Social in Social Media

Some of the main takeaways from the second unit are about social media, ways in which it keeps up connected, ways in which activist groups utilize it, and the overall effects of social media. In Danah Boyd's article she talks about the different elements of social media and how networked publics and invisible audiences play a role in how we share content on these social media platforms. Four of the structural affordances of networked publics she focuses on are, persistence, replicability, scalability, searchability. In class we were divided into groups and picked a social media site and explored the affordances that Pinterest uses. We discovered that one of the main premises of the network is to foster relationships among its users and creates away for a participant to reach an 'intended audience' by way of 'unintended audience.' The way social media sites are set up to create, share, duplicate, store and emphasize content to the masses is a way for individuals to express and connect on the internet in ways that was never possible before.