When we discussed about our goals in Networked Media, one of my classmates mentioned “to be able to give opinion with critical thinking, without any elements of discrimination”. I realised how powerful the social network is and how important it is to have network literacy. Network literacy means the ability to use networked technology. in this age, you can not live without network literacy, unless you’re living in an isolated island. Why do we need to have network literacy? not only to cope with developing technology, but to use it to our advantage. With the fence of information going down, we can access knowledge far beyond what we could have 20 years ago. But to every game, there are rules. There are some things we cannot do, that is prohibited norm, of by law. We have to understand, the benefits do not only go for ourselves, but to everybody else who have access to it. To create a peaceful networked society, we need to abide by these rules and norms.
The network is a double-edged sword. Do something malicious, or considered wrong, and you may get yourself shamed not only by those around you, but by those who live in the same planet as you. Justine Sacco is one of the victims of networked media’s power. She was a PR consultant on her way to South Africa, when prior to boarding the flight, she tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”. just hours after she tweeted the scandalous tweet, a tech blogger retweeted the post to his 11,000 follower, and things continued miraculously. She lost her job, she was trolled by many, and she couldn’t find a date (seriously?).
Justine Sacco’s story was lived in Jon Ronson’s book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. The moral of the blog here is, network literacy is very important for any student to have, to be able to use. But such power must be used responsibly, or it can backfire at the moment you can not imagine. What do you think?