Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Social Media Assignment #1
This entire video is commenting on new media technology. It shows just how popular these technologies are becoming in every part of the world and how reliant people are on these technologies. It discusses the growing social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. and how the members of these social networks rival those of the largest countries. As the video states, we don’t have to look hard for what interests us because most of the content finds us through recommendations. In these social networks, people are defined by what it is they take interest in and the content of their pages. They create their own identity and let others know what they want, but there is also the other side, which the video addresses with the Vegas example, that not everything can be kept a secret anymore. No one is in full control of the information that is put out especially when it comes to videos or images. So you can create a certain identity online but there is no guarantee that it cannot be traced back to reality. This relates to what Palfrey was saying about identities not being clear cut. These created identities have become more of an extension of our selves instead of an entirely different other. The video is by no means showing a utopian world of interconnectivity because there are consequences for posting certain content. The idea of melding identities is actually a good thing, since it allows people to be more true to their selves and find friends and relationships with people that share similar values, interests, etc. There is no doubt that we are able to close the gap between cultures and people, however, we, as humans, may lose the physical connection between people as well. There is also the fact of being too reliant on technology for things and unable to function without it. Technology is something that affects our everyday lives and needs to be taken seriously by everyone. Who knows what more there is to come…
~Jana Sepulveda
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I used this video for my final assignment and thought it was interesting that the entire video uses a statistical analysis to show the emergence of Social Media on the internet. Some of the stats are interesting as well such as the time it took Facebook to reach 50 million in comparison to radio, television, the internet and the ipod. I think its interesting that the video shows how important the social media revolution is and still manages to employ a hybrid economic push with its advertisements for the book by Erik Qualman. The video is incredible in that it is large part about social networking and sites that help information and videos go viral, when its own agenda was to advertise and go viral.
ReplyDeleteI guess that makes two of us, coincidentally I did my final assignment on this video as well. I totally agree with the fact that the creator used hybrid economic push to advertise his book, but i like to look at it as product integration as well. The creator of this video is using the title from his book (which is trade marked) as the theme of his video. Interesting video though, who really knows how exaggerated these facts are anyway. By looking at the youtube comments the majority of them criticize the statistics accuracy, but on the other hand what do you expect from youtube users.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Multiple identities can be displayed through a social networking utility. Although custom features on these sites can be used to change things about your personal identity, social identity is difficult to control. Many feel these social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace are a safe haven of acceptance. Many people like using these social utilities for exploration and testing multiple identities. This definitely reflects to the relationship between changes that are taking place with identity and our society today.
ReplyDelete