Arab Spring

The fact that I am a communications major, I have had to reflect on the “Arab Spring” many times. Each time I look into the Arab uprisings I learn more and more. It is so fascinating to find out about how social media has had such a huge impact on the Arab Spring. It’s hard to believe that social media has so much power in our lives when 20 years ago, it was non existent. Saying that social media is powerful is an understatement, as it has shaped history in more than one instance. I would like to focus on the Arab Spring and how social media was used to spread information.

            There were nearly 3 million tweets, thousands of Youtube videos and many blog posts that all played an integral role in the political debates in the Arab Spring. It has been proven that when conversations were sparked on social media, major events soon followed. The public discourse that came from people commenting on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube was incredible to read about. I remember in 2011 I got the majority of my information of what was happening in the Arab Spring from social media. I rarely had time to just sit down and watch the news and getting information from social media platforms was easy, quick and convenient. It is a immediate way for the average citizen to make a huge impact and spread major news in a short period of time.  

            Stories of protests were carried across international boarders through social media alone. Freedom and democracy were two of the major topics that flew across the Middle East and North Africa. Social media’s power “helped raise expectations for the success of political uprising”. When fighting a battle you don’t want to feel alone and with social media platforms, no one ever felt like they were fighting by themselves. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter united people. It was a middle ground where people from different countries and different backgrounds could get together. I would call it a virtual online community where people could interact of common interest because they would never have the chance to meet face to face and talk about it in public.  

            None of this would be possible without social media or cell phones in general. Only 20 percent on Tunisia has access to social media sites but many have cell phones where they sent text messages, pictures, and voice messages. Not only is social media mind-blowing but technology in general. We can communicate with people not only domestically but on an international level which was the case with the Arab uprisings. An article I was reading gave this perfect quote from an Egyptian Activist that said: “If you want to liberate people, give them the Internet.” It is scary how true that statement actually is. Now-a-days information is such a deadly weapon. Though, it took a while for people to accept and really understand this.

            In 2010 analysts were very skeptical that social media would have a significant impact on the Arab Spring because of the strictness of the authoritarianism in the Arab regimes. Much to their surprise they realized that social media was acting as an accelerating agent that helped protesters “hold online discussions and organize and stage popular uprisings.” Social media had a huge impact on political communication during Arab Spring which makes me think about what we have discussed in class. I wrote one of my blog posts about social media in politics and the benefits of having an online presence. Social media can reach such a huge audience and I am not saying that it was solely ‘responsible’ for the uprisings but it definitely helped speed up the entire process. Social media platforms obviously can’t replace physical action that is needed for successful revolutions but it sure helps.

            An article I read said that 9 out of 10 Egyptians and Tunisians used Facebook to organize protests and spread awareness. That’s a huge number, which furthermore reassures critics that social media was of a great deal importance in the Arab Spring. I will never get tired of learning more and more reasons that social media is so influential. It has the power to do some amazing things and change peoples lives in a split second.

            http://www.washington.edu/news/2011/09/12/new-study-quantifies-use-of-social-media-in-arab-spring/

http://www.academia.edu/2370755/Explaining_the_role_and_impact_of_social_media_in_the_Arab_Spring_

Search Engine Optimization

When it comes to search engine optimization, meta-tagging can be extremely useful. Meta elements provide information about the web page and this can be used by search engines to help categorize the page correctly. Meta-tags are basically keywords that you can type into any search engine and it helps to give you the best possible web pages to view depending on what you are looking for. I was watching a video by Google and the person in the video said that it is not important to pay attention to the keyword meta-tags but the description meta-tags is worth paying attention to.

            There is still a debate on which meta-tags are actually useful and important to search engines. It is really important to understand that meta-tags are not the ultimate solution to getting a high ranking on Google, Bing, or other search engines but it certainly helps. You may ask what meta-tags are good for? An article I read explained the answer to this question perfectly. They are used to describe your site in the search results. Some search engines will simply grab the first few lines of your page to serve as the description of your site. This description is really important. I know that I am more likely to click on a website if it has a description telling me about some of the things in the article. We love to get quick and easy information from the websites we read and the description really helps me decide if it is an article I want to open up and read or not.

            I was very curious to see the most important meta-tags. The title is the most important phrase you see as a search result so having the proper meta-tag in the title is imperative. Also, the description of your website in 3 to 4 sentences is important. I think it is very interesting learning about meta-tags. I did not realize how much thought had to go into each website along with the keywords and descriptions.

http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/metatags.shtml

http://www.metatags.org/all_metatags

social media management platforms

            I had to do some research to understand what exactly social media aggregators were. In case your like me and had no idea, I will define it for you. Social media aggregation is the process of collecting content from multiple social network services into one unified presentation. Information is pulled together into a single location. People now-a-days have so many different social media platforms that it is hard to keep track of them! I have 10 different social media apps and it takes me a while to see what people are up to on each site.

            An app that many people are talking about that compiles your social media feeds onto one site is Hootsuite. I just learned about this social media management system in my class and it looks very helpful. You can view the streams of your Facebook, Twitter, linkedIn, Forsquare, Google+ and many others on this platform. Not only is this site useful for the average person that has many social media sites but it also benefits major companies that have to keep track of all their profiles and what is being said about their company. Also, you can communicate with your team in a much easier way. You can have conversations on this site and not have to go to a ton of different dashboards to talk to certain people.

            In such a fast paced world when people are constantly on the move it is nice to have an app that saves so much time. You can use this website on your computer and it is also available on android and iphone devices. I have recently gotten a hootsuite and it does make life a lot easier. Another positive is that hootsuite makes it easy to delegate. You can give certain tasks to certain people and have someone responsible for posting particular things or responding to comments on different sites. I highly recommend this website.

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/6-things-know-about-hootsuite

http://iag.me/socialmedia/reviews/7-reasons-why-you-should-use-hootsuite/

social media and its effects on politics

Social media has had a profound effect on our day to day lives but I want to look specifically at how it has played a role in politics. One of the articles I have read couldn’t have said it better; social media is a form of liberation and empowerment. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are all channels that politicians can use to speak directly to their voters. It’s a sad truth that a lot of people don’t want to spend the time necessary to look up information about who they are voting for. We all want the quick and easy way to get information and make an informed decision. Social media does this for us in an efficient way. An article I read said that 28% of registered voters have used their cell phone for political reasons in the 214 campaign, up from 13% in 2010.

In politics, social media is also a huge form of advertising. Commercials may be published and put onto Youtube for a relatively low cost.  They don’t have to pay for air time on the TV or on the Radio. Social media has not only made it easier for voters but also for the politicians to get information out. A poll was taken to figure out why people use social media to follow campaigns and 41 % said that “finding out about political news before other people” is a major reason why they engage in different platforms. Technology has made our world so complex and has opened so many doors for people. Easier access to information is what everyone strives for in their busy work days. It only makes sense to use social media platforms because of how fast and efficient it is. 

Another way social media plays a huge role in politics is by getting the attention of a younger audience. It is proven that twitter and Facebook increase the polls and has a huge impact on elections. The common person likes to know that people in power or celebrities are easy to connect with. It makes them seem very similar to the rest of us that also have a Facebook or Twitter. Overall, it is evident that social media platforms are highly correlated to political decisions. 

http://uspolitics.about.com/od/CampaignsElections/tp/How-Social-Media-Has-Changed-Politics.htm

http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/11/03/cell-phones-social-media-and-campaign-2014/

Class Cloud Assignment

This class cloud assignment was very interesting to be a part of. I wasn't quite sure what to expect walking into class but it turned out to be pretty fun. This “day on the cloud” was a huge learning experience for me. I just recently got a twitter because it was a requirement in class so I was not very familiar with this platform. There were a variety of tweets that everyone in the class was posting. Some of the tweets were a lot more serious then others, it was nice to have a good variety of conversations. The Fight the New Drug tweets were super interesting to read and I took some time to view their profile. They have almost 20,000 followers so it was nice to get them involved in our class conversation.

Like I mentioned above, not all the conversations were about serious topics. People were tweeting pictures of the other classmates that were sitting right next to them, or funny videos that our teacher took when his daughter was younger. It was so amusing to see what our other classmates were tweeting, I was laughing for a good portion of the class time.

I spent a good period of class time looking at what was trending. For example, one that I clicked on was Wall-Mart. People were tweeting something about this company at least every 5 seconds. People were either promoting Wall-Mart and their products or introducing a new Wall-Mart that just opened. Just browsing through their page I did not see very many negative comments which surprised me. I always hear people talking about how much they can’t stand Wall-Mart, so that was interesting.

Though I had a good time on twitter yesterday, I am still not a fan of this platform. They make things too complicated. People in my class were confused on how to do simple tasks on twitter. One key component to having a successful social media platform is to make it simple and easy to use. People of all ages should be able to use it with no difficulty. If people in my class, that are all apart of the technological era cant figure out how to use Twitter, then how would you expect an older person that is not from our generation to use it? Those were just some of my thoughts when we spent the class period on Twitter.

Social media platforms can get any information across in a short period of time and you can get a good amount of people involved in your discussion. Overall, I enjoyed the “day on the cloud” but I am still not a huge fan of Twitter.

https://twitter.com/ashleystuhlmann/status/572888107646779393

https://twitter.com/ashleystuhlmann/status/571762931932639232