According to the definition of Eugenia Siapera in her book Understanding New Media, new media are those
modes which are constantly evolving; by this definition, social media modes such as blogs
lay within the category of new media, as their creator and consumer popularity is
continuing to rise.
Blogs such as this can be
analyzed through Keitzmann's social media concepts. In the article, Unpacking the Social Media Phenomenon: Towards a Social Agenda, Keitzmann uses a 7-part (or “honeycomb model”) to demonstrate different pathways for analysis of social media phenomenon. For example, the identity block involves how much
users of social media choose to expose and portray themselves. Getting back to
the very example of blogs, I typed ‘popular political blogs’ into a search
bar, and found some interesting results. One blog I came across was a center-leftist
political blogger with a page called the Daily Howler (http://dailyhowler.blogspot.nl/).
As you can see if you visit the link, the blogger provides
little information at first about him (no age, no hometown, zodiac, etc). But
as you read on, you can quickly gather where his interests lay, his attitude
toward the subject matter, and even catch a glimpse of his political stance. Perhaps
there is a degree of self-presentation in this blog, or fictitious
representation. However, due to the political subject matter, this is unlikely.
Another one of these analytical parts focuses on the group. Who
follows this blogger, and why? As pointed out in Keitzmann’s article, the value
of the social media increases, as the number of consumers increases; it seems
that this blogger has a relatively high number of followers, so the value of
his blog is increased. However, chances are that this group maintains similar
ideological stances with the blogger, so perhaps this ‘howler’ is simply
preaching to the choir. But is this a bad thing? It all depends on what kind of user-based relationship and reputation the blogger is going for.
Jumping to another, perhaps more applicable example, we have
the social media network, Facebook. Facebook originally started off as a
network strictly for IV-league students and faculty; this was Facenbook’s
identity. The users all had this main defining feature in common giving them a
strong relationship. Keitzmann views relationships as referring to how well users
relate to each other, leading to conversation, sharing and even possible ‘friendship’
. Of course this relatability is much more likely if all users share something
in common, such as, in this case, their IV-league education. Thus, the users,
and their relationship towards one another, as well as the platform of the
network, all work together to form Facebook’s reputation. However, this
reputation (which, according to Keitzmann, is built based on expectations from these
past actions and patterns), was altered with the introduction of Facebook to
the public.
This changing of Facebook's user base has made the types of relationships much more varied. People
can create for themselves an identity using a multitude of variables. The
presence, or availability of users is much stronger; Facebook has a chat window
and icons to show whether people are on or offline, and the network even sends
notifications to phones so people can continue their conversations on the go. Sure
our ‘howler’ posts in his blog every day, but his presence does not have nearly the same level of immediacy as is
provided via Facebook. So, Facebook is a much stronger social media tool than the
blog, which cannot possibly be as wide-spread, and address as many groups of
people. Most likely, the followers of the ‘howler’ have their own Facebook page
to express all of the other interests they want to share.
As pointed out by a shaded in honeycomb model, despite its
change of reputation, relationships are still perhaps the most important concept
in understanding the Facebook phenomenon.
Today, every ‘Tom, Dick, or Mary’
could make a Facebook account, regardless of their scholarship, and relate to
each other through ‘liking’ and conversing about movies, bands, political
movements…the list goes on . It is social media phenomenon such as this that
can inspire and evoke questions in the media researcher, and prompt the usage
of one or more of these seven analytic paths.
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