I was wondering if I could speak up about social media across the globe, because it’s really a big topic to cover in a single writing. Now the world has turned to become a global village and everyone knows about this new media. However, we don’t even know how to use this media? According to the definition of social media, “Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. The Office of Communications and Marketing manages the main Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, YouTube, and so forth.
We can see all those events happening around the globe just on a click or in our social trending. We never thought about the power of social media, because we use these mediums, platforms without any specific knowledge of it. Now there are some questions came up in my mind regarding this particular issue(s).
Why do we need a degree to apply for a schoolteacher job? Why do we need specific degrees to become a doctor, engineer, scientist or any others professional? In addition, many more questions could be possible to ask…
The simple and straightforward answer is, because that specific degree shows that, you have the specific knowledge of these things, which would be useful for your profession or field.
Despite all of this, what happens these days? Everyone shares unauthentic posts and other stuff like that, because that material appeals (you will read the word appeal throughout this article) to the subscribers of the social networking sites to do share this in the great interest of humanity, or help people to stay informed. We do not bother to confirm this news, and start following that page without any search and research. Moreover, we do share that piece of the post on our social networking walls. Now what happens? Because of our mutual ties, others do the same job and that news becomes viral. It is a strategy of “viral marketing”, to get your stuff viral in very short period. In late 90s, and early 20s, social media made its own specific room in public realm. It is your personal media; you can use this according to your needs.
In Central Asia, and South East Asia we often use social media to kill our time, or just for fun or other stuff like to create amusement at very low level. We must bear in mind that it is a new media, and it is a new era. When first newspaper published, it was very different by all the means of current newspapers. Because, that was appealing to the old time and that must have been representing to that time. Now its 21st century and it has its own rules. We should use this new media with some great responsibilities.
In Europe or western world, people use this media to communicate and spread the information instantly. Nevertheless, we in Asia, we do the same but in our own way. We do amendment in the real/actual news and spread fake news by appealing with top high priority.
We should educate to our new generation regarding social media Activities, because social media is a pillar of our society and if we used this medium without authentic knowledge, it would be as an ordinary bus driver is trying to take off airbus A380 that is quite big aircraft of the new era.
It was in late 90s-20s earlier, when people used to watch TVs, listen to the radio and reads newspapers, magazines frequently, but now they all turned to the new media. All conventional media clips, reports and other stuff is now available on social media, because social media provides you a wide range of entertainment on your cell phones and smart devices.
New media particularly appeals to the teenagers: Teens often imagine their audience to be those that they have chosen to “friend” or “follow,” regardless of who might actually see their pro?le. In theory, privacy settings allow teens to limit their expressions to the people they intend to reach by restricting who can see what. On MySpace and Twitter – where privacy settings are relatively simple – using settings to limit who can access what content can be quite doable. Yet, on Facebook, this has proven to be intractable and confusing, given the complex and constantly changing privacy settings on that site. Moreover, many teens have good reasons for not limiting who can access their pro?le. Some teens want to be accessible to peers who share their interests. Others recognize that privacy settings do little to limit parents from snooping or stop friends from sharing juicy messages.
Many teens complain about parents who look over their shoulders when they are on the computer or friends who copy and paste the updates and forward them along. To complicate matters, just because someone is a part of a teen’s imagined audience doesn’t mean that this person is actually reading what’s posted. When social media sites offer streams of content – as is common on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram – people often imagine their audience to be the people they are following. But these people may not be following them in return or see their posts amid the avalanche of shared content. As a result, regardless of how they use privacy settings, teens must grapple with who can see their pro?le, who actually does see it, and how those who do see it will interpret it.
Teens’ mental model of their audience is often inaccurate, but not because teens are naive or stupid. When people are chatting and sharing photos with friends via social media, it is often hard to remember that viewers who are not commenting might also be watching. This is not an issue unique to teens, although teens are often chastised for not accounting for adult onlookers. But just as it’s easy to get caught up in a conversation at a dinner party and forget about the rest of the room, it’s easy to get lost in the back-and-forth on Twitter. Social media introduces additional challenges, particularly because of the persistent and searchable nature of most of these technical systems. Tweets and status updates aren’t just accessible to the audience who happens to be following the thread as it unfolds; they quickly become archived traces, accessible to viewers at a later time. These traces can be searched and are easily reposted and spread. Thus, the context collapses that teens face online rarely occur in the moment with con?icting onlookers responding simultaneously. They are much more likely to be experienced over time, as new audiences read the messages in a new light.
Social media mostly attract to the teenagers, and it is because of their age. They seldom post their ongoing activities to stay connected with their loved ones, friends, and followers. During the first year of my social media studies, I studied “danah boyd”, an American researcher, who researched on social networking and wrote her famous book “it’s complicated”.
I would urge to our new generation to study her pioneer book, and it is available in portable document format (PDF).
The writer is a student of New Media (Social Media) at IULM University Milan, Italy (International University of Languages and Media) and is the first Asian student who is studying social media in Europe. He is a professional storywriter, scriptwriter and storyteller.
He can be reached at:
Mumtaz.hussain@me.com