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Social Media And Its Effect On Society

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When Social media first began to be popular, it looked much different than what we think of when we think of social media today. There was MySpace and Facebook, and if you did not have one or the other, you needed to take a look at your life and your choices. MySpace and Facebook became a way to fit in. It began to change the way we think about friendships and communication. Everyone had MySpace because you had to be a part of a registered institution to be on Facebook, and when that day came, it was glorious. Now 829 million people use Facebook on the daily (Latka, 2014). While that seems like a lot, today we now have more options to choose from when it comes to sharing our lives with the world, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Yik Yak, …show more content…

Two of these issues, as they relate to higher education, that stand out the most include the issues of free speech and student safety. As we look at where the mentality of students came from, we will be able to better understand issues facing higher education administration today as it related to social media and its use on college and university campuses. When we look at social media, where did these issues stem from? Charles Gulas, Kim McKeage, and Marc Weinberger, in their article It’s Just a Joke, they discuss where the issues we see in social media with the way that people portray themselves comes from (Gulas, McKeague, & Weinberger, 2010). They argue that the “It’s just a joke” mentality stems from the portrayal of negative stereotypes in the mass media that bleeds into the social media (Gulas, McKeague, & Weinberger, 2010). In the mass media and advertising, violence is made humorous, for example in the article, they play out an ad for Progressive insurance where the female creates a voodoo doll in the likeness of her “Cheatin’ Boyfriend”, she then inflicts pain on the boyfriend via the voodoo doll, and the world laughs (Gulas, McKeague, & Weinberger, 2010). We see these ads with violence as humorous because we know that it is “just a joke”, but at what point is it no longer a joke? While this article focuses on violence towards men, there can be found examples of violence towards others as well that perpetuate the humor in violence with the excuse that

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