Media Links: What is Social Media?

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Social media tools like Facebook and Twitter are all the rage these days. We often hear about social media's incredible potential or conversely, its lack of relevance compared to traditional media.

But what exactly is "social media"?

Social media is a term used to describe the web-based tools, applications, spaces, and practices that people use to interact with each other and share information online. For example, social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace provide online tools that can be used for sharing media and engaging in online conversations, while also providing users with online personal space that forms a repository of shared content and social interactions.

Social media is highly participatory, unlike most traditional (offline) media. With traditional media like television, audience members are passive participants, consuming content that is produced by others. In stark contrast, online social media represent something of a return to a pre-print oral culture -- more of an ongoing dialogue than a form of production and consumption -- in the form of commentary, anecdotes, and shared stories (in audio, video and text forms). Through social media, the means of communicating and producing social meaning, narratives, and values have been returned to what citizen media commentator Dan Gillmor calls "the people formerly known as the audience."

Canadians love Facebook

Canada has a remarkably vibrant social media community. According to cyberlawyer Michael Geist, we have the second highest per capita usage of Facebook in the world. Our cities are also stacked with revered social media innovators and well-followed media and technology commentators, many of whom reach thousands or more people with just the stroke of a key.

Most importantly, the use of social media enables the large portion of society that has access to its tools to connect with endless numbers of people, and in real time. Social media facilitates the mobilization of people who are able to unite under common fronts via their cell phone or computer. The remarkable movement for fair copyright legislation in Canada -- the result of an uprising of concerned Internet users -- is testament to its power. The 1.5 million American citizens who lobbied politicians in 2007, demanding an open Internet, is another example of how these tools can be used to mobilize for social change.
Educate, liberate, celebrate. The 2009 Pride Festival is on now.

the 'unconference'

Social media use is also enabling a plethora of offline meet-ups, collaborations, and events. Many of these face-to-face or "real world" activities are in part inspired by and infused with the collaborative practices and values associated with social media. Unconferences, for instance, are a new form of radically democratic conferences inspired by open-source software development processes.

Read the rest at:
http://www.vueweekly.com/article.php?id=11832

Steve Anderson is the national coordinator for the Campaign for Democratic Media. He is a contributing author of Censored 2008 and Battleground: The Media and has written for The Tyee, Toronto Star, Epoch Times, Common Ground, Rabble.ca and Adbusters.

Reach me at:
steve@democraticmedia.ca
http://www.facebooksteve.com/
http://www.steveontwitter.com/
http://medialinkscolumn.com

Media Links is a syndicated column supported by CommonGround, TheTyee, Rabble.ca, VUE Weekly

Media Links by Steve Anderson, CommonGround, TheTyee, Rabble.ca, , VUE Weekly is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License. You must attribute this work to Steve Anderson, CommonGround, TheTyee, Rabble.ca, VUE Weekly