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What is Social Media : Why we Use & How we see it as culture

What is Social Media : Why we Use & How we see it as culture  

Social Media as culture and practice is part of my course. The first session of this course is about what is social media and why we use it for. A person who doesn't embrace the culture of social media is "currently living in back in 90's its a powerful tool to express opinions and connect globally". [Fouts, 2009]. Sharing pictures, emotions, places and connecting with friends & family is social media for. The Cambridge dictionary defines social media as of,

"forms of media that allow people to communicate and share information using the internet or mobile phones:" [Cambridge, 2018]. 

Why we use social media for? There are many reasons to join social media, I have joined it because my friends from school and college already there and I wanted to stay connected with them. One of the reasons I want to see what were they doing and where are they living now how their social life change. Another reason that why I used social media is to see the viral videos that might be funny or something that I never have seen before for this kind of activity I prefer sites such as youtube.

I am a big fan of football and want to stay connected with the favorite football club (Manchester United) and social media make it easier for me to reach the pages and communities where the current discussion going on the football team performance. There is an official page of the club where the news and the latest updates available for the fans.

I am studying Public Relation and what I have learned so far is to make relationship engage people with your Idea's. Social media is an important part of my course to understand the new methods to engage the audience. The main reason now I become more social media person is to learn the tactics and strategies to become the Influencer. The reason behind is that "the power is moving from the hands of the journalists to social media influencer and internet celebrities" [Abidin, 2018]. PR practitioners who are not using the influencing technique cannot explain their story to readers or audience. Because sites with articles published which are little-known spread fake news "audience engaged and viral on facebook people share them without a reason" [Dice, 2016].

Talking about social media as a culture; that means adopting some new method to attract people towards your social life, increasingly people strive to build their audience to become internet celebrities, influencers, and Vloggers. The massive changes that take place in social life due to influence "ideas of emergence occur and change perhaps even new methods apply for the transformation"  (Jenks, 2003).


An example of Influence or Internet celebrity we can assume is when a person gains fame with a unique idea and uses social media as a platform to promote themselves to the masses. An example of this is shown at the end of season six of the TV series“Gossip Girl". When the gossip girl’s identity is revealed, Penn Badgley who played the role "Dan Humphrey" explains the reasoning behind the decision saying "You're no one Until You're Talked About”. In the series, he wrote the first blog post lonely boy and he thinks people make fun of him but at least people are talking about him. (Gossip Girl, 2012).

His Innovated idea to make something that can make him famous person to talk about from start till end all the power remain under his hands and that is how social media controlling life if a People becomes addicted to it. His idea of The "Gossip Girl" blog become the social culture; he successfully enters into the life of the people to whom he never met and know everything about them. He did not force them to tell what they are doing or what they think its social media users of his blog who send him updates to write a post.

An author explores the aim of such people is "asserting power, gaining satisfaction, and prestige this all can be done with a low chance of getting caught acting behind as an anonymous person" [Kowlaski, 2008: 56]. The control and power remained in the hands of the Gossip Girl because they could use it to manipulate the people around them.

My point of view about social media is that it is an excellent platform to share news, events, live events, and connected. I think spending more time on social media is not entertaining the social media should be for a limit. Social media is becoming more useful for people who want to become Internet celebrities or Influencers from Youtube videos, Facebook pages, and Instagram and Twitter posts. I believe that social media engage more users and give the opportunity to people to share their opinions. Social media has both kinds of impact on social life and culture but depends on people how they use it for what purpose.

References:

Abidin. C, 2018, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online, USA

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Dictionary, Social Media, available at [https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/social-media] accessed on 12 November 2018

Dice. M, 2016, The True Story of Fake News: How Mainstream Media Manipulates Millions, USA

Fouts. J, 2009, Social Media Success!: Practical Advice and Real World Examples for Social, USA

Gossip Girl Wikia, 2012, Season 6 (Episode New York, I Love You Xoxo), available at [http://gossipgirl.wikia.com/wiki/New_York,_I_Love_You_XOXO] accessed on 2nd December 2018

Jenks. C, Culture: Critical Concepts in Sociology, Volume 1, London

Kowalski, R. Limber, S. P, and Agatson. W, 2008, Cyberbullying: Bullying in the digital age. Malden, MA: Blackwell