What is D-Day Ohio?

As a project in my Social Media Communications Class, myself along with several other classmates worked as a group working with the collaborators of D-Day Ohio. Our goal was to come up with ways to amp up D-Day Ohio’s presence on social media helping them to gain exposure on various platforms and to help them get the most benefit of using social media to their advantage, especially during this pandemic. Our end project or presentation was a completed power point presentation in a movie format. Along with each participant in our group contributing to slides, each group member recorded their voice explaining ways to help D-Day Ohio to market themselves using different platforms including YouTube or Facebook. Aside from advertising on social media that this event exists, we looked at ways D-Day Ohio can work around this pandemic so they can carry out this educational event. We suggested ways they could possibly bring in a little bit of revenue and how to utilize YouTube livestreams for those who couldn’t make it to the actual event for various reasons including not wanting to be part of a large crowd due to Covid-19. The aim was to increase audience participation partly due to Covid-19 by utilizing social media that D-Day Ohio exists. 

D-Day Ohio does a reenactment of the Invasion of Normandy that took place on June 6, 1944.   They have been doing this reenactment since 1999. The reenactment event occurs at Conneaut Township Park, in Conneaut, Ohio. Per their website “Hundreds of re-enactors from across the United States and Canada that assemble on the 250-yard-long beach and sloping adjacent terrain, which closely resemble Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.”     D-Day Ohio is educating the public about important events in history.

Image below courtesy of their website: D-Day Conneaut (ddayohio.us)

Freedom of Speech?

Freedom of Speech has Consequences

I believe in freedom of speech and in the first amendment.  Without it, I would not be allowed to write this commentary and post it to my WordPress blog and Facebook.  With free speech comes great responsibility.  (I know, very cliche!)  There are expectations schools, places of employment, networks, and other organizations uphold and expect an indvidual to follow.  And if these expectations are made clear from the beginning, the particular organization has a right to act.  Words and actions do have consequences.   Many organizations have images to protect.  And many other issues maybe at hand if there are donors involved, reputations at stake, or advertisers involved.   Regardless where or how an individual (or individuals) express their freedom of speech.  Even with freedom of speech, words and actions have negative impacts on schools or organizations and can tarnish reputations, causing loss of funding if donors or advertisers are at stake.

     This article from Law & Crime (link provided below) talks about how a high schooler or high schoolers expressed themselves with obscene language and obscene gestures through photographs and captioning posting them on a platform because they were disgruntled about their current athletic status.  The school caught wind and as a result these students were cut from sporting teams because the student(s) violated various school policies.  As a result the parents of the student who expressed themselves with their posting filed a federal law suit against school because they felt the school violated their freedom of speech/first amendment.

Photo by Mathias P.R. Reding on Pexels.com

    I work for a particular organization.  Sure, I can say what I want about them, their clients, or how I hate the color blue.  If what I say about them or their clients isn’t true, that’s slanderous. If it is true or if me saying the color blue sucks and it causes clients to drop them causing the company to lose money, that’s not good.  They have clients to protect.  The clients provide us with jobs. People are on our payroll that have families to feed.  The company I work for has a reputation to protect.  The company has certain rules I abide by including what I post.  Sure I can say what I want.  But what I say has consequences as a result.

Supreme Court to Hear Oral Arguments in Two Free Speech Cases (lawandcrime.com)

Social Media Benchmark Report 2 0 2 1

The article I chose to read and summarize is the PDF “Social Media Benchmark Report 2021”  It’s about 43 or 44 pages long and it reads more like a report than an actual article.    It basically goes on with a bunch of numbers and percentages on how much we use social media.  It talks of the usage especially increasing since the covid-19 pandemic started last year.  In the beginning of the report it states that according to ‘We Are Social’s Digital 2020 October Snapshot’ “that more than 4 billion people use social media each month.”   The article spends its 43-44 pages shooting out numbers or percentages of people who use Facbebook, YouTube, What’s App, etc., and how they use the various platforms: news, work, entertainment.  It also ranks the most used platforms and who uses the particular type of platform.  Lots of graphs  and visuals on which age groups use particular platforms like Tik Tok: “Nearly 39% of TikTok’s US Users Are Aged 18-24.”

     The report talks about trends of certain platforms like Instagram expecting to plateau.   Branding, advertising, and marketing where also talked about in this report: “69% of Marketers Use Social Media for Brand Awareness.”    Mentioned in the report is factiors that influence social media marketing and what kind of things catch people’s attention or influences followers when it comes to marketing or branding.   It also discusses how data is used by marketers.

Photo by Anna Nekrashevich on Pexels.com

     This is a rather lengthy report on how things have changed in regards to social media and how the pandemic has played an important role this last year on this change.  Social media is our world: shopping, communicating, news, working from home, classes on the internet.  I’m apart of this change (espesically during the pandemic) whether I like it our not.

Click to access IMH_SOCIAL_BENCHMARK_REPORT_2021.pdf

D-Day Ohio

      D-Day Ohio does a highly realistic re-creation/reenactment of the D-Day Normandy Invasion which took place on June 6th, 1944. They have been doing this reenactment since 1999. The reenactment event occurs at Conneaut Township Park, in Conneaut, Ohio. Per their website “Hundreds of re-enactors from across the United States and Canada that assemble on the 250 yard long beach and sloping adjacent terrain, which closely resemble Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.”    

What is good about D-Day Ohio is that they are educating the public about important events in history.  This event also reenacts D-Day sending us back in time so-to-speak so we can see what the Invasion of Normandy and other related events surrounding this event were like.  We hope to increase audience participation partly due to Covid-19 by utilizing social media that D-Day Ohio exists.  I don’t know if people are aware of this organization prior to Covid-19, but because the pandemic happened, it certainly affects people coming to see this reenactment and I’m sure people who participate as actors have been affected as well.  The website states that actors travel from all over USA and Canada so traveling as been affected by the pandemic just as we aren’t able to assemble in large groups because of social distancing.  Hopefully aside from advertising on social media that this event exists we will probably look at ways D-Day Ohio work around this pandemic so they can carry out this education event.   When you strategically use social media to promote an event, a product, a service, or a company, it’s highly effective.  Most people are on social media and may have more than one platform they use.

“Social Animals: The Real and Digital Worlds of Today’s Teenager”

     “Social Animals: The Real and Digital Worlds of Today’s Teenager” follows your typical teenagers and their usage of social media.  It shows their need for approval (posting pictures and selfies and seeking the most likes), online bullying, unwanted attention (teenage females attracting the attention of older men and stalkers), online bullying, and other teenage behaviors that can be seen as destructive.

     This movie follows several teenagers in New York City and how they interact in a digital world using social media.  This movie shows these teenagers who spend most days photographing themselves and keeping track of the many likes they may or may not receive on their photographs.

Most, if not all, of these teenagers fret over the likes a picture may or may not receive. These teenagers talk of their usage of direct messaging and sometimes getting requests for pictures of “booty” shots. One teenager talks of online bullying to the point of changing schools and eventually making her social media account private as a result of the bullying.  Another teen talks of having a stalker, another remarked about receiving the attention of older men with families.  Most of these teenagers have parents who won’t let them date yet, but in this movie, they talk about how they use social media around that (i.e. online relationships).

     The issue we need to address as parents and teachers is that we need to be involved more regarding the usage of our teenagers use of social media.  And I mean being involved by limiting their usage, creating boundaries, not being overly permissive, and educating our youth of the potential dangers of unwanted attention or bullying on social media. Most of the parents don’t set rules or these parents are unaware of such things like stalkers.  If these parents do make rules, it’s about not letting their teens date. They then are oblivious about such things like who their children are direct messaging, that they are getting booty shot requests, or they have stalkers

  Another key element in this movie is following a daredevil photographer who I believe is 17.  I don’t know how to describe the way he gets is photographs except dangerous and him having no fear.  He takes photos on such places that are dangerous–places if there’s one slip of his balance….Beautiful pictures, but nothing as a photographer myself would want to risk my life for.  He talks of his success, his travels, the business deals he’s made as a photographer, and the huge amounts of cash he’s made (he jokes that when he went to open his first bank account the bank teller thought he was a young drug dealer.).

     In conclusion, teenagers now are dealing with similar things I delt with 30 years ago: bullying, the need to be liked, wanting approval, wanting to date.  But at 17, I didn’t have an Instagram account or a Facebook account.  Also, 30 years ago I didn’t know many teenagers who made the kind of money this dare devil photographer made.  Most of us, including me, were working at the mall, the grocery store, or McDonald’s for 5.00$ an hour hoping to save for a car or a school trip to Europe over spring break.

FLoC

To be honest with you, I don’t have much of a grasp of what Cookies or Google’s FLoC is, except it’s just a a way to collect data by tracking my internet browsing habit, especially for advertising.  From what I can tell,  FLoC is just some fancy term for cookies–I don’t think it collects data or tracks my habits in the precise manner as cookies, but the outcome is relatively the same: to gather information for advertisers .  Does it really matter what Google calls it or how it’s labeled? Internet tracking, for whatever reason, is still internet tracking no matter how it’s labeled.  Either way, it’s kind of a slight invasion of privacy, a sneaky way to get information for advertising purposes, despite websites asking to accept cookies–how many people actually understand what it is they are actually accepting anyway?  I know I don’t understand.  And I am not even really sure I understand FLoC.  I guess technology has to gather information somehow to because ultimately information is used to advertise based off of my internet habits and preferences I search.  Isn’t funny after doing a recent internet search on pens, I see various advertisements pop up on my newsfeed on Facebook?  Even ordering (or potentially ordering) Applebee’s, I see advertisements pop up on my Facebook newsfeed, too.

Google Is Taking Away the Cookies and Plans to FLoC Us All Instead – Bloomberg

Native American Logos & Sports Teams

I really don’t know how I would feel if my culture or heritage was a logo or a mascot for a sports team.  I am not sure if the offense is because we have team names like the [Cleveland] Indians or the [Washington] Redskins or if it’s the various mascots like the Chief Wahoo logo or the Native American picture for the Redskins… It’s bad enough the white man ran the Native Americans off their land and referred to them as savages at one point and then adding insult to injury they are now mascots or names for sports teams.    One could argue that we named our Cleveland baseball team to honor Native American Louis Sockalexis that was a player on the team at one point.  When I think of “Indians” I think of people who are from India.  I think Indians (from India) have a case, too, for using their heritage for a team name. 

Does anyone protest Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish? I don’t recall protests for Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish.   Correct me if I’m mistaken, but the protests of Native American mascots and team names seem more prevalent to me.

I think we need to look at why our teams have these kinds of mascots, etc.  Is it racially motivated?  Are we mocking a culture?  Is it to honor a culture?  My father watches westerns where it’s cowboys versus the Indians.  My dad is going to be 70 this year.  Cowboys versus Indians in entertainment has been around for a while.  Have people opposed or protested against this?  They protest if someone dresses up as a Native American for Halloween. 

GOOGLE PHOTOS

Goggle pictures is offering new editing features for iPhone. Currently I don’t use my iPhone at the moment–because it broke at one point. Fortunately I was able to get it working. I am a photographer, so this is good news if I ever decide to switch back to my iPhone. While this is good news, but I’m ambivalent about the news because things are always evolving and updating and since I went back to the Android it’s really not that big of deal to me since I only use Google Photos to back my pictures regardless of which operating system I use. It’s not to say I won’t use google photos to edit my pictures, but typically I use Photoshop express or another platform called EyeEm.

Google brings new editing features to Google Photos on iOS | AppleInsider