And! what better place to find the true definition than Wikipedia: the social media information outlet. The Wiki article describes social media as encouraging "the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers."
MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Digg, Neopets, Last.fm, YouTube, Blogger, etc. etc. etc. all encourage the individual to create the content. No longer is there one-directional communication . Newspapers, TV, radio, and other forms of mass media have been supplanted by these new formats which are all led by an aggregate of the public.
MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites encourage communication between people. Wikipedia gives people who are experts in their field the ability to edit articles. Twitter gives people the ability to hear quick bytes of news and information. YouTube lets individuals post their videos for widespread viewing. And Neopets combines the toy that young kids love with the internet in a fascinating (and personally for me, unbelievably odd) way.
The question is: is this the way media should be? Should face-to-face interaction be supplanted by communication over the internet? Should in depth newspaper articles be overcome by instantaneous Twitter feeds? Should Wikipedia articles, which can be edited by many people, overcome the classic encyclopedia entry? Should YouTube and quick videos change the way people watch anything? It is a question that many people should be wondering with the advent of this Web 2.0 era. The internet certainly makes things easier... but is that a good thing?
In regards to your questions, I believe Wikipedia is a great source of information and it is also convienient, though it is not reliable as a factual source as the encyclopedia is. Twitter feeds should NOT replace other medians of news. Even though most news papers are written at a 4th grade reading level, they allow for a objective source of what is occuring in the world (or city.) Youtube is great for quick entertainment, but could never replace TV. Our society is becoming increasingly dependant on the internet, though it broadens the horzion of information, it does not compensate for what the other ("old fashioned") sources can deliver. Twitter feeds are not news they are people personal news or in other words twitter feeds are BS.
ReplyDeleteTwitter actually works well as a news delivery system. I find that, more and more, it's where I first learn about some major event, because someone in my network is paying attention and then tweets about it. Of course, 140 characters does not allow for any depth at all, but it does let you send links to blog posts and articles online.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to one of your comments "Should YouTube and quick videos change the way people watch anything?" I feel the exact same way. This past summer, I worked for Good Morning America as a Field and Series intern and was beyond surprised when I was asked to search YouTube for a number of pieces! I remember there was one in particular; they were doing a piece on the wedding dance party clip (the whole wedding danced down the isle to Chris Brown's Forever) and we actually aired that clip. FROM YOUTUBE!! Is this what our news is turning into?! Instead of using professionally hired camera crews and equipment for the best possible quality, we're turning to the quality of youtube?
ReplyDeleteWhile I understand the issue of quality about airing YouTube videos on shows like Good Morning America, I don't think there's anything wrong with finding stories on Internet sites like YouTube or MySpace. I have a friend from high school who posted amazing videos of him singing on YouTube- one video alone got over 3 million hits. This got the attention of CBS's World News Tonight, which interviewed him on the show. Here's a link to the video if you're interested...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R12QVtuB0_Q
Will, it's a good point. The internet is making our lives much easier but we need to be careful. At this point, our society is trying to make a transition to the ever growing internet and the previously established systems, like television are struggling. We need to make sure we don't lose what got us to this point.
ReplyDeletei feel that the most revolutionary thing that social media does is allow users to be producers as well. Previously media was created by few and viewed by many, with no or very little input from the consumer. The fact that now the consumer can be a producer as well is amazing. This idea is where the trend of media and technology is heading....An on-demand social networking world.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to think, as is becoming the case with greater frequency, that 140 characters are sometimes more informative than pages-long news reports. With such a limited space, as Dr. Strate mentioned, the essential details are included, with the extra stuff available only if you go and look for it. Perhaps this is a preferred way of gathering information.
ReplyDeleteThe ability for a consumer to become a producer has definitely contributed to the rise of many of these social media sites. Recently, a 5 minute YouTube video, an animation of giant robots invading the city of Montevideo, landed Fede Alvarez a $30 million dollar deal. What is even more telling is that Fede Alvarez's "Ataque de Panico" (Panic Attack)was created on a budget of $300. It merely goes to show you that people want to express their creativity and social media has given them the ability to express it.
ReplyDeleteLink to the youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dadPWhEhVk
As Dr. Strate mentioned, 140 characters is by no means a full length article or enough information to get the entire story across, but it does wet the readers appetite for more and brings to your attention a point of interest that may have slipped under your radar if you were not following that person on twitter.
ReplyDeleteYou may have already noticed, but Google now has the feature of "Latest Results," which gives you a live stream of live-mentions of the search term you entered into the search box. The latest results are generally from twitter mentions, but are from every single twitter user on the net--not just the one's you follow.