The growth of the Internet in the early 1990s has witnessed an increase in the network population from the low millions to low billions in the last two decades. During this time, social media has played a critical role for civil society for many issues affecting the society. Social Media provides opportunities for users to engage in self-presentation of identity, talk to families, friends, and colleagues. Unlike the traditional network research, examining face-to-face relationships, the focus of social media research remains on individual-to-individual communications rather than on relationships or connections.
In general, most people treat Facebook as a channel of communication for social interaction rather than a place to make critical connections and for those relationships to form overriding patterns that can be studied. Users join Facebook by creating a homepage that typically provides basic details about the user’s identity as well as likes and dislikes. When creating a homepage, the new user is asked a series of standard questions as a way of composing the homepage. After answering the initial questions, users can then personalize their pages. Personalizing pages allows users to display identity and users to modify the content of their pages anytime. After creating a page, users can add friends by their searching them using name or email address. Friends can talk to the new user by chat, post or the walls or send them a message in the box.
According to Goodman (2007), online social media provide users means of to express their personalities and views on a public forum. Facebook provides many ways for users to express their personalities and views including applications and applications and views including applications and posting of photographs. According to Facebook Statistics, “more than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, new stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums etc are shared each month. People on Facebook instill 20 million applications every day. Given their prominence, this study found that Facebook plays a critical role in the daily lives of people.
For this paper, I will point out the role of social media has played in global politics, student learning and general business life. The question that the ubiquity of social media raises for governments is its effect on government interests and foreign policy. In the article, The Political Power of Social Media, Clay Shirkey writing for Foreign Policy argues that social media’s impact on politics should not be viewed only in the angle of toppling governments. Instead, he argues that the real power in social media as a political tool is futuristic. According to Shirkey, social media’s real threat lies in its support of civil society and the public sphere, only through this means, wills social media produce real democratic change for the future?
Yochai Benkler in the article, Hacks of Valor: Why the Anonymous is not a threat to National Security. In the article, Yochai asserts that the United States’ government has begun to think of the online social media hacking group Anonymous as a threat to national security. The Wall Street Journal reported Keith Alexander who is in charge of United States Cyber Command and double as the National Security. Keith Alexander also doubles as the leader of the National Security Agency. In the article from the Wall Street Journal, Keith Alexander views the actions of Anonymous as a threat to the national security of the United States. On his part, Benkler says that viewing a social media, as a threat to national security is a wrong approach. He compares the actions of anonymous as similar to the anti Vietnam wars in 1960s and a response of the citizens to the unbecoming actions of governments. As the communication backdrop gets thicker, more engaging, the internet population gets access to more information and more opportunities to involve themselves in public debates. This involvement increases collection action on the part of the governed. The responses are palpable as in the case of the Arab Spring and the unseating of the president of Philippines.
Perhaps the center stage for social media was the Arab Spring in 2011. The Arab Spring imbued the social media with an indispensable sense of legitimacy for creating a change. Before the Arab Spring, critics had underestimated the strength of social media as tools for gossip and creature talks. No one has foreseen the impactful role of social media groups like Twitter and Facebook as channels of change. The success of social media as an engine of change has regenerated a debate on their impact on conflicts. Raymond Schillinger in the article “Social Meida and the Arab Spring: What have we learned?” In the article, Schillinger makes the case that the future of social media in political conflicts is uncertain. He asks if social media will remain relevant during peacetime as a method of engaging political debate. Still, the role of social media in politics and governance should not be underestimated.
The New Internationalist reports that the role of technology particularly social media, has been overstated. While laptops, ipads, and cell phones increased the ability of people with the same ideas to connect and plan a revolution in North Africa, it was not laptops and the devices that marched on the streets. However, the people with a common cause and a desire for progressive regimes for their countries marched. For many of the North Africans, revolutions were not new, it was a part and parcel of the society. The revolution in 2010 were not special because of the use of the modern technology, they were special because of the cause that they stood for. The overemphasis on social media has been overstated. Still, the New Internationalist reckons that the debate on technology is much more compelling and complex than meets the eye. It is possible that technology can provide solutions to foreseeable threats; however, the degree of the solutions varies on the cultures and structures of different societies. For example, in the western world, Twitter is used for small talks about life such as dinner, personal events, and jokes, In North Africa, the same tool is used to incite the people against oppression and enact regime change.
HTC is an acronym for HI Tech Computer Corporation. It is a technological company based in Taiwan and focuses in the manufacture of Smartphone devices. Traditionally, HTC used to center in production of commodities and then brand them codenames such as “hermenes” and the likes. They would eventually sell the finished products to established telecommunication companies. Some of the companies that HTC traded with include I-mate, T-mobile, and Orange amongst others. However, since 2006, HTC started offering products under their own brand name. HTC is famous in Asia, Europe, and North America. Let us explore HTC marketing strategy of using social media as an advertising tool as well as the strengths and weaknesses that come with this method (HTC, 2012).
HTC aims to reach its online customer base by employing online media. Because the majority of the target market is online, HTC believe that online marketing would be an effective method of reaching its customer base. Because of the influence of the social media in the net, HTC aims to use social media as an effective way to gain exposure and brand recognition to a highly target market segment. HTC uses common social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube amongst others. Some of the reasons why HTC uses social media are because social media groups such as Facebook enables HTC to target specific users by age, interests, location and education level. By using Facebook pages, HTC would be able to pin point target market s through Facebook adds as relatively cheaper and more efficient ways than using television adds (Kleinmann, Tobias, et al, 2010).
Social media also have the advantage of creating trust between customers and business. By sharing information and interacting online, a HTC will be able to build a network of trust with its social media network. The trust will be enhanced with HTC’s capacity by viewing applications such as likes (Facebook), comments, and posts on HTC’s social page. In addition to building social network, social media are a informative in spreading the word of mouth about new technologies across the globe. Users of the social media sites can take the picture of new smart phones, comment about new technologies, or write criticism about new phones. The social media’s ability to connect people would be the strongest and cheapest method that HTC can use to expand its international connection and market (HTC, 2012).
In addition to increasing market base and serving as a promotional tool, the social media are a valuable tool for improving workers relations. Social media allow workers to communicate internally about business issues as well as outside business thereby creating teamwork. In addition, workers can stay in touch with old customers that can make it possible to acquire new customers. Moreover, workers can be useful in acquiring new markets for the firm across the world using their online friends (HTC, 2012).
The social media have both positive and negative impact to communication among society, in general (Lamy, Mangenot and Zourou; Monaco; Thorne). It has affected almost all aspects of life, especially, of the school learners. While in front of their computers there are students who interact with others using another language, which is second nature to them. As a result, they learn new words and then their vocabularies are increased. However, there may be many times when they just express themselves in every way they can so long they are somewhat understandable. Still, there are situations when they have to use some words they are not really familiar with. Hence, the problems with the online social networking sites could either spell directly or indirectly, good or bad influence on students learning.
Monaco said that social media have positive impact on communication(15). In the next few years, there will be more people speaking English in countries that are non-speakers. Today, the social media such as Facebook and other blogs serve as a place where new words are posted. Earlier to these social technologies when television, print, and radio served as the only mass communication, such evolution of words and abbreviations, and the way they are used took a long time. The advent of social technology has made it easier for people to learn new forms of communication and enhance their communication skills. Social media can have a positive impact on communication by expanding vocabularies and enhancing cultural exchange (Lamy, Mangenot and Zourou 92).
Further, with social media, young people who are most to be of the same age use ditto share information (Kevelson).When they view advertisements written in impressive forms, they know how eye-catching and humorous some are because words are used in new ways, which makes “language to grow” (Thorne). As more and more people from different geographical locations keep on using the social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), there is always a possibility that the original language and its meaning may evolve for a specific group and/or setting for good. The change in the way language is used will thischange over time to serve the interests of those who use it for their advantages.
Although people have adapted social media incredibly well there appear issues concerning the quality of language use. According to Leslie Savan, “social media such as Facebook affect the way people from different geographic regions communicate to each other.”(54). Even though social media provide a platform where people from different locations and language adopt a convenient means of communication, its informal use could encourage the careless use of a word based on context or original usage. For example, advertisers in the social media may use languages that are not grammatically correct just to make them appeal to a specific group of readers(Kevelson 87). Consequently, people will simply pick words they find interesting in advertisements and use them in their daily life without taking into account relevant matters related to correct spelling, usage, etc.
Twitter, which is a popular social network enables its users to send text messages containing a maximum of 140 characters. This restriction, however, produces undue changes on the social dynamics of communication, as it limits the user to pass information in not more than 140 characters as different to normal conversation. The restriction drives the user to abbreviate or misspell words to deliver the message. More than 500 million users around the world are developing the habit of abbreviating and misspelling word in their life.These negative impacts of social media will only increase grammatical mistakes among students because they spend most of their time communicating using abbreviations and misspellings(Monaco 15). However, there is no definite solution to this problems because social media are convenient and easy ways of informally informing friends and the public about one’s opinion, feelings, and so on.
Since geographical boundaries are never an issue in social media, people simply use “languages they may end up applying” in their everyday lives (Savan). Even when interaction in “social media are not always formal” where the use of some abbreviation are without sense to some, if not most people, and the sentence constructions are ridden with grammatical errors (Monaco), the internet remainsthe largest source of information, which somehow lessens the negative effects of social media in terms of language usage. Despite of that, since social media will remain part of our everyday lives, people should to take responsibility for their actions because the world we live becomes smaller each day. Therefore, whether social media have positive or negative impact on peoples’ lives, everyone or anyone should make it a point that they are members of a global community with something worthwhile to share and in store for themselves, others, and generations to come.
Work Cited Mohammed E Al-Haddad Page 1 5/25/2013
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