September 14, 2016 - 09:25
I'm thinking about social media.
I guess all media can, to some extent, be tailored to what we want to see, but social media especially can create an isolated, insulated sphere of informaton and vew points. Even the ads are matched to our Google searches and 'liked' pages. You hear about the same films, the same people, and often the same politics.
Over the past couple years I've thought a lot about Facebook Activism- using social media as a platform for social justice activism. I guess I've always wondered how effective it is. Because,even IF it goes viral, or reaches people who were ignoratnt to whatever cause, are people really going to absorb it? Or just click and scroll? Also, desensitization. THinking about Black Lives Matter on social media this summer. What does a hashtag represent? What about violent footage on autoplay? A listicle of 10 Things You Can Do? (realize that this structural setup presumes a similar answer for all of these, but I don't agree with that) The other thing that social media does is it 'legitimizes' everyone's voice- makes it spreadable and shareable and has the ability to loan authority. '
This isn't very well thought out, but I don't have a lot of answers, just questions. I'll ome back and edit in.