Tianlin Zhang 1B
Task Two – Annotated Bibliography
The influence of social networks/social media
Benioff, Marc. "Welcome to the social media revolution." BBC News. BBC, 10
Oct. 2012. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business18013662>.
In this article from BBC news, social media is described as a catalyst for
business transactions and information flows. The author explains that social
media has sped up the pace of the business world and allowed the world’s
information to be available with the click of a mouse. He summarizes that since
social media is such a powerful communication tool, every business should have
a voice on the social media platforms in order to succeed and prevail.
Written by Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce.com, this article is highly
reputable. It is very well articulated and offers clear ideas that are supported by
relevant facts. The overall vocabulary is fairly casual without any technical
terms.He demonstrates a genuine passion and optimism for the influence of
social media in the business world. Since it is from BBC new’s Business column,
this article is targeted towards people in the business world. Unlike the movie,
Chatroom, from category 6, this article does not reflect on the negative impacts
of social media. This source can be useful for research on social media’s impact
on business.
Brad, Fitzpatrick. Twitterdicted!. 2009. Cartoon. BradfitzpatrickWeb. 13 Nov
2013. <http://www.bradfitzpatrick.com/weblog/1722/twitter-cartoonstwitter-cartoon/>.
In this cartoon, a twitter user, Marlon, is outfitted as a giant blue bird, the icon of
twitter, and looking down on his phone, most likely checking his twitter. A woman
beside him says that this “twitter thing” has gone far enough, pointing out that
twitter has taken over his life. The message of this cartoon is very clear: if
overused, social networking platforms, particularly twitter as an example, can
take over our lives.
With a clear stance on the issue, the artist of this cartoon is obviously biased
against the social influence of social networking. Like most cartoons, which are
generally created to ridicule and emphasize issues through humor, this
Tiwtterdicted! cartoon features simple and casual words that express mockery
accompanied by graphics. Similar to the other cartoon in category 7, the target
audience of this cartoon is all internet users since the author is most likely
promoting awareness for the degree of influence of social networking on our
society and daily lives through his artwork. This piece allowed me to see the
opposing side of this issue although it doesn’t actually feature any type of
reasoning or explanation for his stance (This is expected from an internet cartoon
piece). This source is well made; however, it is ultimately just an internet cartoon
filled with personal bias, unfounded viewpoints and a lack of persuasion. It
shouldn’t be used for any formal research purposes but would make an excellent
example of a biased internet source.
Chatroom. Dir. Hideo Nakata. By Enda Walsh. Perf. Aaron Taylor-Johnson,
Imogen Poots and Matthew Beard. Ruby Films/Pathé Revolver
Entertainment (UK), 2010. Film.
In this movie, a teenager enters an online chatroom and starts talking to
strangers. The film depicts them to be in a hotel room type of environment.
These depressed and lonely teenagers begin to get closer with one another and
start giving ideas towards one another’s problems in real life. Emotionally
unstable, these teenagers not only give destructive advices and push one
another further down dark paths, but also decide to meet up in real life. Along the
process, the main character, William, becomes obsessed with the idea of
committing suicide and decides to convince another teenager to do it when they
meet in real life. They fumble around a train track and at last, the other kid gets
wiped by a train.
With a dark theme, this movie presents online chatroom as a self destructive
platform that gather unstable individuals and allow them to enhance their
instability. Contrasted to the positivity towards the influence of social media of the
source from category 2, this movie, although not explicitly stated, is most likely to
be against social media. The movie utilizes dark environments, gloomy filters and
sad music to shed a negative light on social media. Though presenting a clear
perspective on the issue, this movie doesn’t show any good features of social
media; even when the chatroom brought all the teenagers together, they seem to
be only getting addicted to the chatroom without actually improving each other’s
emotional states. This movie is mostly targeting the adult audience and possibly
teenagers to warn them of the dangers of the social media. This is a great
representation of a “hollywoodized” view on social media, where everything is
dramatized and crazy. For any type of research, this movie can be used as an
example of the way movies depict social media; anyone can find this source
useful.
Joshi, Amit. "Diary of a Facebook Addict." Diary of a Facebook Addict. N.p., 27
Oct. 2011. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
<http:/diaryofafacebookaddict.blogspot.hk/>.
This online diary of a teenager expresses his disapproval of online
communication as a replacement for face to face communication. His primary
concern is that text based communications cannot fully express our emotions
such as love, concern and anger. “saying 'I love you’ while really meaning it can
beat down hundreds of ♥ in a text at any day.” The author believes that though
we are more “connected” over long distances by internet and wireless signals,
we are actually moving towards a much more lonely society since we lack actual
face to face interactions.
Though the work of a teenager, this diary contains very sophisticated and
appropriate vocabulary; it doesn’t include any type of slang or modern internet
language. Even though the author is slightly against the influence of social
media, the tone is very didactic and positive because he is trying to englighten
people to change for the better. The main technique utilized is the use of “we” to
convey a sense of unity and empathy. As a diary, this is most likely to be
targeted towards other teenagers, possibly the author’s friends. At the same
time, however, because he discusses the issues of social media, the author is
likely to be hoping that adults would read it too since he is calling for change.
Though the author doesn’t present any proof or supporting data for any of his
points made, like the report from category 2, he does express genuine opinions
and emotions from his personal life and that makes this diary a very unique and
valuable source. The reliability of this source is similar to that of the movie from
category 6 since they are both very casual and are meant to be biased. This is
very useful to me and probably also to people doing formal research because a
diary that expresses the voice of a teenager is a completely separate matter from
articles written by adults and movies produced in studios; teenagers are the main
population using social media so any ideas or viewpoints coming from them are
crucial to the issue.
Mike, Keefe. The Evolution of Communication. 2009. Cartoon. DenverpostWeb.
13 Nov 2013. <http://www.denverpost.com/keefe/ci_12005885>.
In The Evolution of Communication, several figures each representing a stage of
human communications is shown to illustrate progress: starting from stone
carvings to type machines, then from mass publication to email, then from twitter
back to a figure similar to that from the stone carvings but holding a mobile
phone. This transition back to the stone ages suggests the author’s disapproval
of the way social networking is altering our way of communicating; he compares
the modern “twitter” language of “Tweet Tweet” to the stone carvings of
barbarians, predicting that social networks such as Twitter are decreasing our
intellect, that they are only leading a future of regression as the modern
“barbarian” says “140 characters. What more is there to say?”.
This cartoon, as most, holds a very clear bias that is against the development of
social networks. Though still trivial in terms of reliability and formality, this cartoon
demonstrates more “evidence” and convincing factors than the cartoon from
category 4 since it shows a chronological process - reasoning. The target
audience would be all internet users; like the cartoon from category 4, this one is
meant to spread a message and provoke people to think about the issue through
simple, logical graphics and casual words. This would be a valuable source to
students such as myself for gaining a unique perspective on the issue. This
source is unique for me because it suggests that the development of social
networking is undoing our progress, a viewpoint that no other source has taken.
Rupert, Samantha. "Social Media’s Top 5 Contributions to Society." socialmedia
today. N.p., 18 Apr. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
<http://socialmediatoday.com/slrupert/1393636/social-media-top-5contributions-society>.
This internet article from Social Media Today describes today’s influence of
social media platforms as totally positive for several reasons: it can provide
informations during times of crisis; it can help solve crimes; it allows people to
have a true voice in politics, or political influence; it is by far the best way to
communicate over long distances and it revolutionized the way companies
interacted with customers.
Though strongly opinionated in favor of the influence of social media on society,
this article is posted on a fairly reputable website and written by a reputable
individual, Samantha Rupert, who is an account executive with an expertise in
SEO, social media management and public relations. The author uses a very
positive yet professional tone; hardly any emotions or personal voice is seen in
the article and every claim is backed up with sufficient facts, data and appeals to
authority. The vocabulary is fairly simple, although not to the degree of the
cartoons in categories 4 and 7, and contains nothing strictly academic or
technical; therefore it is safe to assume this article is meant for the general
public. Unlike the research report from category 3, this article does not feature
any information on the negative side of the influence of social media. It is
particularly useful to me because aside from the common “long distance
communication” benefit of social media, this article brings out several rare points
such as social media being a crime solving aid and safety information forum
during disasters. Anyone ranging from a student doing shallow research like
myself to others working on an in-depth academic research would find this
source useful because of its clearcut points and unique perspectives.
"The social and psychological impact of online social networking." Australian
Psychological Society . N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.psychology.org.au/publications/inpsych/2010/december/soci
al/>.
In this online report of researches done by the Australian Psychological Society,
numerous research findings, survey results and other statistics were presented to
form the final conclusion of social networking having a positive effect on people’s
lives. The research report features statistics, graphs, detailed explanations of
procedures during survey studies and references to official governmental
agencies.
The tone is very objective and points made were clear and supported by
statistics and facts. The vocabulary is professional but not to the degree of being
technical and hard to comprehend. By presenting numerous reliable statistics
and supporting facts first, the research is much more convincing than sources
such as the cartoons in categories 4 and 7, which do not present any evidence.
The target audience of this source is people who are interested in or researching
the effects of social networking, such as myself. This can be useful for anyone
and for any usage since its professionalism extends its purpose to formal uses
and casual reading. The report covers everything on the topic that I can think of,
even including the demographics of the survey participants and explanations for
both the positive and negative sides of social networking. “many of these
participants reported strategies that they had used to deal with the negative
experience and to regulate their online environment to prevent further difficulties.”
For my purpose of research, this report provides valuable facts and statistics.
Source that didn’t work:
The Social Network. Dir. David Fincher. Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. By Ben
Mezrich. Perf. Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake. Sony
Pictures, 2010. Film.
Although this movie is revolved around the topic of social networks, it mainly
discusses the origin and development of social networking. As for the impact of
social networking on the modern world, this film doesn’t provide much useful
information.