Blog Posting 4

How do you think social media will change in the future? What other trends would
you add to the mix? Are they any specific technologies that you think will gain
popularity or emerge?

  I think social media will change in the future through its uses in the business world, whether it is connecting employees with clients and each other, or use in marketing and advertisement. There are so many different aspects of social media that corporations and small business can attribute to increased profitability or awareness. I’m not sure if this means that there may be just visual changes or user changes to the software but it will definitely be a hub for businesses, entrepreneurs and social users alike to connect and grow a failing economy.

  

A cool trend I would like to see would be a specific and detailed connection between social media and popular video games and consoles, like; being able to play and share video game experiences that could stream live to friends or others through social media video capabilities as well as chatting all at the same time. As video games and social media become more and more popular they’re trending rate may be very similar individually, so it seems only logical that majorly combining the two would be the next big step for both of these entities to take. 

I cannot be too certain of what particular technologies will emerge or become popular but I believe they will come from somewhere related to the communication or interactive side of social media. By making social media sites or tools more interactive and easier to navigate, people will have to try to create more accessible software and find ways to make streaming video, chat, and sound have better quality while at the same time making it instantly available to any number of people at any time. 

Although I can’t be sure of exactly what will be next for social media and its technology, I’ll bet it gets better than anything I can imagine(the same as someone over 100 years ago trying to determine what today would be like), I just hope I’ll be around to see it all.

Do you think that social media has the ability to bring about real social change?

I believe that social media does have the potential to bring about real social change. Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the past year should know that social media has pretty much already brought about some great positive social change in the Middle East and Africa, specifically Egypt and Tunisia where Twitter was the kindling for huge revolutions. People who were suffering from government oppression and a weak economy among other things decided to set up Facebook pages and use their Twitter accounts to spread the word about the terrible conditions and massed people together to begin public protests and receive donations from people all over the world to help their cause.
 
Many people believe that the best hope for developing countries and those living in them is education. Social media is a great way to send and receive information to and from everyday people all over the world and to get news as it happens so that people can react to positive or negative situations right away, which also make it difficult for those oppressive governments to silence people or a story. As for the future there’s no telling where and in what situation social media will be able to help raise awareness and allow everyday people in those situations to lead the charge in remaking society for the better. A couple of decades ago the idea that large revolutions could coalesce as quickly as it did in Egypt would be laughable, but now that technology and the software that people create has advanced so much with so many different uses who knows what social media idea will come next and how that could affect social change.

 In conclusion, I do not see how social media hasn’t or couldn’t bring about real social change with all the evidence over the past couple of years that has arisen from so many people accessing programs like Twitter and Facebook for the benefit of large and struggling societies.

Blog Assignment 2

  Has social media increased or decreased the quality of news and information? My most basic answer would be that it has decreased the quality of news and information, because with the fact that anyone with an internet connection can become a viable source for news and events it doesn’t mean that anyone should listen to them( Like the opinions of a blog for instance). Many people use Wiki’s to research a topic or learn about past events when anyone could have edited a post with false information whether accidental or purposeful.

  

 It’s true though that social media has increased the quantity of news and information outlets which logically means there could be more reliable sources of information through social media then through outlets like television or radio. There is an immense amount of news and sources that people can search through to find reliable and accurate answers with a variety of different opinions and biases that allow the reader to gain more knowledge of a subject then if they were to just watch FOX or CNN for all of their news. But I do not believe that this large and varying ocean of information makes the QUALITY of the news and information we are viewing.

   
This brings me back to the fact that there are probably thousands of people who make light of or spread false news through social media tools. I personally check Yahoo.ca news everyday just because it’s so much quicker and easier to scroll through a series of news headlines and click the link to an article to get the entire story from a trusted and employed author then sit through or wait for a story you want to see or hear on TV. If someone gets their news from social media they should be sure to double check the facts and authenticity of the story. Just because there are many more sources of news and information through social media, it doesn’t mean that the quality of those sources is any better.

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Just testing functionality.