Impacts of Social Media on Society
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One major controversy in eSociety is how we interact with and are impacted by social networking. Many feel that social media is detrimental to the function of society, but others disagree. In this post, I'll be examining two sources of information from the general internet that focus on this subject which seem useful.
The Academic Journal
URL
The website ends in .edu, which implies that this is an educational site with affiliations to a school or university. The domain name suggests that this website is connected to the University of Pennsylvania. Both of these pieces of information indicate that the source comes from a credible University.
The author of this information is Curtis Houghland. His qualification as a CEO of a social marketing agency is mentioned in the byline, and are is verifiable.
Last Updated
The article was published on October 6th, 2014. The material was published within this past year, and is still quite relevant. All links on the page are still functional and lead to recent information.
Purpose
The article is contributing to the debate about how social media affects society, and it's main purpose is to inform and potentially persuade the reader. The article is promoting the philosophy that social media is creating a much less predictable world in that it tears societies apart and creates conflict.
The article features an image of a cracked globe that looks as if it's about to fall to pieces. This adds to the title, emphasizing the extent of the impact that social media has on a global scale.
Position on Subject
The source doesn't seem to hold a biased position. Houghland backs up his position with studies, other articles, and knowledge of current events. The only 'profit' to be gained is by the journal: if readers enjoy their article and like what it made them consider, they may click on another one. The only other potential 'profit' is that the University of Pennsylvania could be seen as a great institution based on the writings of its students.
Links
There are multiple links on the webpage and inside the article itself. Within the article, links led to the source of studies mentioned, or to texts that contained data he used in his article. The links without the article lead to other readings from the featured journal.
The Scholarly Journal
URL
The URL ends in .org which means that this source is an organization. The domain name does not initially give much context to the source. The URL for this source isn't instantly credible, unless you happen to know the initials of the journal. All you can glean is that it is an organization.
Author
There are three authors of this text: Tina McCorkindale, Marcia W. DiStaso, and Hilary Fussell Sisco. All three of the authors' qualifications can be verified, and all three have extremely high positions in the eSociety's respective fields.
Last Updated
This article was published in late 2013; while it may apply today, it is approaching the characteristic of being out of date due to the speedy evolution of technologies and social media. The links the have to sources and information are still functional, and have since been updated with new information.
Purpose
This article strives to explain the relationship between Millenials and social networking sites (specifically Facebook) and to educate students, academics, and organizations about the trends in the Millenial generation compared to others relating to social media.
Graphics
No graphics are present within or without the article.
Position on Subject
This study focuses more on how users interact with social media than it does on the 'right' or 'wrong' of social media in society. If it has any position (it is almost entirely factually based with little direct opinion) it is that Millenials are using social media to reach out to organizations, and that organizations need to find appropriate ways to do the same to tap the potential of such an audience.
Links
The source doesn't use links as a major means to move to another article, the source outline is dated and leaves little opportunity for effective linking. It does have a cluster of links to google scholar searches related to the topic of the text at the bottom of the page. This provides a means of further personal research into the subject.
Conclusion
Both of these sources are credible as general sources. They are relatively unbiased, fairly recent, have a non-manipulative purpose, only include graphics when they're relevant, and authors of the source are verifiable by another.
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