Why you believe Positive or negative effect on society as a whole?

[Peterson]

I need someone To help me with this essay please

[Winston Chau]

Modern media practises have evolved significantly from their traditional forms, with the key concepts of this ‘new media’ being participation and interactivity (O’Reilly, 2005, p. 1) (Anderson, 2007). Society exists in a digital age, where everything in our lives is spread out across as much media as possible and this media is shaped by everyone. Much of this media exists or relates to the Internet and the ‘online world,’ as Brücks, Mehnert, Prommer and Räder (2008, p. 2) confirm in their statement that “the Internet is part of our everyday life” for the reason that “we do the same in the Internet as in real life, probably in a [...] more efficient, faster [and] cheaper [way].” As such, communication using the Internet as a channel is becoming increasingly popular. Social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are examples of communication tools available online. With proliferation of social networking online comes impact on society; a difference in what people do and how they do it. Changes in society are simultaneously useful and negative and this is the case with the impact of online social networking. This paper aims to look at the positive effect that interaction through social networking sites has on today’s society in relation to the modern media concept of greater interaction.

The significance placed on interaction and participation within these social networking sites is evident in the numerous ways in which communication is encouraged. For example, some social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook offer users the ability to create sub-groups (or message boards) of people based on similar interests. Unlike ‘fan pages’ or ‘followers,’ which are largely one-dimensional, these groups are “analogous to clubs in the offline world” (Greenstein, 2009). These can vary from support groups, to fan groups, to community organisations or school groups. The basis behind them is to share information and communicate with others. Apart from using these groups to interact, people have the ability (depending on privacy settings) to comment and respond to ‘status updates’ and statements or comments that others have posted, thereby initiating communication. On sites such as YouTube, people may even give a video response. By allowing such feedback, there is the prospect of conversation, of debate, of sharing information or perceiving new ideas. It is this capability of interaction that makes social networking sites multi-dimensional in communicating, unlike the one-dimensionality of earlier websites and blogs. As such, it also points to the fact that social networking sites, as Siegler (2009) suggests, are often an extension of ‘real life.’ By coexisting with life offline, communicating in the digital world is therefore no more of a threat than if a person were to join communities and interact with others in the offline world.

Other activities offered by social networking sites include such services as multiplayer online games, polls, chat rooms and messaging services, all of which endorse the idea of communicating and interacting with others. Customisation of user profiles, such as background images and page layouts also provides a way of interaction through expression (and sharing) of interests or the sharing of these graphics. Many social networking sites market on the increase in convergence technology and portability of today’s technology. As Chris Bronk (2008) of the Baker Institute clarifies, “convergence is a term tied up with digital technology.” As so much of the way we communicate has become digitised “we see more and more that your telephone is your music player and it’s also your email client or it’s your Internet browser” (Bronk, 2008). The companies that are providing us with communication services are, as Bronk (2008) further states “selling us not one service anymore [but] they’d like to [provide] a whole bunch of different [services and] so they have a converging business model,” which very often incorporates connection to some sort of social networking site. Therefore, social networking sites offer an array of ‘widgets’ and applications which allow users to easily connect to the site and to share their information on these sites with others. The website Widgetbox shows some examples of applications for social networking sites and has a wide range of ‘widgets’ to choose from. These applications are also used to connect with other websites (generally blogs), usually through “Really Simple Syndication” (RSS) feeds, which provide links and updates of information to other sites. As Jansson (n.d.) shows us, social networking sites can combat loneliness; that by overcoming ‘real life’ boundaries, such as time or distance, and establishing a continuous link to communicating with others, a feeling of participation and belonging is created.