Who Is The Modeructor?

Who is the Modeructor?

At the beginning of this task I selected the image above as SocMedMod's Twitter Avatar. I chose it based on my thoughts of social media moderation at the time - that a social media moderator's  role was to orchestrate the various online platforms for his or her organisation and making various platforms work together to achieve the most harmonious outcome.

But now I'm not so sure that the person depicted above with his back to us represents an organisation's social media moderator. After all the analysis and assessment of social media in Rethinking Media, I am in two minds as to who this guy is.

With a nod to Alvin Toffler's 'Prosumer' who represents a blurring of the line that seperates producer from consumer, I have named the person depicted above The Modeructor (diction, readers, diction!), of course being a combination of Moderator/Conductor.

Does the Modeructor represent the social media moderator as I alluded to above? Yes and very much so, but by analysing social media thorugh a political economy lens for the past month, I have also realised that The Modeructor also represents the political and economic elites who control or attempt to control social media. Whether it is platform owners commercialising their prosumer's content, advertisers attempting go orchestrate influence over social media users, or political elites trying to regulate social media, I'm yet to determine precisely. But in very abstract way I'd argue that this power bloc trinity is an embodiment of the 'power' that  political economy theorists regularly identify in their critique of society.

So for my final SocMedMod post, who do you think the Modeructor is?  

Social Media Moderator or Political Economic influencer? 

Please post comments below, or better yet via Twitter using #WhoIsTheModeructor  

*Twitter users will be helping contribute to this blog assignment's final presentation.

This is my final post. Thanks for all of your comments over the past couple of months. I hope you all have learnt a bit more about social media moderation and critically assessed its role in current PR/Communications practice.

Towards self-moderation?

In previous posts I've discussed and raised questions on the impact and influence of government and tradtional 20th century media on social media through the Data Retention plan and #StopTheTrolls respectively.

Further to my comments (and yours - thank you!) on the Daily Telegraph's #StopTheTrolls campaign, has it actually stopped the trolls? Or was it a cynical, front-page headline-grabbing exercise complete with brand ambasadors? Traditional 20th Century media's attempt to influence emergent media I'd say.

A recently published article from the ABC, Twitter's final word on the Stop The Trolls campaign failure paints an interesting picture.

• The campaign was heavily criticised for calling for legislation which would curtail freedom of expression and the right to criticise or satirise.
• The Daily Telegraph ran a campaign for a fortnight. However, three weeks in, the petition has ground to a halt at just 732 signatures. In the meantime an anti-Alan Jones petition quickly stormed to over 100,000 signatures.
• Twitter came under pressure from Senator Conroy and despite claims to the contrary by Conroy, the company refused to go into specifics about the discussions it could say "We have not changed our policy or process for working with law enforcement."

The final paragraphs of that story reveal that Twitter has not changed its policies due to some interference from the Australian federal government.

However...

Applying political economy theory to social media would show that for an 'emergent' media, most platofrms have already been colonised by economic forces. Perhaps not the heavy hand of goverment on a particular platform, but most have been colonised by advertisers, or are now private companies with shareholders to please. Sure, social media platfroms are 'open' and can be used by just about anyone with a phone and WiFi connection, but it is hard to argue against Robert McChesney who noted that despite its claims of openness, the internet is likely to be dominated by the same corporations but with the addition of a few more players (in Macnamara 2010)

This leads me to my next question: Is our collective engagement on and through popular social media platforms turning us into a self-moderating public? One that is all too observant of guidelines, protocols, and community standards? With every comment, photo, video or update we post online on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or any of the other social media sites, I'd argue that we are simply contributing to creating a homogenic audience.