Blog Post 9: PLN and Communications

This blog focuses on a video interview with Harrison Mooney, a journalist, blogger, and memoirist.

• Community communications go beyond blogs and social media shares, how does a PLN help and hinder the development of thoughts and ideas in public discourse – especially when addressing our differences?

I believe I mentioned in a previous blog how important it is to have a diverse PLN because of our differing opinions. Everyone has their different beliefs and although as mentioned in my 8th blog post, we can correct one another by pointing out flaws in information they believe in, it’s also important to simply look at and respect one another’s views. We have differing experiences and those can help us understand why people see life the way they do. There are many things we won’t perfectly understand. Harrison Mooney (2020) explains that when people say “I’ll never know what it’s like to be black” but hearing and empathizing with those of differing backgrounds helps people understand what other people mean when they talk about prejudices they’ve experienced.

• How can a PLN be curated to minimize bias and expand knowledge of the lives of others?

Having a diverse PLN with people of differing cultures, races, backgrounds, and careers allows us to minimize bias and expand our knowledge of one another as we hear insights from people with differing thoughts and experiences. As a white person, there are things that I don’t experience that those of different races do. On the other hand, as a woman, there are some things I experience like cat calling and other inappropriate behaviour from strangers and coworkers that generally wouldn’t happen if I were a man. Sharing our experiences with one another helps us to empathize and better understand what it’s like to be in those situations and as a result minimizes bias and allows us to see one another as good people instead of cruel stereotypes and prejudices we may have grown up hearing. As we minimize this bias and listen to each other’s stories, we also expand our own knowledge about what it’s like to be in the other person’s shoes.

• How does the identity of who you are, fit into your PLN?

Harrison Mooney explained that he has had experiences where people made racist remarks while talking with him on the phone, and didn’t know he was black until after the fact simply because of his voice. In a similar way. Our identity in our PLN is different from our identity in real life. As we interact with and share information in our PLN, we develop an identity based around those actions. This can definitely be a good representation of who we are, but usually isn’t the big picture of our true identity.

• Do you include professional and personal boundaries?

It’s my personal belief that we should create boundaries before actively sharing information and communicating with PLNs. We have to consider what we are comfortable discussing and what would be acceptable to discuss, with our employment and the safety of those within our PLNs in mind. I’ve mentioned previously that although we can create differing identities on different online social media accounts, these can be linked and people can discover who you are in real life and what your beliefs are. If you say something offensive and this is linked to your professional life somehow, you put your employment status at risk. Additionally, away from our professional lives, although we should be honest within our learning networks in order to properly learn, there are limits to what should and shouldn’t be said online based on what is appropriate and what is acceptable to have online or in your PLN based one who sees and interacts with the information you share.

References:

EDCI 338 (2020, Nov 8). A01 Harrison Mooney [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/elKNQpz0RrI