social media

There were two impacts of social media that stood out: first, Will Richardson's discussion on how social media has and will impact education and second Clay Shirky's "Here Comes Everybody" presentation about organizations. Richardson raises two important points, the first being about the read-write web becoming a collaborative effort. Media will no longer be created by any one individual but will instead be the creative effort of many. This idea stems from the concept of a wiki as an editable website. His second point about functioning in a world without paper, and even without hard drives (meaning all information will be saved online), raises another interesting point about the future of education. Parents doing back to school shopping are no longer looking for paper notebooks but rather electronic netbooks.

As a media psychologist enrolled in a distance learning program, the default response would be to agree with Richardson about this possible future of education and social media. However, how is the current world of technology and creation not a collaborative effort? Companies and ideas may be the brain child of one person but it takes an entourage of many to get these ideas off the ground. Richardson should instead state that ideas are more easily facilitated with the addition of an online community. With immediate news and blogs and RSS feeds, information travels fast making it easier to tinker and perfect ideas. Education is starting to move away from traditional paper/pen/classroom to a more digitized environment. As a media psychologist, is electronic transmission of information for education more beneficial than the traditional learning environment?

Shirky's presentation on organization brings up an interesting theory about what is public and private information. His theory that organizing occurs without an organization is an interesting one, especially when viewed through flickr. The HDR photography community is an interesting example to the point of sharing ideas and being able to compare notes with viewable results. However, returning back to Richardson's idea about collaboration, is there any sense of what is public versus private information? Social media such as online discussion groups are fabulous for spreading a wealth of information but where is the sense of ownership? When news is no longer solely gathered from news reporters but also from individuals out in world via their blogs, information is up for grabs but there seems to be very little compartmentalizing of ownership. From a media psychology perspective, this is good and bad news. The good news is that information is readily available to anyone with access to a computer and an internet connection. The bad news, the lines are now blurred as information is coming from all directions which can leave the reader confused, lost, and infowhelmed.