Week 2: Shift in Sharing

In chapter two of Networked Publics, the idea that new medias have brought on a shift in control really jumped out at me.  Russell, Ito, Richmond, and Tuters write, “Artifacts once associated with personal culture (like home movies, snapshots, diaries, and scrapbooks) have now entered the arena of public culture (like newspapers, commercial music, cinema, and television). As a consequence, the top-down, one-to-many relationship between mass media and consumers is being replaced, or at least supplemented, by many-to-many and peer-to-peer relationships” (p. 44).  Technology provides people the ability to instantly share any type of information they wish – at any time and any place – as long as they have one of the many tools that have the capability to do so. 

This has two different implications.  The first is that professionals working for media sources (such as newspapers and television news stations) are no longer the only ones who can pass on information about what is going on the world.  Anyone has the capability to share information about events going on in communities, the country, and around the globe.  I often find myself finding out major news stories from something a friend posted on social media well before I see it on the news or in a newspaper.  This says a lot about the way our culture has transformed.  Not that long ago, people would have to wait to hear big stories when they were released by the media; now they can go to endless numbers of sources online (many of them not even news sources) at any time they wish to get the same information. 

The authors also brings up the impact that technology has had upon our personal lives.  This is something I think about often, which is why I think this quote resonated so much with me.  The Internet, in particular social media sites, has become a place where many people post details about their personal lives for many others to see – in some cases, people they do not even know.  I admit that I am partially guilty of this; I am careful about who I am “friends with” on social media, so that my posts do not reach the public.  I do not post very often, but when I do put a picture up, I have found myself thinking how funny it is that sharing pictures online has become the social norm.  No one is, of course, forcing anyone to do this, but it has become a part of our culture to use sites such as Facebook and Instagram to communicate and share details from our lives with our family and friends.  I think it will be interesting to see what happens with this part of our culture.  It seems like it is only going to continue to grow, but I do wonder if it will reach a tipping point and people will get tired of sharing details of their lives in this manner?

Varnelis, K. (2008).  Networked Publics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.