blog posting #4

My personal belief for the future of Social Media is that there's is going to never be a definite end to it. Segments/ sites/ etc will come and go BUT Social Media will continue to grow and prosper. For example Facebook. Facebook will in my mind continue to grow and prosper until somewhere down the road another better site is created to take its' place [however unlikely that may be]. As for the technology that we use to access Social Media, that too will continue to grow... It may eventually come down to actual human - technology integration [ie the use of nano technology]... however if we continue forward at the pace we are eventually we will be living underground in a place called Zion being hunted by the technology we created to "make our lives easier"... yes im talking about the matrix...

Social Media bringing about real social change...

Despite the fact that Malcom Gladwell is a well known author in the area of social media I think he needs to get his head out of the clouds and start taking a genuine look at the world. He believes that social media cannot bring about real social change due to loose networks of people who don't know each other. However if you are to look at almost any event currently taking place around the world social media is taking a huge role in how things are progressing. For example the events that transpired in Egypt January of this year came to success not only from the will and determination of the Egyptian people but also from support around the world by means of social media. Now as a valid argument, could the Egyptian people overthrown President Mubarak on there own with no support from people around the world? Maybe. However it is very clear that due to the support for the Egyptian people coming forward thanks to social media, President Mubarak's control over the people of Egypt came to a swift and somewhat peaceful end.

This is not the first time nor the last that social media will bring about real social change on many levels. Even if you are to look back as far back as the '60's when the Vietnam War was in full swing media basically ended the war. Now at that point in history it was "the power of the press", and the concerned voices of American citizens who wanted an end to the bloodshed but in a way "the power of the press" has in fact in recent years become "the power of social media". The biggest advantage to social media is the fact that the coverage of events now are more deeply involved and the voices of people leading these changes are being heard worldwide.

So to sum up, I do believe that social media can and has and will have real social change. Its just up to the support and involvement people are willing to put forward to change. 

Social Media... Increased or decreased the quality of news.

I look at this as both an increase and a decrease. The way I see it the coverage of  things happening in the world has increased ten fold, but the quality of the coverage and information has decreased if only slightly. If someone was to take amateur footage of an event [example the G20 summit] and were to send it into a news studio for them to use, I would say that would be classified as an increase in the quality and in some cases the information being received by the general populace. However if that person was to take the footage and link it to some online site [example facebook], and make some random and false heading to go with it, then I would say that that would be a decrease in the quality. In the end I would say that social media has increased the quality and the information by allowing people to see things that may otherwise not be seen, but can decrease the quality if someone is careless and misinformed.

Perception of Social Media...

My personal perception on social media is that it is neither a fad or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution. I do not believe that it is fad because it is too integrated into our society to disappear and it is not as big a shift as the Industrial Revolution simply because social media is an indirect result of it. Effects from the Industrial Revolution are still being "felt" today. Everything was effected by it whereas Social Media has effected merely a portion of what we use today. For example, transportation. Transportation made a huge advancement from the 18th to 19th century due to the Industrial Revolution. During this time the introduction of trains, cars, airplanes took place and has since continued to grow and prosper to this day. Social media cannot hold this claim because it has had very little to do with the growth of the transportation industry. I do not deny that social media has had some effect but comes nothing compared to what the Industrial Revolution was able to do. As for communication Social media has taken what the Industrial Revolution started and simply put "ran with it". Social media has done a lot to change how we see things but unless it is able to effectively change or improve on what we use today as a whole I do not believe it can achieve what the Industrial Revolution did.

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