The Power of Social Media

I just finished the book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, a good read for anyone curious about social networks. I thought it was pretty long though; the author could have ended at the halfway mark and still had a good book. I think that social media is a powerful tool and a damaging resource. I recently read a thought-provoking comment about Bad Luck Brian, a popular internet meme. The comment said, “This meme is about a real person who is now infamous for the nice school picture he was in. People using his face as a meme is no different than cyberbullying.” The same thing is true for any number of other memes, YouTube videos and letters to the editor. Studio C did a sketch about this very issue. While funny, that sketch is also scary and true. However, this also highlights the power of social media. Searching for “police brutality” on YouTube brings up thousands of videos. With cops knowing they can be recorded and their actions seen by the world I think they have been given greater awareness of their actions.

Social media has the power to bring to light things that would have never been seen before. Government officials giving private meetings never know if their speech is being recorded. That happened to Mitt Romney this past election. Taken out of context and given to the broad audience of the Internet his speech sounded bad. That’s exactly what social media does: takes things formerly intended for a private audience and makes them public. Therein lies its power and the dangers of living in the digital age.