Social Media 's Impact On World Events

“Social media platforms held the promise of being more egalitarian and democratic than mass media in a sense that all users could equally participate and contribute content” (Dijck & Poell, 6). This explains a basic purpose of social media that remains consistent with the democratic values of freedom that the U.S. is founded upon by providing citizens with a platform where they are free to speak their mind. What makes this even more interesting is the ability for people to share their opinions on a stage that has relatively no geographical boundaries. Rather than restricting the spread of individuals’ beliefs, social networking sites help spread messages and information to anyone, faster than was previously possible. According to Dijck and Poell, “social media platforms seldom deal with ‘natural’ geographically or demographically delineated audiences; instead, they expedite connections between individuals, partly allowing the formation of strategic alliances or communities through users’ initiative” (Dijck & Poell, 8). Social networking sites are naturally designed to increase connectivity and interactions among individuals with common interests or beliefs. The idea of connectivity has significantly influenced the way in which protests are held in America and around the world.

Social media, Facebook specifically, has become one of the most successful forms of websites on the Internet. According to Facebook Company statistics (Info, 2016) there are over 1.65 billion monthly active users as of March 31, 2016. Additionally there are 1.09 billion daily active users for

Social Media is a form of communication in which a person shares information, personal ideas, and thoughts online. The foundation of social media began in 1997 when the first social media site Six Degrees was developed. Since 1997, social media has become an iconic name and has become part of this generation's conversation. There are over 100 million people using social media to gain access to the digital world, with over 20 social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram (Milanovic 1). Roughly 80 percent of teens and 20 percent of adults use social media daily and almost half of the users were bullied or criticized for a single comment. Comments that include discrimination, sexism, or political beliefs can be retweeted to thousands in a matter of hours. “Accusations go viral, globally, within hours, and instead of having dozens of angry voices baying for your blood, you have tens of thousands” (Haley 1). Although social media has made it easier to communicate these sites, make it easier to be critical or prejudiced to others online instead of face-to-face.

Stats require constant upgrading, but Facebook claims to have over 500 million active users, twitter has over 75 million accounts and LinkedIn near 80 million members. And it’s not just kids: Facebook users have an average age of 38.

Cited by Shari Veil, in her 2011 article, “Incorporating Social Media in Risk and Crisis Communication,” “Social media is at its core human communication, possessing characteristics of participation, openness, conversation, community, and connectedness.” This demonstrates how integral social media has become in our daily communication.

The term “social media” refers to the wide range of Internet-based and mobile services that allow users to participate in online exchanges, contribute user-created content, or join online communities (Dewing). It has become common today to use applications such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to express and share your thoughts, opinions, and common interest. In Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, writer Malcolm Gladwell touches upon the issues of social media’s role in activism vs. the traditional way of becoming a true activist Many of us today use these social networks for its beneficial approach to attract users and acquaintances to support their cause or

Social media was used for excellent work of some eyewitnesses who truly became amateur reporters. Johathan Fitzgerald began to see a great value to the stream of tweets and status updates that (sometime inaccurately) reported the news of the Marathon Bombings and the subsequent search for the bombers as it happened (Fitzgerald, 2014).

Social media can be seen from completely different aspects and points of views. A major role in these different opinions plays mostly the age of the beholder, because social media made an enormous change in the last 50 years. One very important aspect in our today’s society is to get as many information as possible in a very short time period ("Impacts of social media”) Through social media and especially social networks such as twitter and Facebook, the information gets spread extremely fast. There are for example reporters who search on those networks to get information for their news and articles. (“Impacts

Televised on live broadcast, the attacks took to social media which seemed to shape every aspect of the initial responses from the bombings with participants recapping their hellish experiences via their Facebook statuses to police and government authorities using Twitter to give instant updates and location warnings. Information about the bombings spread most quickly on social media than any traditional news outlet, with the hashtag ‘BostonMarathon’ mentioned over 700,000 times on Twitter within hours. The Boston Marathon bombing was a watershed moment, marking the changing role of social media and with The New York Times calling it, “America’s first fully interactive national tragedy of the social media

As a logical consequence, Postmes and Brunsting (2002) reasoned that the Internet is changing society because people's cognitive processes, triggered by access to information and communication, replace the strong social ties that traditionally underpin committed activism. In simpler words, in the past, humanity used the herd instinct as the main driving force behind committed forms of activism. Thanks to the Internet, we climb another step or three on the evolutionary ladder, and simply do away with the herd instinct and replace it with reason. The argument, if put this way, does not sound particularly strong. What can be taken away is that social media is still evolving, that social media changes the way we – or most of us communicate, that social media is used in social and political activism, and that the Internet increases quantitative if not qualitative access to information.

As technology develops rapidly in the modern society, the broad social influence it brings is also widely discussed, especially about its effects on social change. In the past, social movements were raised without the help of technology, specifically without social media, whereas social media has recently played a non-ignorable role. The connection between social media and social activisms concerned, here come some different voices. Few people maintain that social media now has no practical influence on social change, while others hold the opposite view, thinking social media is already a crucial factor in it. Personally speaking, I agree with the second kind of view: it is true that social media is not able to create social movements by itself in today’s world, but it plays an important and essential part in making real social change.

A huge advantage to both of these social networking sites is new and currently businesses wanting to become more recognized. It has been proved that the higher the current popularity, the bigger the future popularity will be as more and more people are joining. As of the 3rd October 2013, there are over 500 million people who use Facebook and Twitter. Below is a graph which shows the average amount of users who log in daily and how many log in from a mobile device.

According to Forbes, there are about 1 billion social media accounts all over the world, these accounts makes almost all of the countries of the world connected with each other.Social media is a very common in today’s modern world, social media is considered to be one of humanity’s greatest achievements and accomplishments. Never before humans were connected to each other as in today’s world. and almost everybody has a Facebook account, there are about 500 million Facebook accounts. Facebook allow its users to chat with each other, to see each other’s pictures, and to comment on any post. Which is very useful in the business and marketing world.

In more recent years, the mass media has begun to play a huge part in how the general public’s view on the world and how they receive their news. When mass media was first introduced, it shared news alongside the main conveyer – print, but with the growth of social media and the web, news has taken a technological turn. When it comes to sharing any form of news, it has become more common for people to check the internet using their phones. Mass media platforms like radio, television and the internet have the advantage of fast and constant updates and the ability to share photos and videos at the click of a button. In the spreading the news of terrorist attacks, the mass media used these outlets in their best interest.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak could have never imagined the Pandora’s Box they were unleashing on the world with their invention of the personal computer, “PC”, in 1976. With the emergence of the internet in 1989, the PC quickly evolved from a data processor and game console, to a communication device. It has only been within the last decade that it has also developed into a social media device. User participation on sites like Facebook and Twitter have exploded. Fueling this technical evolution are a plethora of digital devices specifically designed to work cohesively with all that the internet has to offer. These devices have gotten smaller, portable and even more user friendly. The power of the PC now fits in the palm of your hand. The Smartphone, not only has replaced the PC for a lot of consumers, but the camera, the video camera, the voice recorder, and the department store as well. More prevalent through these innovations is now the ability for the average citizen to capture and share, instantaneously, events that typically would only been made available through the evening news. These events make their way through social media to the masses. These video clips, photographs and commentary, incite powerful emotion, especially when exposing human rights violations. Citizen Journalism protect Human rights through exposure of inequities. This inspires the public to stand up for one another.