What media do you use every day? (technologies and platforms & what you use them for)

  • Instagram – entertainment
  • TikTok – entertainment
  • Google – interest, questions
  • Spotify – pleasure
  • Messenger – communication with others
  • Facebook – friends updates,
  • Depop – scrolling, fashion, fun, shopping
  • Email – updates, organisation
  • Google Calendar – schedule, organisation
  • Photos (*?) – memories, editing, pleasure

Put a star next to offline media / real world

Choose 3 and do some basic research

Instagram: Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers.

TikTok: TikTok is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 3 seconds to 10 minutes.

Depop: Depop is a peer-to-peer social e-commerce company based in London, with additional offices in Manchester, Milan and New York City. The company has an expanding global presence being popularised in countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Italy.

For companies, who manufactures the product? where are they manufactured? what are the manufacturer’s interests? what profits did they make? do they have any philanthropic endeavours? 

Instagram: Instagram began development in San Francisco as Burbn, a mobile check-in app created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. Realizing that it was too similar to Foursquare, they refocused their app on photo-sharing, which had become a popular feature among its users.

TikTok: TikTok was launched in China in September 2016. It quickly started to gain traction in China and parent company ByteDance launched an international version the following year

Depop: Depop is based in London, with additional offices in Manchester, Milan and New York City.

Which of these technologies/platforms records and measures/quantifies/records data – what kind of data?

Instagram: Instagram have said that “We collect information about how you use our Products, such as the types of content you view or engage with; the features you use; the actions you take; the people or accounts you interact with; and the time, frequency and duration of your activities”

TikTok: TikTok can gather information when you arrive on the site even if you aren’t signed up, via cookies and other trackers. It can collect biometric data including your face and voiceprint. It can also predict your age, gender and interests based on your activity.

Apart from your uses, do the media have any other affordances?

 

Is there a hierarchy to your media?