COM3704 LATEST EXAM PACK

COM3704 What are social media? Social media are about individuals sharing content, for example blogs carrying articles, insights and news from amateur and professional writers alike, video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Zoopy, and photo-sharing sites like Flickr (Shapshak 2009:4). Facebook Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues (W [sa]). Twitter Twitter is the fastest growing social media service in the world, where people post their views online to other people. Many people use it to publicise new blog posts or link news stories. Like e-mail before them, Facebook and Twitter have revolutionised how people communicate. These sites enable also business people to get connected to other business owners and share ideas and opportunities. What is also important for users to remember about these sites is that they should be careful about the type of information they post on them. ACTIVITY 1.2 Social media 1. What are social media? 2. Give an in-depth explanation of how social media operate and provide at least two examples of social media. 3. Visit a social networking site, for example Facebook, log onto it and explain how it works by illustrating its characteristics. 4. What is the impact of social networking on the individual, business and society? 5. Do you think social networking sites are relevant? Explain. 6. What is the difference between social media and a social networking site? Give examples. 7. Give the advantages and disadvantages of social networking sites. 8. Do you think it is relevant to regulate media such as social networks? Give an explanation for your answer. If you answered yes to this question, explain how social networking sites can be regulated. 9. Explain the phenomenon of globalisation and illustrate how technology complements it. 10. When was Facebook started and by whom? 9 COM3704/1 11. Outline the benefits of participating in discussion forums of social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter. 12. Describe the impact of social networking sites and technology on business. 13. Explain why social networking sites are thought of as a powerful tool and describe how influential people such as politicians and celebrities use them to educate people. 1.3 New media as communication tools The question ``what is technology?'' can be answered in different ways, depending on what field you are answering it from. Some of the ways in which technology is defined are the following (Lister et al 2003:11; 297±298): a. Technology can be viewed as a physical object. Viewed as an object, ``technology is a result of the work of physical scientists and innovators who create technological physical objects by successfully exploiting a set of physical laws''. b. Technology as a ``cultural presence''. This means that technology can be understood as being cultural artefacts. ``Cultural and media studies mainly look at a medium as an instantiation of certain economic, communicational, political, commercial, or artistic interests. On the other hand, the physical sciences, even of the applied variety, do not address technologies as `media' but only ever as an arrangement of electrical circuits, functions, transmitters, patterns and noise. It is as if what is fore-grounded in the physical or natural sciences becomes background in the cultural or human sciences, and vice versa, thus maintaining a blind spot between nature and culture.'' Therefore technology is as much part of nature as it is part of culture. c. Technology or new media as ``ideological connotations''. This view supports that in (b) above, namely that technology comprises cultural meanings or connotations as well as beliefs of people who develop that technology. The ideological meaning of technology is explained from several theoretical perspectives. Read your prescribed book to find out about these theoretical perspectives. Web 2.0 Web 2.0 is ``a phenomenon, a teLATEST EXAM PACK