Living in a Connected World/Glossary

Please format in alphabetic order.


 * Always-on
 * A term relating to the notion of persistent connectivity to a shared global network.


 * Artificial Intelligence
 * The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.


 * Authentication
 * Where an entity is proved to be valid or a user provides information to prove their identity.


 * Collective Intelligence
 * A term to describe the sharing of knowledge and information in a collaborative for.


 * Cultural Determinism
 * The notion that the culture in which we are raised determines who we are at emotional and behavioral levels.


 * Cyberbullying
 * The use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature.


 * Data Mining
 * The practice of sorting through data to identify patterns and establish relationships, in relation to online privacy, data mining collects data from users of social media to examine trends and target adverts.


 * Deindividuation
 * The loss of self-awareness in groups.


 * Digital Age
 * Also known as the information age that is considered to have started in 1970 with the development of technology such as television and computers.


 * Digital Labour
 * The term used to describe how corporate Internet platforms exploit user activity for profit.


 * Digital Media
 * A form of electronic media where data are stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form.


 * Encrypted Messages
 * Relating to Facebook's secret messaging service, encrypted messages allow end-to-end conversations to occur where only the communicating users can receive the messages.


 * Filter Bubbles
 * The use of algorithms to display information which appeals to the specific user's interests.


 * Fear of Missing Out (FoMO)
 * A form of anxiety aroused by the fact that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening from posts on social media.


 * Global Village
 * Coined by Marshall McLuhan, a social organisation when society can easily transfer and share information as a collective.


 * Hacking
 * Unethical activity, which exploits weaknesses in computer security.


 * Hive Mind
 * A collective consciousness, analogous to the behaviour of social insects, in which a group of people become aware of their commonality and think and act as a community, sharing their knowledge, thoughts and resources.
 * Such a group mentality characterised by uncritical conformity and loss of a sense of individuality and personal accountability.
 * A distributed memory that both perceives and remembers.


 * Identity theft
 * The deliberate use of someone else's identity, usually as a method to gain a financial advantage or obtain credit and other benefits in the other person's name.


 * Information Age
 * The period beginning around 1970, in which large amounts of information are widely available to many people, largely through computers and computer newtorks.


 * Information Overload
 * Exposure to or provision of too much information or data.


 * Internet cookies
 * Small pieces of information in text format that are downloaded to your computer when you visit many Web sites. The cookie may come from the Web site itself or from the providers of the advertising banners or other graphics that make up a Web page.


 * Keylogging
 * The act of tracking what the user is typing.


 * Leaks
 * The public release and circulation of private information against the owner of the information’s will.


 * Margin of error
 * A statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in a survey's results. It asserts a likelihood (not a certainty) that the result from a sample is close to the number one would get if the whole population had been queried


 * Meta-aggregation
 * A method of systematic review that mirrors the processes of a quantitative review whilst holding to the traditions and requirements of qualitative research (it aggregates findings into a combined whole that is more than the sum of the individual findings in a way that is analogous with meta-analysis).


 * New Media
 * The means of mass communication using digital technologies such as the Internet and social media platforms.


 * Oversharing
 * The act of revealing too much personal information about oneself online


 * Privacy Policy
 * A privacy policy is that which states the ways a company gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client's data. It fulfills a legal requirement to protect a customer or client's privacy.


 * Private Sphere
 * Often defined in opposition or parallel to the Public Sphere. The Private Sphere is a section of societal life in which an individual has a degree of seclusion from the public. The concept has become blurred since the advent of social networking as "private messaging" communications are often stored on databases.


 * Public Sphere
 * Often defined in opposition or parallel to the Private Sphere. The Public Sphere is the section of societal life where private individuals come together to form a public entity. The ideology of the Public Sphere is that private people come together to discuss matters involving the greater good of the public.


 * Retweet
 * A function on the social media platform Twitter that allows users to repost or forward a Tweet.


 * Smart Mob
 * A group whose coordination and communication abilities have been empowered by digital communication technologies.


 * Social Media
 * Websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.
 * The collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration (e.g. forums, microblogging, social networking, social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis).


 * Social News
 * A much more personalised form of news consumption, delivered on a central platform (like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) according to how users engage with news stories from various sources.


 * Spyware
 * Software designed to give unauthorised access to a system.


 * Surveillance
 * The observation, and mass process of personal data. Although traditionally understood as being undertook by governments, private organistions are starting to proccess personal data on an industrial scale.


 * Technological Determinism
 * The notion that technology is a social structure or force, autonomous inventions, that have direct effects on social life


 * Virtual Community
 * A social network of individuals who interact through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals.


 * Vlog
 * A blog in which the postings are primarily in video form.


 * Web 2.0
 * The second stage of development of the Internet, characterised especially by the change from static web pages to dynamic or user-generated content and the growth of social media.


 * Wiki
 * A website or database developed collaboratively by a community of users, allowing any user to add and edit content.