Hannah Doran constitutional monarchy , than that of dictatorship . Although I find myself somewhat ‘ in charge ’ of this WhatsApp group chat , I need only scroll up my screen to find myself perhaps in another group chat I did not want to be part of , or perhaps in a professional work group chat where chatting itself is limited to the ‘ admins ’ in charge . In the latter case , as I am not an admin of that chat , I cannot even speak at all . In a matter of seconds , my status of being the Queen Elizabeth II equivalent of one WhatsApp group , is replaced with me being simply a recipient of information from the dictators of another . In this sense , WhatsApp becomes a place for the “ mediation of identity and social relationships ” ( Livingstone 2018 : 10 ) where multiple worlds become disclosed .
A quite more real and complex world is reflected through Discord via the mobileas-mirror . As previously mentioned , Discord is made up of servers , and there is no limit to the number of servers one can be part of . To join a server , one needs to be given an invitational link from the creator of the server . Then , in order to gain access or unlock the multiple ‘ channels ’ within a server one must read the rules of a given server and accept that they will abide by these rules . Often , following accepting the rules but prior to gaining full access , one must introduce oneself to the server members . Immediately we can see a complexity to Discord that does not exist in the comparatively simple set-up of WhatsApp group chats . The idea of a cult or an American sorority may ( perhaps dramatically ) come to mind ,
30 in that to even experience the Discord server , a sort of ‘ pledge ’ and ‘ initiation ’ needs to be done before acceptance into the wider group . The Discord server I will give an account of experiencing will for the purposes of this essay be called the Society . Within the Society ’ s server there is an elected ‘ President ’ that is in charge of the Society and its subsequent server . Once again , this sense of “ the actual world ” that we physically live in conflates with the “ possible ” ( Frosh , 2019 : 6 ) world reflected to us through the mobile-asmirror via Discord , a world that could potentially exist in reality , a world that includes a 21-year-old University Student being a ‘ President ’. As previously mentioned , creators of servers can create rules by which the members of the Society must abide by . As these rules are not dictated by Discord , but by the creators of servers , these rules can include anything . For example , within the Society ’ s Discord server , it is forbidden to talk about topics if they are not conversed in the appropriate channel i . e ., you cannot talk about music in the ‘ film-and-tv ’ channel and cannot talk about food in the ‘ general ’ channel as there is a designated channel for ‘ food-talk ’. Indeed , there are moderators within the society that will tell you to relocate to the correct channel if conversation continues indefinitely in the incorrect channel . In addition , certain words are banned server-wide , only to be allowed in specific channels . For example , the word ‘ bread ’ was banned after much discussion over the word lead to members being bombarded with messages . A bot within the server can mute people who use banned words ,