Deanna Zandt Chapters 1-3 Response
The reading for this week, excerpts from Deanna Zandt's Share This: How You Will Change the World with Social Networking, discuss an issue that has been the topic of many discussions in my English class - the digital divide. Although the internet environment is often toted as a paragon of equal access and the democratization of information, it is important to remember that the internet is an extension of the humans who created it and use it today. Thus, it is inevitable that the internet, specifically social media, will share some of the discourse and inequality that plagues our world offline as well.
Like our real world, the reading mentions the homogeneity of authoritative voices regarding social networking or technology in general. Surely, this has an inverse relationship with the ways in which digital spaces accommodate minority/disenfranchised groups (or fail to); gender, income, age, and location all play a factor into not only if one has access to the internet, but also how one interacts with the internet. If social networks are truly the diverse and democratized platform that they want to be, they seem to rely too heavily on the voices of a few to create a cycle of benefit for certain groups.
What I found particularly interesting was this idea of an online ecosystem that is mentioned in Chapter 3. Because the internet has its sectors and distinct areas of interest, it can be easy to lose sight of the larger picture. Along with this, it can also be difficult to look past our own feeds to see how we contribute to the larger ecosystem of the conglomerate social network. I would be interested to hear how others feel that they contribute to this ecosystem, and whether or not it is positive or negative.
Ch 1: The Power of Sharing, Ch 2: Are We There Yet, Ch 3: We Are What You Share." In Share This: How You Will Change the World with Social Networking, by Zandt, Deanna. pp. 15-33. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2010, 2010. (19 pages).
Like our real world, the reading mentions the homogeneity of authoritative voices regarding social networking or technology in general. Surely, this has an inverse relationship with the ways in which digital spaces accommodate minority/disenfranchised groups (or fail to); gender, income, age, and location all play a factor into not only if one has access to the internet, but also how one interacts with the internet. If social networks are truly the diverse and democratized platform that they want to be, they seem to rely too heavily on the voices of a few to create a cycle of benefit for certain groups.
What I found particularly interesting was this idea of an online ecosystem that is mentioned in Chapter 3. Because the internet has its sectors and distinct areas of interest, it can be easy to lose sight of the larger picture. Along with this, it can also be difficult to look past our own feeds to see how we contribute to the larger ecosystem of the conglomerate social network. I would be interested to hear how others feel that they contribute to this ecosystem, and whether or not it is positive or negative.
Ch 1: The Power of Sharing, Ch 2: Are We There Yet, Ch 3: We Are What You Share." In Share This: How You Will Change the World with Social Networking, by Zandt, Deanna. pp. 15-33. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2010, 2010. (19 pages).
This was very well written. I thought you did a good job addressing the array of topics in the reading. I do feel like I contribute to the online ecosystem, but i'm not sure if it's either positive or negative, probably a little bit of both.
ReplyDeleteI probably don't contribute to the ecosystem online as much as in person by spreading word and just thinking to myself of the scenarios or results that could change that incident. Mostly read online but never really drop my 5 cents into the online world.
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