Liberation Through Social Media

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Activism, COMM 506, Decentralization, Facebook, Harry Cleaver, Jeffrey Juris, Liberation, Social Media, Twitter

Our readings for Friday’s COMM506 class by Harry Cleaver and Jeffrey Juris are both touting the idea of liberation through the use of technology, more specifically with regards to uprisings against political regimes. Citing the Zapatista Army of National Liberation as the trigger for what are now known as global justice activists, groups with members assembled from far and wide, coming together to fight for what they feel are injustices. These groups have no central authority, they are open and they readily share information. Last year, we saw this happen with a number of middle eastern countries where people gathered on social media sites in order to converse and plan their next steps.

While I don’t mean to lessen the plight of those who are in situations where they feel oppressed, I thought I’d take Juris and Cleaver’s idea of liberation through social media and make this post a little more lighthearted to end off the week.

We have all seen how the availability of tools like Facebook and Twitter can open up dialogues between people and spread information at lightning fast speed in order to get something done. And, we have all, I am sure, experienced at some point or another, the failure of technology as well.

That brings me to this gem of a commercial:

It makes me laugh every time I see it. Today, we are not only seeing the rise in use of social media for more serious and dire situations like the uprisings in the Middle East, but also to bring random (often unconnected) people together for one-off events like with the flash mob craze. These technologies can be used to literally change the world or they can be used to brighten a stranger’s day. Both can be seen as liberating scenarios; liberating a country and liberating individuals to move outside of their comfort zone. Either way, social media is causing a scene and making our lives a bit more surreal.

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Circling Back to 2011

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Charles Kadushin, COMM 506, Diffusion, Leadership, MACT, Social Media, Twitter

We have come full circle this week, back to an idea first covered last year during spring institute 2011. Thank you to Charles Kadushin for discussing a theory of communication that I actually understood last year without wanting to tear my hair out. That ladies and gents is the theory of diffusion. More to the point, in chapter 9 of Understanding Social Networks, Kadushin links diffusion to the ability of people to influence one another.

As Kadushin explains, those who are considered leaders usually are the ones that others look to and listen to when there is diffusion of a new idea. However, that does not mean that leaders are the innovators or the early adopters. In fact, leaders tend follow the norm. Quite often it is those out in the periphery that take on new ideas first and through brokers or bridgers their unconventional ideas are spread out from the leaders and to late adopters.

This made me consider my place in the cohort in terms of adoption of these social media tools. I was personally always on the fence about Twitter and LinkedIn, not because I didn’t see that they could have a purpose, but I felt like I was putting myself out in the public too much. I didn’t mind Facebook though. I set my privacy so that I couldn’t be publically searched and I was able to connect with friends far and wide.

Then during last year’s cohort, I found myself sitting there, looking around and realizing how behind the times I was. Not just because of social media (I kept telling myself that I needed to get in the loop and sign up for Twitter), but because of the physical tools I had at my disposal. Everyone had a laptop or a smartphone and there was me with my trusty, almost three year old talk-only phone. I vowed that when my cellphone contract was up in June that I was trading in for a shiny new data-capable phone.

Fast forward to today and I’m about to celebrate my one year anniversary with my smartphone and everything that it encompasses. Mostly that means the inability to stop checking my e-mail. But, now in addition to that, I went from almost 0 to hero with respect to social media usage, all due to COMM506.

While I am still learning the ins and outs of blogging, Twitter and curating my LinkedIn profile, I am honestly amazed at how quickly I and others in my cohort have picked everything up. Does it take a long time to talk us into something? For some of us, it sure does. But, when we embrace something, we seem to do it wholeheartedly.

So, late adopter, yes. Black sheep, nope.

Power of the Web Means Power to the People

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Centralization, Collaboration, COMM 506, Coordination, Decentralization, Hierarchy, Horizontal, Kate Milberry, MACT, Networks, Organizational Communication, Twitter, Vertical, Web, Wiki, Yochai Benkler

Throughout the past week the notion of hierarchical and horizontal interactions has come up during class discussion and it is a concept that is the foundation of chapter 3 in Yochai Benkler’s book The Wealth of Networks. What I like about Benkler’s discussion is the ideas are something that we have seen crop up in other classes, such as COMM504 about organizational communications whereby we dissected vertical (hierarchical) vs. horizontal communication within an organizational context. All of us could find relevance in those concepts and apply them directly to our personal and professional lives, giving us a better understanding of why things are being done a certain way, for example, in our workplaces.

Here, Benkler links the idea of hierarchical/vertical interaction to that of “centralization,” meaning that there is a central authority and he then compares it to horizontal interaction or “decentralization” meaning all agents are equal and each person has the same ability to affect the situation as anyone else (p. 62).

Decentralization allows for better collaboration and coordination, especially today when we have what seems to be endless tools that make it easier for us to connect, share and converse. If I apply this to our spring institute right now, I guess we can argue that there is a slight hierarchy in that the professors and the program are dictating many of our actions.

However, solely within this cohort, we as students are working in a very horizontal manner. We’re doing this in ways that are open and accessible to each other by using tools like Twitter (allows for quick and easy messaging), Google Docs (to share documents for editing allowing us to collaborate even when we’re all in separate spaces), PBworks wiki (houses information for class, but is modifiable by anyone in the group) and our blogs (giving each of us the ability to expound upon our thoughts and get feedback from one another).

Benkler also talks about the power of the Web and the fact that using peer production can lead to purposes that were not previously intended. A perfect example for this class is our wiki for COMM506. As a demonstration of how to create a new page on the wiki, our professor, Kate Milberry, added a “Party Page” to the site. It wasn’t intended that it actually be used, but it was never removed from the wiki either. A few in the class then decided to actually use the page to invite the rest of the cohort out to various gatherings and as it turns out, it was a success. Our first pub night of the institute and the majority of the group was able to attend, most having seen the call to action on the wiki.

Therefore, power comes from the tools available to the people and when more people have ease of access to those tools, great things can happen.

Inspirational Guest Lecture

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COMM 506, Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega, Inspirational, Kate Milberry, MACT, Tweeting, Twitter

Well, I had typed out a full blog post, clicked on the “Publish” button and it didn’t show up on my page, so I am going to do a shortened version to quickly cover the highlight of my COMM 506 class today.

Kate Milberry (@KateMilberry) invited Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega (@hummingbird604, author of www.hummingbird604.com and http://www.raulpacheco.org/) to guest lecture on the role social media can play in our lives.

As someone who has been weary of joining Twitter, thinking it full of mundane posts, Dr. Pacheco-Vega’s discussion really opened my eyes to the use of social media in smart ways. As long as you define your online presence in both a professional and personal aspect, you have the possibility of connecting with countless people. The online realm can open real-life doors by helping you to build social capital. Don’t be scared to put yourself out there and own it when you make mistakes.

I have now been tweeting for two days and I feel like those in my cohort that I am following and who are following me have created a community around our program and our courses. We look to each other for advice and we are each others’ cheerleaders as we work towards our final research projects in the MACT program. If I continue to make connections with people like them, I will be happy to add to my online social profile now and in the future.