Inequality Among Us

danah raised some very interesting points about inequality on social media, and I found myself agreeing with her for the most part. I have noticed that while my friends may be friends with a variety of races on social media, the majority of their interactions online are with people of the same race. Noticing this, I found the point about how new social media and new technology have reinforced existing divisions rather than dissolved them to be true. People bring what they have learned, their prejudices, their likes and dislikes with them when they go online, it’s not like they disappear and you become a whole new person online, and so how can we expect new technology to link us together? It may offer a window to other cultures and lifestyles, but does that really mean anything especially since it is not even a real world, face-to-face experience?

I could see social media as a possible source of social justice in the world. To me social media should be used as a tool for awareness and fundraising rather than the main tool in our arsenal for positive change. Take for example Kony 2012-everybody knew about it within two weeks of the video dropping on Youtube and the countless other shares and mentions it received on other sites, which helped garner a lot of attention, support, and money for the movement-which was good. However did anything really happen as a result? I and many of my friends I have asked do not even know if Kony was stopped; the closest information I received was that Kony was stopped soon after or even before the movement began and this was just a rumor I heard. Another well known example of social activism via social media would be the ALS ice bucket challenge-it had millions of reshares as well as millions of dollars raised. Based off these two examples I would say that yes social media can be used for social justice, but it should be used as a TOOL to raise awareness and money to support a cause rather than be the main approach to problem.

Twitter, unlike many other social medias, is a better news source than place of discussion although it can be used as one. Twitter only allows for short “180 character” messages, which does not really allow room for more than an opinion and a few general supporting sentences, and there is no comments section for people to have full length discussions on. Twitter instead is better suited for short, accurate, live updates on a situation or for links that have more in depth info on the matter at hand. Sites like Tumblr, Instagram, and Facebook all have areas where people can have full on debates or conversations about something without it getting annoying to others. So Twitter is like the sound byte you see on the news for 20 seconds, and other social medias are the full articles you find online the next day.