The beginning of my presentations for this module have started really bad, because

on my first one I could not say a single word, I was very afraid and ashamed to do
this in front of my classmates. I always had this problem when I had to talk in front of
too many people, that I did not knew them from a longer time. And my second
presentation was better, just that I was almost running back in my seat with every
single word I was saying. After this, my luck has started to make its appearance, we
had to present in groups, and without the encouraging words and motivation given
by our professor and my team members, I do not think that my fear would have
started to disappear.

As a final presentation for this module, me and my group formed from Mirela,
Valentin and Gabriela chose to talk about Regulation of Social Media. We decided
upon this topic, because it is one of the big issues from this century, and in our
presentation, we raised some problems about the data retention and a few
recommendations. A great percentage of the population is unaware of the unknown
actions that stay behind social media networks, as we are all using it at full power,
and our lives are managed by them, even though we do not realize this.

Even though each of us had a role within this presentation, we did not let this stop us
from being present in every position of the team. A big problem has been the
meetings, because of our jobs and different schedules they have been possible just
in the days we came to university. The time has started to become a problem in our
way to see each other, and we started to use social network to share our opinions
about the materials gathered.

When we first met, I was unsecure about my ability to work in a team. I never had a
responsibility of working in a group and in the same time to represent a part of their
work. Because now I was a part of the team, I was feeling very motivated and
determined to do my job as good as possible and also to assist the others. We
started to build a framework of our presentation and to sort information together. The
age gap between us had ups and downs, ups because we had different opinions
about the subject and with these more ideas on how to build the presentation, and
the downs were that sometimes we have lost to much time on agreeing that we all
said something correct, but in different words or conclusion of the facts. In this
journey I have experienced a challenge for myself in being at the same level of my
colleagues expectations and I did not wanted to disappoint them because of my lack
of experience.

I was in charge with the design part of the presentation, it was very suitable for me
because I always pay more attention on the details and aesthetic. I enjoyed my role
and I tried to express that in the presentation. I’ve made many mistakes in the
beginning, choosing bad formats and spending time on learning how to handle the
PowerPoint. I have learned a lot of things about the font, paging and effects of this
program. I have also made particular research about my part of presentation defined
by the applicability of human rights on the Internet and what legal procedures have
the power to regulate this domain. In my research, I used primary sources, legal
documents: EU Data Retention Directive1 and the Convention on Cybercrime2
Budapest, 23.XI.2001. A huge time saver for my it was representing by the
accessibility of these documents but also a negative side it could be for me the
analyse of the legal language that this document implies. In using the primary
source, you need to spend a lot of time sorting and reading all the details that are
helpful for you.

In my research I used as a secondary source the main ideas mentioned in the book:
“Cyberactivism: online activism in theory and practice”3 by Martha McCaughey and
Michael D. Ayers, that put the Internet under the human rights light and examples of
cyberprotests. It describes the social movements and the regulations. A journal
article used in our presentation it is “Twittering the News”4. It is very important in a
presentation to have multiple sources of information. For me it is easier to make my
research from books because I can easily sort the information coming already from
an expert point of view. In our presentation, my role was to offer different point of
views about the rule of law in a democratic state in the context of the social media. I
have presented the multiple perspectives of different organizations about this subject
and show how the legislation could restrict the right of freedom of expression.

This presentation for me represented a good way to make new friends, to develop
my personality and to learn from the group work. I am very happy that we managed
to create a final version and to implement everyone’s ideas and contribution in that
goal. I am still working to be more confident and to express myself faster without
moments of hesitations and insecurity. I need to improve my tonality and the body
language that sometimes brakes my camouflage of security. I think that we will need
more presentations like this one for the future, because it is representing a good way
for increasing your experience, your learning and communication skills, also let’s not
forget that it is a way of making helpful friends.

1 EU Data Retention Directive, (Directive 206/24/EC)

2 Convention on Cybercrime Budapest, ETS 185, 23.XI.2001
3 Martha McCaughey, Michael D. Ayers, Cyberactivism: online activism in theory

and practice (New York: Routledge, 2003)

4 Hermida, Alfred. 2010b. “Twittering the News.” Journalism Practice 4(3):297–308
 Table of legislation

 Convention on Cybercrime Budapest, ETS 185, 23.XI.2001

 EU Data Retention Directive, (Directive 206/24/EC)

Bibliography

 Alfred Hermida, 2010b. “Twittering the News” Journalism Practice 4(3):297–

308

 McCaughey Martha, D. Ayers Michael, Cyberactivism: online activism in

theory and practice (New York: Routledge, 2003)