Do you think that social media has the potential to bring about real social change? Well lets look at all the facts out there.First a little look at the past, before to get people to work together to bring change was a lot of work. It required someone to speak in front of small groups of people many times as well as hitting other medias to bring attention to it. Nowadays, all it takes is for a group of people or mainly a celebrity to bring about change. The key to their success, social media. By all means, social media has the potential to bring about change. Social media allows people to connect, makes groups and organize events. Making tedious work much more easier. So no more phone calls to hundreds of people, but just one post and it changes everything.
An example of this is the Supernatural fan base. From what I have seen, the actors of Supernatural have used their fame to bring about change. Misha Collins who plays Castiel has a twitter account and uses it to connect to fans and one way or another, he and some fans created Random Acts, an organization helping countries like Haiti. Because of his connection with fans on Twitter, Misha and the fans are now helping building schools and such.
Another example is when Jared Padalecki announced he and his wife were having their first child, and later tweeted his fans to send gifts not to them but to St. Jude's hospital instead. In result, Fans began donating money. All it took was one tweet from Jared and people donated. In fact, Winchester Bros. (who took charge in organizing it) put up a widget on their homepage tracking the donations, as well as giving information on it.Social media can help in many ways to make change. Flash mobbing is one. The video below is one of the best examples I believe, and makes you wonder how much planning went into it.
Take a look at this:
Whats Trending's Article
Random Acts Trip
I think its great you see a lot of people are trying to make a difference and using what is at their disposal to make that change. The time that these people put into their groups and organizations is really great and makes you want to take part in these projects.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you on the fact that before social media was implemented as a tool in getting out peoples thoughts and cause(s) which getting sponsors of a cause, or any planned event to show up was a more tedious task then it is today. Not only do I agree with that, but also the fact that celebrities are the number one reason of people actually doing something (donating or even being involved in a particular group), in this way more people donate to a worthy cause due to celebrity influence.
ReplyDeleteI agree that in the end it has become easier to make large groups in order to get people together. Inform people of whats going on. Like now of days kids get information faster then their parents from being on these social sites such as facebook and twitter.
ReplyDeleteI agree that social media is a great way to bring groups together because it makes it that you don’t need to be in one room to effectively communicate with alot of people. For the first time ever social media has allowed the whole world to be connected
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of your points. Social media does a great job of expatiating social change. I think it's great that celebrities use social media as an outlet to encourage change. I personally follow a number of celebrities on twitter in which I would not normally hear about or see outside of their works. By doing this it allows a much greater voice for the celebrities in which others as well as myself can listen to and follow to group together and create social changes.
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