The Social Media Revolution
Social media may have begun with a strong preference toward the social aspect, but the other half of its namesake has shown to be prevalent in more recent times. Many used to see the various sites, applications and services of social media as toys, but its pervasive presence in the events ongoing in Iran at this very moment seem to have shaken even the staunchest of nay-sayers.
Cultural Anthropologists couldn’t have come up with a better study. Just what would happen when a world, so newly connected through overlapping social-networks, finds a piece of itself begin to slip away, under government-imposed communications lockdown? The answer is apparently that people from different countries around the world will go to extraordinary lengths to keep that from happening. The Internet itself has become a box office for front-row seats to a rebellion. While it’s not new to be able to witness grand events across the world via technology, what is new is how people are going about it. People are getting involved, people are reacting, they’re interacting. Isn’t that what social media is supposed to be all about anyway?
It used to be that we’d sit in our living rooms and watch the events of a distant war, disaster, or revolution take place on television. We used to put all our trust in the mainstream media, but now not even the most powerful news networks can really deny the effectiveness of people-powered social-networking. When a news outlet like the New York Times runs a story titled “Dear CNN, Please Check Twitter For News About Iran,” it becomes obvious that something has changed. Social media isn’t a toy anymore. It’s not looked down upon by the “real media.” Social media really has become Social Media, and the world seems to be better for it.
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