The focus on building strong social ties
Today, a great percentage of the person’s social activities can be realized within such social networks as Twitter and Facebook and with the help of sharing YouTube videos. However, the role of social media for influencing real-life activities is also important because Twitter and Facebook can be discussed as effective tools to affect people’s opinions, to organize groups and movements, and to promote definite ideals and values. It is in people’s nature to try joining groups and clubs to share interests and receive certain recognition. Such platforms as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube provide people with the opportunities to go further and to influence the progress in society and politics. Thus, social media’s impact on the development of social activism and revolution on the world stage is significant because social networks are helpful to avoid geographical and time barriers and to provide the free exchange of information among unlimited numbers of persons.
The social media and massive protests
Following the global social and political trends, it is possible to focus on the worldwide demands for democracy and open horizons. That is why, social and political activists use Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube as the channels to build strong social ties and to organize amounts of people to change the situation on the political agenda (Howard and Hussain). Focusing on the social networks as the platforms for communicating definite ideals and principles, activists “appropriated, redefined, and transformed them into effective tools for organizing definitively disruptive protests” (Akin et al. 89). Therefore, online communication can result in real actions oriented to changing the current regime or social situation.
Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube provide people with free and widespread communication and, as a result, with many opportunities to find the best methods to realize different intentions associated with social activities. Referring to the phenomenon of the Arab Spring and the role of social media in the process, it is possible to state that “virtual networks materialized in the streets” when activists began to organize people to participate in massive protests with the help of Twitter and Facebook (Howard and Hussain 36). Decades ago, people had no possibilities to exchange information and call to act rapidly and without concentrating on the location and amounts of people involved.
The new approach to communication
The development of social networks changed the principles of communication between people. Nowadays, one person can rely on the reaction and feedback of thousands of receivers, if the original message is developed effectively and spread with the help of such resources as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. According to Casado, “the constant growth of the Net and it’s used increasingly common among the citizens, it’s making it become a key tool in this change information, which causes changes in the traditional communication skin” (Casado 31). Social movements and revolutions can be more effective today because social media guarantee a definite level of transparency and significant empowerment about the participants who choose to write the history of the world now.
To establish the ideals of civil society and to develop the principles of democracy in the world, it is necessary to use new approaches and tools. Social media in the form of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube provide social activists and politicians with great possibilities to overcome the challenges and limits of geographical barriers and communication issues. This fact allows speaking about the great role of social media in social activism and revolution on the world stage.
Works Cited
Akin, Afife Idil, Carlos Encina, Michael Restivo, Michael Schwartz, and Juhi Tyagi. “Old Wine in a New Cask? Protest Cycles in the Age of the New Social Media”. The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations 13.1 (2012): 89-100. Print.
Casado, Eunate Serrano. “Social Movements and New Media: New Technologies, Social Networks and Media: Spanish Revolution”. Revista Româna de Jurnalism si Comunicare 7.3 (2012): 27-34. Print.
Howard, Philip, and Muzammil Hussain. “The Role of Digital Media”. Journal of Democracy 22.3 (2011): 35-48. Print.