MEDIA AND ITS FUNCTION; SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE CREATION OF CYBER GHETTOS

(Group 2- BSCE-2A)

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of this lesson,you should be able to

1. analyze how various media drive different forms of global integration:
2. compare the social impacts of different media on the processes of globalization;
3. explain the dynamic between local and global cultural production;and
4. define responsible media consumption.

INTRODUCTION:

Globalization entails the spread of various cultures. When a film is made in Hollywood, it
is shown not only in the United States, but also in other cities across the globe. South Korean
rapper Psy's song "Gangnam Style" may have been about a wealthy suburb in Seoul. but its
listeners included millions who have never been or may never go to Gangnam. Some of them
may not even know what Gangnam is.

Globalization also involves the spread of ideas. For example, the notion of the rights of
lesbian.gay.bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities is spreading across the world and
becoming more widely accepted. Similarly,the conservative Christian Church that opposes
these rights moves from places like South America to Korea and to Burundi in Africa.

People who travel the globe teaching and preaching their beliefs in universities, churches,
public forums, classrooms, or even as guests of a family play a major role in the spread of
culture and ideas. But today, television programs. social media groups, books, movies,
magazines, and the like have made it easier for advocates to reach larger audiences.
Globalization relies on media as its main conduit for the spread of global culture and ideas.
Jack Lule was then right to ask, "Could global trade have evolved without a flow of information
on markets, prices, commodities, and more? Could empires have stretched across the world
without communication throughout their borders? Could religion, music, poetry,film,fiction,
cuisine, and fashion develop as they have without the intermingling of media and cultures?".
There is an intimate relationship between globalization and media which must be unraveled to
further understand the contemporary world.

Media and Its Functions

Lule describes media as "a means of conveying something, such as a channel of
communication." Technically speaking, a person's voice is a medium. However, when
commentators refer to "media" (the plural of medium), they mean the technologies of
mass communication.
 Print media include books, magazines, and newspapers.
 Broadcast media involve radio, film, and television, and Finally;
 digital media cover the internet and mobile mass communication.

Within the category of internet media, there are e-mail,internet sites,social media, and
internet-based video and audio. While it is relatively easy to define the term "media," it is
more difficult to determine what media do and how they affect societies. Media theorist
Marshall McLuhan once declared that "the medium is the message. "He did not mean
that ideas (''messages")are useless and do not affect people. Rather, his statement was
an attempt to draw attention to how media, as a form of technology, reshape societies.
Thus, television is not a simple bearer of messages, it also shapes the social behavior of
users and reorient family behavior. Since it was introduced in the 1960s, television has
steered people from the dining table where they eat and tell stories to each other, to the
living room where they silently munch on their food while watching primetime shows.
Television has also drawn people away from other meaningful activities such as playing
games or reading books.

Today, the smart phone allows users to keep in touch instantly with multiple people at
the same time. Consider the effect of the internet on relationships. Prior to the cellphone,
there was no way for couples to keep constantly in touch, or to be updated on what the
other does all the time. The technology (medium), and not the message, makes for this
social change possible. McLuhan added that different media simultaneously extend
and amputate human senses. New media may expand the reach of communication, but
they also dull the users' communicative capacities.

Think about the medium of writing. Before people wrote things down on parchment,
exchanging stories was mainly done orally. To be able to pass stories verbally from one
person to another, storytellers had to have retentive memories. However, papyrus
started becoming more common in Egypt after the fourth century BCE, which
increasingly meant that more people could write down their stories. As a result,
storytellers no longer had to rely completely on their memories. This development,
according to some philosophers at the time, dulled the people's capacity to remember.
 Something similar can be said about cellphones. On the one hand, they expand people's
senses because they provide the capability to talk to more people instantaneously and
simultaneously. On the other hand, they also limit the senses because they make users
easily distractible and more prone to multitasking. This is not necessarily a bad thing; it
is merely change with a trade-off.

The question of what new media enhance and what they amputate was not a moral or
ethical one, according to McLuhan. New media are neither inherently good nor bad. The
famous writer was merely drawing attention to the historically and technologically
specific attributes of various media.

Social Media and the Creation of Cyber Ghettoes

Social media
 It refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share,
and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and
networks. One example of this which is commonly used by everyone is
the FACEBOOK.
 It is without a doubt the most effective instrument in today's ongoing
globalization endeavor.

Cyberghetto
 Is a stylish that means to make a home in cyberspace for underestimated
gatherings of individuals.
 It refers to a group of marginalized people, as well as a fashion
aesthetic. As described by Fandom, cyberghetto is a hybrid of the word “cyber”
referring to the internet and cyberspace and “ghetto”which is generally used as a
term to describe a group of marginalized individuals.
 It is a place on the Internet etc. where a social group is marginalized.

By now, very few media scholars argue that the world is becoming culturally homogenous. Apart
from the nature of diverse audiences and regional trends in cultural production, the internet and
social media are proving that the globalization of culture and ideas can move in different
directions. While Western culture remains powerful and media production is still controlled by a
handful of powerful Western corporations, the internet, particularly social media, is challenging

previous ideas about media and globalization.

As with all new media, social media have both beneficial and negative effects. On the one hand,
these forms of communication have democratized access. Anyone with an internet connection
or a smartphone can use Facebook and Twitter for free.

These media have enabled users to be consumers and producers of information

simultaneously. The democratic potential of social media was most evident in 2011 during the
wave of uprisings known as the Arab Spring. Without access to traditional broadcast media like
TV, activists opposing authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya used Twitter to
organize and to disseminate information. Their efforts toppled their respective governments.
More recently the "women's march" against newly installed US President Donald Trump began
with a tweet from a Hawaii lawyer and became a national, even global, movement.

The massive protests of the Arab Spring were largely enabled by social media

However, social media also has its dark side. In the early 2000s, commentators began
referring to the emergence of a "splinternet" and the phenomenon of
"cyberbalkanization" to refer to the various bubbles people place themselves in when
they are online. In the United States, voters of the Democratic Party largely read liberal
websites, and voters of the Republican Party largely read conservative websites. This
segmentation, notes an article in the journal Science, has been exacerbated by the
nature of social media feeds, which leads users to read articles, memes, and videos
shared by like-minded friends." As such, being on Facebook can resemble living in an
echo chamber, which reinforces one's existing beliefs and opinions. This echo chamber
precludes users from listening to or reading opinions and information that challenge their
viewpoints, thus, making them more partisan and closed-minded

This segmentation has been used by people in power who are aware that the social
media bubbles can produce a herd mentality. It can be exploited by politicians with less
than democratic intentions and demagogues wanting to whip up popular anger. The
 same inexpensiveness that allows social media to be a democratic force likewise makes
it a cheap tool of government propaganda. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has hired
armies of social media "trolls" (paid users who harass political opponents) to manipulate
public opinion through intimidation and the spreading of fake news." Most recently,
American intelligence agencies established that Putin used trolls and online
misinformation to help Donald Trump win the presidency—a tactic the Russian autocrat
is likely to repeat in European elections he seeks to influence."

In places across the world, Putin imitators replicate his strategy of online trolling and
disinformation to clamp down on dissent and delegitimize critical media. Critics of the
increasingly dictatorial regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are
threatened by online mobs of pro-government trolls, who hack accounts and threaten
violence. Some of their responses have included threats of sexual violence against
women."

As the preceding cases show, fake information can spread easily on social media since
they have few content filters. Unlike newspapers, Facebook does not have a team of
editors who are trained to sift through and filter information. If a news article. even a fake
one, gets a lot of shares, it will reach many people with Facebook accounts.

This dark side of social media shows that even a seemingly open and democratic media
may be co-opted towards undemocratic means. Global online propaganda will be the
biggest threat to face as the globalization of media deepens. Internet media have made
the world so interconnected that a Russian dictator can, for example influence American
elections on the cheap.

As consumers of media, users must remain vigilant and learn how to distinguish fact
from falsehood in a global media landscape that allows politicians to peddle what
President Trump's senior advisers now call "alternative facts." Though people must
remain critical of mainstream media and traditional journalism that may also operate
based on vested interest, we must also insist that some sources are more credible than
others. A newspaper story that is written by a professional journalist and vetted by
professional editors is still likely to be more credible than a viral video produced by
someone in his/her bedroom, even if both will have their biases. People must be able to
tell the difference.

Conclusion
This lesson showed that different media have diverse effects on globalization processes.
At one point, it seemed that global television was creating a global monoculture. Now, it
seems more likely that social media will splinter cultures and ideas into bubbles of
people who do not interact. Societies can never be completely prepared for the rapid
changes in the systems of communication. Every technological change, after all, creates
multiple unintended consequences. Consumers and users of media will have a hard time
turning back the clock. Though people may individually try to keep out of Facebook or
Twitter, for example, these media will continue to engender social changes. Instead of
fearing these changes or entering a state of moral panic, everyone must collectively
discover ways of dealing with them responsibly and ethically.