The forms of new media that I use on a daily basis are primarily social networking sites such as Facebook as well as various miscellaneous online forums that pertain to a particular subject I may be interested in or that I am seeking to gain more knowledge on. With a seemingly constant information flow of major events, stories, and ideas being spread by an ever growing number of people, I have learned to take every piece of digital information I see with a grain of salt instead of blindly accepting it at face value. I view the information I consume not necessarily as the truth, but rather as a small piece of a complex puzzle that will ultimately help lead me to the truth. For the most part, new media has been a positive influence, in that it allows for an incredible variety of perspectives and facilitates open dialogue. This serves to create a greater number of puzzle pieces that can be used to construct an even more detailed account of the truth. However, new media does have the potential to negatively influence us. As easy as new media has made it for people to rapidly disseminate accurate, factual information, it has made it just as easy for people to disseminate biased, falsified information. The trouble arises when we act on such false information as if it were the truth, which can result in anything ranging from internal societal divisions, to major geopolitical upheavals. In the age of new media, we must strive to seize the many blessings it offers while staying on guard of its potential to become a curse should we fail to develop ourselves into a media literate citizenry.
I think this is a very insightful blog entry. I also take what I read online with a grain of salt and know the truth lies somewhere in middle. When researching a topic I check multiple sources and try to piece together what seems to be the most accurate. I also agree with you as far as how social media can create a firestorm of negative activity when information is reported inaccurately. It is so difficult to regulate as it is immediate and as a society it seems that most of us are looking for that instant gratification. Unfortunately this tends to lead to negative consequences in certain instances rather than positive. - Betsy Devillier
ReplyDeleteGreat Blog!
ReplyDeleteI agree, and I think that Social Media serves a vital role in our culture. Social Media also serves as a tool to expose the most vile side of society as well. Social Media is like a veil, people can post and upload content with malicious intent without fully understanding the ramifications of their posting. One lapse in judgement can end a career. Take Elliot Spitzer for example. He Tweeted a "peen" pic, it ended his political career and damaged his marriage. As a society we have to think beyond 25 characters if we want to maintain our morals and ethics outside of Social Media.
I can totally agree with taking everything you see posted with a grain of salt. I am on several social sites. I use them to receive my news, stay connected with friends and pure entertainment at times. But when I cross things such a deaths and others that may seem real, I force myself to research and try to piece it together. Usually you would trust the person and what they're sharing to be true, but sometimes it isn't, one of the down sides of social media.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of the positive and negative media, I think of Facebook and the news immediately. Facebook has allowed me to keep in touch with everyone I have become friends with and of course my family as well. We get to keep track of birthdays, first days of school, and engagements. We are also able to see videos and pictures of events we were unable to attend. The downside is that for one, our personal security is at risk. Service Members and their families are being targeted and terrorists are actually researching via Facebook. I had taken a workshop a few years ago and they discussed online security. To push their perspective, they described a training task done by NCIS. The trainees were told a name of a high ranking officer and given thirty minutes to gather all the Intel they could. At the end of that time, they were able to name all his family members, including the dog. They also knew the sons soccer schedule, the older daughter's university, where they preferred to vacation, and that they shopped at a certain local grocery store. It is extremely scary what people can discover online in such a short amount of time!
ReplyDeleteThe news gets me so frustrated that I rarely watch it. Story after story they are discussing death, thievery, political issues, and abuse. I understand that those stories get ratings, but if they could at least balance it with positive stories we could maybe feel like the world wasn't ending! I do not care to watch stories about cute cats or dancing dogs. I am talking about stories of our men and women overseas building schools or creating clean drinking water. It would be great to see stories about triumphs in our school systems, law enforcement helping youth, or incredible health survival miracles. I honestly believe that the amount of negativity in the media effects the negativity with the people using it.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned the upside of social media for keeping in contact with family. We have the sibling circle on Facebook as there are six of us scattered between Houston, Tampa, Atlanta and Seattle. If you start adding the nieces and nephews, it becomes much bigger. The strange thing I have noticed is the willingness of the younger generation to post their emotions every five minutes. My sister and I chalk it off to the fact that they grew up in the digital age and have not learned the importance of personal branding. We are taking about students in some of the best colleges in the country, not teenagers taking their photo in the bathroom mirror. Strangely enough, there are celebrities who do the very same thing. One of my friends just discovered the plethora of “unboxing” videos on YouTube. Duh, where has she been? If you can think of an idea, there is a matching YouTube video. You are right about the “blessing side”. If you have a software issue, you can find an answer. If you need to know more about a subject, some of the best universities have posted classes on it. The world is one gigantic encyclopedia and the library is now at our fingertips. How cool is that!!!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree! I hardly believe any of the posts and articles that I see on Facebook or any of the other social media sites. As a matter of fact i'm always shocked when I see that something I saw posted on Facebook turns out to be fact. Like you say bad information is allowed to run ramped through out the site misinforming numerous people who don't take the time to verify the information before spreading it themselves.
ReplyDeleteVery good blog entry!! In general everything you hear or see on social media and even on the news is not true. I guess is a great idea to always take time to do research to get to the bottom of a story, but really who has time to do that every time there's a situation at hand? Eventually the true story always surface and I usually go with that.
ReplyDeletePatrick - I'm happy to hear that your experience with social media has mostly been positive.
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