Public Sociology and the Social Media Era
| Subject: | 📡 Media |
| Type: | Informative Essay |
| Pages: | 4 |
| Word count: | 1035 |
| Topics: | 🤳 Social Media, Communication, Community, Facebook |
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Public Sociology can be referred to as any sociological literature or any other material which has been made by the sociologists and gains the attention of a section of individuals who comprise the general public. Public Sociology can be referred to as any sociological literature or any other material which has been made by the sociologists and gains the attention of a section of individuals who comprise the general public. Public sociology has the intention of making the society a better place through increasing the public awareness of significant social issues and assisting people to be responsible citizens as well as social activists. Moreover, public sociology aims at piloting the development of public and social policy in addition to the provision of vital skills appropriate for work in nonprofit, social services and private businesses.
The literature can be, but not limited to books, articles or lines of paragraphs reporting a discovery or new idea. With the rise in a number of communication outlets, other products include radios, websites, televisions and the social media (Anstead and O’Loughlin 210).
The public sociology entails two parts regarded as the public and the presenters. The presenters are the facilitators of public sociology (Reese and Pamela 405) and can be categorized as the teachers and the journalists while the public includes students and nonstudents. For sociology to become public, the attention of the presenters should be captured first. The mode of presentation should be clear and presented in a simple language. This is vital in the sense that it will help the members of the public have an easy time to comprehend the product, help the presenters, who may not be sociologists pass their message to the public (Reese and Pamela 400)
Public sociology and the social media era
Emerging social media platforms are intermediaries of communication. They make individuals more visible and besides, they enable the public life which in respect is measurable. In a way, they position this discipline as other people never participate in self-conscious social activities. In this paper, we focus and explicate varied forms making up the current social media. These are Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.
Despite sounding unfashionable, Facebook is vast, covering and reaching out to the entire world. It has over 1.4 billion active users globally. In comparison to other types of social media such as Instagram and Pinterest, it enjoys the attention of over one-third of online adults. Most individuals and companies who have interest in generating page views utilize Facebook referrals simply because they drive a lot of traffic. For that reason, it is evident that Facebook has reached the largest group of public. Examples of an organization doing public sociology on facebook include contextmag which writes on understanding people in their social world.
Social media based on the Twitter social platform has the tendency to offer low interaction and sometimes has an elaborate expression of thoughts. The spread geographical and distribution of users across the Twitter platform has been found to convey bias. Most individuals, however, use the “Twitter in considerable low-key manner” and the following feature in use to acquire friends and few celebrities (Duccia 85). In correspondence, the social platform users are considered to acquire fewer followers and hence it is therefore important to think in terms of orders of size. Literally, majority users have less than ten followers. Twitter avails analytics data to its users especially imperative for use in marketing and reaching a target audience.
Blogs
Blogging is an older version of social media. It bridges the gap between the old-fashioned static web pages and today’s intelligent animated web pages. Blogs are active social media in the event mobile computing cannot be done. Blogging began trending between 2000 and 2004. A major reason why it is still of relevance hitherto is that of the bloggers who were writing regularly during that time and captured an audience. This makes people grow and become better and with these social media platforms at hand, sociology has opportunities that arise from them. Social media, as a means of communication, connects one person to another, colleagues, and attract a bigger audience (Reese and Pamela 397). It enables people to talk, chat, video chat with each other and the rest of the world and publicly not considered to be old-fashioned. An example of a blogger is Lisa Wade who blogs on sociological images which focuses mainly on emerging issues in sociology which affects the society at large.
How research can lead to different types of public sociology
Sociological research with regards to social media can help in reducing the social inequality. The sociological interpretation of social inequality is based on matters such as social class, race, and ethnicity, age, sexuality, and gender. The genesis of social inequality is the lack of opportunities and discrimination. Social media can help in bringing social equality by encouraging social policy programs and creating the awareness through blogs and all the mentioned forms of social media.
Through social media, public consciousness of sexual harassment, assault, and rape can be conveyed to a wider audience quickly. Other social vices such as gender biases can be eradicated by the use of social media. This will eventually make social policies achievable. Public safety can be enhanced when sociological research is done adequately (Healy 775). With the sociological understanding of ‘be tough’ approach to crime has born little fruit when it comes to crime eradication. Intensive research in social media can create a platform for socializing. This will make most people who would have grown to be criminals become less assertive and aggressive.
Conclusion
Critical matters such as the health of the nation can be discussed and improved by the use of social media since it reaches most people in a short while. Health awareness rips can also be shared on social media thus enlightening the people on better health. Intensive research in social media can create a platform for socializing. In that regard, the rise in a number of communication outlets, other products include radios, websites, televisions and the social media. Social media, as a means of communication, connects one person to another, colleagues, and attract a bigger audience. The spread geographical and distribution of users across the Twitter platform has been found to exude skewness.
- Anstead, Nick, and Ben O’Loughlin. “Social media analysis and public opinion: The 2010 UK general election.” Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication 20.2 (2015): 204-220.
- Duccia, Gea. “Public Communication in the Processes of Transparency and Accountability in the Era of Open Data.” Sociology 5.2 (2015): 83-90.
- Healy, Kieran. “Public sociology in the age of social media.” Perspectives on Politics 15.3 (2017): 771-780.
- Reese, Stephen D., and Pamela J. Shoemaker. “A Media Sociology for the Networked Public Sphere: The Hierarchy of Influences Model.” Mass Communication and Society 19.4 (2016): 389-410.
Offered for reference purposes only.