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2016, Page 7

Topic Four: The Digital Divide – Social Media Ethics

The past half-century of technological development have seen the adoption and use of technology like the Web, smartphones and more become common in our lives. They realise the dreams of a global information communication system that had previously only been bound to ideas and dreams in such concepts as Well’s ‘World Brain’, Bush’s ‘Memex’ and Nelson’s ‘Xanadu’. Continue reading →

Topic 4: The Influence of Facebook on Your Opinions, Emotions and Actions (Ethical Issues of Social Media)

Social Media Sites, such as Facebook, are a large part of many people’s everyday lives. Of these sites, Facebook is by far the most popular with more than 1 billion daily active users on average (Facebook, 2015). Facebook has seen massive growth in the last decade. According to research by the Pew Research Center (2015), in 2005 10% of online adults used at least one social networking site, with Facebook being just one of many of these. Continue reading →

Social media putting company’s integrity at risk

Freedom of speech is defined by the Oxford Dictionaries as ‘the power or right to express one’s opinions without censorship, restraint or legal penalty’. Social media seem to represent a platform where freedom of speech can be expressed without any constraint. Everywhere, people who have access to internet can share their thoughts and ideas about controversial topics and delicate issues. Continue reading →

Topic 4: Reflecting on the Ethics.

For this topic we had an extremely broad question resulting in many diverse blogs. I personally choose to investigate endorsement ethics, leaning more towards the business side of things. However, my fellow students opted to focus on various topics including, ethics of the digital divide and ethical issues of social media use within education. This lead to me developing my knowledge in a lot of different areas. Continue reading →

Social Media Ethics

As of January 2016 there were 2.307 billion active social media users across the world, 10% more than in 2015. With so many users, and the majority of these being younger people, it was only a matter of time before social media became a part of education. It has recently been hailed as delivering the promise of new, socially engaged educational experiences for students. However, the use of social media in education raises many ethical issues. Continue reading →

Even Obama Can’t Avoid It (UOSM2008)

Social media platforms have their obvious pros for users: to educate, do business, find romance, get a job – the list really is endless. But as the saying goes, if something seems too good to be true then it probably is, and social media is certainly no an exception to this. The rise in use of social media has opened up one BIG can of worms – the opportunity for cyber bullying, online abuse, and trolling. Continue reading →

Topic 4: Ethical issues in data collection

Ethics, deriving from the Greek word „ethos = custom, habit, character” is a system of moral principles that affect peoples’ decisions and lead their lives. It is about what is good for both individuals and the society. Ethics, a moral philosophy covers different dilemmas about living a good life, knowing and acting regarding our rights and responsibilities with knowing what is right and wrong, good and bad, when making a decision (Bbc.co.uk, 2016). Continue reading →

The digital divide – a significant barrier to education through social media

A considerable digital divide exists globally Facebook is the worlds largest social media site and the 3rd most visited website globally (Alexa, 2016). Facebook originated from Harvard university and extended to other US colleges before becoming the site we know today. It and other social media outlets now play a key role in education; but the digital divide means that only a privileged minority benefit from this. The benefits of social media to education are clear. Continue reading →

The Digital Divide is still a thing


An ethical issue that I find interesting is the digital divide. I feel that having insufficient access to social media can place great disadvantage to many within the workplace and education. Many people factors within life can causes this divide When thinking about the way we use digital technology, like our smartphones, laptops etc. we often don’t think about the people who don’t have one or ever used one. Continue reading →

Can we speak freely?

Photo credits. Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. It is argued that authorities have violated this right by prosecuting those who express themselves freely in cyberspace, for example WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange vs US. This may implicate any and all of us, especially students – do we have the right to speak freely? Keefe, a nursing student from the US, was expelled for posting “disturbing” content on Facebook. Continue reading →

Topic 4. Ethical issues raised by the use of social media: digital divide.

According to the sociocultural learning theory, people learn through social interaction. Social media are a technological tool that can support learning and provide space for student-teacher and peer-to-peer collaboration, communication and participation (Sobaih et al, 2016). Figure1 presents elements involved in use of social media activities in education. Figure1. Social media in education. Source: Sobaih et al (2016), p.298. Continue reading →

In the minority

As technology has been growing rapidly throughout the decades, it’s inevitable that the slower paced markets, such as those that are found in less developed countries may be a bit behind on keeping up with these changes. Through the years a division has arisen between two very different worlds and created a type of digital divide that sets the two even more apart. Continue reading →

Social Media Ethics of Business

As social media continues to explode in popularity, businesses are increasingly having to adapt to this new medium to stay relevant. There have been some great examples of social media use by companies in the last few years from Oreo, Pizza Hut and Burger King, but today I want to talk about some of the ethical issues related to social media. Continue reading →

The Digital Age Thieves

(Credit Forbes) Through the rise in popularity of both Facebook and twitter people creating original content such as videos and images has become the backbone of social media. This has given rise to social media marketing where firms advertise through social media either by themselves through posts or through paying others to post links to their websites. Continue reading →

TOPIC 4: The importance of authenticy of voice in using social media for education

Social media has only recently been adopted in education, with supporters promoting their use as part of connectivist learning (Friesen and Lowe, 2012). The PowToon I have created below helps to explain the role of the most popular forms of social media in education. Obviously however, social media was not initially built to facilitate use in the classroom and because of this it poses a number of ethical issues for educators (Henderson, Auld and Johnson,2014). Continue reading →

Endorsement Ethics. Who’s Opinion is Real?

Are large corporations stealing the voice of the people and manipulating it for their own ends? Ethics are the moral principles that govern a company’s behaviour or their conducting of an activity (Oxford Dictionaries, 2016). Pre-social media there was a clear divide between producer and consumer. Then came social media and everything changed! (Forbes, 2013) Suddenly we have prosumers (Newsroom, 2015). Continue reading →

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all”

When researching the ethical issues associated with social media use and the concept of cyber-disinhibition, I was instantly reminded of a something my mother said to me on multiple occasions growing up “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all’. Social media allows us to express all of our opinions and although not all of them may be positive, there must be some limitations on what you can and can’t say. Continue reading →

Topic 4: Social Media Ethics

In this blog post, I am going to look at the ethics surrounding using social media in the nursing profession. Social media has become a prominent form of communication, especially for the millennial generation. It is important that nurses use social media in a way that does not violate patient’s right to confidentiality and privacy, or compromise the integrity of other healthcare professionals (Henderson and Dahnke, 2015). Continue reading →

Topic 4 – Ethical issues raised by educational/business use of social media

The UK has recently broken into the top 10 of countries worldwide with the largest number of internet-connected users, with a higher percentage of online users ’92.6%’ (per population) over all countries within the top 30 [1]. In this day and age internet connectivity is synonymous with facilitating probably the single biggest facet of the internet; Social-Media ! (See Figure 1).  Figure 1: 2016 worldwide Social Media Statistics Social-Media comes in various forms e.g. Continue reading →