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Convergence: Week 10

Cultural and media studies have for many years presented a convincing argument that television, like other popular media, presents content that is for entertainment, pleasure and political messages that are perceived by the general population in many different ways. This form of entertainment is often re edited and used over and over again in a variety of ways to share, develop social relationships and present associated messages via different mediums. Like most things in the modern age, television has evolved as a medium and how the audience interacts with it in the digital realm (Harrington, 2013).

Twitter has forged an integral relationship with television in the digital age, where people share their unedited perception of television content in real time and in some cases of reality television, their thoughts are actually shared in real time on the program as it is shown live.

Through the utilisation of hashtags and connection with followers and other users of twitter, people can discuss and share their thoughts on broadcast content in real time. In the past these types of conversations were often had, but were limited to physical, time and social relationship limitations. In many cases this was often referred to as “water cooler” talk at work, where people would discuss what they had seen the previous evening at work the next day, with their work colleagues, customers and other daily acquaintances. Now these conversations and opinions can be expressed in real time with a much wider audience engaging, some known to a person and some total strangers. This can be referred to as the “virtual lounge room”. Television shows will now endorse this type of discussion through advertising a hashtag associated with their show (Harrington, 2013).

Television coverage of twitter conversations associated with the actual program are time dependent and can only be used when the content occurs live, such as the modern day fascination with reality television.

Television has been a well-accepted medium in modern society and often polarises public opinion, interaction, social activity and creating fan bases. In modern society the rapid evolution of social media has not become a competitor of television but a complimentary medium where the two can interact and social media will often be a promotional vehicle and interactivity for the television program (Woodford, 2013). This has not been lost on the advertising and business world where data collection services such as Nielsen now collate data from social media for marketing purposes. This has forced these data collectors and advertisers to broaden their analysis of metrics and what and how they measure audience numbers and participation (Woodford, 2013). 

When measuring these participation levels, an excitement index may be used to analyse the interaction and engagement with the television program. There will be programs which generate consistent twitter numbers evenly throughout the show, while others will have peaks and troughs, indicating that the audience is being prompted by a “hook” in the program content to engage. In many cases this is measured through maximum tweets per minute, as an engagement metric (Woodford, 2013). There is also an ability to measure the volatility of twitter discussions about a television show in comparison to other shows, genres, networks and even countries or cultures, independent of the program total audience. The advantage of these measures is that they can be calculated easily and quickly for a high volume of traffic on an episode to episode basis, which may also be used for other social networks that has the same transparency of information (Woodford, 2013).

This convergence of real time television and twitter are just the starting blocks to social medias complimentary engagement with television as an evolutionary step in the social and public media arenas.

  References:

Harrington, Stephen. 2013. “Ch 18 Tweeting about the Telly: Live TV, Audiences, and Social Media.” InTwitter and Society edited by Katrin Weller, Axel Bruns, Jean Burgess, Merja Mahrt & Cornelius Puschmann, 237-248. New York, NY: Peter Lang. (Available on CMD)

Woodford, Darryl, Katie Prowd and Axel Bruns. 2013. “Telemetrics: Towards Measuring Social Media Engagement with Television.”

Woodford, Darryl. 2014. Week 9 – New Media, Big Data and Telemetrics (guest lecture by Darryl Woodford). Retrieved from:http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp

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Twitter Revolution: Week 9

Is Twitter the newest strategy for political gain and collaboration? “Without Twitter the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy,” Mark Pfeifle, former national-security adviser wrote, calling for Twitter to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Similar praises of twitter include when “The Twitter Revolution” was coined; this came about when demonstrators came together in 2009 in Moldova to protest against the country’s communist government (Gladwell, 2010).

Seventy thousand students took part in the early events of the civil-rights movement all because of 4 students from North Carolina College starting a protest using word of mouth.  Something of this calibre could not happen in this day and age with the use of social media getting in the way. Networks are messy as they let the entire world in on the plan (Gladwell, 2010).

It could be said that social media is the new “word of mouth”, which allows the message to spread faster and exponentially.  The issue is that this new “word of mouth” through social media is often used as propaganda and may influence people under false pretences as opposed to the traditional word of mouth, which provided people with face-to-face interaction on a subject and built credibility.

Social media makes it easier for the powerless to collaborate. These new media networks do not utilise hierarchy’s, building networks means that decisions are made through a consensus, binding the members together for a cause. This differentiates from hierarchies with their set rules and procedures, as a single central authority doesn’t control the networks. Due to these social networks lacking a centralised leadership, setting and reaching goals becomes difficult. For example Al Qaeda was most dangerous when it was a united hierarchy; now that it has dissipated into a network, it has been far less effective (Gladwell, 2010). While twitter has no specific means to form a hierarchy, it remains a network for open discussion on anything and everything.

The following that is formed by social media promotion could never have been replicated in the pre-internet age argues Shirky (2011). “The ease and speed with which a group can be mobilised for the right kind of cause” is astoundingly different to that in the times of the civil-rights sit in’s, making this model of activism a definite upgrade (Gladwell, 2010).

Social media has become a coordinating tool for nearly all of the world's political movements (Shirky, 2011). It can be argued that the prominent following President Barrack Obama has accumulated on twitter has secured both of his successful campaigns. By reaching a worldwide audience on the network he can generate support and broadcast messages integral to his success. Accumulating almost 43 million followers, the US President has the power to influence his followers whom include celebrities and civilians worldwide.

“A major success factor for Obama’s victory was how Obama’s campaign used social media and technology as an integral part of its strategy, to raise money, and, more importantly, to develop a groundswell of empowered volunteers who felt they could make a difference… Converting everyday people into engaged and empowered volunteers, donors and advocates through social networks, e-mail advocacy, text messaging and online video. The campaign’s proclivity to online advocacy is a major reason for his victory” (Aaker, 2014). 

Taking into consideration the world-changing events discussed, which have occurred with the assistance of social media, mainly twitter, it would be fair to conclude that Twitter is a strategy for political gain and collaboration.

  References:

Aaker,  J. (2014). "Obama and the power of social media and technology." Available at: http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/?p=1627

Gladwell, Malcolm. (2010). “Small Change: Why the Revolution will not be Tweeted.” The New Yorker, October 4. Available at:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

 Shirky, Clay. (2011). “The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change.” In Foreign Affairs 90:1. Available at:http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67038/clay-shirky/the-political-power-of-social-media

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New Media Presence- Week 3

New media has exploded onto our TV and computer screens over the last decade, it has changed the way people think and act; but has this phenomenon helped civilisation grow? Has society become too immersed in new media? So much so that it is affecting our mental health and our ability to realise what it is doing to us.

New media, mainly social media, has blurred the lines between separating private from public. Younger users of these networking sites acknowledge the associated privacy risks, however choose to ignore them because they worry about the social cost of a reduced online presence. When all of your private information is being willingly put onto these websites, privacy gradually attains the characteristics of a luxury (Papacharissi, 2011).

Our ability to access social media is dependent on being held to ransom for our private information, with the cost versus benefit equation being privacy at the expense of social status, advantage, profile and communication. Teenagers, in their ongoing search for social acceptance gauge these risks of privacy boundaries although it is hard to know if information is shared subconsciously conscious or are we just being consciously subconscious? The presentation of one’s self on a social networking site will often include production and editing rather than being the portrayal of your natural self as is supposedly promoted (Papacharissi, 2011).

Social media penetrates all aspects of contemporary life, so much so that today’s media culture is labelled a ‘mediapolis’: a comprehensively mediated public space where media highlights the experiences and expressions of everyday life; this has created a space for a search for meaning and belonging. Media is everywhere, and therefore nowhere; there are extensive social and cultural repercussions occurring primarily due to the way media is becoming invisible. Media has become so omnipresent that people in general do not even register the presence of media in their lives. This mediation of everyday life makes media invisible and in turn modifies our sense of identity (Deuze, 2011).

This new culture of social image consciousness has developed a new strand of neurosis, where those who allow themselves to be totally immersed in this social network world, can become delusional about the reality and fiction surrounding them. McGill University’s Ian Gold credits this to “unprecedented cultural triggers that might explain the phenomenon: the pressure of living in a large, connected community can bring out the unstable side of more vulnerable people.... New media is opening up vast social spaces that might be interacting with psychological processes” (Deuze, 2011)

 An example of the overpowering presence of new media and social networking in our everyday lives is the burden of cyber-bullying and how it is affecting people in traumatic ways that can often lead to suicide. An exemplary situation would be the late Charlotte Dawson; while she was glorified as a public figure, the anonymous spokespeople of the Internet took over her mental health in the end. 

Flew (2014) believes that new media has changed the way we and everything and everyone else around us operate and behave in regard to the organisation of messages circulated and received. Now in the current social environment, we need to decide if the reliance on social media is a necessity or privilege, does it rule us or do we dictate when, how and where we use it (Deuze, 2011)?

 References:

Papacharissi, Zizi and Gibson, Paige L, (2011). Chapter 7 : Fifteen Minutes of Privacy : Privacy, Sociality, and Publicity on Social Network Sites. In Trepte, Sabine and Reinecke, Leonard, Privacy online : perspectives on privacy and self-disclosure in the social web, (pp.75 - 89). Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Deuze, Mark (2011). Media Life., Media, Culture & Society33 (1) pp.137-148.

Flew, Terry, (2014). Chapter 1 : Introduction to New Media. In Flew, Terry, New media, (pp.1 - 17). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 

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