Intro to Social Media; Social

Media Issues & Criticisms

Professor Matthew Kushin, PhD
Shepherd University | Department of Mass Communication | 2012
Teams!

 Team sign up sheet will be passed around today

 Make sure you’re team is on there!
 Remember your team number!

 Teams should sit near each other in class

What is Social Media?
Web 2.0 a “buzzword”

 Defined:
 When we value an online network’s ability to tap the
participation of large groups of people
 These people collect & create information
In other words

 Web 2.0 is all about fostering connections between PEOPLE

Web 1: A Mass Media Web

 Individual - content consumer

 Production - controlled by a few

 Ex: media, Government
• Interactivity - limited Published
Content
• Technology restricts richness & extent of User-generated
human interaction content

 Ex: E-mail
Web 2.0

 Production – many-to-many
 People produce majority of content for one another.

 Organizations - enable content sharing through

services provided

 Interactivity - fast, rich

But what is social media?

 Social media is media that foster social interaction between

people
 built on Web 2.0 principles
So…. social media is like a playground
On this playground:

 Network providers create playground

 Infrastructure

 We “play” on the playground, providing the experience for

one-another
 We create the user-generated content that others consume,
and vice versa.
Why is this revolution in
media production so
important?
Fundamental Shift

 Media production differs from other kinds of production (ex:

industrial, agricultural)

 media have the power to persuade, inspire, educate, and direct

human activity.
Fundamental Shift

 Society is the result of humans working together to,

 achieve tasks organized and coordinated,

 via
Fundamental Shift

 So:
 An evolution in our relationship with media

 Means:
 A shift in POWER
Social media & a new ethos

 Ethos – the dominant assumptions of a people or period

Social media ethos

 Key societal changes:

 Human-to-human relations
 Perspectives about human & info relationship
 Perspectives about ownership
Human-to-human Relations

 Hyper-connectivity
 Now have ability to share and co-create with virtually anyone,
anywhere.
Human / info relations

 We’re encouraged to create media and share creations

Human / info relations

 People used to information being “free” and available

Ownership

 Growing attitude that what is created belongs to all of us

Ownership

 In some sectors of society, movement towards relaxing

control over intellectual property
Recurring Problem

 These changes in society present problems for organizations:

 Tension between
 cultural desire for “openness”
 And, organization’s desire for control / profit
Example

 Conventional Wisdom:

 A company cannot make profit if doesn’t protect all its assets

Example: Business

 Traditional Closed perspective

 Trade secrets – A company’s competitive edge
 Brand is proprietary
Example: Ownership

 Consumers take “ownership” of brands

Example: Problem

 In a social media age

Facing this tension

 Many organizations have begun:

 Harvesting external ideas
 Seeking input & innovation from customers, clients
 Sharing their brand
 Loosening stranglehold on intellectual property rights
 Allowing for customers to modify & improve products
Similarly

 As people increasingly interact with brands and identify with

them

 New challenges & opportunities for public relations emerge

 Ex:
 Listening to publics through social media
 Responding to online sentiment
 Building relationships with online communities
Social Media Challenges &
Criticisms
Criticisms of Social Media

 Threatens Authority & Expertise

 “Dictatorship of idiots”
 Authority is measured by power of mass consensus
 Mob overrides expertise and experience, independent thinking and
analysis.
 What is produced in social media may be unreliable
Criticisms

 Negative effects on Culture

 Web 2.0 ‘dumbs down’ culture by enabling mass of talentless
amateurs to create low quality, culturally devoid works
Criticisms

 Democratization Myth
 Fragments citizenry by enabling escape into niche groups
How is social media changing
strategic communication
(e.g., PR)?
Cliff hanger…..

 Show up next class

 And do tonight’s reading about film director Kevin Smith