Globally relevant Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Globally relevant - Essay Example Delineating Social Media from Social Networking Since this paper will be dealing with social networking, it is best to distinguish ‘social media’ from ‘social networks’. Scrutinizing the technical definition of each may be confusing but to keep it on a layman’s level and to understand more of these two concepts, it is best to describe social media as a platform where social networking is only part of the former while the latter is described to require more of self-revelation of one’s personal information (e.g. Facebook and Twitter). â€Å"Social media encompasses applications in different categories by characteristic: collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds, and other virtual social worlds† ( Kaplan and Haenlein 59). The above is further supported by Moller as he defines â€Å"Social Media as the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive di alogue. They can be defined as a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of the so-called Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content. It takes many different forms, including online magazines, Internet forums, weblogs, microblogs, wikis, podcasts, images, video, rating, social bookmarking or social networking† ( 13). Emergence of Hyperconnectivity Now, looking back around 1950’s, man realized how much he was limited to get access to information and communication. Connectivity then was only through the use of walkie-talkie radios, a wired telephone and wireless telegraphy which were only capable to serve a one-on-one exchange of communications. During the old days when there was a need to harness the public for an assembly to institute a major change, the common traditional practice was to ring huge tower church bells, or any symbolic gong, or use a loud siren heard throughout the c ommunity. Gone are the days of these practices. With this age of computers , the trend was to promote a wireless and paperless society as well as timeliness in the exchange of information, Above all, the launching of Digitization have greatly modernized world’s business, propelled the integration of information and communications technologies to the point of changing society’s lifestyles. Dramatically, there was a 360 degree turn-about change in society, government business, commerce, social behaviors and individual psyches from the time that machines began interfacing and intervening with man’s activities. The overnight success of digitization has revolutionized everything. â€Å"Digitization is the conversion of information format (whether, text, image, audio or video file) to digital format. This feature made it easier for any information in this form be preserved, accessed and shared. Instead of people going to a specific location to retrieve an original, h istorical document, the document when digitized can now be made available to people around the world† (Janssen 2013). This new feature brought about multiplier effects that â€Å"led to the advent of a new era called hyperconnectivity† (Janssen 2013). Hyperconnectivity can only be served when the