LO2 – ANALYSE THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SOCIAL EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA PRODUCTS

LO2 – Emma Fraser

Positive Effects of Social Media Negative Effects of Social Media

Connectivity of Ideas— in 1964, Marshall McLuhan suggested that New Media technologies would eventually create a type of global village. That has been created and now people all over the world can come together to share ideas and can access a wealth of information to share and collaborate.

Cyber-bullying— Many users of the internet are vulnerable to the practice of cyber-bullying where the perpetrators anonymously, or sometimes posing as people their victims trust, terrorise individuals in front of their peers. Cyber-

bullying has spread widely amongst youths, with 42% reporting they have been victims of cyber-bullying.

Sharing of Innovation and Technology— Online and virtual environments have been pivotal in the sharing of technology, software, ideas and content. People now collaborate all over the world to produce material, learn, share and swap ideas.

Loss of Privacy—Many social networking sites encourage people to be more public about their personal lives, whilst most sites will allow their users to control who sees content they have posted people will often forget to apply privacy

settings which makes it difficult to control or doesn't work as well as advertised.

Generation of Funding— Crowdfunding has become a major way for projects in all business sectors to set up over the past couple of years and social media has been pivotal in the success of

Crowdfunding.

Decreased Productivity— Whilst many businesses will use social networking sites to find and communicate with clients, these sites can also act as a distraction to employees who may spend their time online looking at social media

content. There is also a big risk of individuals commenting about their work place online, this could lead to disciplinary action if the comments bring the company into disrepute in any way.

Global Connectivity— This is a positive as people can now connect with others from across the world. Families who immigrate to different countries can keep in contact with the other members of their family that they may have left behind in their country of origin.

A False Sense of Connectivity— Social Media websites can make it more difficult for us to distinguish between the meaningful relationships we have in the real world and the numerous casual relationships formed through social

media. Through focusing so much time and energy on what might be called less meaningful relationships, users may become less able to forge successful relationships in real life, at work or socially.

Collection and Enhancement of Photographs— This is mainly a positive of Instagram and it allows people to take photographs on a standard mobile phone and enhance them to have professional appearing photos without all of the expensive equipment.

Negative Publicity— Sometimes businesses can end up using social media platforms in ways that cause harm to the brand or image, there is also possibility that the public might parody campaigns or make political or social statements

about a brand by creating sarcastic memes (A sarcastic or critical statement that is spread via social networks).

Increased Freedom of Speech and Expression— People are now more able to express themselves through social media, making it easier to express to their friends and family what they like and what

they dislike, and gives people a platform to speak out against things they don’t approve of.

Impact on Wider Society— Moral panics have also arisen in terms of the impact that social media has had on the proliferation of celebrity-driven content and representations of women in particular. On Instagram, for example, there are heavily edited images of female celebrities that have caused concern amongst parents and educationalists, owing to sexualised and often graphic images that are available to young girls who arguably see such people as role models.

Wider variety of Comedy Culture— Everyone is able to make comedy content rather than relying on comedians and long-winded jokes to gather as a source of comedy and entertainment and can be

used to make light of difficult situations.

Trolling— An internet troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional

response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. This can have effects on individuals who read the posts and can lead to upset and anger.

LO2 – Emma Fraser

Examples

Positive Effects of Social Media Negative Effects of Social Media

Connectivity of Ideas— Creative entrepreneurs are now making their own jobs now more than ever, an example of this is from Issa Rae, who used YouTube to come up with an original series called Awkward Black Girl. The show was able to gain a

large enough audience in which television network HBO saw the reaction on social media and picked up Issa’s show and allowed her to retain full creative control whist airing it on their television network.

Cyber-bullying— Jessica Logan was an 18-year-old student at Sycamore High School, she sent nude photos of herself to her boyfriend, however the Cincinnati Enquirer later reported that the photo has been sent to hundreds of teenagers in at least seven Cincinnati-area high schools after the couple broke up. According to the University of Alabama’s cyberbullying website, the cyber bullying continued through Facebook, MySpace

and text messages. This resulted in Jessica hanging herself after attending the funeral of another boy who had committed suicide.

Sharing of Innovation and Technology— Issa Rae, the young woman in the example above, was also able to use social media to innovate her show using people’s contributions after they suggested that she go to HBO in order to innovate and move on with

her project and give her the technology and tools necessary to succeed.

Loss of Privacy— Technology can be a useful tool for celebrities, allowing them to spread information about upcoming projects and interact with their fans, however many celebrities have fallen victim to private images being leaked from their private files and storage places, such as iCloud. For example, Hunger Games stars Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence have both fallen victim to the exposing scandal which has gone on to

damage their reputations.

Generation of Funding— A recent example of this of a 6-year-old who’s birthday Kickstarter was able to raise $2,000 for Syrian Children. Anna Puopolo used Social Media to tell her many followers, which she gained through making YouTube content, that

she didn't want presents for her birthday and that she had instead decided to start a Kickstarter campaign in order to raise money for the “other kids in Syria and other adults in Syria that need shelter, food and water”. Her campaign reached its goal of

$2,000 in the first week.

Decreased Productivity— Social Media can hinder productivity, it has been reported that a social media interruption occurs every 10.5 minutes on average, and people waste 41% of that time on Facebook and it takes the average person 23 minutes to get back on track.

Global Connectivity— twcnews.com reports of a mother and her son who were reunited after 25 years, through using Facebook in order to find each other once again. The mother and son lived worlds apart, whilst the mother was residing in Rochester whilst he lived in Texas, however the pair were reunited through the globally connective power of Social Media.

A False Sense of Connectivity— Being excluded from social events has always been an uncomfortable situation. However teens today are much more likely to find out about what they are missing in the snap-and-share culture we now live in, making the sting of exclusion that much more

painful due to real-time digital delivery. Mother, Dr. Jeanette Nazarian, was left comforting her daughter after she found out about a sleepover that she wasn't invited to through images that were being shared on Facebook. The children most likely to be affected are in fourth, fifth and sixth

grades, when kids are discovering friends and popularity while often using social apps earlier than the minimum age of 13.

Collection and Enhancement of Photographs— One example of being able to collect and enhance photographs is through Instagram. Instagram is the perfect tool for this and every Instagram user will be able to attest to this. Although there are no

specific examples regarding this, it is a positive feature of Social Media and is used by millions of users around the world.

Negative Publicity— In 2011, an employee from New media Strategies sent out a tweet on automaker Chrysler's Twitter feed that read, "I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f***ing drive.". The message naturally came as a surprise to the

thousands of Chrysler followers and the rest of the Twitter. The firm's PR department suffered a difficult morning before promptly firing the sender of the R-Rated tweet, and Chrysler did not renew its contract.

Increased Freedom of Speech and Expression—A recent example of increased freedom of speech and expression through social and media comes from rabble.ca who provides the argument that Donald Trump was able to spread his, often regarded as

hateful, messages through Twitter, but people have also been able to fight against him using the same medium, with protests, marches and other thing being organised through social media whilst others have shared liberal pictures on the sites.

Impact on Wider Society— Many images that have entered Social Media platforms have previously experienced edits and touch-ups. For example, Zendaya Coleman, an actress and singer, had images released online which she noticed had been photo-shopped to resemble a certain body

shape. Knowing images like this can affect younger girls, she addressed the issue and demanded the original image would be released to compare natural beauty to that created on a computer.

Wider variety of Comedy Culture— Trolling— A recent example of trolling includes a man who was arrested for posting offensive comments on Facebook,it was said that the

comments were “not just highly offensive, but seemingly terrorist supporting messages”. The police then responded to the comments stating “We won’t tolerate such remarks whether they are online or in the street about our colleagues who are attacked whilst protecting their

community...If people post such comments we will bring them to justice.”

LO2 – Emma Fraser