Keyword Project

My phrase is “Event” and right away was caught off guard from the opening line. The author Julia Sonnevend starts the article by rephasing a line on what an event is. “An event is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”. This took a bit for me to understand but became content with it. She then didn’t provide the actual definition from the Oxford English Dictionary. With the definition being a thing that happens or takes place especially one of importance. Sonnevend then goes into the history of the word. It dates back to the 16th century and originates from the Latin word Eventus. She then goes into detail and how events are relegated to philosophers historians and sociologists usually. But then says how advanced misbehaving innovate as often as teenagers do and go into more on how events are broader than just historians’ philosophies and sociologists. And then goes into media events such as the JFK assassination or the Vietnam war and even goes into defining what media scandals are in terms of communication in media. Examples of this are the Olympic games in the Watergate scandal with Nixon. She didn’t mention media events that have no life coverage events that are not on television and also events that I celebrated in one country but not another such as the fall of the Berlin Wall. She especially wanted to go into media events that you know maybe of importance in today’s age with it being digital. she came over for features of events in media hi lady how to do digital era makes each feature more salient The power of the occurrence vis-a-vis, it’s narrative as an event, The witnesses who tell the story of an event the embodiment of the event in a variety of media and the travel of events across cultural in geographic boundaries. For occurrences, she mentions how Terrace attacks could be narrated in opposing ways with one way being the wanton of destruction or an active observance of a higher moral order. This just shows the narratives with certain events can be different for people depending on a side that’s being taken for the event. Then moves on to witnessing an event. This could be related to digital news in general with any news happening or event that happens nowadays being so publicized on the Internet. When an event happens there’s always a lot of viewpoints that anyone can see on websites such as Twitter. With the example of the terrorist attacks that the author gave, we could see the same thing happen with a recent tragedy with the death of Kobe Bryant. There were many who were saddened by the tragic news and expressed their condolences to the Bryant family. There was also a side of people who were relentless after the news broke out as there were some bringing up Kobe Bryant having been accused of rape in the past. So again we have the side of where people reflect on themselves after the event happens since people are learning the lesson on how life is short. Then you have the side that takes the event as a means to bring something or someone down. You have to decide on how people are all about the destruction of a certain object or person in a media event. When thinking of events I like to think of events that have a huge presence on social media platforms. As I said already with the death of Kobe Bryant being a great example with it being a huge event in the media world. Social Media itself seems to always have “events” big or small every day. Whether its Twitter with its trending list or Instagram with its biggest users reacting to the news. Social Media platforms are innovative in the way news is distributed to us and how we interact with one another when talking about the news. In Christian Fuchs “Social Media and the public sphere” he goes into how social media platforms form a public sphere between people.

The reading by Christian Fuchs gives examples of researchers and their reasoning of digital media being a public sphere. Examples such as the one Jean Burgess and Joshua Green gave with the video platform of Youtube being a public sphere since it enables people to different cultures and political differences with the videos being user submitted from around the world. Similar to Zizi Papacharissi’s contribution by giving the example of political opinions being expressed in vlogs or discussion groups or and mentions youtube as well, Papacharissi called it virtual sphere 2.0. The reading challenges the idealism of a public sphere. “Social media, however, brings up the question if not all media are in one respect or another social. This depends on how one defines the social aspect”. The reading goes into the social theory based on this with social media proving to be a part of it. There’s no doubt that the emergence of social media has revolutionized the way people connect and inform each other around the world for better or worse. The Inescapable Town Square reading shows this with it initially praising social media to then showing its flaws of it to society. Reading begins with it saying how social media was a powerful tool for revolutions such as the “Twitter Revolution” being about Iranians protest of the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.“Without Twitter, the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy,” wrote a spokesman under the George W. bush. Social Media was being praised for its way of better the ways of global politics but this was long ago. The reading argues on whether or not social media is still good in today’s climate with the author L. M. Sacasas saying how “that social media platforms have had a corrupting influence on public discourse”. It seems the overall argument is whether or not social media is the new main way of communication and whether or not it’s leaving a positive impact or not. I myself think social media greatly supports a public sphere as it gives opportunities for communication where otherwise we wouldn’t have without it. It’s easy not to get in touch with people and for them to get in touch with you but do take note of the information you share may be shared for unethical reasons to corporations and also the political aspect of it with the spread of news whether true or not. The word “Event” can relate to this as an event consists of some occurrence on the ground and related narrative of an event( Sonnevend, 111). Events such as the Iranian protest of the re-election of a political leader. Public spheres are all about communication and with it taking place in a digital space the amount of discussion that can be contributed from people around the world on a certain topic or “event” is unimaginable. The 2016 election is the greatest example of the public sphere within a digital space such as with platforms as twitter being used as a means to influence voters on whom to vote for. The event aspect can be what’s trending as I remember when a presidential debate was happening, it would be trending #1 on Twitter.

The Atlantic Article “What Facebook Did to American Democracy” by Alexis C. Madrigal delves deeper into the political influence that Facebook has. She brings up how no one really saw Trump winning the 2016 election and how the distribution of information/disinformation on Facebook may have helped him. The article mainly is how Trump shouldn’t have been a surprise as Facebook had been very influential in the political aspect way before the 2016 elections. Madrigal Links a few articles writing on how Facebook can turn the tide in the political world, with some even dating back as far as 2011. This just goes into how Facebook can set up the success of a campaign, again leading to a Poltical event with it being discussed on social media as an event on the website itself.

When thinking of recent “events”, especially those that have such a presence on social media, I think of big influencers such as David Dobrik. Pictured above is arguably the most popular influencer that’s not related to a Kardashian in any way, David Dobrik. Dobrik started his stardom by way of using the now-defunct app called Vine. He gained about 2 million followers by the end of its life cycle but foresaw its end coming so then he began to make youtube videos. He began to upload vlogs of his life on his channel and continued to do so for the next few years leading up to today. Where he averaged 10 million views per video and has 15+ million subscribers that’s quickly growing still (this isn’t even counting his second youtube channel). Since he garners such a large audience, of course, some companies see an opportunity to use his content as a way of marketing, especially through his social media platforms. On Instagram, David Dobrik has 11 million followers. The picture above is of a post that was posted in December 2019 and maybe his most popular post yet. The post is sponsored by a company called seat geek and Dobrik explains how they are helping him give a brand new Tesla to a lucky user. All they had to do was follow both David and Seatgeek while also tagging friends in the comments. Lastly, they had to post the picture on their story. This was David’s way of processing like self-branding as he not only got millions to share his account but also the company that sponsored him. David also shows his personality through his youtube videos but as well on his Instagram stories in which he posts multiple daily. That post is just one of many that get that sort of engagement and normally doesn’t ask for it to be reposted. The post above can relate to the word “Event” as it indeed was a huge social media event. I saw the post on people’s stories countless times to the point of me even participating in it not knowing who David Dobrik was or did. The post was even used as a meme, that’s how big of a social media event it was. Dobrik uses social media to expand and have his fanbase actively engage with him. This post certainly was the start of even me becoming a fan of him so that shows how his use of social media is working for him. As with David Dobrik being a big social media event the seemingly most popular ongoing world event that has a continuous presence on media is the topic of the Corona Virus.

As the writing of this, the topic of the coronavirus is one that is seemingly impossible to ignore. A virus that is considered to have started an outbreak in Asian countries to then spread to European countries to finally reaching the U.S is the hottest topic next to the 2020 election. This is by far the biggest event as of recent, to the point where memes are being made about the virus. The only time something is frequently made memes of on social media is when it’s such a big part of media culture. No matter the platform you will see news or memes on the coronavirus and rightfully so as the death toll from the virus continues to rise around the world. If you look up Coronavirus on Google you will be linked to many media outlets including the live reporting page on the virus from the New York Times and The Washington Post. Both outlets have pages solely dedicated to any news that comes out on the virus as if it’s a twitter feed that forever updating. The virus is being portrayed also as if it’s a pending end of the world scenario that is incoming. ABC is guilty of this as they made a youtube video that seems to be fear-mongering(Video linked below). The music used in the video sounds like something straight out of a horror movie almost as if it’s they directed the video to scare people purposely. This is surely a world event that both take a large presence on media and in conversation in general. The same thing is happening again as well as this event is showing two sides with one leaving people to reflect on how important it is to sterilize and others who are stating how the outbreak is being blown out of proportion and consider the flu more dangerous. The question is how long this outbreak will last and what the next big “event” will be that takes over media.

NOTES

“Coronavirus Live Updates: Italy Is Putting Much of Its North on Lockdown.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Mar. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/03/08/world/coronavirus-news.html.

Abc News. At Least 12 Dead, 188 Infected in US as Coronavirus Continues to Spread | Nightline. ABC NEWS, 7 Mar. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hB13abLQkE&t=390s.

“Coronavirus Live Updates: State Department Warns against Cruise Travel; Ted Cruz Shook Hands with CPAC Patient.” The Washington Post, WP Company, www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/03/08/coronavirus-live-updates/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_virus-lb-0308-1238am%3Aprime-time%2Fpromo&itid=hp_hp-top-table-main_virus-lb-0308-1238am%3Aprime-time%2Fpromo.

Madrigal, Alexis C. “What Facebook Did to American Democracy.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 16 Nov. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/10/what-facebook-did/542502/.

Fuchs, Christian. “Social Media and the Public Sphere.” TripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/552.

“DAVID DOBRIK (@Daviddobrik) • Instagram Photos and Videos.” Instagram, www.instagram.com/daviddobrik/?hl=en.