Good news for our soldiers!

Good news for the Army - the social media ban has been lifted!

Turns out that the Army had previously enforced a social media ban, meaning soldier had no access to Facebook, Twitter, etc. And while I waste most of my day on these social networks and probably shouldn't be trusted to fight for my country as long as Facebook is accessible to me, I would still love to see Tweets from our soldiers in action. I would really love to hear first-hand accounts of the human side of war, which is one of the reasons I'm super excited for the Al Jazeera event "Reporting from the frontlines" tomorrow evening. Hearing the accounts from the people in action themselves humanizes a subject we only hear embellished through whatever biased media source we utilize for our daily news and information.

This reminds me of a previous debate: can social media facilitate social change? How could the use of these networks help soldiers connect with citizens in the US and all over the world for that matter? How would it change the way that the media portrays war?

Of course, blogging or tweeting from Iraq, Afghanistan or any war site for that matter may be dangerous in terms of top security issues, but when approaching it from a source of media information, it could change how we view war altogether.

Just for the sake of humor, the following picture depicts what it would be like if historical events were documented via Facebook statuses:

Is Social Networking Killing Search Engines?

Would you rather trust a friend or a search engine? It's a question I never really considered until reading this article on BlogWorld.com: Is Social Networking Killing Search Engines?

The article discusses whether or not search engines are in danger due to the comforting factor in asking your friends via social networking. Basically, the reliable vs the intimate - which one would you trust?

Let's say you're looking for a Thai restaurant in DC (the article uses a restaurant in New Mexico, but let's keep it local), who would you ask?

Let's say you Google or Bing it, it'll tell you the most local/most searched for restaurants in your area that you must filter through. On the other hand, your friends have experience and opinions that can tell you what the best one is....but are your friends always online? Let's say it's 3 am and you want the best Thai restaurant in DC...unless you want to wake up your friends or can guarantee FB or Twitter responses, a search engine is probably your best bet. Plus, although they might not be our friends, with websites such as Yelp and Foursquare, you have the ability to browse recommendations and critiques of places.

So which is better, the intimate or the reliable?? The article brings a good argument into perspective. What I want to know is - why can't you have both? With two clicks, you can search and ask your friends with a Facebook/Twitter status...and voila!

Social Media & The Masses: Can developing media enhance social change?

This week, we discussed the influence of media on the masses. We read the works of Hans Magnus Enzenberger "Constituents of a Theory of the Media" as well as Jean Baudrillard's "Requiem for the Media" that served as our platform for debate.

Enzensberger highlighted the ideas of Marxism and Capitalism in his work, emphasizing his belief in changing media technology as a form of emancipation through the production of their own messages and meaning. On the other hand, Baudrillard held a more pessimistic view, believing that the modern communication theory of producer(transmitter)-message-sender(receiver) will not allow for social change, due to the everlasting "class struggle".

Mind you, both authors spoke of a different time. A time without Twitter feeds and FB statuses, a time before Iran utilized social media as a revolutionary tool. A time before the President of the United States used social media to win an election. Would they feel the same now?

As social media continues to change on a daily basis, we can't help but notice the effect it's having on social participation. Ironically, the advanced technological platforms of social media and it's produced chaos is what leads to the very change. Examples: The last US Presidential election, Iran, the scheduled burning of the Koran, and the most recent TwitChange (a Twitter auction held to build homes in Haiti). For each of these events, the use of social media platforms is what enabled the citizens to make a difference, whether to initiate physical protest outside of the internet or utilize technological influence to put pressure on party leaders or news media to speak up.



While Facebook has always been an influential factor in social change, I genuinely believe that Twitter is the platform for social change for the new generation. Whether it was Iran's revolution or Haiti's earthquake, Twitter allows users all over the world to tweet and retweet in milliseconds, reaching one another quicker than their mouse clicks. Eva Longoria recently launched a Twitter auction that so far has raised over a million dollars using celebrity tweets to help build homes in Haiti. Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN in a Twitter "race" to see who could reach a million followers, promising charitable rewards. Finally, the previous attempt of "International Burn the Koran Day" by infamous Pastor Terry Jones was bombarded with condemnation and discontent worldwide through the internet and social media. Actually, I used social media myself to make a difference. I began tweeting celebrities, people in which through any other medium I would never be able to reach, and asked them to use their influence to stand against religious injustice. Within minutes, I received tweets from Eva Longoria, Pink, Paulo Coelho, and more. While I am not foolish enough to believe that I made a huge difference on my own, my attempts in combination with a million others around the world led to a uniting voice speaking against his actions.


Can social media cause change?


Looking at the events and reactions of the past few years, I sure as heck think so.

Theorizing the Medium

When beginning this course, I couldn't help but think - where do we start from? New media is changing everyday and it seems like everything is blending together to form this new world network, that again is updated before you can learn yesterday's applications.

This week's readings were an excellent introduction to the course of new media, a more abstract look, you could say. Marshall McLuhan analysis, "Medium is the Message", as well as Raymond Williams' analysis on "The Technology and the Society" were abstract eye-openers into the world of new media and its' effect on society and communication as a whole.

McLuhan argued that 'the medium is the message', highlighting that the medium of communication itself can be the actual processes, regardless of the classic assumption that it lacks content. However, McLuhan points out that the medium itself possesses the process of thought that results in the communication. Example: A speech: The content = the words, the actual speech is the medium of communication. Speech is "an actual process of thought, which is in itself nonverbal" (McLuhan, 18).

A point well made when you step back from the itty gritty details of social media and technology and look at it from afar. This class intends to focus on the transformation of communication using new media, but can we focus on just the content? Impossible. To be able to fully analyze and understand this subject, we should begin by taking a step back and looking at new media from all sides: the various mediums, the thought processes behind them, the content they produce, etc etc.

Williams focuses his study on the way that technology has changed modern society, emphasizing the role of television. He raises vital issues that I hope we address in this course, such as: If the technology is a cause, can we at best modify or seek to control its effects? Or if the technology, as used, is an effect, to what other kinds of cause, and other kinds of action should we refer and relate our experience of its uses?