Here's a video I found. Basically what Facebook is about.... :)
Our group’s topic is focused solely on the ever-popular social networking phenomenon in today’s modern technological world --- Facebook. The six of us divided the workload to discuss its relevance to popular culture: the website’s positives and negatives, nationalism, class and elitism, culturalism, globalization, ideology and identity. My part was to relate the text’s ideas of seeing human relations.
Facebook is a culture in itself. Culture is both the “arts” and values, norms and symbolic goods of everyday life (Barker, 42). Only Facebook users know how to navigate the website, the groups formed there, status updates made, videos and pictures posted --- these users share a common idea of how the site works. Barthes discusses about “polysemic signs” which mean signs carry many potential meanings and texts can be interpreted in different ways depending on the reader’s social cues which may be based on class, gender and nationality to name a few (Barker, 81). So on Facebook, one may view something as completely normal or “acceptable” by society when another thinks it could be totally liberated.
Being a site of discourse in the public sphere, every user is putting himself or herself out there, out in the public eye. This leads to Foucault’s idea of the “panopticon” which is his metaphor of power and continuous surveillance operating at all levels of organization (Barker, 92). If one’s profile is not set to “private”, it would make it very easy and accessible to the general public, including possible future employers. That means, you must be careful with anything you post --- drunken party pictures, photos that could be drug-related, sexual, provocative and those that promote violence are definitely big NO’s! Giddens tells us that identity is a project. It is our creation (Barker, 218). I agree. We create our own social identities and our representations of ourselves based on our values, attitudes and lifestyles. The self is a product of language from discourse, social relationships and sites of activity. But we must also be responsible online users. Take others into consideration and respect the fact that we all come from a variety of cultures therefore, we do not have the same mindset as everyone else.
Lastly, the ability to communicate and give people, and yes even a whole nation, a voice, is exactly what social networking does. In this case, this phenomenon is a very powerful tool in the modern world. The use of Facebook has played a very significant role in uprisings in the Middle East. It has served as a platform for democracy. Recent events in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain have been heavily affected by this. The internet has definitely made the world smaller --- everyone stays connected and kept updated on the happenings everywhere. Imagine living in a world where everyone is oblivious to what is going on, that would stagnate human existence since nothing can be done. So what made social media a success in these rebellions? Imagine this: people using their cell phones, capturing every image they see and then posting it on their social networking sites, sharing it with the rest of the world! It goes viral and reaches millions of people all over the planet. This is the nature of social media. It communicates facts, ideas and different points of view at a fast rate and it is very convenient as well.
Technology is everywhere. It is present and plays a huge part in the outcomes in politics, economics, entertainment and more. Social networking, especially Facebook, have had and continues to have major impact conveying news to the rest of the world. Social networking users and bloggers have had the ability to transmit news that would otherwise never make it to mainstream news media. It has given everyone an opportunity to let their voices be heard.
REFERENCE:
Barker, Chris. (2008). Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.
