A piece from this class that really stuck out to me and related to this was Shannon Vallor's "Social networking technology and the virtues". More specifically, the "Empathy" section of it stood out to me the most. It's easy to see the parallels of the harassment these women experienced and the harassment people receive daily online. I really liked how Vallor acknowledged empathy's claim to be a virtue even if Aristotle didn't directly say it was a human virtue. What was most interesting to me though, was the discussion about empathy in online platforms that was raised. Empathy, according to Vallor is the ability to "feel with others". Vallor even cited the thoughts of another writer, Danah Boyd, saying "online communication can eliminate visceral reactions that might have seeped out in everyday communication." In other words, these internet trolls don't face any repercussions for the hateful words they spew. This really is fascinating to me especially since we discussed the difference between responsibility and accountability in lecture. It really boggles my mind to think about the impact social media has on empathy and people's willingness to say hurtful or vile things online opposed to in person. Vallor's piece opened my eyes to this issue even more - just how different do we become when we are keyboard warriors? Do responsibility and empathy just go out the window? This k-pop example is just a small seed in a field full of cyber bullying issues, but I just wanted to address it because it intertwined a couple of my hobbies together and I want to raise awareness on the effect of cyber bullying.
Here is an article about Sulli's death if you want to learn more about it: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2019/11/07/Suicide-of-K-pop-star-Sulli-puts-spotlight-on-cyberbullying/4371573147309/
I loved how you connected this k-pop example, which you seemed genuinely interested in, to a topic we covered in class. I would love to know more about the difference between responsibility and accountability and how that can be applied across all of social media toxicity. I personally do not remember the "Empathy" section as well in this reading and would love to know exactly how that section relates back to your k-pop example. Overall, I love how you intertwined your hobbies and I am interested in knowing more about if laws may change in the future about cyberbullying because you pointed out that they don't seem to face repercussions. Who exactly do you think is to blame for the death of these k-pop singers? Should anyone be punished in particular?
ReplyDeleteJacob, compared to your first version of this post I can clearly see the changes that you have made. I like how you integrated the reading better into this topic matter. A couple things I would work on in future blog posts would be to change how you introduce the author of the readings. Who is Shannon Vallor? I see that you chose some specifics things and ideas that she had mentioned in her article. But maybe take the main idea and integrate it to better relate to the topic you are discussing? Formatting wise, I would recommend splitting some of the blocks of wording into shorter paragraphs so that it is more appealing and easier to read. I can definitely see improvement though so good job!
ReplyDeleteYour argument is very clear and well done. I think if you broke up your sections a little bit, it would look nicer and not as chunky. I thought your picture was both funny and relevant to your argument, so well done. Something you could have added to your post could be your own personal encounters with toxic k-pop stans on social media, and how the horrible things said on social media could ultimately lead two successful k-pop stars to commit suicide. I also thought it was a great that you mentioned accountability and responsibility and how these people commenting nasty things are able to get away with it. I think you did a great job with this post.
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