A response to the question about article by Ian Bogost in The Atlantic.
Digital Literacy Assignment
Aqira Siti Maryam
VCD Class 1
013202200036
A response to the question about article by Ian Bogost in The Atlantic.
The Question
1. What is Bogost's main argument about social media?
2. Ho does he differentiate between social media and social network?
3. How would you response to his argument? Do you agree or disagree? Explain why!
The Answer
1. He things that social media was not and never be a natural way to work, play, socialize and evolved via a weird mutation. And he things that social media was a terrible idea because anyone can say anything to anyone else as often as possible and that made, they deserve such a capacity it amounts to censorship or suppression. And also, he thinks that social networks’ evolution into social media brought both opportunity and calamity. Facebook and all the rest enjoyed a massive rise in engagement and the associated data-driven advertising profits that the attention-driven content economy created. The same phenomenon also created the influencer economy, in which individual social-media users became valuable as channels for distributing marketing messages or product sponsorships by means of their posts’ real or imagined reach. Ordinary folk could now make some money or even a lucrative living “creating content” online. The platforms sold them on that promise, creating official programs and mechanisms to facilitate it. In turn, “influencer” became an aspirational role, especially for young people for whom Instagram fame seemed more achievable than traditional celebrity—or perhaps employment of any kind.
The ensuing disaster was multipart. For one, social-media operators discovered that the more emotionally charged the content, the better it spread across its users’ networks. Polarizing, offensive, or just plain fraudulent information was optimized for distribution. By the time the platforms realized and the public revolted, it was too late to turn off these feedback loops.
2. He differentiates social media and social networks by arguing that social networks are systems that are idle and inactive temporarily and social media are active—hyperactive, really—spitting material all over them instead of leaving it on until needed. And in think that in the era of social networks, connection is very important, driving the creation and consumption of content. But in the age of social media seek the thinnest, most soluble connections, enough to allow content to flow.
And he arguing that social network is a system that can connect a person with what is needed, such as a person who is looking for a job can connect himself or even be connected by the system according to the data he listed in the personal data section on the web with a job that fits him and can also connect someone with people he knows or even unknown it's all up to the user to decide. Social networks also allow people to view material posted mostly by people they know or don't know.
While social media is a facility for users to create content and become a platform for disseminating the content they create and can even reach the whole world. social media can enable everyday people to make money or even “create profitable content” online. Social media shows that everyone has the potential to reach a large audience at low cost and high profits—and this potential gives many people the impression that they deserve this audience.
3. I agree with this argument because social media can never be a natural way to work, play, and socialize because even though it makes it easier to work and socialize, working and socializing directly is more effective because when we work we can know and see conditions and problems firsthand what happened and make it easier to solve it and find a way out and when socializing directly we can get more chemistry with people around us and get to know each other better. And social media can also make people famous and get money quickly even though it helps but it makes their current content less quality because it's so easy to become famous, just doing stupid and useless things can become famous, that's really unfortunate because many people are right really has a talent for drowning. And also, social media has become very tempting for people to make money instead of any job, even though social media is not guaranteed because at any time fame will fade very quickly.