Get over it: Social Media is not going to change the world
Ian | 27 May, 2009 | 20:16BC STV did everything right online. They had YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, legions of bloggers, and a flashy website to explain it all.
They won the online polls before the election even started.
Last night, dozens stayed up through the night to Twitter the debate on #Bill44. Some PC backbench MLAs even got on Twitter later in the evening and debated a few citizens.
But it made no difference, despite the glorious feelings of self-satisfaction at having vented with other techno-political junkies until late hours in the night.
The teachers of the ATA had far more influence over the government with their policy positions than every single person online.
Meanwhile, realizing that Social Media does have a strategic use, the same Conservative government that is ignoring it and the people there are readily giving citizens a new pseudo-forum to deposit their suggestions into.
Only the reality is that no one reads your suggestions.
Social media is not going to change the world. Host all the Civic/Change/Transit/etc. Camps you want, and it won’t make a world of difference.
Perhaps I’m just jaded, but I’m increasingly seeing a lot of deluded egos in this “so-called” revolution, which I believe is more of just a new form of underground discussion.
But feel free to prove me wrong. (Oh, and like Obama needed to Twitter to win against the McCain/Palin ticket)
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Don’t think it’s that black and white. Social media enables people who wouldn’t normally be able to participate do so.
Also, suspect that SM has a greater influence on global issues. The more local a concern is the less SM activity can add anything to the debate because too many people continue not to use the technology.
I think your completely right. Social media doesn’t change things..it’s just a place where people seem to show off their beliefs rather than doing something. Joining a group on facebook isn’t going to change the world..if anything this practice is making people feel good without actually contributing anything at all to society.
I agree with WoodEngineer – it’s way to easy to join facebook, and other social media without having to really put any energy into something. Doing social activism is alot harder and requires some form of commitment – getting out to protest, writing letters to the media/your member of parliament, making repeated phones calls. Good post and don’t be too disheartened.
What I think social media is good for is organizing!!!
I’m not sure we can say that social won’t “change the world” in any way at all, though I suspect it won’t change things in the ways some people like to talk about.
Like any medium it will change how people perceive and interact with the world. I’m curious to see how the generation who is growing up now (including us) will continue to utilize these social mediums as they become the politicians, stake holders, etc. I am not making any claims the social media generation will grow up to be any different than their parents in the end, but it’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out one way or the other.
There’s another issue: when reaching out via YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. you are reaching out to those who are, to some degree, technologically affluent. While this is changing, I’ve always been under the impression that the people lurking around on the Internet are more liberals than conservatives – for example, there are far more people who would call themselves liberal that took the quiz at http://yourmorals.org/ than those that would call themselves liberal (of course, this could be because conservatives find the notion of a website telling them about their morals ghastly). I think this is starting to change, but it seems to me that online polls will be skewed towards liberals, and then in real life all the conservatives will go out and vote as well.
You overstate your case with this particular statement.
“Host all the Civic/Change/Transit/etc. Camps you want, and it won’t make a world of difference.”
These events are not social media, they are real world events where people actually get together and do real work. The danger is when the organizers of these events rely only on social media to attract participants – then the event will be demographically skewed and not representative – but this isn’t an indictment of social media itself.
That being said, I have mixed feelings about social media and its usefulness, but I believe that has more to do with its immaturity.