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What Could the Future of Media Look Like?

When thinking about the future of media and the next most incredible platform, it is nearly impossible for me not to consider the heavy use of Artificial Intelligence systems immediately. Recent technological advancements proved that AI's the future of operating systems and can fulfill certain career positions in communication. For example, I was playing around with ChatGPT a few weeks ago and wanted to see how much it could do. I asked the system to write me a press release on a made-up topic and I was astonished at the results. My face was exactly the same as the man in the meme above. Can an AI system like ChatGPT replace my position in the communication and media industry? I thought about it for a second and then realized a computer or robot in this current time can not experience feelings or evoke any sense of emotions that are fundamental in developing solid key relationships with audiences. This is critical in my area of public relations, where the entire backbone of the field relies on cultivating and instilling meaningful relationships.

The state of technology is constantly evolving. Consequently, this affected how we communicate and interact with other individuals and organizations. Technological advancements in media and communication devices, such as social media, left significant implications for organizations in the media and advertising industries. The articles assigned for this week discussed the potential future of the media's landscape and ways organizations in the industry can be more cautious of these technological advancements.

Strycharza and Segijn (2022) discuss the major implications of these developments for members in the field of advertising. The first line of this article summed up the piece well: "Technological developments have changed the advertising landscape by extending the possibilities to collect, process, and share consumer data to optimize advertising " (Strycharza & Segijn, 2022)." In today's society, more and more individuals believe their technology devices are "spying" on them or "listening to everything they do" to increase your desire in a product or encourage you to purchase something. The article refers to this concept as "data-surveillance," the automated, continuous, and sometimes unspecific collection, storage, and processing of digital traces (Strycharza & Segijn, 2022). I find it highly humorous when people think their phones or Amazon Alexa devices are listening in on them to steal their information. However, this article makes an extremely valid point that advertisers must be more aware of these audience perceptions to mitigate their opposing beliefs.

The second article by Stockmann (2022) highlights the concept of new and additional oversights in our use of digital technology, such as the Internet. The internet was initially seen as a tool for promoting democracy and societal benefits. However, the focus has recently shifted to "tech lash," where critics accuse technology companies of harming democracy, stability, and sustainability. As a result, there is a growing agreement among policymakers, companies, and civil society that self-regulation must shift toward co-regulation (Stockmann, 2022). Take the social media platform TikTok as an example. TikTok is no longer allowed in any affiliation with government entities or organizations in the United States. In most cases, the application is inoperable within government facilities. This is due to the government's increasing concern for TikTok's use of data surveillance, the concept previously discussed in the above article.

I enjoyed reading the piece by Becker (2022) that discussed using satirical television to increase public engagement in low-cost political activism that capitalizes on pre-existing civic skills and resources. The article explicitly highlights comedian and talk show host John Oliver's use of satire and humor on his show Last Week Tonight to incentivize financial participation and donations to various organizations. One of my favorite examples mentioned in this article was Oliver's back-and-forth banter with the city of Danbury, Connecticut. He turned this unknown, small town into a media phenomenon and raised over $55,000 for local causes in the area (Becker, 2022). Oliver provided credible yet funny commentary, and donations in response to his calls to action are an affordable way to engage in political activism through satire. Studying the effects of these fundraising tactics calls for enhancements in our comprehension of the influence of political satire on individual behavior and democracy's well-being.

Social Media: The Good, The Bad, and The Misinformation

In today's social media landscape, avoiding instances of misinformation or damaging content on your desired platform's feed is nearly impossible. Primarily during times of heightened political activity, like a presidential election year, more cases of misinformation are produced on outlets like social media to persuade or deter viewers into believing one way or the other. I see this as the "ugly" side of social media, where individuals or organizations manipulate the reach and exposure of these platforms to their benefit.

For example, look at the new Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook verification methods. Thanks to this introduction from Elon Musk, users can now pay to appear "verified" to their social media followers, which typically indicates a sense of high societal status. But what is so special about a silly blue check mark if anyone and everyone can now be "verified" if they want to be? The original intents of these verification methods were to indicate to users the authentic and factual accounts of major organizations or public figures. Now, Joey Nobody from down the street can have a verified account with just 200 followers and potentially use those original verification frames to publish his "factual" information.

In comparison to previous weeks, the articles for this week took a rather dark turn into this "ugly" side of social media use. The authors looked at visual communication's various roles in undermining trust in public discourse. Authors Vicari and Chadwick (2020) explored the impact of synthetic political videos on deception, uncertainty, and trust in news information. They referred to these "synthetic videos" as "deepfakes," a term I had not heard before reading this article. They discuss how visuals often enhance the transmission of information by helping users establish and retrieve memories (Vicari & Chadwick, 2020). This shows the increasing use of social media as a viable avenue of disseminating falsehoods and disinformation. But how can we combat this increased exposure to inaccurate information? Is there truly a way to foster a "diverse media diet" to determine what is accurate and false?

The authors of "Tackling Misinformation" promote the idea that increased access to social media data will enable researchers to perform more extensive studies to allow for improved characterization of misinformation in real-world contexts and facilitate testing interventions to prevent the spread of misinformation (Pasquetto et al., 2020, p. 2). In my opinion, I do not think the spreading of falsehoods can be combatted in a research setting. It has to deal with a more significant societal problem and understand the complexity of citizens' thoughts and feelings. While social media may be a prominent cause of this spread, there is a more significant issue at the root of this problem. As discussed by Sude and Dvir-Gvirsman (2023), differences in social media platform affordances often determine how users will respond and react to the content present on that specified platform. Their study showed that some users appeared more "uncivil" on one platform but did not engage in this same activity on another platform (Sude & Dvir-Gvirsman, 2023). This proves to me that researchers cannot look at social media as the sole root of the problem of the free flow of misinformation.

Journalists and major news outlets are typically the primary focus for audiences to obtain their news information and make sense of the world around them. However, this has not been the case in the heightened times of "fake news." According to Miller and Nelson (2022), social media platforms created new risks and challenges for journalists, "most notably in the form of dark participation, which refers to negative, selfish or even deeply sinister forms of online audience engagement (Miller & Nelson, 2022)." Initially, people hoped social media would make news production more democratic and equal for journalists and audiences. However, the reality is that social media can be a very unfriendly place for journalists, particularly for those who are women or people of color (Miller & Nelson, 2022).

Scientist, Selfies, and Socio-cultural Artifacts...Oh My!

If you haven't lived under a rock for the last 20 years, you most likely utilize some "digital method" to obtain your news information and entertainment. These digital methods refer to the techniques that "follow the medium" and highlight the tools used to disseminate information on digital mediums like social media (Vicari & Kirby, 2022). For example, tools used on Instagram for promoting messages include posting static images and short-form videos and including hashtags in captions. The articles assigned for this week discuss how researchers implore these digital methods to analyze and determine sociocultural constructs and individual representations.

The article by Vicari and Kibry (2022) took a deeper look into the ways social media platforms are viewed as a means to investigate and better analyze social phenomena like collective events, issues, or causes. The authors highlighted the dynamic shift in digital methods from being an "open land" of data to become more of a "walled garden" regarding platform differentiation. In today's digital media landscape, multiple platforms need to be studied based on the tools and techniques offered on the platform (Vicari & Kirby, 2022). I applaud the researchers for imploring a data set that determined Instagram was better suited for this study than Twitter. They took the time to analyze the digital environment within Brazil and South America to determine Instagram's features. As a result, they offered a more differentiated approach rather than cross-comparing Facebook and Twitter.

This article was rather peculiar to me, especially their research methodology when analyzing the socio-culture constructs of Brazilian and South African cuisines on social media. The researchers selected the 10 most liked images of each Instagram collection chosen. Then, they used Photoshop to blend them to make one image to convey a quick impression of emerging features (Vicari & Kirby, 2022). While this is a fascinating approach to the research, I wonder how evenly blended each image was when layered in Photoshop. Furthermore, they could have indicated that the same level of transparency was used when merging the images, making me wonder if the results were skewed to portray a specific image.

The following article highlighted using digital methods to challenge public stereotypes (Jarreau et al., 2019). The authors of this article specifically looked at selfies can challenge the current public perceptions of scientists. I really enjoyed reading this article because I was involved with creating a Sci-Comm (science communicator) workshop this semester, where we provided scientists on campus with techniques and tools for self-promoting their research on social media. We offered this free workshop to help scientists and researchers on campus communicate and promote their work in ways that are more understandable to non-scientific audience members as well as tactics for creating visually appealing content that audiences would attract to. At LSU, many student researchers and scientists want others to be aware of their efforts and work but need help figuring out how to do that. Therefore, we provided them with multiple avenues and strategies to promote their work, such as tactics for creating content for social media, interview best practices, and techniques for recording short-form videos.

I fully agree with the authors of this article that social media is a highly beneficial avenue for scientists to implore when promoting their research and combating societal stereotypes. The authors state, "...humanizing, visual science communication may be one way for broader audiences to "get to know" scientists...and we believe that scientists should be genuine and transparent in humanizing themselves (Jarreau et al., 2019)." This article specifically implored the digital method of selfies in the representation of sciences. However, I would like to see this study conducted using the digital method of short-form videos on scientific research and how that method performed in scientist self-representation.

Famous For Being Famous

The social media landscape has drastically changed over the past decade. If you were to tell me ten years ago that vine was no longer a thing and Instagram allowed you to post videos while shopping for clothes simultaneously, I simply would not believe you in the slightest. New technological developments and progression in societal structure have altered how we entertain ourselves and obtain information. Social media influencers dominate the current media landscape as prominent opinion leaders. Influencers like Kim Kardashian, Addison Rae, and Alix Earles are prime examples of societal opinion leaders on social media that went from unknown individuals to household names. But how did these individuals become famous celebrities? Or are they even technically considered celebrities? The articles assigned this week to traverse down the winding road of the ever-changing social media environment and how new developments, like TikTok, have altered our societal perceptions and rankings.

Since its release in 2016, the video-sharing social media platform TikTok has experienced rapid growth in use, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The app has been downloaded over 2.6 billion times worldwide, according to Bhandari and Bimo (2022). While there is no denying its popularity, it is inevitable to avoid recognizing other well-established social media platforms provide the same features. However, according to the article composed by Bhandari and Bimo (2022), one key element sets TikTok apart from other platforms like Instagram and Facebook, which is the prevalence of “the algorithm.” When reading this article, something that came to mind was that before TikTok became popular, not many people were aware of a “algorithm,” nor did they ever think it contributed to the content we are exposed to daily. “The algorithm determines the type of video content the user is exposed to and viewing this content makes up the majority of the experience...,” according to authors Bhandari and Bimo. TikTok is responsible for creating influencer celebrities like Addison Rae, the D’Amelio sisters, and Alix Earlies. These individuals are simply famous for being famous.

The next article by Brooks et al. (2021) highlighted how the digital age has given rise to new pathways for average individuals to obtain media attention that potentially can translate to promotional endeavors. By cultivating a huge social media following, influencers like Addison Rae and Alix Earles have pummeled their way to the top of relevancy on all social media platforms simply by being famous on TikTok. Well-known brands, like Juicy Couture and Dunkin Donuts, notice these large followings and utilize them to create native advertising campaigns to promote brand awareness by harnessing the power of these influencers' media visibility, name recognition, and personalities (Brooks et al., 2021). I found this article extremely interesting because it proposed the question of whether influencers are considered celebrities or are they just famous for being famous? I have often wondered this when scrolling through my Instagram and TikTok feeds, where Addison Rae was once the complete focus of social media promotions to everyone’s focus on Alix Earles.

The last article spotlighted the social media platform Reddit, which has always been sort of an anomaly to me. I have little experience actively using the platform, except when I was thoroughly interested in the Reddit thread that conspired against GameStop. Still, my dad tends to send me daily content he finds on Reddit, so it is safe to say I have an idea of the general demographic of the platform, aka I think of it as primarily a platform for dads to obtain their silly content. However, that is quite contrary to the information discussed in the article by Proferes et al. (2021). The authors analyzed how researchers utilize this platform to conduct observational data on social media uses and content discussions. Before reading this article, I was unaware of this platform's community and relationship-building powers. Users can create one-time use accounts or burner accounts, as I like to call them, where they may feel like they can speak more freely on this platform than others because their outward identity is not made known to the audience.

Slactivism or Activism? You Decide.

In recent years, social media has become a prominent vessel for organizations to promote their political, social, and economic stances. It is a place to voice their initiatives in combating issues facing our current social sphere. Since social media is a critical aspect of the majority of people’s lives, it makes perfect sense to use these platforms as an outlet to further promote their messaging on such issues. For instance, take the Black Lives Matter movement as a prime example. Individuals and organizations utilize their social media presence to publicly align themselves with a particular movement that showcases their support. The articles assigned for this week shed light on organizations' various strategies and tactics to maintain their sense of corporate social responsibility, corporate social advocacy, and corporate political advocacy.

In the article " Social Media and Activism: A Literature Review, " author Bradley Allsop provided an insightful foundation for social media advocacy in the article “Social Media and Activism: A Literature Review.” As a social media manager, I frequently encounter situations where I must decide the right time and place to post content that aligns with a certain social or political stance. These are often controversial topics and can either harm or benefit your organization-public relationship. Allsop explains the field of social media activism in three “camps,” as he calls them. The first and only of the three that I will discuss is “slacktivism,” which combines the words “slacker” and “activism.” This describes an organization's facade that cultivate to show its support for an issue but has little to no real impact on the issue, only to serve the “egotistical needs of those participating in them (Allsop).”

I found this term extremely interesting and thought-provoking because often, at my position in the College of Agriculture, my boss and I frequently see organizations aligning themselves with political or social issues but not actively engaging with them. They simply post a graphic or statement highlighting the movement, but no real action is being taken. I thought this term perfectly described that. A true instance of social media activism, I see, is when organizations and brands utilize the donation/fundraiser feature on Instagram and Facebook. It is a feature that allows organizations and brands to publicly promote a cause where their followers can easily contribute and see their donations grow in their bios.

The remaining three articles assigned this week had a major thing in common that sparked my interest. They all highlighted the ice cream brand Ben & Jerry's social initiatives. Given the polarized political climate, consumers progressively expect corporations to use their influence by taking stances of social and political issues in our public sphere (You & Hon, 2022). Taking these stances is often called corporate social advocacy (CSA) and/or corporate political advocacy (Lim & Young, 2021). The ice cream company, Ben & Jerry’s, operates from a philosophy of “activism-infused capitalism”. They have publicly aligned themselves with advocacy initiatives among the LGBTQ+ and Black Lives Matter movements. Ben & Jerry’s has promoted their support for such movements by releasing ice cream flavors to highlight and promote them. They further enhanced their support by showcasing the initiatives to their substantial social media following (Ciszek & Logan, 2018).

Authentically (Not) You

If you are an avid Snapchat user like myself, you would have noticed a new (kinda scary) feature rolled out this week that allows users to communicate with an AI like a real person. Snapchat is promoting it as your own personal AI where you can chat, ask questions, and “have fun with your unreal best friend.” You can learn more about the feature here if you’re just as confused as I am. Basically, from what I’m gathering and what i have learned in this course, Snapchat is fostering a sense of inauthentic relationships and lack of social skills. I thought this was a rather interesting yet creepy feature to tie into this week’s readings that all fall along one central theme: the effects of authenticity vs. inauthenticity on social media.

First off, I would like to give a large shoutout to Jordan Foster, author of “Its All About the Look,” for imploring a qualitative method approach to this research. Many articles I read on social media include research conducted through quantitative methods, and I find it doesn’t fully represent users’ habitual use of social media. This article highlights how mainstream media content, specifically on Instagram, reinforces a narrow set of ideals surrounding beauty and appearance. Foster argues that “hegemonic ideals surrounding appearance and attractiveness continue to shape who is (and isn’t) perceived as worthy of visibility online (Foster, 2022).” This can then lead to negative body perceptions in users that are consistently exposed to this type of content. Influencers constantly strive to create and present content that will distinguish themselves from others while ensuring they still fall within the aspired “look” of influencer social media. This is often achieved through filters and editing content to align with social media's hegemonic norms and ideals.

Recently, social media users and influencers are moving towards a more “authentic” approach to the content they promote on social media. But how can we truly know if these users are being authentic and “real” when photo filters and editing applications exist? Tiggemann et al. (2020) investigate the detrimental effects on women’s body image from exposure to “idealized images" in the media. Specifically, the authors focused on the effects of the Instagram trend “Instagram vs Reality” where users post side-by-side shots to show how they like to be portrayed to the public vs. what they “actually” look like. Social comparison plays a large part in this research, where individuals exposed to cultivated images are dissuaded into thinking those are the social standards, instilling a negative self-perception of one’s body image.

Burnell et al. highlight the application of lenses on Snapchat to enhance one’s physical appearance in relation to body image concerns and if it influences appearance satisfaction. In my experience, users that apply filters in their Snapchat posts will obviously have higher body image concerns. They use filters to achieve the looks they are constantly exposed to on social and traditional media. Meanwhile, the influencers and prominent social media figures are not too keen to expose their “hacks” for looking the way they do, aka, consistent reconstructive surgeries to attain a particular look. I feel as if the only way to appear “authentic” is by remaining transparent in your actions and being truthful to how you look the way you do.

I found it rather interesting that Kreling et al. (2022) honed in on the Instagram features of posting to one’s story vs. posting directly to one’s feed to determine authenticity. I see more people becoming comfortable posting to their stories rather than a hard post to their feed. But is this a good determination into authentic vs inauthentic? Users can apply filters and edit their appearances as easily as for a hard post. But according to Kreling et al. (2022), it is the spontaneity of posting to one’s story that attracts users the most, which I fully agree with. However, I still do not see how that is a good determination for authentic usability. I would look more at how users post to their stories vs. how they post to their stories and their feed. For example, did they post this directly using the story feature or upload it directly from their camera roll? Are they simply reposting content from other users or producing their own content? I see social media stories as their own entity to be explored in the habitual use in relation to one’s body image perception.

The Loudest One in the Room Could be the Loneliest of Them All

Communication technologies help people connect with others, simple as that. But how are these communication technologies and outlets affecting our mental health and psychological well-being? Are we using them in problematic ways, or are they actually benefiting our well-being? The readings assigned for this week's discussion helped me answer these concerns.

According to the article "Digital Communication Media Use and Psychological Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis" by Liu et al. (2019), whether digital media harms or improves one's mental well-being has plagued researchers and the public for decades. The research presented in this article proposes that phone calls and texting improve well-being. At the same time, using social network sites, instant messaging, and online gaming may displace other social contacts and ultimately impair one's mental health (Liu et al., 2019). However, the authors explain how the relationship between digital media use and mental well-being is contingent on the features and user functionality of the outlet. Not all communication technologies function in the same manner. If you want an immediate response from someone, you will most likely call over, mentioning them in a Facebook wall post. For example, in this study, cell phone calls and texting categorized users as instilling "intimate relationships" with their social sphere. While frequent users of social networking sites like Facebook harbor a greater sense of "weaker ties" to their social sphere and can foster less personal relations. This was an interesting (and somewhat naive) viewpoint considering today's younger generation tends to favor contact through social networking sites rather than picking up the phone to call someone.

Coyne et al. (2020) explain how social media is frequently blamed for the increase in mental health problems among young adults, but is it accurate to blame communication technology? Or is there a more prominent root to this problem? The study presented in this article examined links between young adult social network time usage to mental health issues like depression and anxiety. A limitation of this study that I found intriguing was the issue of self-reported social media use. The first step to realizing you have a problem is admitting you have the problem. Many users will not report their social media uses and practices 100% accurately and factually because some do not want to recognize their social media habits may be linked to a deeper issue.

I found this article to be very intriguing and a nice tie-in to the report by Chen et al. (2022). Reading reports and conclusions on Instagram data was refreshing and almost exciting. Very little research has been conducted using Instagram habits solely because it was not until recently that Instagram broke through the research barrier as a viable data source for social media habits. However, this article highlighted the increasing popularity of Instagram and differentiated the use of features present on the platform to better understand its potential implications on mental health (Chen et al., 2020)

According to the article by Matsuzaka et al. (2023), Black American women are among the most influential consumer groups of social media in the U.S. In recent years, especially in light of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Black women have curated their own spaces on social media platforms to "authentically converse about Black womanhood and resist structural gendered racism (Matsuzaka et al., 2023)." I also found this article to be very refreshing as well. Black American women continue to be overlooked and underrepresented in social media literature. This article emphasizes the need to better understand how culturally specific social media uses and practices among Black American women can influence one's mental well-being. Social media outlets have provided this underrepresented group a louder and more prominent voice to engage and cultivate a greater sense of community and outwardly combat racism.

Gaslight the Gatekeepers and Gatekeep the Gaslighters

Over the last decade or so, individuals are looking more toward social media over traditional media platforms for news information than ever before. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram lead the brigade of news information where audiences are no longer considered passive viewers and instead are considered active and engaged members of society. But how can they accurately engage in the news or fully understand the information entirely if there are some users gatekeeping aspects of information? How can they determine false versus accurate information when other users gaslight information sources? The articles assigned for this week discussed relationship-building between organizations and key stakeholders via new interactive media and how agenda-setting and gatekeeping impact the social discourse in our public sphere.

This week's readings primarily utilized the social media platform Twitter to understand various social network structures and how it impacts the ways we obtain our information. According to Himelboim et al. (2014) in “A Social Networks Approach to Public Relations on Twitter: Social Mediators and Mediated Public Relations,” Twitter appropriately depicts social network structures, mediators, and indicators prevalent in our current social sphere. This article applies a network approach to “identify and classify the types of social mediators that connect organizations with their publics and the direction of communication between them (Himelboim et al., 2014).” Social media platforms have transformed the nature of relationship management as “key mediators interacting between organizations and various stakeholders.” The research presented in this article shows how new interactive media possess tremendous potential to make communication more strategic, two-way, interactive, and dialogical, especially within government organizations active on social media. Which, in fact, is the very purpose of my professional project. This article offered me a significant amount of insightful information that will allow me to better pinpoint my strategies for cultivating solid relationships with audience members and critical stakeholders of my government organization.

A major theme I quickly picked up on while reading these articles is that audiences are no longer passive receivers of news and the flow of information. Social media platforms like Twitter allow users to engage and respond to the news cycle and prevalent information topics. In the article “The affordance effect: Gatekeeping and (non)reciprocal journalism on Twitter,” authors Groshek and Tandoc examine the concept of contemporary gatekeeping as it “intersects with the evolving technological affordances of social media platforms (Groshek and Tandoc, 2017).” Groshek and Tandoc highlight how technological affordances, like social media, played a substantial role in pushing the boundaries of journalism. Social media allows audiences to actively take part in the news construction process. Audiences can now publicize their opinions about issues in the news, criticize news media, and even “break” information to the public before traditional news media can even get to it. This is why it is often challenging to cipher through all the information on social media to determine whether it is accurate. However, “gatekeeping” describes how bits and pieces of information may inaccurately filter through to other audiences and create misinformation and knowledge gaps. It can also further issues surrounding current discourse in society, like racism, hate speech, cyberbullying, and the list could go on and on.

The article “From #BlackLivesMatter to #StopAsianHate: Examining Network Agenda-Setting Effects of Hashtag Activism on Twitter,” provides a comprehensive understanding of the online movements #BlackLivesMatter and #StopAsianHate to explore the network agenda-setting of hashtag activism. Specifically, the authors examined how social media influencers, or mediators in the first article, could set issue network agendas for the public and how the collective efforts of mass media accounts and individual accounts could further an online movement. Hashtag activism, to me, is a crippling strategy for prominent movements such as these two presented in the article. It provides an arena for other users to manipulate the hashtag and formulate a sense of trench warfare that we discussed in the previous lesson. While the authors did not find a distinct correlation between the #BLM and #SAH movements, I found it intriguing to analyze this point of view that a social media movement of a particular race can streamline a completely different racial movement in the country.

Hate To Burst Your Bubble!

If I had to explain filter bubbles and echo chambers to a non-academic audience, the best comparison I could make is the Dirty Bubble from Spongebob. He is eactly how he sounds, a dirty bubble. I feel like a filter bubbles, in my mind, are similar to him in the sense that once you are trapped inside the cloudiness of the bubble, it is hard to see what is happening outside of it. I often find myself wondering if I am trapped within a filter bubble. But how did I get here and should I get myself out of it?

This week’s readings discussed the concepts of filter bubbles and echo chambers in relations to how they contribute to the fragmenation and polarization of public knowledge and attitudes. According to the article, “The echo chamber is overstated: the moderating effect of political interest and diverse media,” authors Elizabeth Dubois and Grant Blank argue that, “... fragmentation and polarization are key features of audiences which are relevant for discussions of how individuals might reinforce their existing preferences (Dubois and Blank, 2018).” They suggest two main ways technologies such as social media and the internet might support the development of echo chambers are through algorithmic filter bubbles and allowing users to openly make choices that reinforce existing preferences. For example, if you only use social media to shop for clothing, most of your content will be centered around clothing brands or boutiques. By doing this, you are falling into your own echo chamber. But this is where I started to get confused about the differences between an echo chamber and a filter bubble.

The article “Filter Bubble” by Axel Bruns cleared my confusion. This article provided a critical analysis of the idea of filter bubbles and argues for scholars to redirect their attention to “far more critical areas of inquiry.” Bruns provided two distinctions between echo chambers and filter bubbles: connecting and communicating on social media or the internet. He describes an echo chamber as a concept that “emerges when a group of participants chooses to preferentially connect with each other, to the exclusion of outsiders (Bruns, 2019).” This can be in the form of friending users on Facebook, following on Instagram, or adding to BeReal. According to Bruns, filter bubbles emerge when users choose to preferentially communicate with each other (i.e. commenting on their posts, mentioning them under certain content to gain their attention).

The final article I read, “When Birds of a Feather Instagram Together: Debating the Image of Islam in Echo Chambers and Through Trench Warfare on Social media,” was a very intriguing and insightful application of echo chambers and filter bubbles to pressing issues in our society. This article highlighted the use of these concepts by examining how the understood image of Islam is transmitted and changed on Instagram by analyzing the hashtags surrounding the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. Specifically, the authors wanted to analyze how echo chambers lead one to interact with content that confirms pre-existing views and how this triggers ideological polarization. The main thing I disagree with the authors of this article is their use of echo chambers and filter bubbles interchangeably. After reading the articles before it, I believe there needs to be a distinction between filter bubbles and echo chambers to further clarify to readers.

These Are Not The Internet Results You Are Looking For...

In our minds, the Internet is the true open marketplace for ideas. In this place, we can gather news information about the world around us, while also holding the capacity to order your groceries directly to your doorstep. But have you ever wondered, is the Internet ~actually~ free? Or thought, “Why is Instagram showing me ads for a product I searched on a completely different platform?” To answer your questions using the wise and alarming words of Admiral Ackbar in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, “It’s a Trap!”

Author and professor Matthew Hindman echoes a similar warning about the Internet in his book, The Internet Trap: How the Digitial Economy Builds Monopolies and Undermines Democracy, by uncovering the truth behind the real uses of the Internet. Hindman proclaims that the Internet is not as open and democratic as we believe it. Instead, it is controlled by a small handful of large corporations looking to generate as much monopolized internet distribution as possible. For example, Facebook boosts the exposure of your content only if you are willing to pay for it. The most notorious of this bunch is Google, which Hindman hones in on a great deal in relation to how large corporations monopolize and monetize users’ attention and interactions online.

Hindman states one of his leading principles for this book early on, “Digital survival depends on stickiness--firms’ ability to attract users, to get them to stay longer, and to make them return again and again (Hindman, 2018).” A major way companies can establish this “stickiness” is through personalization. The central theme of this book is understanding how the internet’s form gives rise to concentrations of power. Hindman sees personalization as a “...key tool for ensuring that a site maintains its web traffic (Hindman, 2018).” People want to use applications and systems that they can tailor and personalize to their needs and linking. Most of the time, the larger scale companies are more utilized than the smaller guys. For example, I decided to use Tumblr, a larger-scale social media platform, to create my blog post for class. Mainly because I was familiar with the structure and layout of the platform, but also because I could customize and tailor my profile more quickly than smaller-scale blogging outlets.

A major issue I see, and apparent that Hindman sees it as well, is the more personalization there is leads to more specific and complex algorithms. Hindman indicates that the internet “consistently favors those who have scale on their side.” Users with more followers and content engagement will typically perform better on social media because the algorithm prioritizes it. Think about if Kim Kardashian posted a picture of a blank piece of paper versus if I were to post the exact same picture at the exact same time. Who will have the most exposure and attention?? Well, that’s obvious, Ms. Kim K duh! That’s because the internet algorithm places her content above others because they know it will surely perform well and deliver greater economic value. Similar to if you google for a specific shirt you are shopping for online. If you simply enter what you are looking for into google, it will show you shirts from large-scale companies like gap or target instead of your local boutique down the road.

So coming full circle back to the original warning of Admiral Ackbar, the internet is just one large trap to suck users into supporting the bigger corporations and letting the smaller guys nearly fend for themselves.

#February8th

Does the Algorithm really matter?

As a social media manager, I have battled a great deal with the monster that is the “Algorithm.” It is a tricky thing to tackle, but not everyone knows there is an underlying infrastructure that facilitates and motivates the exposure of certain content to a particular user.

This week’s readings discussed the impacts of being aware of the algorithm, the digital divide and inequalities we face online, and how digital data is analyzed. The first article I will touch on, by Lazer et al. (2021), discusses the development of techniques in analyzing human social behavior, primarily online. The article discusses how the design of data collection is constantly evolving with the introduction of new sociotechnical systems that “reduce the relevance of some old scientific instruments used to measure human behavior.” While reading this article, I wonder if it is even valid to use social behavior research data that is more than five years old, or even 3 years old since sociotechnical systems are constantly evolving. For example, is there enough current information to generalize user preferences on a social media platform? The authors partially answered this for me by stating that “measurements relying on a single digital device or service should be interpreted cautiously (Lazer et al., 2021).” I found this article intriguing to see how technological developments alter how social scientists engineer their research studies on the general population.

The article that resonated with me the most was the Gran et al. (2021) article which highlighted the algorithm and if awareness of the algorithm indicates a parallel to a new digital divide. This was a concept I had yet to think of before. The authors said it best, “algorithms have become imperative to the internet’s infrastructure.” However, according to the article, not everyone knows the algorithm’s impacts on platforms and how to interact with them. This article aims to uncover whether or not being aware of the algorithm imposes a digital divide among users. The authors claim that a “Lack of such awareness may also have consequences on a societal level; for public participation and democracy,” I will have to disagree with them. I do not think being unaware or aware of the algorithm changes your level of democracy in society; I think it simply changes users' posting habits. For example, my mom, who has little to no formal social media training, knows the algorithm and what it does. But that does not change the way in which she obtains her desired information. She simply just adjusts the time in which she posts but does not realize that it has to do with the type of content posted as well.

Another major critique of this article is the assigned groups that were segmented off based on user knowledge of the algorithm. I felt the “uncertain” and “affirmative” categorizations were too similar and could provide repeated information already accounted for. There needed to be more differentiation between these categories considering both were listed as low awareness with neutral attitudes.

The last article, by Ke et al, provided a rather interesting study that analyzed users’ content preferences and broke down who tweets about what on Twitter. The authors utilized Bourdieu’s field theory to investigate the relationship between the “social characteristics of social media users and their differentiating practices in producing digital content.” When I began reading the article, I wondered why they mainly focused on Twitter. But I quickly learned that, according to their research, Twitter users typically held the most social capital compared to users of other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. The information provided in this article is helpful to me in my professional project for this program because I can utilize the tactics and strategies implored here on Twitter on other platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Especially in how to segment users based on the content they interact in and share to their feeds (i.e. Lifecasters, promoters, Politics and Entertainment).

#february1

Thought Blog Week1

The readings assigned for this week present information and ideas pertaining to social media that I never really thought about before. For example, using Generative AI to create social media post never really crossed my mind until now. The concepts and understandings of social media fluctuate over time due to an always evolving social sphere along with technological innovations.

An ever-changing social media landscape calls for a change in the definition and understanding of social media. In the article “Twenty-Five Years of Social Media: A Review of Social Media Applications and Definitions,” the authors present a comparative analysis of the varying definitions used to define social media in research from 1994-2019. Definitions from social media vary over the years which presents difficulties for individuals and companies to interpret and apply research when referring to social media in general rather than something like social networking. For example, it is often problematic to quote previous research presenting information exclusively about a singular social media platform when generalizing it. I do not believe that one definition of social media will prevail due to the ever-changing social sphere. I think social media can almost be whatever the user intends it to be. If they want to share pictures of a flower they saw on vacation, they can do so. If they want to utilize their platform for something much larger, like a human rights issue, they can do that as well. I think that is the beauty and attractiveness of social media; users can cultivate and shape it however they see fit.

The next article I read “Sharing and Social Media: The Decline of a Keyword?” claims that the keyword of “sharing” within social media platforms is nearly obsolete. I find this claim to be both true and false. Author, Nicholas John, indicates how in previous years, social networking sites explicitily indicated the keyword of “share” directly onto their site or within their slogan. For example, in 2011, Facebook’s tagline read, “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” In 2014, this was changed to “Connect with friends and the world around you on Facebook.” In today’s current layout of Facebook, “share your thoughts”, is the first thing you see when you attempt to make a post to your page. This shows how while the explicit statement of the keyword “share” is still present on predominant platforms, it does not need to be stated to understand you are “sharing” on social media. Social media is more understood as an information-sharing device to users now without having to explicitly state it.

I enjoyed reading the article that discussed the use of generative artificial intelligence for journalism and media education. This article highlighted the generative AI program, ChatGPT, that is buzzing in the social sphere right now. I especially enjoyed how the article was coauthored with ChatGPT. This article presents both viewpoints on how AI can be beneficial and detrimental to jounralism and media. However, it does not develop much on the concept of how to detect the use of AI-generated content. It is ultimately up to the users discretion apparently. The greatest implication with AI generated content is the lack of capacity a computer holds to create and instill meaningful connections and relationships with users. PEW Research Center conducted a research study on the prospects for improvements in the tone and activities of the digital public scphre by 2035. The article is titled “VIsions of the Internet in 2035″ " Many of the participants' responses included visions of greater AI use in the coming years. Could the rise of the robots truly be upon us??

The Coca-Cola company has been around for YEARS and continues to be a constant staple in everyone’s lives. From their numerous heartwarming commercials to their bright red billboards, a majority of people can decipher their advertisements. My suggestion to keep the people on their toes and constantly interested in the ad is to switch up the concepts and appeal to different audiences with different tastes. Such as inserting more user friendly ads in all social media platforms, like facebook, twitter and snapchat, to reach different people who enjoy different apps. That way more people are intrigued by the ads leading to a further incline to purchase the products. https://twitter.com/CocaCola

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