Development of social media
Reflectively, the source of media reference in this paper is social media use which has surpassed other means of communication. Scholars in the field of communication media are still fully glued to the well distributed channel of communication known as internet to predict and explain the underlying factors that enabled certain cultural influences to be popular. Moreover, social media remains to be the most popular central element of information transference landscape in activism and political change actualization. It’s been statistically established that activists spend more time in the internet watching news, blogging, and interacting with their followers on pertinent issues such as poor governance, need for change, and tools for paradigm shift across the globe (Mansour, 2012).
Social media and activism
Social media has made communication to become concentrated and sophisticated as users enjoy access to information in the quickest way possible. Therefore, users of social media have formed internet cultures which are platforms for sharing information. The information may be in the form of grievances, desired changes, and social issues affecting the society. For instance, the Arab spring which begun in the year 2009 was propelled by social media platforms such as Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter. Basically, accessibility of the social media prompted opinion shapers in the Arab nations to inspire the need for change, especially among the youths. Social media was used to incite, inspire, and organize the successful political upheavals, which led to change of political leadership in countries such as Libya, Egypt, and Iraq. Despite the efforts of the current president of Syria to stay in power, social media in the form of Facebook and Twitter has been successful in marshaling support for the rebel leaders in form of funding, medical supplies, and voluntary fighters (Mansour, 2012).
The internet media plays a significant role in the process of defining and forming social consciousness and its limits towards achieving social change in the modern world characterized by informal interaction. In theoretical conception, functionalism believes that mass media revolution and solidarity as agent of communication would facilitate the occurrence of revolutionary modes of reception and functioning of different target audiences. Through embracing maintenance strategy topology, it is easier for an internet user to identify the aspects of self disclosure, positivity, and social networking as the assuring factors that promoted effectiveness of mass cultural modes used across the generational divides to manage the cross generational conflict as is the case in Syria and Ukraine. Therefore, understanding the mass culture is made possible through expressions, illustrations, and even reactions to political and social interests as was the case during the revolution in Egypt (Mansour, 2012).
Conclusion
Conclusively, the paradigm shift in the internet user mechanism is defined by manipulation and interactivity levels that may emerge as a conservatory of the viewer’s traditional spectatorship among the activists. Social media has remained very instrumental in fighting poor governance and has catalyzed political revolution and leadership change in countries such as Egypt, Libya, Philippines, and Ukraine.
Reference
Mansour, E. (2012). The role of social networking sites (SNSs) in the January 25th Revolution in Egypt. Library Review, 61(2), 23-67.