Social Media and Social Change Free Essay Example

Media has evolved over the years as each new technology come through for us. Social media is big this era like Facebook, Twitter, Skype, and even Instagram. Social media are websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in the social networks. Social change is an alteration in the social order of a society. Social change may include changes in nature, social institutions, social behaviors, or social relations. There can be ways to combine the two to one big system it is finding that kind of relationship that creates this kind of link that puts them in sync with each other.

The relationship between social media and social change is that social media can be used as a platform for people to express their opinions and advocate for a societal issue they feel strongly about and allowing an avenue for people to create opportunities for the community to get involved in that specific problem, which may influence the informational flow to an audience to create social change.

There are lots of reasons that people would use social media for social change.

Using social media can help center social change and by doing so, can take apart power structures that can create injustices. Social media can allow us to communicate messages to even more people all over the place. Some victims of domestic violence and sexual assault share these stories with a lot more people thanks to the use of social media. It would increase awareness and let other victims of these crimes know that they are never alone.

Social media can also create some sort of path to share news with everyone in a way that is not guided by the main media. The news can often get the story wrong which would create stereotypes and make excuses for the accused. For a lot of victims, speaking these crimes out may be very risky though social media can provide a way to still give them a voice and trade stories, while still having an anonymous status. Social media is a very good way for individuals to be activists: for those who may not feel like they would have voice otherwise, for people with a limit for transportation, for those who can’t abandon their homes, or even for those who do not have ample free time, social media provides a unique setting for users to express a sense of solidarity with political movements, report on current events, and share information and resources. Social media can make collaborations engaging and able to access for activists and communities. Social media gives us the power to call out news that are wrong by revealing what really happened. Hashtags can have the ability to switch individual movements into unified, strong forces.

Media has been present ever since even the town crier existed. The tradition called oration has evolved over the years into broadsheet, books, radio, television, and now the Internet. As time moves on media became easier to access to the people and to the ones that to share a story, message, or even an idea. Gasper did quote that, “The advent of digital production and distribution has not only increased accessibility, but also shifted some of the power and funding streams of “traditional media,” this included the newspaper, radio, and even television (Gasper). With the existing digital platforms such as YouTube and Apple, these methods are no longer dominated by the 20th century platforms. Audiences start at multiple points along a flow. Some might even be aware of what’s being presented and others could have some sort of understanding. However, content can individually and even collectively serve to affect an increase in audience understanding and help home an emotional connection between the audience and the issue that is showed to them. Because of media’s evolution, it became cost effective to move away from broad brush, large volume content development and distribution to targeted “campaigns” focused on specific messages and outcomes, even for large media outlets. Purchasers of media are becoming savvier, not only securing access to specific audiences, but combining platforms to ensure their content reaches the right people at the right time in the right amount to communicate their message and affect their desired outcomes.

The tools of social media have reinvented social activism. With different types like Facebook and Twitter, the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, allowing it to be easier for the weak to collaborate, coordinate, and give a voice to their concerns. Fifty years after one of the most unbelievable episodes of social upheaval in our history, we seem to forget what activism is. One crucial fact about four freshman was their relationship with one another. The kind of activism associated with social media isn’t the same as regular media. Gladwell did quote that, “The platforms of social media are built around weak ties,” since Twitter was a way of following or be followed by people you never met before in your life (406). Facebook is a place to effectively manage your acquaintances to keep up with the people we would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with. The acquaintances are actually the greatest source of brand new ideas and info. The Internet would let us unleash the power of these kinds of far connections with outstanding efficiency. It’s incredible at the diffusion of innovation, collaboration, matching up buyers and sellers, and the options in the world of dating which helps with dating change. However, weak ties can lead to high-risk activism. The civil-rights movement was an example of such a thing. However, it was also strategic one indeed which was a challenge to the structure that was mounted with precision and discipline. The second crucial distinction between traditional activism and the online variant is that social media are not about hierarchical organization. Facebook and the other sites are tools for building networks, which can be helpful for getting involved with social change. Unlike hierarchies, networks aren’t controlled by a single central authority. Decisions are made through some sort of agreement, and the ties that bind people to the group would also get loose which can cause everything to be easier when creating some sort of program that can put together ways of change. The structure would make networks enormously resilient and adaptable in low-risk moments, Wikipedia being a great example since it doesn’t have an editor, just sitting in New York, who would direct and correct each entry that appears every time. The effort of putting together every entry is organized by itself. If every entry in Wikipedia were erased tomorrow, the content would easily be recovered since that’s what happens when a network of thousands devote their time to a job at the same time which means. However, there are many things that networks don’t do well since nothing is truly perfect. Take car companies as an example since they use a network to organize their hundreds of suppliers, but not to design their cars. No one has believed that the articulation of a coherent design philosophy would be handled by a sprawling, leaderless organizational system. “Because networks don’t have a centralized leadership structure and clear lines of authority, they have real difficulty reaching consensus and setting goals,” says Gladwell since they cannot think in a strategic manner and they are prone to conflict and error (410). The drawbacks of networks scarcely matter if the network isn’t really interested in systemic which if it would just want to frighten, humiliate, make a splash, or if it doesn’t need to think a strategy, but if we’re taking on a powerful and organized system you must need a hierarchy to help with that. Strategies with very high risks are boycotts, sit-ins, and nonviolent confrontations and were used as weapons of choice for the civil-rights movement. However, these strategies leave little room for any sort of conflict and a single error can probably make the whole strategy fall apart an example being that the moment even one protestor would even deviate from the script and responds to provocation, the whole moral legitimacy of that entire protest would be compromised completely.

Our tools are everywhere, connected to our minds, working together as one. At their best, technology today can help us see more, retain more, and communicate more. The biases of today’s digital tools are that they allow for prodigious external memory record on a routine more information than any tool before them, makes it easier for us to find connections that were in the past invisible, and finally encourage a superfluity of communication and publishing which can help get involved with any kind of making a change. Thompson told us that, “The superfluity of communication today has produced everything form a rise in crowd-organized projects like Wikipedia to curious new forms of expression: television-show recaps, map-based storytelling, discussion threads that spin out of a photo posted to a smartphone app, Amazon product-review threads wittily hijacked for political satire.” (349-50). None of the three digital biases is immutable now since they’re the product of software and hardware which can easily be altered or ended if the architects of today’s new tools can decide to regulate the tools or see that they’re not able to turn in any sort of profit. But at the moment these huge effects dominated the current and near-term landscapes. In one perspective, infinite memory, dot connecting, and explosive publishing are extremely obvious to anybody who’s ever used a computer though somehow it constantly surprises us by creating new tools that can set on its end our mental habits in ways that we have never expected and not often understand even as they can take hold which can be the reward from social change. These things have already woven themselves so deep into the lives of people around the world that it’s difficult to stand back and take any account of how much things could have changed and why. So there are trends at work here. There’s the emergence of omnipresent storage, which is set upending the way we would remember usually, both as individuals and as a culture. Next, there’s the advent of “public thinking” which is the ability to broadcast ideas and the catalytic effect that has both inside and outside our minds. We’re actually becoming more conversational thinkers which was a shift that was rocky, not least because the public thought everyday would pull out the incivility and prejudices that are repressed in face-to-face life. However, at its best which is often, it’s a thrilling development which is reigniting ancient traditions of dialogue and debates. Thompson has also told us that, “At the same time, there has been an explosion of brand new forms of expression that were previously too expensive for everyday thought—- like video, mapping, or data crunching.” (352). Awareness is shifting, too, as we develop “ambient awareness,” a persistent sense of what others are doing and thinking. The thing that can make us optimistic about the future is how it can easily resemble the past. During the sixteenth century, humanity has faced a wave of information overload with the explosion of books that began with the codex and went into overdrive with the movable type.

Social media: websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking and social change: the alteration in the social order of a society; two different meanings that can have a very strong link with each other can create a very strong relationship. The technology involved to pass these ways of social change and social media like Facebook and Twitter can evolve as the years go by. Nothing is perfect as there are ups and downs to work with in technology especially how social media can influence social change in the new era though the question is that what is the relationship that binds them together? The answer would be that social media can be used as a platform for people to express their opinions and advocate for a societal issue they feel strongly about and allowing an avenue for people to create opportunities for the community to get involved in that specific problem, in which can cause an influence in the informational flow of an audience to create social change.