The "Awareness Generation"

In class on Monday, Dr. Hill complained about those facebook friends who change their profile picture to reflect campaigns for different causes like poverty or recently, atrocities committed by Joseph Kony. Do they raise awareness? Maybe. Does this translate into any meaningful activism? Rarely.

How many times have you seen statuses like "Post the color of the bra you're wearing right now in your status to help raise awareness for breast cancer research!" or "Post a picture of your favorite childhood cartoon character to raise awareness for Child Abuse Month."

I'm not sure that finding out my Aunt Mildred's bra is "lavender" is going to move anyone to do something more about breast cancer.

Jason Rickner, a Stetson Alum, did his senior research on the Russian Facebook's capacity to translate into qualitative discourse or activism and found that very little meaningful dialogue was taking place. Obviously, Facebook has played a big role in the recent protests in Russia, but the evidence that the social networking site has been able to encourage any other forms of social activism has been limited.

Perhaps there are positive ways "new media" outlets like Facebook can lead to substantive dialogue and activism. Facebook users can link to blogs (which we need to remember are powerful -- journalists are reading them) or take advantage of forum spaces to get an informed and specific conversation going. Instead of changing your profile picture to Bob the Builder, make a status that high lights the work being done by an organization that combats child abuse. Encourage people to make a contribution or link to the organization's website so that your friends can learn more.

We have to first get over the idea that we can solve problems just by raising awareness. It's a good place to start, and we have a lot of tools at our disposal to do it, but it hurts us if we're lulled into thinking we've done our part when really, we've only "passed the buck" onto someone else.

Obama's Web Presence

Every once in a while I will visit ThinkProgress.org, a blog that I find to be quite good when it comes to topics dealing with environmental issues especially.  While sitting at the library computers, I typed in the web address to take a quick break from my work.  I made an error, and typed ThinkProgress.com rather than ending it with "org".  To my surprise, a massive Obama 2012 ad popped up in the window. (Check it out for yourself).  I'm not sure if Obama's online campaigning team purposely bought the web address to catch any liberals making typing errors like me, but its significance can't be ignored.  Last week we discussed the impacts of the internet on voting habits.  Obama's clear web presence of this one address alone will certainly rake in a few bucks here and there in the upcoming months before the election.  It's pretty extraordinary to think that one minor typing mistake can bring you one click away from donating to a presidential candidate.  I have a feeling that this will be the theme of Obama's campaign strategy, and I bet it's going to be extremely effective.  I remember listening to a piece on NPR about how much Obama is spending on even newer technologies to make fundraising that much easier.  I looked up the article on Obama's digital campaign and found,

 "Another clue to the Obama campaign's strategy this year is a few payments it made to a small tech company called Square, for a 1-inch-square credit card reader that works on iPhones and iPads.  The Obama campaign says after trying out Square last quarter, it's buying hundreds of them this year, vastly reducing the time, money and effort it takes to raise and process donations — and potentially turning every volunteer into a digital fundraiser".

This is the future of online campaigning, and like our readings suggested, it seems as though technology will continue to become an ever-increasing part of the political process.

The Diminished role of Blogs in News Framing?

Recently we have read a journal article by Henry Farrell and Daniel W. Drezner tilted, “The Power and Politics of Blogs”. The findings in this article suggest that elite bloggers influence news framing by becoming a focal point of reference to the main stream media. Although what we did not discuss in class is the findings in this entry are not conclusive, they are only a beginning of future research in the photosphere.

“However, even if the blogosphere can influence the body politic, the extent of that influence remains open to question.”

This is what I was worried about the entire class period. The discussion we had seemed to lead us to assume that the influence from blogs was there when really the evidence can do no more than suggest an influence.

What I was most concerned about was the small amount of actual references the main stream media made towards blogs “between September 2003 and January 2004” when there survey took place. What the data showed was that in the span of 5 months the major blogs mentioned were mentioned very few time s one which was mentioned 78 times but this one was truly an out liner for the rest ranged from 1-16 mentions. My point is that these are the top read blogs yet they are mentioned very few times within the span of five months. Although I could not find data on the most highly referenced source for political information of the mainstream media, it does seem rather miniscule that the media would only reference the top read blog with an outlier at 78 mentions in 5 months in the presents of a 24 hour news cycle.

Another concern I had with this article is the wording that a certain survey finding had:

“Of those who used blogs, 55% reported that they use them to support the work that they
do in writing news.”

My problem is with the word “support”, it leads me to question whether the blog was really influential news framing, or the journalist had already developed a frame for the news and used the blog solely for support; in which case the role of the blog in news framing is diminished.

Tweets v. Likes

Tweets vs. likes: Ana Analysis of Monkey Cage Data

Joshua Tucker on February 26, 2012

Joshua Tucker, writer for the Monkey Cage once posted a question about why some blog posts are more likely to be “tweeted” and why others are subject to being “liked” on Facebook. Later, Georgetown student compiled data from the Monkey Cage and made an analysis of why certain blog posts are tweeted or liked.

The student’s analysis theorized that blog posts are liked based upon their graphical content. Blogs that have graphics or graphs are more likely to be “liked” on Facebook because of this social network’s graphical and picture orientated nature. On the other hand, blogs with more “wonkiness” received more tweets as Twitter is a text based network.

This basic study reveals some insight about the orientation of both social networks. Facebook is highly dependent on graphics and pictures for their internet traffic. Twitter is based on amusing, witty, and short “tweets.”

Another aspect of the tweet and like war is the public versus private spheres. Twitter is seen more as a public forum while Facebook has some “perceived” privacy towards your own friends and family. Due to this difference, Tucker commented that he is much more likely to post highly partisan ideas on the semi-private Facebook wall than on Twitter’s public forum.

He believes that this certainly has some impact on political behavior over social networks. Tucker theorizes that the difference between the public v. private domains of Facebook and Twitter will help differentiate the effects of social media on the audience.

Social media seems to counter act the hypodermic reception theory. Because users can be more selective in their media source options, the audience is more active and is not a passive recipient. The internet also balances the “agenda setting” behavior of televised news. The “agenda” on social media sites is entirely set by the users, not by the company trying to make profits off of popularizing a particular view. Therefore, social media and media on the internet may allow its audience to become more active and aware members of society.