Media ecology has been around for a while, but I believe it has been given a huge breath of air due to the influx of social media websites. Not everyone reads a newspaper or website to get news, and if you’re like me, and are addicted to my social sites, you probably get a lot of your news from Facebook and Twitter.
For example, if something is happening in our world, it will most likely be a trending topic. During the Fall semester, University of Texas at Austin and NDSU were subjects to bomb threats, and I didn’t have class that day so I slept in a little later than usual. When I woke up, though, everyone was talking about these bomb threats and I realized it was probably just more safe to stay in bed for a couple more hours. This is the great thing about social media, is that if there is news of any sort, people are bound to be talking about it on websites. Facebook isn’t always the best medium for this, because you usually only get a type of news from a select audience, but I believe Twitter is perfect for this, because you can see Trending Topics or search certain topics and people will for sure be talking about them.
Another thing I see in daily life with social media, is when I am watching TV. Every TV show you watch now has a “#hashtag” down in the bottom, because they want people talking about their show so that it gets more people interested. Also, some shows will show the stuff that you’re saying onto their program. Also, businesses are starting to use social media sites more and more. One time I went to a sandwich shop, and they said if I checked in on foursquare or tweeted about them I could get a free side. There really is no end to the madness of social media in our world and it is starting to take over our world.
PS: Didn’t Mansfield say to not link all of your social sites together and post the same statuses, because each one has a distinct audience! 😉
Brock Azure 