When thinking about social media, a couple of things come to mind. First is, well, its everywhere and that almost every person has some kind of access to a social media platform or has an account in at least one of them. Secondly, it is a hub for major events and news. Since anyone is allowed to make an account, everyone seems to have one, which means everyone can share their thoughts and opinions on certain topics and post them to the internet. This makes for a wide variety of opinion that was simply not available prior to the social media days. With a wide assortment of social media, certain platforms have certain use. A couple of types of social media platforms are keen on current events and news; while, others are casual/personal use. They have changed the way people communicate.
Facebook is a place for lots of people to express opinions and join groups with similar tastes. This allows for groups of all different types and variety. It is a place where you can find posts about activism without even trying. Often times you would be scrolling away into your timeline and come across an activist group or posting. It is not always for politics, but it would be about saving animals, water and all the other common day issues people do not get to talk about in everyday life. This is what the Facebook niche can be defined as, a place to find group that matches your tastes. Lots of activist movements and groups use it to find popularity. There are lots of places for activists to be on Facebook, lots of groups to join, and it all happens with the help of technology and with the help of mostly everyone having an account.
The internet is a place that connects us together and splits us apart. Gerbaudo says: “It asserts that the internet allows for more flexible relationships, enabling individuals to interact without the need for central coordination or a sense of unity in the display of collective action” (19). We can use the internet to find lots of places to go associate with each other, with people who are oceans apart or minutes away from us. Who we associate with is not as important as it was back in the day. This is because we could only associate with those surrounding us. Now, that limitation has been taken away. We now choose who to associate with, based on your personal requirements, but with the internet you really don’t know who you are associating with, but rather what interests you share with them. You could be a part of a group on Facebook and not know what others look like (unlikely, due to high amount of pictures on an individual’s page), or interact anonymously through forums like reddit. This has split us apart from our close ones, but gave us the ability to connect with people across the planet. The choice of what platform you associate with is personal preference, but the important thing is that you associate with people of similar interests.
One of the biggest platforms that come to mind when thinking about similar interest is Twitter. That is because Twitter allows for short personal commentaries on events happening right now. It is the place to be for current events and people’s opinions. A really good example of this would be the Apple vs FBI ‘battle’ for unlocking the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone 5c. Ever since Apple was that given court order, people have been voicing their own opinion, whether in favor of Apple or not. Lots of people, including CEOs of many companies have shown support to Tim Cook for their action, and the means they used was Twitter. If people want to talk about a certain topic they use hashtag to ‘tag’ their tweet to that topic so people who want to see what others are saying about a certain topic they can find everyone who linked their tweets with that hashtags. These hashtags, with popularity, get transferred to the “Trending” section of Twitter where you can see the a list of trending hashtags. These are often also based with time, if a hashtag is used very frequently in a small amount of time then it will be trending. This means that it is a current event or a reaction to something happening right now or over a short period of time. The top trending hashtag is “#TheXFiles” with 38K tweets at the time of writing this. It is a new show that was launched so people are tweeting about their excitement or their opinions about it, and it is a perfect example of what hashtags do. Another thing that twitter allows for is the ability for everyone to become a ‘news reporter’. Every time something unusual happens or something big happens everyone has a story to share and they use Twitter to share it. Smartphones, and with their ubiquitous status, it really pushes for that. If there is a fire or a crash or something abnormal happening, we see people with their phones out recording the event. This has changed how we view content and analyze it.
Another big change that was occurred is the fact that we do not need to be present at the time something happens. With the Internet and YouTube you can record any video and upload it online for people to watch. This means that the traditional way of consuming content is no more. If you happen to miss, for example, the half time show of the Super Bowl this year and would like to see, then it is up on YouTube for free. This brings a whole new level of change in the world. This gives the viewers the ability to view something they missed in real time, on a later date. This also gives viewers the ability to further analyze everything to the level of nitpicking. For example if you missed the Super Bowl, back in the day, then you would not be able to see Beyonce’s performance, and would have to go with what people are talking about instead of seeing it for yourself and coming to a conclusion. This also means that more people can play the same clip over and over again and nitpick everything. It is the true that not everyone would have seen the Black Panthers reference she made at the half time show, and it would also mean less people would talk about that topic. Additionally, it means that we can pay close attention to every detail, which gives the creator more room for creativity. A great example of this is the foundation of “memes”, it is simply a picture of a person with a caption-able reaction. This definitely would not have been founded or used if there would be no internet because the people would not be able to store or share anything. With the Internet it has it’s pros and cons and some of them have been clearly stated here. It truly does transform our means of communication and consuming content.
Priyank Patel's Blog 