SofiaUnplugged

The Digital Artefact network created contains Sophie, Jess and Sofia.

Sophie is working on a creative fashion and style inspiration TikTok page (titled @creatingbeautyy), that works as a vessel for creativity in everyday life. The purpose of this DA is to create inspiration for those within the TikTok fashion community, through styling outfits with trending brands and clothing items.

Sofia is centering her Digital Artefact around vintage photography. She has created both an Instagram page (titled @yesterdayslens) and a TikTok page, where she aims to draw awareness to the world of vintage photography.  She is engaging with an individual well versed in the photography world, her grandfather, recounting his experiences with photography and presenting the beauty of the vintage camera he handed down to her.

Jess is focused on creating a TikTok account which will be centred around fashion, lifestyle, beauty, and travel; trying to inspire and share her passion with others. Jess’ goal is to create engaging content that showcases her personal style, offers fashion tips,beauty looks and travel videos. Through the platform of tiktok, she aims to share valuable tips, exciting trends, and personal adventures that empower women to embrace their unique styles and interests and reach vast audiences of young girls.

Within this digital artefact network, there are significant examples of peer support, and the collaborative approach that was taken improved each and every Digital Artefact involved. This was evident from the first stages of the design thinking process. Within the ‘define’ and ‘ideate’ stages of the process, all collaborators helped each other brainstorm ideas for Digital Artefacts, narrowing broader ideas into niche content. Additionally, all participants within this network assisted each other in identifying who the target audiences were. This set us up with a solid foundation for our individual DA’s, and allowed us to begin prototyping content to create from an early stage. 

Peer support is evident within the promotion of each other’s content as well as verbal feedback between one another. Reposting, liking, commenting and saving each other’s content promotes the group’s Digital Artefacts further into social media algorithms, allowing the participants to ‘test’ their content on a wider audience, although still remaining within their goal demographic. Additionally, verbal feedback between network members in regards to the successes, moments for improvement and potential strategies to create engagement, not only improved the quality and engagement of Digital Artefacts, but also created a positive and helpful atmosphere for this network of creators. 

These examples of collaboration and peer support show that the subject topics of collective intelligence, and participatory culture are evident within this digital artefact network. The concept of collective intelligence denotes that, “None of us can know everything; each of us knows something; and we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources and combine our skills.” When all collaborators put our creative skills together, we were able to come up with ideas of content to publish individually. 

All network members have collaborated, sharing ideas regarding trending TikTik sounds, video ideas and more. This is a prime example of participatory culture, as it demonstrates active contribution from all parties. Through providing peer support and taking a collaborative approach for this project, this network has reflected the core principles of participatory culture.