Social Media And Its Impact On New Media

Weber highlights the dual position of mass media, which operate both as transmission vectors and as actors. The philosopher argues that the emergence of media monopolies, especially in television, transformed information into “pre-formation” (Phillips, 2011, p.170). Indeed, journalists and reporters used to process raw data, analyze it, and provide their readers with more or less relevant keys to enable them to form their own enlightened outlook on the content presented. With the advent of information technologies, the focus has shifted towards less analysis and a larger volume of “news”: “Transparency here would equate with immediacy of meaning and accessibility of comprehension” (Phillips, 2011, p.163). News TV channels offer a constant loop of raw data over raw data. They provide only superficial critiques of the material that they offer to their viewers: ”as you say, not so long ago the notion of information ‘implied a process of alteration’: it was developed to take into account the inevitable aleatory effects of space and time in the transmission of data.” (Phillips, 2011, p.170). Social media has intensified the thirst for fast circulating, humongous volumes of material, which is doubly mistaken for information and transparency: “it [social media, author’s note] can stimulate the expectation that ‘then’ is

The authors, Yarimar Bonilla and Jonathan Rosa chose disciplines with the background in communications, sociology, and public affairs. These three disciplines are not only present in this article but also represent the issue as a whole. Social media reflects communication, society’s behavior portrays sociology, and the political viewpoints symbolize public affairs. Key concepts like ethnography, police brutality, social media, and activism are all exercised in the article to help determine if a hashtag could become a field site. Research methods such as communication research and content analysis are evident throughout the article. For example, the article discusses a numerical description by stating, “during the initial week of protests, over 3.6 million posts appeared on Twitter documenting and reflecting on the emerging details surrounding Michael Brown’s death” (Bonilla & Rosa 2015). The article does not directly state any key thinkers nor key theories but Black Lives Matter founders Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi all encourage the content of the article and the supported sources.

In order to explore these well-defined frames in the media, we have narrowed down the period to focus on the key events that have caused more recent responses in the media. To explore this, we will be using framing and cultivation theory to examine how individuals feel regarding the hashtags and compare this to how the media is portraying the movement in the media. As mentioned above, the BLM and ALM movement have been in the news off and on for a while. However, we have chosen to focus our study on the news regarding the BLM and ALM movements starting on February 24, 2015 through August 10, 2015. February 24, 2015 was chosen as the starting point as this was the day that the Justice Department announced that they were no longer pursuing a federal hate crime case relating to the death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida (Berman &Horwitz 2015). This particular event helped the BLM movement gain momentum in the media and online. This allows us the opportunity to examine the frames during peak points in public interest and to include some more recent deaths that have been connected to the

In this age, the traditional method of news delivery is dead. Gone are the days when newspapers and television news anchors were the primary source of information. In today fast paced society, no person has the time to read a newspaper or watch a news segment. Most individuals receive their news from social media. Social media provides a stage on which any one person could inform others on what occurs around them that they might be blind to. According to Ethan Zuckerman, author of Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection, “Social media’s significance is that it is recognising different incidents that might have gone unnoticed and sewing them together as a coherent whole”(qtd, in Day). A single trending topic on Twitter can convey the ideas of a movement and create a global conversation about the topic within a matter of minutes. Such conversation would have not occurred without the help of social media. Ideas flow freely through countries and now reach more and more people. Social media has been able to aide movements such as the Black Lives Matter to broadcast the injustices being committed to a global audience. The Black Lives Matter movement has been able to show to the world the inhumane and unjust treatments of African-Americans in present day America by posting videos of unarmed African-American men being killed by police officers. Due to its overwhelming online

As time and history have progressed, the institution of media has captured and held control over the public ideology. In this modern capitalistic age, the power held over the media as developed and been re-directed. The media acts as the key distributor and translator of the ideology within our society throughout history and in the present day. However, the context in which we communicate is changing, and with this, the relationship and interaction between politics, media and public life have altered (Blair, T 2007). Changed to an extent where the information being relayed may indeed be harmful to society, in the absence of objective, complete and accurate relaying of information (Blair, T 2007). Though the free society that we operate in does

Media has more of an influence on public opinion that one would think. Society gets a majority of their information to develop their opinions from news sources and broadcasters. But what people don’t see is that there may be a hidden bias in these seemingly unbiased networks. What a network can or can’t produce is maybe even decided by a higher power. This project, through my observations on the Black Lives Matter movement, presented this issue and through it I’ve been able to develop my own conclusions about news agencies and how they choose to present the news that they do. Through my research, I have concluded that the information produced by news networks and sources depends on the popularity of the particular source, the political alignment

The advent of social networking platforms in the mid-1990s revolutionized the way we communicate. Founded in 2006, Twitter is a particularly unique platform that expands and accelerates our means of communication. In this essay, I examine Twitter's infrastructure with respect to Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium is the Message" and Roland Barthes' "Myth Today." I also cite Dhiraj Murthy's Social Communication in the Twitter Age and Bala A. Musa and Jim Willis' From Twitter to Tahrir Square: Ethics in Social and New Media Communication in my investigation of Twitter's impact on social participation and activism. Through my analyses, I argue that Twitter's infrastructure expands and accelerates our means of communication. I also argue that Twitter

There are two major perspectives on what role the media occupies in the current political landscape: Pluralist and Marxist. Those who support the pluralist perspective see the media as performing two essential tasks, “(1) it informs the public and (2) it acts as a watchdog on those in power” (Edkins, and Zehfuss 157). The second perspective on the media, the Marxist perspective, takes the following view, “For Marxists, the ruling class uses the media as a tool of persuasion: they try and convince everyone that the hierarchical structure of society is serving everyone’s interests, not just their own” (Edkins, and Zehfuss 158). The unifying trait of these perspectives is the belief that media is influential in the formation of public

In contrast to research on the protest paradigm and other marginalization devices that have a tendency toward negative coverage of protests, the work of Harlow and Johnson (2011) has suggested that new forms of media have created opportunities for legitimation of protest activity. Harlow and Johnson’s content analysis of coverage of the Egyptian Revolution protests by the New York Times, the Twitter feed of New York Times reporter Nick Kristof, and Global Voices, an international network of bloggers and citizen journalists, found that while the Times coverage stuck to the protest paradigm, Kristof and Global Voices diverged from the paradigm. The New York Times failed to fully explain why the protests were occurring, relied on routines and focused on the drama, spectacle, and violence of the protests rather than the protester’s grievances. The New York Times also used more official sources than citizen sources despite having reporters in Cairo. Some stories portrayed the protesters in a negative light by blaming them for travel delays and oil prices (Harlow & Johnson, 2011). Global Voices, on the other hand, was able to provide the context that the New York Times did not. Global Voices was more likely to use legitimizing and accountability frames, to portray the protesters positively and to use citizen

While many people put off and ignore the issue of social media and its downfalls, others say that people should think about how our lives are being affected by this advancement in technology, including, lack of human contact and precious time being lost due to consumption with social media. Social media is currently a highly controversial topic in which numerous people have mixed feelings. Society has typically viewed new advancements in technology as beneficial and a sign of success within their country. But, has it solely caused successful outcomes, or are there downfalls to these advancements?

I have constantly thought about intimacy amongst couples as a private and a special thing between them, and considered it as a cherished moment to be experienced concerning the two without the interruptions of others. Yet, nowadays, every notion of privacy is becoming blurred with the use of technology, and peoples’ interpretations of what is private and what is public has evolved over time with these new technological developments. The smartphone plays a significant role in changing peoples’ views on their privacy, and having these devices in hand at all times, with unlimited access to the internet, alongside countless applications and free social media platforms available to share their content has made it even easier to forget about the concept of privacy.

Today’s society revolves around the media. It is in sync with the clicks of a keyboard and with the voices on the television. Every day individuals find it arduous to stroll down the street without hearing the latest presidential or local controversy. Most toon into the news every morning and night, like clockwork. Some cannot function without technology and media for extended periods of time. Over generations, the media has been shaped by the social environment of the time period. For example, the climate of 2017 has made audiences question the media. Nevertheless, even though it may be unreliable and dishonest, the media is still necessary for the intent of keeping the public informed and entertained.

With the development of advances in technology, communication through social networking has risen immensely. Communicating is not only less complicated, it is also relatively inexpensive. “Many teens in relationships view social media as a place where they can feel more connected with the daily events in there significant other’s life, share emotional connections, and let their significant other know they care” (Lenhart, Anderson, and Smith). However, the ease of access to social networking has allowed many adolescents to become overly involved. Networking has the potential to influence adolescents both emotionally and physically which in turn may lead to negative behaviors. An article from procon.org stated, “The use of social networking sites is correlated with personality and brain disorders, such as the inability to have in-person conversations, a need for instant gratification, ADHD, and self-centered personalities, as well as addictive behaviors” (ProCon.org). Essentially, social networking has rising negative influences on teens because of increased cyber bullying, lack of respect for personal privacy, and its addictive qualities.

The term ‘social media’ has become a broad-term to describe a large number of online systems that serve as a platform for the generation, and distribution of user-generated content. Social media creates a virtual social space, where a large number of users come together and interact with one another. These interactions can be either structured, such as responses that are moderated on blogs, semi-structured, such as a discussion between an extended network on Facebook, or unstructured, such as the anarchial functioning of Twitter.

The term media is often represented within popular culture in varying degrees. To a great extent, there seems to be a tendency to interchange media and mass communication. In this regard, it is imperative and perhaps prudent to define media holistically before proceeding further. For purposes of coherence, the definition of media will be categorized into two spheres; traditional media and new media. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (2009), traditional media can be defined as the collective media technologies such as radio, newspapers, television, newsletter, magazines, and other print publications. New media, on the other hand, refers to the new generation of digital, computerized, or networked information and communication technologies (Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2009). Examples of new media include internet forums, blogs, wikis, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. There can be no gainsaying that the distinct role of the media, aside from providing entertainment, is the dissemination of information to the general public. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine how the media influences politics.