Social media has changed the way that people interact with one another for the rest of time. People can use social media to share their lives, opinions, and more importantly their political views. Some of the most popular social media platforms are Facebook, where one can post their own thoughts along with pictures and video, Twitter, where one posts short messages, Instagram, where one posts pictures along with captions, Tumblr, where one can post a variety of different media, and Snapchat, where one can share videos and picture with their friends for a short amount of time. Now that people are able to share whatever they would like on the internet, some have used this as a way to spread political initiatives through these platforms. Social …show more content…
From the #BlackLivesMatter to the Parkland survivors, young adults use social media in a positive way to bring justice to the people they feel as though do not have a voice in the regular media. Additionally, these movements connect with Staar, the protagonist of The Hate U Give (THUG), because she also uses social media as a way to give people another view to her friend Khalil who was murdered by a police officer. All of these different movements have been created by young adults, with the purpose of changing the way people think about current issues. Young adults are able to use social media platforms to become social activists and create positive …show more content…
When protesting certain things, people turn to humorous images called memes to gain traction on social media and to bring awareness about their cause. One of these humorous images was a picture of a popular TV cartoon, SpongeBob which was used to make fun at politicians at the March For Our Lives protest (@bynickdean). While this was meant to be lighthearted, it actually made people more aware about the social issues the march was creating because it was using a picture that many people recognized. Often times people turn to these humorous images to have others who are not typically motivated by political tweets to have them become aware of the issues they are trying to voice. These memes can be used in protest signs, and even spread across social media to gain
In Nicholas Carr’s article “How Social Media Is Ruining Politics”, Carr writes about the effects that social media has on politics. In his article, Carr focuses more on the negative effect that social media has when it comes to politics. Some points that he makes about social media include specific examples like the recent presidential campaigns, how other technological advances over the years have effected politics, and the effectiveness that social media has on politics
#BlackLivesMatters is more than a hashtag, it is a social liberation movement. Coming to fruition in 2012 after the infamous Trayvon Martin murder case, Black Lives Matter was born as a reaction to the great injustice this case displayed towards a young black teen. As a social movement Black Lives Matter uses multiple communicative methods to spread their message. By combining traditional methods like peaceful protests called StandUp in their events calendar, with contemporary communication applications like Twitter, Black Lives Matter has gained much support and power. The key to the buzzing conversation surrounding Black Lives Matter can be attributed to their integration of popular communicative techniques, specifically Twitter. By combining
For many young people who should be acting on behalf of their generation's issues, reality and social media have become far too close. Gladwell makes a terrific analogy in order to prove this point, saying "The evangelists of social media...they seem to believe that a Facebook friend is the same as a real friend". The reason that people prefer to repost articles and pictures about a cause, rather than act on it, is because of the low risk while online. This can be compared to how a bully may hide behind a message board instead of involving themselves in real action. This social media activism is completely safe compared to the real activists throughout American history, who risked their lives to defend a cause. "Boycotts and sit-ins and nonviolent confrontations are high risk strategies", Gladwell argues, speaking of the Greensboro lunch counter protests and Martin Luther King Jr.'s marchers. "We are a long way from the lunch counters of Greensboro", Gladwell warns. If this generation could learn to see past the safety behind a computer and stand up in reality for what they believe in, perhaps there could be a change or even a
“Sometimes fiction is more easily understood than true events. Reality if often pathetic.” - Young-Ha Kim. Fiction is able to interpret reality in ways that are easier for people, especially the youth, to understand. It is able to show the truths of reality through a story that may not be 100% true, but is based on events that are. The novel, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, is based on the life of a teenage black girl who lives two seperate lives, one in the “hood” and the other at a preppy private school. When her best friend is unjustifiably murdered by a white cop, anarchy rises within the community. This novel interprets what occurs in everyday life for someone like the main character, Starr, who has to deal with gangs, police brutality,
With each generation the youth, especially the African American youth, are becoming more and more subjected to the media. This dependence on futile knowledge, limits the growth of our future. I am a witness to this trend. Social media is considered their entire world. That small 5x2 inch device is their entire existence.
Many students do not understand what happens in the real world, without fictional book students may never know what goes on outside of their own world. Every person goes through something different, and fictional literature is one way to express that. Therefore, the school board should not remove fictional text from the student’s curriculum. Some fictional texts have certain situations such as; self confidence, oppression, and racism. For example, the novel, The Hate U Give deals with this certain situations as the main character struggles to find her voice and has to face oppression and racism.
Imagine a world where the physically weak have a powerful weapon to fight against the strong. In this kind of world, that mean kid who beats you up, steals your lunch money, and copies your math homework has no power, whereas the weakling who gets his lunch money stolen has all of it. Through the aid of social media, individuals, teens in particular, who are usually quite docile have a chance to fight back at their oppressors, or they might, in the heat of the moment, begin to victimize someone else.
For example, teenagers can be influenced to give back to their community more often, after seeing one of their favorite celebrities or role models doing the same. Furthermore, these role models that are obtained through social networking sites can influence youth to make ethical decisions every day. It can be from something as small as saying “please and thank you” daily or to something as big as being honest in a difficult situation. When used for the right purposes, SNSs can become a platform for tremendous change. In a study about the benefit of social networking sites, the researcher (Verma, 2015) mentions, “SNSs provide a platform for intentional social action in personal, professional, social and political issues besides successfully connecting business to their customers” (p2). The ethically correct side of SNSs are used as a venue for positive change in the world that starts with the youth. For instance, there are users on Youtube that promote random acts of kindness, healthy living, and ethical decision making. In addition, daily use of these social networking sites is providing teenagers with helpful work skills that will be beneficial to their future. In one study, researchers note, “Across the world, Gen Y has grown up with rapid advances in technology; they are comfortable with change. This familiarity means that young people
Today’s young adults live a life caught between two worlds: the physical realm of human interaction and the digital universe that sits just a mouse click away. This is an age in which entire relationships are formed over online digital platforms, and a single person’s opinion can be broadcasted worldwide in a matter of milliseconds. Lately, the freedom of expression that social media has given young adults has provoked interesting behavior among users of such social media platforms as Facebook and Twitter. The term “slacktivism” was coined as far back as 1995 by Dwight Ozard and Fred Clark as an expression of doing something in support of an issue or cause that requires minimal personal effort (Kain, 2012), and is now used to describe this new behavior; where everyday activists have taken their causes to the Web in search of exposure and support, and users have found a passive way to support the causes that they claim to believe in. Every day, hundreds of new slacktivist-oriented pages and videos sprout up across Facebook and Twitter, and slacktivist supporters rush to “like” the cause and pass it along to other friends in their network. This, however, is not the only form of slacktivism. It is also evidenced in the statuses of the numerous members of the Facebook and Twitter community. The role of the “status update” and the “tweet” has evolved from reporting a person’s physical activities, into a platform for launching whatever propaganda a user deems worthy of sharing with his or her social media community. It would seem that social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are providing users with a false sense of ego, and that this – in turn – has contributed to the monumental rise of slacktivism and consequential degradat...
The ultimate question that comes to the mind of mjourity of youth is WHATS the point when it comes to being able to express your self in real lifewbecause they have already depicted them selkves as the ideal person they want to be and think very highly oifi them selevs. Hence, social media acts as a fuel to the ego of young people where they ideally think it is okay tik show them sleves as perfect online instead of real life. Young people adapt to the speech used in various forms of social media
Since social media is ubiquitous it provides users the capability of extending their social circle beyond their neighborhood. Evidence proves that, “60% of those who use an online neighborhood discussion forum know ‘all or most’ of their neighbors” ( Pewdie 10) which correlates to local engagement. This is positive as social networking substitutes for some neighborhood involvement and helps build a strong trusting neighborhood. There are 2.03 billion active social media users globally, which depicts not only the prominence of social media worldwide but also how accessible social media is as 25% of social media users are active (We Are Social). Lacking language and distance barriers, social media has helped bring social issues to light as court rulings and government actions are debated online and brought to the attention of government officials. For example, the death of Eric Gardner back in July as the video of a cop choking him to death went viral recently due to social media, which has caused riots and lack of faith in the justice system. With users all across the globe posting their opinions, planning protests and debating on social media, politicians have been forced to discuss the equality of the American justice system as the government’s people are distraught (Salon). Although social media is utilized to connect the world on the negative side of the spectrum, individuals suffer
As low levels of 'conventional' participation are being noted, the pattern of participation in political matters is changing. Political protest is on the rise in all of its forms from petition signing (demanding the least commitment) to public demonstrations and violent protests (the other extreme) (Moyser, 2003). This essay will focus on political protest in its more extreme form – the form of lawful and unlawful mass protests. In the wake of the 21st century, technology is spreading quickly to every corner of the globe and access to the Internet, smartphones, and computers is easier than ever before. Social media are one of the prominent uses of these technologies, mostly by youth, but use of social media by other demographic semgments of the society are on a rise. The number of social media users is increasing every second and the amount of statuses, tweets, images, and videos they produce is more than overwhelming. There are over 1,15 billion facebook users, and over 500 million of both Google+ and Twitter users with their numbers growing every day (Ajmera, 2013). Also, over 23% of Facebook users log in more than 5 times per day! (ibid) Various kinds of social media brought with themselves new opportunities and methods to express oneself and to gain popular support. They have brought new means and methods of mobilizing society, whatever the objective might be.
The future of the United States government, policy structure, and elections will evolve around the emerging social media. How well politicians and government officials use the technology could shape the policies of our country.
Social Media is defined by Merriam-Webster as “forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos)” (Merriam-Webster). For many Americans, social media is a method of social interaction that is used often on a daily basis. It has been determined that one in five people use social media at least once a day and that 19% of Americans between the ages of 15 and 54 are on sites like Facebook and Twitter(). It’s no longer commonplace to send handwritten letters or birthday cards, now writing on a wall, sending a tweet or snapping a picture is accepted.
The correlation between the development of youth and social media has become blatant. Although few of the consequences are favorable, the majority have displayed a negative impact. The drive social media can implement on youth is exceptional. The pressure and strain social media can place on our youth is an enduring force which leads individuals to question themselves as a person and feel inclined to fit a norm expressed in media and social media of our society. The underlying force social media can play in the lives of the youth is astonishing and is a force that must be dealt with and controlled, for it not only holds the power to give an individual strength, but also to break them down.