User talk:SuzanneClark22

Hi, this is the talk page of the user SuzanneClark22. I have made this account in order to complete a digital media and culture project at the University of Stirling. This space will be used in order to complete some parts of this product. I will be reflecting on the ways in which people use Wikipedia and Wikibooks. SuzanneClark22 (discuss • contribs) 13:19, 7 February 2017 (UTC) SuzanneClark22 (discuss • contribs) 13:15, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1
There are some clear differences between the ways in which people use social media such as Facebook and Twitter compared to the ways in which we interact with other people on Wikipedia and Wikibook. The ways in which the two types of media are presented create a distinction between how we perceive people using the networking sites. When we see something on Wikipedia we can assume that most people would believe a level of authority within the information that we are reading whereas if the same information written as someone's Facebook status people may be less likely to believe the information.

Another difference between the two types of media outlet is that Wikipedia and Wikibooks are places that the majority of people go for factual information whereas social media sites such as Facebook are more commonly used for social announcements. More discussion happens on the surface of social media sites whereas on sites such as Wikipedia and Wikibooks the discussion is easily forgotten as it is behind the scenes for the majority of users. It is easy to forget that Wikipedia articles have generally been created by a collaborating group of non-professionals about subjects that they happen to be knowledgeable on.

Collective intelligence which can be seen on sites such as Wikibooks, with their collaborative information, can be seen to have "no collective vision" (P. Levy) which means that they are simply displaying their own knowledge and not trying to push their own ideals. This cannot be said, however, for social media sites because the people that post statuses are trying to push their own opinions onto other people.

SuzanneClark22 (discuss • contribs) 15:32, 7 February 2017 (UTC)  SuzanneClark22 (discuss • contribs) 13:26, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wiki Exercise #1


Posts and comments on other people’s work, of this standard, roughly corresponds to the following grade descriptor. Depending on where your actual mark is in relation to Understanding and Engagement elements, it should give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses within the achieved grade band overall.


 * Satisfactory. Among other things, satisfactory entries may try to relate an idea from the module to an original example, but might not be very convincing. They may waste space on synopsis or description, rather than making a point. They may have spelling or grammatical errors and typos. They might not demonstrate more than a single quick pass at the assignment, informed only by lecture and/or cursory reading. They may suggest reading but not thinking (or indeed the reverse). The wiki markup formatting will need some work.


 * This post is at the upper end of this grade band, so a little improvement will go a long way to attaining a higher mark. I think in order to engage with the wiki exercises a bit more, it might be useful for you to look at the Grade Descriptors and (especially for this, perhaps, the Understanding) criteria in the module handbook to get more of an idea of how to hit those targets. Less instrumentally, and more in relation to this particular post, you make a number of assertions for which you need to provide evidence. There is, having said this, an effort to engage concepts encountered on the module (e.g. collective intelligence). If you can make more of this approach to applying research to your argument I think this will result in marked improvement. In addition, making more use of the wiki functionality and markup would go a long way to improving fluidity and functionality of posts. I suspect that, as you become more familiar and proficient with the platform, that this will make a considerable difference.


 * Re: responses to other people’s posts – these are fairly good, if a little brief. One of your coments has actually disappeared - although these are trackable, it's probably worth keeping an eye on the pages you've engaged with in order to keep on top of accidental deletion and so forth, and to request reversions, where necessary. Remember that the comments are "worth" as much as posts themselves. The reason for this is not only to help encourage discussion (a key element of wiki collaboration!) but also to get you to reflect upon your own work. This can all, of course be used to fuel ideas that might form part of your project work.

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 13:25, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I think you make a very interesting point about how we perceive people differently depending on the platform they are using. I also think that I would be likely to believe something on Wikibooks more than if it was posted by the same person on Facebook. Therefore we should be more wary of the fact that anybody can edit information on Wiki sites.

I have noticed many disagreements taking place on Facebook where two or more people think they are right about information but have differing opinions, as you mention when you commented about discussion on the two platforms. While these discussions on social networking sites appear on the majority of people's news feeds, we can sometimes forget that there are disagreements and other opinions about information seen on Wiki pages. If more people were producers as well as consumers on Wiki, maybe we would be more critical of the information we seek online. Ailsaharv (discuss • contribs) 21:37, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

This is a very thoughtful opinion, and it compares the difference between the social media platform and the Wikipedia/Wikibooks. Moreover, based on your post, I found out that the social media platforms are just various online mediums, for people who accept or are against the information according to their willingness and thoughts. Also, you clearly notice and illustrate the difference people have in their attitudes and trust in information gained from social media and Wikipedia.

I found your comments on Collective intelligence particularly interesting. I totally agree with you, when you are saying about the Collective intelligence on Wikipedia or Wikibooks that can be seen to have no collective vision, because all the discussions are behind the scenes. What are the positives and negatives of behind the scene discussions such as on Wikipedia or wikibooks? Is it better to improve the answers, or it is difficult to find the right person to blame when there are mistakes on the sites?

Shekkkkk (discuss • contribs) 23:35, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

I completely agree with your points on the level of authority that differs between social media sites such as facebook and twitter to wikipedia and wikibooks as although we know that the site is purely formed by collaboration from unprofessionals, the majority doesn't and believes most of what is stated in the site whereas mostly the opposite for social media platforms. Personally I feel that the reason people do not use wikipedia to collaborate and communicate is due to its daunting persona as an "encyclopaedia" as well as it's awkward processes for commenting on work etc. I feel that if the site was labelled and advertised as a collaborative site as well as having easier methods of communication it could thrive well as perhaps an academic collaborative website, do you agree? Justgabrielle (discuss • contribs) 23:37, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Comments on Wiki Ex #1
I agree with your suggestion that people do not believe what they read on social media accounts due to the level of authorities. This however is questionable for Wikipedia, although it is an official website and contains factual information, it can easily be changed by anyone from anywhere in the world. Maybe this suggests that people should be more carful about what they read on Wikipedia. I also agree with the point you made about people not using Wikipedia for discussions as it should be. Maybe if the site was easier to navigate and better explained people would maybe use it more for it's correct functions. susannamhawes Susannamhawes (discuss • contribs) 00:00, 10 February 2017 (UTC)



You made really good points about the differences in perception that user have on social media and Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia advertises itself as encyclopedia, people go there in search for knowledge, verified information. This can be problematic because, as you mentioned, it is created by non – professionals. In case of providing encyclopedic information the passion about the subject and some degree of knowledge is often not enough. Even if the intentions of authors on Wikipedia are sincere, their lack of deep academic research often leads to creating misleading articles. I would also argue that ‘pushing opinions’ on other users on social media depends on the context of their posts. Posting about everyday life is more the way of self – expression instead of invitation to discussion. It is, however, very often the case of political or social posts. Even is spite of the lack of knowledge of certain topic, people tend to give their opinions on them without seeking the real, enhancing debate that is the true goal of collective intelligence.

Pola 2607 (discuss • contribs) 11:20, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Ex #2
Privacy settings on social media sites are important to a lot of users who do not feel comfortable to share information with people outside of the people they know. Personally, I am on multiple different social media platforms each with different privacy settings. On Facebook, when you post a picture or a status there is quite clearly a choice of who you share the post with; "friends", "friends of friends" are a few of the options. The default setting seems to be "friends of friends" which I never chose to change but when thinking about my privacy, perhaps the best option would be to set it so only friends can see. However, I feel that sharing with friends of friends proves as a benefit in a social context as it allows an easy way to find people that you may know on the social media platform. As well as this on most social media websites there is an area to describe yourself to the people that are viewing your page, a short biography. On Facebook, this idea is taken to a new level as the site actually guides you in what to write in this area - from your birthday, where you live, where you went to school. Somehow, telling the whole world where you went to school may not seem that significant but anyone can see that information and use that and your pictures to create a fake online identity using your details. You never know what people might do with your online information. Snapchat and Instagram, however, are different because the sites are used purely to share pictures of yourself and what you are doing, it somehow makes it feel unsafe to not have privacy settings on these platforms. Snapchat particularly gives away your current location if you post a picture on your story whereas Instagram normally shows delayed pictures and therefore, although people know where you have been, they are still unaware of where you are currently.

Peoples profession can also have a lot to do with their privacy settings on social media sites. As someone who wishes to pursue a career in journalism, it is beneficial for me to be able to share things to a wider audience and therefore secure privacy settings would not be ideal to do so. The same can be said for politicians and activists. If someone wishes to get their view across to a wider range of people then privacy settings are not ideal for that. Therefore, context of the way in which social media is being used can be very important when analysing how safe and secure it can be for a user.

As well as privacy issues on social media sites, there are also issues of how we present ourselves online. We may question whether our online identity aligns with our real life identity. For example, my family seems to have the impression that I go to parties a lot because of the posts that I put on my Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat but in real life I am more of a stay at home kind of person. This is not something I am intentionally doing though. I post pictures of a night out because it is interesting whereas a picture of me sitting in my room studying or reading a book is not interesting therefore I do not post pictures of that. So perhaps it is not always the way in which we are presenting ourselves online but perhaps how people are receiving the information that they are getting. The content we post online is very limited, even bloggers don't post everything they do online, so therefore there is an element of ambiguity to our social media coverage. I think this notion of only part coverage of a persons life being on social media can be likened with Papacharissi's idea that our online presentations are like "mini performances". This alludes to a spectacle which can be said about most people's social media sites, where only the best makes the page and we try to show off our best side.

Papacharissi also hints that the ways in which media has changed over the years has been "reformed" he discards the fact that technology has enhanced or restricted our social interaction but says that it has changed what we expect from a social interaction. Lanier is one to try and separate the older and the younger generations and the way they engage with social interactions. He tries to suggest that younger people, because they have grown up with technology, are less engaged with real life interactions. I think this notion of generation gap can be seen at concerts for example. When a young person goes to a concert they try and film (or snapchat) the whole experience so that they don't forget it. This means however, that they are not experiencing the concert as people that are not on their phones would. So there are pros and cons to the use of technology in this example because I think (unlike what Papacharissi is trying to say) our social interactions can be demeaned but we also have a lot more ways of documenting the event.

Overall, I think that online visibility can be a good thing in certain circumstances, such as to push your views as I mentioned above. But also the use of social media can not only be dangerous in what you post online and other people are able to see but I also feel that the quality of social interactions is decreasing with the increase of the widespread use of social media.

SuzanneClark22 (discuss • contribs) 11:33, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Ex 3
As we are always online, we get a lot of our information on the Web. Social media is the main source of a lot of peoples information but can the information we get on these sites be too overwhelming. It can be distracting having different sources of information all in the one place (eg. your Facebook timeline or Twitter feed) and then you're not sure where the best place to look is. I'm not so sure that this abundance of information is always a bad thing though. As a journalism student, I think that the wide spread of news available online is a good thing due to the ability to after the news has been read from many different broadcasters, people are then able to make a decision based on what they have read rather than have a completely biased view. However, it can be a problem when the readers are met with a lot of "fake news" which seems to be circulating at the moment which we then have to fact check which I am a3ware that not everyone does as people like to believe everything they read. Personally, I think fact-checking is the most important way to deal with the amount of information online these days but it is something that should not have to happen and the people publishing should be trustworthy enough to trust what has been written but that obviously is not the case. The internet is a good way in which people can check these facts, so despite it being the root of the problem, it can also help people to fully comprehend what they are reading.

The contributing factors that affect whether or not I take the information I am seeing seriously is the source of the information. I take news sources such as the BBC, the Guardian and even American news sites seriously. But again I think it is important to read more than one source of information in order to rightly judge whether the information is reliable or not. If people do not look at the reliability of the source they are getting their information from then this is when problems can be caused with the beginning of "fake news" circulating.

Another problem that may occur when taking in this amount of information all at once is that because you can only look through so much at once, it can be said that you are actually missing a lot of information and updates. The internet is not like a newspaper or a magazine. It is constantly being updated and therefore can be hard to keep up with unlike traditional forms of media which you can read or watch and get all the intended information at once without it being refreshed before you've had a chance to read everything.

In regards to the wikibook project, I feel my workflow has coped well with the wikibook project. I think as long as me and the group I am with do a little bit every day then we should be able to manage the work load. I find it odd working with people outside the group as well as people inside the group, because I feel like we are working as one big group rather than a few individual groups which creates a strange dynamic within the wikibook discussion page. SuzanneClark22 (discuss • contribs) 10:44, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey, I really enjoyed reading your post! I like what you said about how the internet is constantly being updated, and so a lot of the time information can slip through our fingers. I think perhaps that's why I find myself always wanting to refresh my twitter or FB feed (do you do the same?), and I suppose this really links in with the Fear of Missing Out culture, doesn't it? It's so interesting to consider the ways in which we are drawn into these sites!

I also agree with your comments on the wikibook project. I too have found it a little strange working with multiple groups on the same chapter! Its been difficult as my group kind of check in with each other over our FB group chat (though we primarily talk on the discussion page) so we all know what we're working on and know that we are actually doing something, whereas you don't have that kind of communication with other groups on the same chapter as sometimes they don't see your messages on the discussion page (they get lost so fast!). So I think this has been quite a big challenge. It's really fun to be able to connect with new people and get to read their thoughts on things though, don't you think? Liaa13 (discuss • contribs) 21:46, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, I do often do the same thing and refresh before I get to where I have previously read. You just want the most recent updates and forget that there might be some good information further down your news feed. I think this is an important aspect of the fear of missing out but at the same time contradicts this because by constantly refreshing you are missing out, aren't you? SuzanneClark22 (discuss • contribs) 13:26, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I thought your post made a lot of sense. I liked the point you made about this sort of information overload as something that is potentially bad, but from a journalist's perspective can be good. The abundance of "fake news" is definitely a downside to this social media-based journalism, but I think it allows younger people to get informed and involved. I also really like the point that information is often overlooked as a result of the vast amount of information available. The internet is an extended network of people all over the world, so it makes sense that a single person has no way of taking in all of the information available to them. While this allows variety of information, it can definitely be confusing! Charkleske (discuss • contribs) 23:34, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi thank you, I like your point that it allows the news to reach another generation that might not originally access the news in other ways which is definitely a perk of this form of media. I think, by reading comments and other peoples work, everyone seems to believe that the internet can be a great resource for information even though it is so vast that it can be overwhelming. SuzanneClark22 (discuss • contribs) 13:26, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Ex 4
I think that the collaborative nature of this project is more challenging due to it being predominately based online. I think the ways in which the discussion sections are used on wikibooks can be slightly hard to navigate if it is not well organised. When I looked on other groups pages I feel that ours was comparatively hard to navigate as we did not have easy subheadings to follow. I think that the ways in which more than one groups communicated online on the same chapter worked well because it meant that more than one group was working on the thing. This also created some confusion in which part of the chapter each person was doing as we had no communication with the other groups outside of the discussion page.

I think the collaboration part of this worked well because it meant that we were able to help each other to find sources which meant that there was more scope of what information we were able to access. I think although we were able to communicate well, we were perhaps a bit distracted from the theme of our chapter and i feel like we strayed from the topic a little as it was not individual work. I think that we have targeted this piece of work well towards a small captive audience as it is not too academic for people to understand. The groups inclusion of surveys and tables are easy to understand. I think that we could have countered each others arguments more because i feel like we ended up just agreeing with each other.

I think the prospect that our work can be publicly viewed instead of our essays being reviewed by the lecturer via turnit in. I liked the fact that we were able to link to other sections in the page so that our ideas all linked together well even though we were writing separately. Overall, i think that the process was an interesting one albeit a little more complicated than writing an essay as you normally would. SuzanneClark22 (discuss • contribs) 18:18, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey! I completely agree with you in that this project was challenging. If this was a project that we collaborated with in person, it may have been more efficient and more organised but the fact that the majority of the discussion was online, the organisation may have been less clear. Despite this I believe we did a good job on producing a final informative page that potential researches may find valuable. I agree with your preference to this project than an essay. Do you think you’d rather do another Wiki project instead of an essay if it was for a different module? CammeyNotCameron (discuss • contribs) 04:03, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey Suzanne! I keep hearing the same qualm that Wikibooks isn't the most user-friendly chat platform, and I definitely agree. While it was nice to do this project online so we could contribute on our own time instead of having to schedule meetup times, this platform was quite hard to keep up with. The headings and subheadings made it a bit easier, though. I also agree that I think our group did very well at producing a cohesive Wikibook page despite being a group of people all working on separate aspects of the book. Charkleske (discuss • contribs) 09:07, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi SuzanneClark22

I can totally relate to how you say that the project was challenging because of the nature of it being online, especially when the group is unorganised then it can be very frustrating. Thankfully I had a really helpful group, we seemed to be able to organise ourselves quite well. If you were involved in a similar task again, do you think regular meet ups with group members would have benefited the organisation dilemma? I agree with your statement about not having enough countered arguments, I also felt that our group always agreed with each other so it became a little bit linear. Thanks Shakeygravesbeattie (discuss • contribs) 17:05, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Content (weighted 20%)
The Introduction section here is a little perfunctory, but the main Concepts section is where all of the key sections are mapped out. Each section has its own descriptive short paragraph, summarising the discussion and concept in fairly neat and concise ways. The overall effect of this is that the chapter is given a sense of narrative and structure from the outset. Whilst the discussion in various sections doesn’t always live up to this, and there are one or two inconsistencies, this ought not to diminish too much for the achievements evidenced here.

As mentioned, the sections themselves generally contain good content, but there are inconsistencies regarding the strength of argument, and citation of sources. An obvious example of this would be the first history section, for which citation of sources doesn’t occur until the paragraph on the 1990s!

The unusual step of including a survey and posting the results here is an extremely useful one. Something that absolutely HAS to be thought through in ALL future work is that if one is conducting a survey (even if for demonstration purposes, as included here) or indeed ANY work with people, one must go through an ethics approval process – this is to ensure no harms (relative or absolute) occur for researchers or participants. This process will become more apparent later in the degree programme, particularly in final year projects. The use of interwiki links connecting all of the sections of the chapter together is both very useful and evidences good levels of project management, delegation of workflow, and joined-up collaboration. One thing that would have benefitted the chapter enormously, is if these interwiki links could have been extended to include more reference to other chapters in the book. For example, you have a subsection on Surveillance uses – there could have been interwiki links to various relevant sections in other chapters (especially, perhaps, Privacy in a Digital Age chapter).

Plenty of evidence of reading, secondary research and application of ideas from peer-reviewed sources, as well as other sources from popular culture and journalistic materials. This does tend to vary quite considerably from section to section, however, with some sections oddly drawing from newspaper online articles around topics for which there are materials available in the further reading lists (the subsections on internal effects, the Google effect and others, where there are some obvious aspects of that reading e.g. Vaidhyanathan and his book on the Googlization of Everything). Excellent section on FOMO.

The references section evidences research, reading and sharing of resources. However, the depth and range of sources could be considerably improved.


 * Excellent. Your contribution to the book page gives an excellent brief overview of the subject under discussion in your chosen themed chapter. There is an excellent range of concepts associated with your subject, and the effort to deliver critical definitions, drawing from relevant literature and scholarship, and your own critical voice in the building of a robust argument is very much in evidence. The primary and secondary sources you found about the chapter’s themes cover an excellent range and depth of subject matter.

Wiki Exercise Portfolio (Understanding weighted 30%)
Posts and comments on other people’s work, of this standard, roughly corresponds to the following grade descriptor. Depending on where your actual mark is overall (and particularly in relation to Understanding and Engagement elements), that should give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses within the achieved grade band, relative to the descriptor


 * Good. Among other things, good entries will make a clear point in a clear way. They will relate concepts to original examples in a straightforward fashion. They will make effective use of the possibilities of the form (including links, as well as perhaps copyright-free videos and images, linked to from Wiki Commons). They may also demonstrate a broader understanding of the module's themes and concerns, and are likely to show evidence of reading and thinking about the subject material. The wiki markup formatting will be very clear.


 * Reading and research:
 * evidence of critical engagement with set materials, featuring discriminating command of a good range of relevant materials and analyses
 * evidence of independent reading of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material to a fairly wide degree
 * Argument and analysis:
 * well-articulated and well-supported argument through judgement relating to key issues, concepts or procedures
 * evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position);
 * evidence of relational thinking (through making connections between key ideas from the module and wider literature, and supporting these connections);
 * clear evidence of independent critical ability

Engagement (weighted 50%)

 * Evidence from contributions to both editing and discussion of content to an appreciable standard (i.e. volume and breadth of activity as evidenced through contribs)
 * Good engagement with and learning from other Wikipedians about the task of writing/editing content for a Wikibook
 * Reflexive, creative and well-managed use of discussion pages using deployment of judgement relating to key issues, concepts and procedures