Social-Networking Sites
Social media as a whole has emerged, changed and reinvented itself in the last decade, much more so even in the past five years. Boyd and Ellison offers a chart illustrating launch dates of social-networking sites (SNSs) and even though SNSs had started as early as 1996, since 2006 they have been rapidly changing and growing in numbers. This is similar to how the internet or World Wide Web itself changed and morphed so quickly in a short period of time decades ago. When I was in primary school the internet was unknown to us, by middle school it had become a reality and to search the web or connect, you had to wait 10-15 minutes in order to connect. Now if your computer does not connect in mere seconds, something is wrong. Whether it is the computer or the components required, our patience for this technology has become almost zero. Similarly upon meeting people who don’t belong to popular SNSs, like Facebook or even twitter, they are met with shock and awe. Even my father has a Facebook page.
Advertising
SNSs are also changing commerce and advertising in a way that is hard to keep up with. No longer do individuals become engaged in a colorful ad or catchy jingle, in fact most people especially my generation, tune them out as if they don’t exist. Instead of wondering what sort of car to buy, seeing an eye-catching ad and then going to make a purchase, perspective consumers are going out and looking for other’s personal experiences. Whether it is their experience with the vehicle, dealership or even the service maintenance, the information truly needed when making a purchase is at their fingertips. Same goes for Amazon and other shopping websites. Anderson makes a valid point that just simply clicking or buying one thing whether popular or not can open the door to so many other options. Thus giving the up and coming writer, musician or artist a chance they may not have had years ago.
Citizen Journalism
What I find particularly interesting is the ability for citizen journalism. News organizations such as the BBC and others are able to obtain real time videos and pictures of news while they are in process of arriving at the scene. There are some issues with this type of journalism, but again it is a different perspective. You can argue with an article or editorial, but to argue a video or picture posted mere seconds after something has happened is not an easy thing to do. Greg Downey offers some quality tips, a checklist to go through to decipher what you find on the internet and the best ways to find out for yourself what is going on. This is perhaps the best part of SNSs. Gone are the days of “old media” where you would get your news from only a handful of sources. No longer do you only listen to Tom Brokaw at 5:30pm to find out what is going on in the world, and then wait for your local news at 6pm. News is happening all the time, and we have access to that information. Instead of 1-4 perspectives on the news (NBC, CBS, ABC, & Fox) you have millions of perspectives. I believe this allows the viewer to make their own conclusions on the world around them instead of regurgitated information by a small handful of people.
SNSs and the Past
This also makes me look at our past. In present times the world is in turmoil. This is nothing new to the history of the planet, but for my generation it is living through what will eventually be in our children’s history books. Wars, protests and revolutions are not new, but our access to finding out about them is. It is hard to even imagine but what would our world look like had SNSs or even the internet been around and readily available in the 60s. Looking back we find so much information and misinformation about what was going on. It was a time of unrest and social outcry in our country and hundreds of rallies, protests and general distaste for our countries political and social climate still occurred. Whether thinking of the Vietnam War or Civil Rights movement, how much larger would they have been if protesters could have gotten their voice and opinions to even more people? How would they have been different or how would their impact have been different? Not only to rally more supporters but to merely spread their “news” or information to a much broader group of people.
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