Manatpreet KAUR - English SAC U2 O2a: Comparative Argument Analysis
ENGLISH
Unit #2 Outcome #2 SAC #COMPARATIVE ARGUMENT ANALYSIS
SAC DATE: 18th to 19th October, 2021
Student FULL Name
Teacher Name
Student Declaration - VCAA Authentication and Undue Assistance Statement
Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of another’s words and ideas unless the author of the original is accurately cited.
Plagiarism and cheating is a
each of VCAA rules.
I confirm that the work in this SAC/SAT is my own. I understand the consequences of cheating or plagiarising may result in
no score being awarded.
Signature:__________________________________________
This task will be marked out of 30 marks. You have 120 minutes (over two single sessions) in which to complete
this task.
Answer in the space provided.
Instructions
● All students will need to complete their work below this SAC cover form. An area is
allocated for planning and writing the assessment.
● All written responses must be in English.
● All students will need to fill in the ‘Student Declaration” at the top of the response
document in compliance with VCAA guidelines.
Students are NOT permitted to
ing mobile phones and/or any other electronic
communication devices including smart watches into the SAC.
A+ A B+ B C+ C D+ D E+ E NS
90-100% 80-89% 75-79% 70-74% 65-69% 60-64% 55-59% 50-54% 45-49% 40-44% <40%
Re-sit required
ARTICLE ONE:
Social Warming – a coolly prosecutorial look at social
media
Social media giants contribute to global conflicts and
allow misinformation. How have they gained so much
control, and what is that doing to our lives?
By Steven Poole Sat 17 Jul XXXXXXXXXXAEST | The
Guardian
It’s good to remember that every time Mark
Zucke
erg claims that he founded Facebook in
order to connect people or build communities, he is
somehow forgetting that he first created the site in
order to enable himself and his fellow dorm-dwellers
to rate Harvard’s young women on their looks. But
then, Zucke
erg has never been the sharpest tool in
the box. He once said that Facebook wouldn’t
interfere with Holocaust-denial on its service,
ecause it was hard to dispute people’s motives fo
denying the Holocaust, before a couple of years late
announcing that his “thinking” on the matter had
“evolved” and Holocaust denial was now frowned
upon. Well, evolution does work slowly.
But as Charles Arthur’s new book on “Social
Warming: The dangerous and polarising effects of
social media” shows, social-media algorithms don’t
just allow people with co
upt interests to get
together: they perform as active matchmakers.
“Facebook was hothousing extremism by putting
extremists in touch with each other,” concluded
Facebook’s own internal investigations in 2016. Not
only that, Facebook was “auto-generating te
orist
content”: its “machine learning” systems created a
“Local Business” page for “al-Qaida in the Arabian
peninsula”.
The modern design of social media also
psychologically encourages bad behaviour, including
mass aggression. Chris Wetherell, the man who built
the retweet function, now regrets doing so. And of
“quote-tweeting”, or retweeting someone’s post with
a (usually accusatory) comment, Arthur writes
amusingly: “The effect often resembled someone
walking out on to a balcony to an adoring crowd and
announcing, ‘You’ll never guess what this idiot just
said on the telephone! Let me read it back to you!’”
Facebook, meanwhile, muscles into developing
countries and strikes deals with mobile ca
iers to
make its platform (but not the wider internet) free on
phones. The result is that digitally inexperienced
users assume that Facebook itself is the internet, and
that everything on it must be true – a confusion
Facebook actively encourages by terming its
scrolling list of posts a “News feed”. The results can
e alarming, as Arthur shows in a chapter about
Myanmar, where a UN fact-finding mission found in
2018 that Facebook had “substantively contributed
to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict
... within the public”.
The deeper structural problem is that Facebook,
Twitter, TikTok, Reddit and Google can hardly take
consistent action over “misleading or unreliable”
communications as long as they depend for thei
profits on advertising, the whole art of which is to be
as misleading as possible within the confines of the
law. As long as these platforms are not prepared to
fact-check adverts (and, as anyone who uses it
knows, it is infested with crazy cures for cancer and
other dangerous ga
age) it can’t be expected to
fact-check political campaigns. Satirical researchers
have found that, as an advertiser, it is possible to pay
Facebook for example, to target particular potential
customers who have demonstrated an interest in
“pseudoscience” or “vaccine controversies”.
And yet, as Charles Arthur’s
ook shows, the social-media
giants could do more if they
wanted to, as proved by thei
interventions in public
messaging over Covid-19
harms and risks. (The write
Naomi Wolf was recently
suspended from Twitter,
having helped spread swivel-eyed nonsense about
how standing near vaccinated people can make you
sick.) Surveying ideas for tighter regulatory control in
his conclusion, Arthur also recommends that we
“make content sharing a little less easy”, and
perhaps even
eak up the giants, just as the
Standard Oil Company was
oken up in 1911.
I was left unsure by the book’s title phrase to
describe the havoc that social media is wreaking
upon our lives as “Social Warming”. Warmth, afte
all, has long been a social metaphor for something
desirable: as when people speak warmly, or enjoy a
warm friendship. (Indeed, according to some
psychological research, loneliness makes you feel
cold, and being cold makes you more lonely.)
Perhaps, just as some now prefer to use “global
heating” or “climate crisis” in the atmospheric
context, we should think of social overheating o
social boiling. In the meantime, feel free to share this
article on Twitter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ARTICLE TWO:
Australians come to Reddit for just about everything
By Tess Connery | Published on Mediaweek.com,
July 23, 2021
Across the globe, social media giant Reddit sees
more than 52 million daily active users across
upwards of 100,000 communities. This month Reddit
officially took the plunge into the Southern
Hemisphere, opening the doors of their Australian
usiness based in Sydney’s Barangaroo. The
Australian launch comes after market entries in
Canada in March 2021 and the United Kingdom in
September 2020.
Mediaweek spoke to Reddit’s president of global
advertising, Harold Klaje, about why they launched
down under, and what Australians are up to on
Reddit.
What was it about Australia that made Reddit want
to launch in the country?
“Australia is home to Reddit’s fourth largest use
ase and has enjoyed steady organic user growth fo
several years now, so it’s always been a priority
market in our wider internationalization strategy and
the obvious choice for our latest expansion. Reddit
users in Australia are so active and engaged, and
from an advertising perspective we already have
several clients globally that are targeting Australian
users, so this launch is about building upon this
already strong momentum with dedicated teams and
esources on the ground – there is a lot of potential
in Australia, and we’re looking forward to tapping
into it.”
What makes Australian Reddit users stand out from
other regions?
“Australians come to Reddit for just about
everything, and while local user activity tends to
mimic global trends with gaming, crypto and
entertainment among the most popular interest
groups, there is always a clear local twist. Fo
example, “AusFinance” and “ASX-Bets” are some of
this year’s fastest growing communities among
Australian users. Australian users on Reddit are also
extremely engaged – they spend an average of 31
minutes a day on the platform, which is more than
they do on Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram, and
they contribute around 158 million posts, comments
and upvotes every month. Our Aussie users are very
active!”
What sort of opportunities does Reddit have fo
ands?
“Globally, the number one reason people come to
Reddit is to be informed by passionate communities
they trust – these users are actively seeking out
information, advice and recommendations, rathe
than aimlessly scrolling through a feed. This makes
for a highly active mindset and coupled with the
inherent environment of trust and authenticity found
on Reddit – because people are connected by
passions and interests, not simply demographics –
ings an immense opportunity for
ands.
“We know that people are more comfortable
expressing themselves and opening up about a
particular subject on Reddit, because they don’t have
their friends and family watching in a way that they
would on other social media platforms. As a result,
the advice and recommendations exchanged on
Reddit are even more meaningful and authentic,
ecause people have no reason to be anything othe
than honest. There is a huge opportunity for
ands
to be part of these authentic exchanges, to add
value to the conversations and build trust and loyalty
with users. We see it happen every day on the
platform and are looking forward to giving more
Australian
ands the opportunity to be part of the
power of community.”
What are you hoping the future of Reddit will look
like in Australia?
“For now, we are focussed on building out ou
Australian user base through more local communities
with local context and scaling our ads business to
help more Australian
ands find their home on
Reddit. This launch is the first step in our ongoing
commitment to the region and we’re looking forward
to growing our presence and demonstrating the
power and impact of online community with the
Australian market. In the longer term, I hope Reddit
continues to grow and be a place of vi
ant
communities in Australia.”
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