” or the package that presents the social identity of that person. This package substitutes profession, social class, education and other factors that were used as a determination of the identity long ago. If prior to the internet boom the decoration of the room represented personality, that was judged by a couple of friends, now the personality is represented by an internet profile and judged by millions of users. As these profiles became elements of culture, and have “signs” represented as profiles’ appearance, thus they can be analyzed and accordingly interpreted.

Semiotic Analysis

Every science branch has its purpose that is created to explore and explain specific facts. Semiotic analysis, in particular explains such facts which are accumulated with observation. These facts form signs which can be translated with the purpose of getting correct interpretation and accordingly information that initially is “locked”. If transferring this explanation to internet profile, the interpreted information unlocks “the personality”, and as formulated in the article The Semiotics of Home Décor, by Eugene Rochberg-Halton “The self can only be known by the signs it gives off in communication” (116) This self is especially locked when referring to online social networks, e.g. when writing a diary that is purposefully shared, many human real features can be hidden behind the created image. Thus direct interpretation can be wrong as people do not want to be known for who they really are, as much as who they present themselves to be. In the article “What’s in a Package” by Thomas Hine, he states that “The ways, in which people construct and present their personalities, the ways in which ideas are presented and diffused, the ways in which political candidates are selected and public policies formulated.

Tila Tequila

At first it should be mentioned that Tila is a celebrity. A beautiful girl, and a model, therefore the informational load of the site is more visual than meaningful. That means that Tila knows what she is liked for, and accordingly use this factor to raise her popularity. This can be witnessed with numbers of photographs that exploits her physical appearance rather than spiritual. As the site was designed professionally, it could only be assumed that Tila participated in the process of personalization, and all subsequent conclusions can be made according to that assumption. A large theme in the profile is dedicated to the subject of provocation, thus it can said that Tila Does not like following the rules. Taking in consideration her fame, an old Arabic saying that stated figuratively” do wrong, you become known”, in the case of Tia is working perfectly. The previous statement does not mean doing wrong literally, rather than distinguishing herself from the crowd by emphasizing on the words, “bad”, “naughty”, “baddest” and “bitch”. These words, which normally people do not associate themselves with, work as a sign “I’m not like the others”.

The usage of red colors to bring attention is good, however, the diverse difference from ordinary profiles mark the page as a celebrity ad campaign, which goes beyond the limits of communication to merely promote records, books, videos and etc. Another issue that is based on contrasts is contradiction of the blog record about the importance of love – which is rather a cliché, to phrases such as “the baddest bitch on the block”, as you cannot promote the first being the second. However, Tila outlines this contradiction, by presenting a picture of her with different personalities, thus the visitor can only suppose which one is her.

Is that profile really Tila? Probably. The only thing that is definitely true, is that at least, that what she wants the visitor to think.

MySpace is a hugely successful and popular social networking website that caters to hundreds of thousands of users on a daily basis. Most popular amongst the student population, there have been growing concerns from psychological experts and parents alike regarding the perceived problems of Myspace use among impressionable kids. The main concern revolves around the possibility of Myspace being used by sexual predators on the internet due to the lax security measures at the website. Indeed, the website can be considered to have almost nonexistent security as it encourages the users to post as much personal information as they wish through the boards and blogs, site features that are easily accessible to those with predatory instincts. The reality of the situation is that Myspace has encouraged more creativity and socialization among its users due to its innovative software usage concepts. However, just like anything done in excess, too much personal information on any MySpace account can also prove to have adverse effects. In fact, according to journalist Sue K. Ellen, one can view my space in terms of necessary medication for patients with the good results outweighing the bad. She indicates that:

In the medical field, if the positive benefits outweigh the negative effects, medicine is used. Otherwise, the medicine is canceled, such as the medication known as Vioxx. Why do I mention this? Well, MySpace works the same way. It’s a great tool, but if it’s going to put you and your loved ones in danger, then the negative effects outweigh the benefits, leading to the conclusion that MySpace is a very dangerous place for children and teenagers to be dwelling in, and therefore must be approached at an appropriate, and serious manner.

According to Larry D. Rosen, Ph.D. although 83% of parents are concerned with their teen’s use of MySpace exposing them to sexual predators, parents numbering about 75% were also concerned about the perceived social isolation of their child due to the virtual nature of the friendships they entered into. There is indeed something disconcerting about not having any face-to-face encounters with these people since the internet allows users to actually create believable facades that could prove to be detrimental to other parties once taken into the real world.

However, these concerns do not seem to outweigh the benefits that most users derive from the social site. As it continues to help people remain in touch in an ever increasingly busy world of the 21st century, more and more social circles and families who are divided by borders and time differences will find it necessary to use the online blog to keep abreast of each other’s activities. For the youth of today, this is the best way for them to stay in touch with each other without having to share physical proximity and time zones. Thereby offering a variation on the view of active social life in the 21st century. Melissa Colin was interviewed by Heather Vale for the article “My Space, Not Your Space” and she had this to say about the connectivity offered by the website:

I think Myspace is really great. I went camping one summer and a lot of my friends from there had Myspace. Now I talk to them all the time and Myspace is a great way to keep in touch with people

Education-wise, MySpace also helps the students to bridge any information gaps they may be experiencing in school as they discuss on the various forums available that allow them to safely gain exposure to a diverse wealth of information and ideas. It allows the users to widen their understanding of various topics while also motivating them to perhaps break out and try other things in life.

The most important thing a parent or child has to remember is that any internet-based world will always come with possible negative and positive effects. As such, it is important to learn how to safely use social networking site while exposing oneself to as little danger as possible. One can no longer eliminate the use of the internet from daily life, however, one must do his best to protect himself from the various vulnerabilities one is placed under in places like MySpace.

Personal protection systems would include offering as little personal information as possible on the profile page, self-screening your blog content in order to tell your visitors about your life without telling them everything about it. Most importantly, the user must learn that it is possible to block anybody who makes you feel uncomfortable with the messages or pictures being left on your page.

The idea of anonymity on the internet is the bane of internet users. Most parents fear that the social network leaves all profiles unchecked and exposes their kids to the possibility of being sexually attacked by the people they met through the internet whom they eventually go to meet in person. This is a horror story that, as proven by newspaper reports, has become a horrifying reality for some users. MySpace has no way to check and verify the personal information presented by their users and they have constantly been called upon to tighten their security and screening procedures due to this flaw in their system. The company has since implemented several security measures to help curb the predatory practice of older, psychologically imbalanced users of their site. However, the company can only do so much security checking and tightening, the actual responsibility of protecting the child lays upon the parents who must educate their children about the dangers of social networking and actually take the time out of their busy schedules to visit the MySpace page of their children and help them identify potential threats in order to block the person from further contact. This is one way that some psychologists also see MySpace as helping strengthen the parent-child bond into a new sort of friendship and bringing in a totally new level of trust between the two often misunderstood and warring family members.

Overall, MySpace, just like the rest of the internet, is like Chicago during prohibition time. There are a lot of underground dangers beneath the seemingly socially perfect veneer of MySpace. Nobody can protect the user from all the dangers on a 24/7 basis but, the users themselves can choose to limit their dangerous exposure on the aforementioned social networking site. After all, the site is meant to help people make friends, so cautious socialization is definitely the order of the day at such an open use website.

References

1. “Is MySpace Good For Society? A Freakonomics Quorum“. The New York Times. 2008. Web.
2. Rosen, Larry. PhD. “Adolescents In MySpace: Identity Formation, Friendship, And Sexual Predators”. California State University. June 2006.
3. “The Dangers Of MySpace: Information Every Parent Should Be Aware Of“. Associated Content. 2007. Web.
4. Vale, Heather. “MySpace, Not Your Space”. Perl World Youth News. 2006.

MySpace.com Company: A Brief Background

In the recent past, the number of companies operating in the social networking industry has risen exponentially. The rise is attributed to, among others, the increased growth in information and communication technology (ICT). The companies operating in this field include, among others, Facebook, Linkedln, and Twitter.

Facebook is perhaps one of the largest and most dominant of these companies. MySpace is another company operating in the global social networking industry. Currently, this company has approximately 125 million users (CrunchBase, 2013). The site provides internet users with a platform to connect and share with each other with regards to culture and content.

Compared to other companies operating in this industry, MySpace is a relatively old company. It was a leading player in this industry in 2005. In spite of this long history, there are several issues that are currently facing the company. When the company was started, the founders wanted to exploit the socializing potential among internet users. However, the economic potential of the company was only realized when it was purchased by News Corporation.

In this paper, the author carries out a critical analysis of the company from a business perspective. A number of frameworks, theories, and concepts that were introduced during the semester are used in this analysis. The problems facing the company, as well as the underlying causes of these problems, are analyzed. Finally, recommendations are made to address these issues.

MySpace.com: A Detailed Company Analysis

Key Issues Affecting MySpace.com

When it was acquiring MySpace, News Corporation was hoping to make profits from the venture. However, MySpace is facing a number of critical issues that News Corporation needs to address if the envisaged returns are to be realized. The key issues include, among others, the following:

• Competition from other social networking sites. The industry is saturated with many players offering similar services. The competitors include AOL, Yahoo!, and Facebook.
• The need for the company to generate revenue through advertisements, especially from the big brands in the global market.
• The need to enhance user confidence in the site, especially with regards to content.
• The need to strike a balance between revenue generation and user satisfaction.
• Keeping up with changing trends in the industry. Such changes affect access platforms and the generation of user friendly features.
• The need to transform the users of the site into customers, or at least make them potential sources of revenue generation.

Analysis of Key Business Issues

It is noted that MySpace has an outstanding potential for generating revenue through social networking platforms. However, the issues the company is currently facing can easily lead to its demise. Opportunities for the company are immense, but the management is unwilling or unable to exploit them.

Marketing strategies and decision-making processes are major impediments to growth and future direction of MySpace. Upon acquisition, it was realized that the marketing objectives of existing MySpace managers differed significantly with those of News Corporation technocrats.

The management at News Corporation is more concerned with generation of profits. However, the founders of MySpace are more concerned with user satisfaction. Both dimensions are important. However, the varying objectives may result to losses. Intense focus on customer satisfaction may render the company unprofitable. On the other hand, intense focus on revenue generation may lead to low quality services. Such services may push users away from the site.

The ethical issues surrounding the services offered by MySpace are critical to the company’s business model. Majority of MySpace users are youths. Their parents and guardians are worried about glorification of sex and drugs in the site. The system does not clearly define the nature of the content promoted.

Recommendations

Several measures can be taken to address the issues facing MySpace.com. Decision making should take the center stage in the operations of the company. The management and the development teams should be separated. The decisions made by MySpace developers and News Corporation should be harmonized to come up with shared objectives for the company.

The company’s value chain also needs to be addressed. According to Laudon and Laudon (2013), the company is currently using the push-based supply chain model. The model predicts customer demands and then pushes products to them. Developers of MySpace should also desist from focusing solely on customer satisfaction. The management at MySpace should provide services targeting the predicted customer demands. The management should also make efforts to increase revenue generation without compromising quality of services.

The internet is changing at a very fast pace. As such, focusing on one aspect of an online business, such as customer satisfaction, can result to losses in the long run. Speedy exploitation of online opportunities is paramount. Failure to do this gives competitors an edge in the market. As such, the need for revenue generation at MySpace should be balanced with the need for customer satisfaction.

Enhanced management of customer relations and clearly defined user policies will boost the confidence of the customers. However, the policies should not stifle business. Lack of clear boundaries in with regards to content can endanger the survival of MySpace in the industry.

References

CrunchBase. (2013). MySpace. Retrieved from https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/myspace

Laudon, K., & Laudon, C. (2013). Management information system 13e: Managing the digital firm. New York: Pearson Higher Ed.