Twitter Trolls; Hiding Behind Affordances

Twitter is a popular social media site that has over 284 million active users every month. It allows users to 'tweet' their views and opinions in no more than 140 characters. Twitter also enables it's users to 'retweet' and 'favourite' tweets that they like, as well as allowing them to follow other people. 

Like many social media site one affordance of Twitter is that it allows people to create an online persona; people can re-invent themselves and make their voices be heard and no-one even has to know who you really are. However people take this affordance one step too far, and use Twitter to troll celebrities and other users. Trolling is an act of anti-social behaviour on the internet with the sole purpose of creating conflict between users. An example of a Twitter troll is '@plasticbieber' who's Twitter account is dedicated to Justin Bieber and sending hate to boy-band One Direction. '@plasticbieber's' many tweets include racism, hatred, bigotry etc. which are all commonly found in trolling. ''@OneDirection can you please put your ugly fans back in their cage? or do i have to call animal control seriously..'' is just one example of her tweets. By including One Direction's user name in her tweet she has made sure that this will appear in their 'notifications' which increase One Direction's chance of seeing it; although this is  another affordance of Twitter this is also an example of how it can be abused. Including user name's in tweets is one convention of Twitter and allows users to talk directly to each other, yet another affordance of the site.

The Princess Phone; A Short History

During 1959 the first compact telephone with a light up dial was introduced by Bell System. It was designed for convenient use in the bedroom and was primarily targeted at women; because of this the Princess Phone came in a range of different colours: pink, red, yellow, moss green, ivory, light blue etc. The phone was primarily advertised with the slogan ‘’it’s little, it’s lovely, it lights.’

The telephone was designed by Henry Dreyfuss Associates along with Bell’s Lab engineers and Indianapolis Model Shop. Before hitting the mass market a prototype of the Princess Phone was underwent a product trial and was given to a focus group to try out. The initial response to the phone was negative many people said the phone was ‘too light’ and ‘moved around a lot.’ Bell Labs however disregarded the feedback and gave Western Electric permission to manufacture the phone. Throughout its lifetime the Princess Phone received more negative feedback and because of this underwent some technological changes: lead weights were added to make them heavier, so as to not move around so much; a single gong ringer replaced the external ringer.After these changes the phone's popularity increased; some even said that the First Lady at the time (Jackie Kennedy) bought one herself.  Despite the problems it had, the Princess Phone still stands as one of today's best loved phone. 

Excerpt from a Transcript of a conversation

Participants: Ruby(R) and Sam (S)

R: Ok right(.) and then at the bottom left hand corner

S: yeah

R: draw like a square/

                         S: /yeah

                        R: / but don’t fill in the top that’s facing the circle/

                          

  S: / how big’s the square?

R: Quite small(.) kind of (2) actually medium(.)

S: Ok (1)

R: And then at the top of the square there’s kind of like a sideway’s ‘S’(.) that’s like along the top of the square. (2) If that makes sense.

Analysis of Transcript:

In the middle of the transcript we can see Sam interrupting Ruby whilst she is describing the next shape that Sam has to draw. The interruption is indicated with ‘/,’ Ruby however talks over this interruption which is also indicated with yet another slash. This is known as a back channel, and is a co-operative form of interruption; this is because Sam is not really interrupting Ruby but is talking under her instead. This can show that the speakers have a good relationship, because by saying ‘yeah’ Sam is encouraging Ruby to continue with her description and is re-assuring her that her description is understandable. We can also see that they have a good relationship because Ruby does not stop with her description when Sam interrupts her. When Ruby continues with her description Sam interrupts her with an interrogative: ‘how big’s the square?’ From this we can gather that Ruby was not being descriptive enough in her description which resulted in Sam having to ask for more detail. To answer Sam’s question Ruby replies with: ‘ Quite small(.) kind of (2) actually medium.’ The pause between the first and second sentence is not significant and it just shows us the rhythm of Ruby’s speech. However the 2 second pause is significant, from the long pause we can guess that Ruby is re-evaluating what she has said, as well as thinking about what to say next. We can see that after the pause Ruby changes her first answer, which shows us that she was re-evaluating her answer and after finding it to be incorrect she chose to change it. Sam then replies with an ‘ok’ which could be to show that she has taken into consideration what Ruby has said. The short pause might be due to Ruby giving Sam time to draw. The last sentence shows Ruby having a 2 second pause before saying ‘if that makes sense.’ The pause again could be Ruby giving Sam time to draw what she has just described. However it could also be her, re-evaluating her description of the shape which is what prompts her to say ‘if that makes sense,’ because she might have thought it might not have been very clear which is why she is asking for clarification from Sam.

Lilies

‘‘I need to go’’ She made no reply.  

‘‘I’ll visit again tomorrow, and the day after that and the day after that, as promised. And I’ll bring more lilies. They’re still your favourite right?’’

Still she remained silent. But what did he expect? It’s not as if gravestones can speak.