Overview[]
Social Media is the social interaction among people by sharing and discussing various information through forms such as text, images, and video. These social interactions are made through the use of the Internet.
Definition and History[]
Social media is very different than the traditional or industrial media by such ways as how quickly you can access it and how frequent you can get information. One of the first social media sites was called Geocites, it lets users create their own website from one of six cities based on their known characteristics. Continuing with today's advancing technology most social media can be accessed through the use of a phone. Even though in the last several years it's been debatable if social media will have a negative outcome in school. Until very recently social media has been used in classrooms and studies have shown how it impacts students' engagement and grades. In a study done by Junco, Heibergert, and Loken (2011) they separated groups into one that used Twitter and one that didn't. The results included that the Twitter group had a higher GPA's and engagement opposed to the non-Twitter group.
As social media continues to display its strong presence, social media users may also experience its negative effects and consequences. Recent studies show that admission officers and employers do a quick google search while checking on applicants’ social media pages to learn more about them. According to New York Times, 31% of college admissions officers said they had visited an applicant’s Facebook to other personal social media page, which is a 5% increase from 2012. 35% of college admissions offers said that when they checked a student’s online presence, they found something that negatively impacted an applicant’s chances of getting, which nearly triples from 12% the year before.
Even employees are affected by negative effects of social media. Take for example, the recent controversy of Steven Salaita’s tweets costing his employment at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professor Salaita was originally given a position as professor in the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign but before officially starting his position, his contract was terminated or voided because his tweets were deemed anti-Semitic.
Examples
Myspace is an early example of social media. It launched in 2003 and once flourished. Myspace was a social network that allowed users, friends, to create friends lists and interact with one another through comments, personal profiles, pictures, blogs, groups, music, videos, etc.
Twitter is one example of social media that lets you interact with people on the Internet. It uses text, which is limited to 140 characters and can include images and videos. One thing twitter is known for is the use of a hashtag. A hashtag is symbolized by the use of the pound key "#" followed by any word the users chooses. This action of hashtagging helps others find your tweets and manages what's the popular topic of the day is.
Facebook is another social media website, it was intended to help connect with your friends and family. The uses of Facebook can go from posting a status to joining a group where you can find people of similar interests. Recently they have incorporated hashtagging like Twitter.
Pinterest is also considered another social media outlet in that people can post creative ideas and upload pictures of their creations online to share with the rest of the people.
Instagram is platform of social media in where users are able to share various photos. Users on Instagram able to take photos and publish them on Instagram using various filters that Instagram offers and then able to post it with some words relating to the picture. Other users are able to then find the photo through the hashtags that the originator puts in the photo description. Instagram is used for various campaigns and advertisements such as breast cancer awareness and movie trailers.
A List of Keywords[]
Resources and Further Readings[]
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media- This wikipedia article discusses strengths and criticism of social media. It also discusses how it differs from other types of media.
2. http://www.fastcompany.com/3039665/apple-is-warming-up-to-social-media - Apple is hiring a social media guru in LA.
3. http://webtrends.about.com/od/web20/a/social-media.htm- This gives a definition and examples of social media.
4. http://www.wired.com/2013/09/gangs-of-social-media/all/- This article talks about how social media is fueling gang wars.
5. http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml- [dead link] Forbes talks about how to create impact with social media.
Citations[]
"Social Media." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.
Domizi, D.P. (2013). Microblogging to foster connections and community in a weekly graduate seminar course. TechTrends, 57(1), 43-51..
Junco, R., Heiberger, G., & Loken, E. (2011). The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27(2), 119-132..
Agichtein, Eugene; Carlos Castillo. Debora Donato; Aristides Gionis; Gilad Mishne (2008). "Finding high-quality content in social media". WISDOM – Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining: 183–193.
Walker, Miles. "The History of Social Networking". Retrieved 2/11/13.
Kist,W. (2012). Class get ready to tweet: Social media in the classroom. Our children. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ991339.pdf