via The Atlantic – Social media’s small, positive role in human relationships
Tufekci makes some excellent observations (extrapolated from a large amount of data) on the benefits of social media. It’s a refreshing counter to the panicky things we hear from friends.
For most people, the choice is not leisurely walks on Cape Cod versus social media. It’s television versus social media.
I worry at times about my peers who feel they must define society and social interactions as one sort of thing: face-to-face conversation. Sorry, but conversations and interactions mediated by technological tools have existed for decades. Non-social media (anti-social media?) like television, newspapers, books, recorded audio, are far more dangerous in creating isolation and blocking out social contact. Social media promote relationships, enable communication, demand conversations.
I’ve heard arguments about the forcing of voyeuristic habits – turning ‘friends’ into objects of observation – and the like, but call bunk on them. You make decisions. If you choose to watch, that’s not the fault of the medium. Place blame and responsibility where it is due.
That’s because, unlike a political campaign designed to get some person in office and then close up shop (as in the election of Obama), this is not a movement with a traditional narrative arc. As the product of the decentralized networked-era culture, it is less about victory than sustainability. It is not about one-pointedness, but inclusion and groping toward consensus. It is not like a book; it is like the Internet.
From Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don’t get it on CNN.com
The international media’s response to the Gifford assassination attempt is so telling. America is so self-serving and self-focused that we can’t see that to the rest of the globe our language looks like that of a small child pitching a temper tantrum.
“People in Holland as in the US are concerned about the tone of our debate, the sharper rhetoric, and especially since for the first time TV news anchors are following the Fox [News] style of figures like Bill O’Reilly,” says Peter van Os, a former Washington correspondent for De Groene Amsterdammer who writes on Dutch politics from The Hague. “The phrase ‘angry electorate’ is now used often here … and we are having debates about what Bill Clinton recently called ‘fact free’ news.”
Europeans have paid attention to numerous stories on former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and her pro-tea party website that “targets” Giffords and includes the comment “Don’t retreat … reload” – as a symptom of the tone in US politics.
A guest column in the German Der Spiegel today warned that vitriolic attacks against Mrs. Palin from the left were themselves a manifestation of intemperate anger, and warned they could backfire by making her a victim of political elites.
via In Arizona shooting, Europe sees an America gripped by doubt, pessimism – CSMonitor.com.
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