This document contains lecture notes about online social networks and digital communication. It discusses how social networks allow users to have public profiles and connect with others. It also examines how digital media may enhance civic engagement and political participation rather than isolate users. The document then explores how information shared online can unite people and spread ideas. It analyzes how digital communication has changed the structures of publishing content and dialogue. Historical shifts from oral to written cultures and the impacts of the printing press on disseminating information are also reviewed. The document positions the current era as the late age of print and questions skepticism around new communication technologies.

1. Week 5 Lecture Notes COM
325
Personal Connections: Chap 4 (p. 100-110)
Blogging: chap 2 (pages 36 - 49)
Everybody Writes: Part One, sections 15 - 21 (pages 56 - 73)
Notes_COM325

2. What isanonline
social network?
 A communication platform in which participants
 1-Have identifiable profiles
 2-Can publicly articulate connections that can be viewed
by others
 3-Can consume, produce and interact with content.
 Social networks are egocentric. Society is shifting
toward “networked individualism” in which each
person sits at the center of his or her own community.

3. Engagement in
social media
networks
 Critics of digital media said its use would pull people
from their geographic communities. The research does
not support this claim.
 Civic engagement can be enhanced by online
connections.
 Some evidence shows that digital media users may be
more likely to be politically engaged.
 The Internet and mobile media serve as information
conduits.

4. Thepurposeof
information
online
 Information shared online has these functions:
 Culture jamming (playful remix of materials to convey
social messages)
 Spread shared grievances
 Point national attention to an issue or topic
 Broaden the appeal of social movements
 Create new connections between people
 Provide a form of emotional release
 “Speed, interactivity, and reach allow digital citizens to
gather around shared interests transcending local
communities in ways that may be personally
empowering but potentially polarizing” (Baym, 2015, p.
110).

5. Changes resulting
fromdigital
communication
 Changes in how we communicate
 1. The average citizen can now publish content. This is
the day of participatory media
 2. The former structure of one-to-many communication is
reduced.

 Two major shifts in communication prior to the advent
of broadcast media were
 Introduction of writing
 Introduction of print and the ability to mass produce
information

6. Plato
 In the 4th century Plato objected to progressing from an
oral culture to a written culture for these reasons:
 Written communication would destroy memory
 Written text is unresponsive
 Writing allows the words to be distributed without the writer
present. This dissemination accepts the idea that not
everyone will respond and engage, meaning a dialogue is not
needed. Plato favored dialogue and said dissemination is
wasteful.
 Of note, blogs allow both dialogue and dissemination.
 What is the difference between a blog and a photocopied
newsletter mailed to 100 people?
 1- the potential audience is larger for the blog
 2-the increased potential for feedback from the audience for
the blog

7. Theprinting
presschanged
culture
 6 features of print that changed culture
 Dissemination
 Standardization
 Reorganization
 Data collection
 Preservation
 Amplification and reinforcement

8. Socialchanges
fromthe
printingpress
 Social changes resulting from the printing press
 Large scale data collection resulted in feedback
 Increase in literacy
 reading silently developed
 A move from speeches to printed reports as a major
source of information
 Lifting of censorship (the church had controlled most
information)
 Authorship (prior to the printing press, author names
were not included on literary works)

9. Wearein
TheLateAgeof
Print
 Print is still culture’s most respected medium (especially
in education)but print is not the dominant medium,
 Radio and TV are stronger mediums with the average
American watching 2.5 hours of TV on weekdays and 3.19
hours on the weekend, but spending only 20 minutes a
day reading (Source: U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2012).
 Internet lags behind TV and radio use
 Every media shift produces skeptical voices
 Skeptics said automobiles were not natural but horses were
 Skeptics said the telephone would allow people to cross social
class lines.
 Skeptics said radio distracted children from reading and hurt
performance at school
 And on it goes!
 Skeptics say mobile phones cause cancer
 A bestseller title, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?

10. References
 Baym, N. (2015). Personal connections in the digital
age (2nd ed). Malden, MA: Polity Press.
 Handley, A. (2014). Everybody writes: Your go-to guide
to creating ridicoulsly good content (2nd ed.). Hoboken,
NJ: Wiley.
 Media Related Time use, (2017). Bureau of Labor
Statistics. Retrieved from
https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2013/media/home.htm
 Rettberg. J.W., (2013). Blogging (2nd ed). Malden,
MA: Polity Press.