the current climate.
In the past decade social media has become an increasingly more prominent and influential agent to the world and modern day culture. Although it’s intentions, to create community, connection and positive influence is no doubt evident there must also be an acknowledgement upon the exclusiveness, detriment and negative impacts it has caused. These negative ramifications of social media are often felt hardest by minorities and communities that have not been ‘front of mind’ in the design process.
“Technological innovations have cultural consequences”
(Balsamo 2011, p.4).
Although the social media platforms themselves should ultimately take more responsibility for the design injustice they may be causing to certain groups, there must also be awareness from users/ creators on how their participation on the platform can contribute to culture both positively and negatively.
our vision.
This is where include aims to help not only you as a creator but also positively impact the social media world with more inclusive content.
There are many groups and communities that you should have in mind when creating social media content. It can impact your decisions upon images, language and resources that you use to create your content. With many groups and factors to consider include has created this website as a resource to not only check the inclusiveness of your content but also learn more about the groups and communities you are creating for.
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design justice and ethical principles
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Our evaluator aims to encourage the users of social media platforms to understand the many different contexts in which their content may be consumed and how to accommodate for that, as this is what effective technological innovation is about (Balsamo 2011, p.12) Although the intents are good we must also adhere to the design principle of understanding the negative impact we could have (Design Justice 2018, p.3). Some could use this tool in a way that ‘tokenises’ and ‘trivialises’ minorities and the oppressions they face. This is why we have provided ways in which people can be educated upon these groups through our resources tabs and have been sure to provide equal promotion and call to action for it on our home page. This promotes the importance of understanding this as a complex issue and that education is always essential when it comes to social justice impact.
We also believe that in order to have an authentic social justice impact upon our design we should amplify the voices and groundwork that has already been put down by these minorities. This is why we have created the forums function as it allows for these communities to have a platform for their thoughts to be shared and acknowledged.
Balsamo, A. 2011, Designing culture: The technological imagination at work. Durham, UK: Duke University Press
Design Justice 2018, Design Justice Network Principles, accessed 20 October 2021, https://designjustice.org/read-the-principles>.