Social networking and the three sociological theories?

[leavemealone]

I'm doing a project for sociology which involves taking a topic of my choosing (in this case, I chose social networks, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and apply the three main sociological theories -- Functionalism, Symbolic Interactionalism, and Conflict Theory to my topic. To clarify, my research topic in full is, "What is the importance of the role that social networks play in modern society?"

I could not figure out how to apply Functionalism and I'm starting to second-guess my responses for the other two, shown below. If anybody has any opinions, they would be greatly appreciated.

Conflict theory: Social networking is limited to those who can afford modern technology and can make exclusion very easy. Anonymity within social networks unfortunately allows for bullying and harassment with little fear of retribution.

Symbolic Interactionalism: Social networking helps us easily connect and share with other cultures quickly. It allows users to share information rapidly, keeping them up to date with the world around them. These websites have permeated our culture, attributing new meanings and importance to words like “friending”, “tweet”, “trending” and can be seen and represented in almost every facet of society.
Time forced my hand. I figured that I was a little confused with symbolic interactionism (whoops wrong word in my original post!). I didn't see your post, Matt, before I had to turn it in. I think I ended up adding in a bit of what you said anyways! Here is my final version:

Functionalism: Social networking allows users to easily connect and share with other users from all over the world, spanning generations and cultures. It allows users to share information rapidly, keeping them up-to-date with the world around them.

Conflict theory: Social networking is limited to those who can afford modern technology and the format of many social networking websites can propagate exclusion. This exclusion and separation between social groups may exacerbate the differences and issues between these groups, amplified by the anonymity of the Internet, which decreases the fear of retribution. Access to these websites can be limited by a government's censorship of the Internet.

Symbolic Inter
..it cut me off. Haha.

Symbolic Interactionalism: Social networking has permeated our culture, attributing new meanings and importance to words like “defriending”, “tweet”, “trending”, “following”, and more. Social networking can be seen and represented in almost every facet of society, including pop culture.

[Matt Y]

Pretty happy with your conflict theory and symbolic interactionism approaches. The secret in any sociological field is that you can almost never be wrong if you have adequate evidence to back you up.

Functionalism: is the theory that society works like an organism, everything plays its part for the good of society. In this light maybe social media could be seen as a method of regulating/maintaining/changing culture in that people are constantly interacting and sharing ideas and thus conforming to various cultures and ridiculing those they see as outside the culture. Social media is basically 'public form of gossiping' after all.

Conflict Theory: as I said, your explanation is fine. Maybe though you may want to look into how different groups rival or argue over social media and how they use it differently?

Symbolic interactionism: agree with what you had