Social Media and Global Stereotyping

As a group of 7 college students, we're studying the influence of the information revolution & social media on global stereotypes, national opinion, and trans-national relationships (both interpersonal and otherwise).

[informationrevolution-blog]

Hello fellow tumblrs,

As a group of 7 college students, we’re studying the influence of the information revolution & social media on global stereotypes, national opinion, and trans-national relationships (both interpersonal and otherwise).

We’d love to hear from YOU. This project isn’t about us. It’s not about ouropinions. It’s about the opinions of people all over the world. It’s about the collective opinions of nation-states as a whole. This is about how tumblr (and other social media) fits into the international political climate. 

How has tumblr impacted your worldview? What about twitter? Facebook? Reddit? 4chan? Pinterest? Internet-based news and media? All of it is relevant, though we are choosing to focus on the INTERPERSONAL aspect of globalization (so mostly social media sites like tumblr, twitter, etc). 

What stereotypes have you encountered in daily life? Are they the same as, or different than, stereotypes you encounter on social media sites like tumblr? 

Have you met anyone through tumblr and other social media who blew these stereotypes out of the water? Conversely, have you met anyone or encountered other bloggers who seem to merely reinforce and strengthen preexisting stereotypes? 

Would you ever hope to meet some of the people you’ve met online who live around the world? Have they changed how you see things, how you think about people, or how you think about yourself/your nation?

These are all things we want to know! Feel free to answer any and all of these questions in our ask or submit boxes, or feel free to reblog this and tag it with “informationrevolution”, our URL. You’re free to participate anonymously or through your blog, we just ask that you state your age and what country you’re from. 

We have about two weeks to put this project together, and any/all of your input will be GREATLY appreciated! We can’t do a project about social media and interpersonal relationships without the input of people who use social media and are affected by interpersonal relationships, so that means YOU. 

Can’t wait to hear from you! :D

P.S. Feel free to make any suggestions for our project. Is there anything we’re glossing over? Something you think would be important to include? We want to know! We want to do this topic justice to the best of our collective abilities because we think it’s an important issue in today’s political climate and global community.

[informationrevolution-blog]

Has social media helped cross national lines and humanize the citizens of other countries? Has it fostered interpersonal relationships and greater understanding of our global neighbors?

Or has it made it worse? Do you have stereotypes in your mind now that you didn’t have before becoming immersed in social media? Have the users of social media simply reinforced and strengthened preexisting stereotypes we have about foreigners?

Whether you’re from Australia, China, Ireland, Canada, Syria, South Africa… We would love to hear from you. These are just a couple of the questions we have for you. You can answer just one question, you can answer a handful, you can answer all of them. You can make bullet points, you can write it in any language, you can use whatever grammar or “tumblr grammar” you want. We just want to know what you think! Your personal experiences are invaluable to us.

I’ve set up our submit and ask boxes to be really easy to use, so hopefully that helps. Thanks guys :D