Social Media
Through out the history in the 20th century individulas adapted the concept of sharing on the mass media which is completly different from what we now know as social media. “ All media are social media. But only a particular subset of all media are fundamentally defined by their sociality ” Baym(2014). Their way of passing on information is through television, radio, newspaper and more, however, there was only one to many distribution model. Then came the 21st century and the birth of the Social Media which differed alot than what was called Mass Media. We stepped into a world to a culture of constant engagement and endless information, using many to many distribution model. The love for people to engage and stay updated to the latest news and become part of the conversation is the main why societies have maintained a culture of sharing throughout history.It provides the user of social media with many benefits :staying in touch with friends, family, colleagues, etc and staying updated on their interests, sharing your likes and dislikes gives you the opportunity to expand your horizon and meet people with the exact same opinion as you feeling the sense of belonging, participation, diversity,maintaining trust and many more.This benefits the receiver of the data, and the sender of the data and the society. All of theses benefits are working together to create a more efficient society “social capital”where everyone can be involved, anywhere, at anytime from sharing personal opinions and information, to building connections with people,to creating trust,to feeling a sense of belonging. Doing all this sharing poses the question: How do they help us to achieve our goals and to live well, both as individuals and as a society? well the more people post the more insight we got on their lives and interests where later on can be used to their benefit as individuals on personal matters and as a whole society by listening to the voices of their people.Yes, they are invading a bit of ones privacy but that could be seen as a benefit if you are thinking of interests.
Most of the sharing takes place on some sort of social media platform, now how much of the social capital can we acquire? is the question to be asked. When they have an insight on peoples personal information, there should be a proportional compensation to what they are providing to individuals and the society. The more they know, the more they compensate. All indivdiual user benefit in one way or another according to their interests and the society from what peoples opinions are on the news. By personalizing each and every individuals media and the freedom of choice in whatever they post shows some how of an even distribution and sharing of information.
We have some what control over the kind of social capital we can generate through online social networks due to many factors. A couple of factors are : the montoring they have over our social media accounts plays a role in what kind of social capital we generate and the information we post . I beleive that whoever generates these social media plaforms sets the terms and conditions for our ability to benefit from it. The creators of theses platforms say that we are in control of whatever we say and do on our social media. This might be true but they definitely have something to do with the converstaion. due to the way they formate the information and give us the sense of control makes us believe slaves to these platforms.
In conclusion all the investments we put into our social media accounts gives these platforms all the control over what we see, do, and understand, and financial gains rights. Each and everyone of us using social media is some what of a shareholder in these companies with rights and freedom of sharing. Even though we do not have full control we have enough control to reach out and create a community of freedom of speech. There might be exploitation of social capital of sharing but we allowed this to happen without thinking twice. We may think we are controlling the media but in reality they might be much smarter that they are controlling us in discrete.
