Meet the speakers: Dr. Jennifer Beckett
Meet Dr. Jennifer Beckett, teacher of one of only two university-level online community management courses in Australia.
Jennifer is a community manager turned academic. Her research is focused on the area of moderation, governance, trolling, and the complex labors of community management. Jennifer has presented at previous Swarm symposiums and is a great advocate and commentator for our practice. She’s also a pop-culture geek and critic who will talk your ear off about the latest Marvel production slate. At Swarm 2019, Jennifer taught a workshop on self-care for community managers; something we know is essential, and too often overlooked.
The following interview was originally published on July 25, 2019, via swarmconference.com.au.
How would you define self-care in the context of online communities and online community management?
When I get questions like this, I’m always reminded of something that my mother told me once “you have to put on your oxygen mask first”. What she’s getting at is that you can’t help anyone effectively in your community (or life) if you aren’t taking care of yourself properly. So while there may be distinct wellbeing issues in your community, the wellbeing of the community manager plays a huge role in how healthy a community is.
What role do our platforms play in relation to care?
This is a really interesting question. I think the platforms think that their role in care stops and ends with their moderation practices. What they aren’t so good at is thinking about moderation within a sociological or psychological framework – this goes both to the way they approach it, the decisions they make as a result, and the lack of care they show for those who do the job of moderation. They are also very quick to push moderation practices onto community professionals without giving them effective tools. This just adds to stress.
Read more: Moderating microaggressions
What have you observed teaching aspiring community professionals?
Teaching people who don’t know a lot about community management I’ve learned that:
How we consider community is hugely culturally specific and how we think about managing them is even more so. For example, a lot of my Chinese students were fierce about community standards and moderation, for them, it was separate, strict, and regulatory. So, it was very black and white, which it’s definitely not for me.
There’s still huge confusion around the difference between community managers and social media managers.
A lot of students, no matter where they hailed from, found it hard to wrap their heads around the notion of ‘shared purpose’, often mistaking it for being ‘marketing purpose’. Which I think says a lot about the kinds of ‘community’ interactions they have online, which were almost exclusively social media management. I think there should be some kind of law against marketers calling their Facebook page, or whatever, a community.
What do you consider to be the most exciting thing about the community management space today?
The fact that more and more people are coming back to the idea of community as something integral to our wellbeing, whether those communities are online, offline, or a combination of both. Also, people are questioning and pushing back on the idea of the platform creators as the lead architects of that space and demanding more accountability and a more humanistic and ethical approach to design. There’s just so much great stuff that people can do, and are doing.
Read more: Online workplace communities interview with Dr. Laurence Lock Lee
What would you most like to change?
The fact that a lot of the tech designers don’t listen to humanities and community scholars and practitioners when they tell them that something is a really terrible, absolutely no good, very bad idea or that their tech is being misused. I’d like to see a lot more active listening, far less PR spin, and, of course, tangible action in response rather than shoving things down the track. People and society have to come first. For community managers and moderators more specifically, I’d like to see the organisations who hire them really stop and take the time to understand the pressures and demands of the job, pay people appropriately and ensure that they are given adequate mental health and general wellbeing support – this includes rethinking the idea that CMs should be on call 24/7 without paying for that.
What are you reading/watching/listening to right now that all community professionals should read/watch/listen to?
Absolutely everyone should be watching Schitt’s Creek. Aside from the fact that it’s probably the most wholesome show ever, it’s also just a beautiful reflection of the transformative power of community, whether that’s at the family or societal level. Similarly, The Good Place is awesome both as an escape but also in thinking through some tricky ethical issues. I’ve used their ‘trolley problem’ episode from the first season in my classes. I’m also listening to NPR’s fab podcast , Hidden Brain. It takes you through some really interesting aspects of human psychology. I get something out of every episode. I’m also a fan of The Signal, a short current affairs podcast put out by the ABC. There are some great takes and explainers on what’s going on in the news. I’ve been trying not to buy many books this year so I’ve been going back to my local library – if you’re a community manager you should take the time to check out your local library – talk about community hubs. As a result the books I’ve bought have been curated; for community managers, I’d say Jess Hill’s book See What You Made Me Do, is a difficult but extremely important read, particularly as she talks about the need for better community-led responses to domestic violence. Finally, sometimes you just need to read a book because it makes you smile and helps you to escape – so I’d say that everyone should seek those books out as a means of self-care.
Why should community peeps come to Swarm?
There are far too many reasons to list here, so here are my top “becauses”: it’s awesome; you’ll learn so much; you’ll meet some of the best humans ever and walk away feeling better about where you’re at, finally; because I can’t think of any other place where academics and practitioners come together in quite the same way to try and make things better.
