This week in ASTU class, we explored different types of genres, in particular, life narratives, as well as the importance of citation. In this blog post, I am going to link these two topics and talk about citation on social media platforms.
The most popular form of connecting with people nowadays is through the Internet. It is fast (most of the time), reliable and almost everyone has access to it. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr allow users to compose messages, and share them to both known and unknown people. These websites strongly encourage the share of information and interaction between users, by allowing them to express their opinions and views freely (Emilia Sukhova). However, some problems that arise from this medium are issues with citation and plagiarism. Most people often see citation as something you do for a research paper or in scholarly writing, but not something you would do when writing a 140 characters tweet (Rochelle Mazar). It is therefore very easy and tempting to take someone else’s content and post it as your own material to gain response and popularity from fellow users. A fairly recent twagiarism (twitter plagiarism) incident happened in 2011, and has led to discussions of the importance of citation in social media. You can read the full story here: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/beauty-borrows-brains-as-indias-miss-universe-model-caught-in-twitter-row/story-e6frg6so-1226126307039?nk=0e5f1af0053f558cc5ec3cf6d318c228
The implementation of the retweet button on twitter has made it convenient for users to cite tweets, so that others can easily track back to the original tweeter and tweet. Similarly, Tumblr’s reblog function places the original source link automatically at the bottom of each post. Another interesting thing about Tumblr is that it also shows a history of the content, which includes comments and who reblogged it. As the original poster, you are being acknowledged for your work, as well as receiving feedback from others. (Rochelle Mazar). I found that these are more informal ways of citing sources and are very different from the citation format, such as APA and MLA that I learnt about this week. ‘Retweet’ and ‘reblog’ are perhaps some of the new forms of citation on social media sites that we can study about. Lastly, I would like to raise a question: how and what are some other ways we can reinforce to make sure citation are used on social media?
Work cited:
Sukhova, Emilia. ” Is Social Media Creating a Plagiarism Problem.”, convinceandconvert.com, n.d. Web. 11 September 2014. <http://www.convinceandconvert.com/content-marketing/is-social-media-creating-a-plagiarism-problem-infographic/>
Mazar, Rochelle. “Episode 17 of Bibliotech: Citation and social media.”, AUCC, 8 May 2013. Web. 11 September 2014.<http://www.universityaffairs.ca/Article.aspx?id=109942&LangType=1033/ >
Elliott, Francis. “Beauty ‘borrows’ Brains as India’s Miss Universe Model Caught in Twitter Row.” Weblog post. The Australian. N.p., 31 Aug. 2011. Web. 12 Sept. 2014. <http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/beauty-borrows-brains-as-indias-miss-universe-model-caught-in-twitter-row/story-e6frg6so-1226126307039?nk=0e5f1af0053f558cc5ec3cf6d318c228>.
Tweet-Tweet. Digital image. Telecome News. N.p., 1 June 2011. Web. 11 Sept. 2014. <https://telecomcanadaen.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/tweet-tweet2.png>
I found it really interesting how you brought out the fact that not only do we cite in academic papers, every one uses some sort of citation in their lives. Social media may seem like an informal place where we can engage in casual conversation, however because of the mass amount of people who use social media networks and the attention on famous people, people who are in the spotlight need to pay more attention to what they write to avoid plagiarism. As Miller and Shepherd wrote, blogs are continually evolving and they connect the private to the public. In order for the private to be connected to the public, the use of citations is important. As you said, the retweeting button on twitter gives credibility to the original author. However, it is also a way through which conversations are formed. I also want to point out that most people who use social media use it as a way to share parts of their personal lives with others instead of engaging in complex conversations. Therefore, I would like to suggest that perhaps social media users do not have to enforced to use citation, but rather encouraged to join conversations and connect with others. I would also like to ask a question. I know this doesn’t apply to the Miss India example but I was just wondering, since social media is mainly the sharing of personal thoughts with the public, is sharing the same idea as a pre-existing post considered plagiarism? Is it fair to say just because one person thought of it first, the second person who thinks of it has to use citation?