Superb source : CBC tackles News 2.0 in the 21st Century - the Age of Social Media
Definition: Social Networking ( quote from Wikipedia)
Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction; created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers.
Social media can be said to have 3 components;
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- Concept (art, information, or meme).
- Media (physical, electronic, or verbal).
- Social interface (intimate direct, community engagement, social viral, electronic broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print).
Social Networking Tools & Deconstruction Tools
1) What are the good & bad qualities of these tools?
2. Critical questions to ask about information distributed socially.- What makes a social networking site really useful? Is it fast? Accurate? Breaks down social barriers?
- How does the nature of the way the information is created & distributed affect the message as compared to in person communications, or received through reading, or radio, or video (TV or internet)? ( eg Twitter restricts the message to 140 characters/ access to only those who use it)
- Is the online "friend" trying to convince me to buy something?
- Is the online "friend" trying to convince me to believe something? e.g. vote for someone, pray to a certain religion?
COMMENT
Social media is a good democratic counterbalance to mass adverting & propaganda. But is still needs to be looked at objectively.
Before the invention of the internet, political parties ran election campaigns organized by a few power brokers & their top-down communications strategies - to the average voter who was the final receiver. Today, information is created on the fly & scattered to millions who receive it & scatter the message to many others on their web.
Our students feel comfortable using it, but they need scaffolding to help them understand the cultural & privacy ramifications of the "NEW MEDIA"
We need to intelligently integrate model interactive social sites and tools for creating them into assignments so that students can understand & be critical of how the new media lens is being used by people to sell them ideas & products. Same old story!
