Posts Tagged ‘society’

Can we really rely on social media, Google or Facebook to drive change?

October 27th, 2011 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Media, Politics, Social media

When social media came into being it generated a significant groundswell of people that believed that it would be a positive thing for society and community.

By forcing businesses to become more transparent and distributing the means of media production it was argued that our society would change for the better.

This point of view probably peaked in 2006/7 but bubbled below the surface for a lot longer than that.

I fully subscribe to this point of view.  I still do.

But there are doubts and questions in my mind.

2011 hasn’t done anything to allay my fears.

Since 2008 we’ve seen major abuses of poor by power elites and institutions in almost every sphere of our existence. Yes, these abuses have been exposed but take the global financial crisis as an example and you can see that little has actually changed despite the exposure of the wrong doers.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen the Occupy movement spring up but I don’t believe that any Government is actually really listening.  Yes, they have a voice.  Yes, they’ve gained some media coverage for their struggle and point of view but to what end.  Will anything really change?  The strong arm tactics employed by the police in the UK, Australia and USA would suggest that the traditional institutions still have the right to operate in the way that they see fit.

Taking a slight tangent here the one thing that really concerns me is this.

The companies that are really benefiting from social media are not complying or furthering the principles of openness and transparency upon which their industry is supposedly based.  Companies like Google and Facebook are in fact operating in very shady and opaque ways when it comes to managing information and data.

What hope is there  for greater transparency in society when the companies at the forefront of social media are acting in this way?

Marx argued that religion is the opiate of the people. Will social media one day assume this moniker?

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Reflections of a day immersed in social media of one type or another #atsyd Ad:tech09

March 11th, 2009 by Daniel Young | No Comments | Filed in Social media

Regular readers will know that I attended the Ad:tech Sydney 09 conference today. It was an enjoyable and interesting event. Later in the pub, we talked about Facebook quite a lot. Even later, we talked about social media or at least I did. We were at the Hopetoun in Surry Hills to see Pivot. Pivot were supported by a group called Seekae, strangers to me this group rocked and made themselves a hard act to follow. I found out about the secret concert via Facebook, funnily enough; Pivot who are from Perth were performing under the name of Fire Island (presumably a reference to the Red centre of Australia).

I think I thought quite deeply through both acts. I almost texted this line:

It’s time that we re-assessed what Media actually is?

Much later I believed that we are ultimately moving towards a confrontation between Biology, Chemistry and Physics, and we are on the side of Biology. Convergence is the dominant theme in time. Discuss.

This begs the question. Can convergence every represent the individual?

I am off track.

Taken from another angle I wondered whether the speakers and organisors at Ad:tech Sydney 2009 represented the intelligensia of the marketing industry. One has to wonder, when the discussion is focused completely on what commercial advantage we can gain from social media.

Coming back to the question of what is media I believe that what is occurring is a progression of sorts. Fly on the wall documentaries and Reality TV represent a metaphorical highway which We took on the road of Media Fragmentation.

Today every individual IS THE ‘Media’.

Taking a quick tangent, I also pondered the proposition that social media is the latest tool of class and control.

In theory, social media is a wonderful but if I was asked to explain my point of view in the most simplest terms, I would say that the things that we describe as a ‘the Corporation’ and ‘Government’ will come to control social media in the medium to long term.

To summise:

If this were a film, I would advise people not to continue watching if they disagreed with this statement:

“If you put 20 Monkeys in a room for infinity, they would eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare.”

But this thought process a.k.a. theory presents an opportunity for the commercial sector and Government to demonstrate that they genuinely mean well.

One thinks that they will fail to take the opportunity.

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