Welcome to the course blog for CTCS 494 Finding Your Niche: Marketing and Media Industries!
This blog is designed to be a forum for all of us to expand on ideas discussed in class.
During the semester, you will be asked to post reflections on readings and screenings at least 4 times. You can include website links, video clips, and images in your posts. Your posts should comment on class concepts in a critical and analytical way. Posts can be connections you make about readings, screenings, or lectures, reflections on your own experiences as a consumer of media and marketing, and/or additional issues or questions that you want to bring up for discussion.
This blog should be both a fun and analytical space for conversation so feel free to post as many times as you want and to respond to each others' posts.
Again, welcome to the class!
JH
2 comments:
Twitter and its Tensions:
(I'm posting here because I'm not sure how to post a blog on the home page...)
I thought the Edwards article we read last week on Twitter and its implications of access and branding was interesting and relevant, especially since I'm an avid Tweeter and think that what Twitter is doing in terms of information democratization as well as branding and advertising is incredibly innovative. Twitter's influence is definitely two-fold... Tweeters use the site not only as a way to share and derive information (personal, political or even emergency information) but to create relationships with companies and organizations, following personalities/brands that they're interested in as well as actively taking advantage of corporate promotions/information made available to them through Twitter.
Thus, on one side, Twitter seems to democratize media and serve as a platform for collective social action (as we saw in the Mumbai terrorist attacks)... yet on the other, Twitter seems also to be used as a means of corporate branding and mass customization.
One way of thinking about Twitter's democratizing role is in terms of politics. Does Twitter encourage activism? Since Twitter enables collective social action through democratized information, it appears that it can. Yet some criticize the level of activism Twitter encourages, saying that Twitter may increase political participation but can create only weak motivation that doesn't necessitate the level of strategy that real political activism requires. (Malcolm Gladwell; http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all)
I came across a place for discussion about Twitter's activism capabilities on the New York Times website: "Can Twitter Lead People to the Streets?" (http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/29/can-twitter-lead-people-to-the-streets).
On this discussion board, people (bloggers, politicians, educators, etc.) can contribute to a debate about Twitter's capabilities and limitations in nurturing political action. It's an intriguing, continuous discourse about social media's implications and its potential for access and activism that ties in with Edwards' discussion.
JUST to add to my last post, I think it's interesting also to consider Twitter's new "Promoted" accounts... through which they apparently use an algorithm to link advertisers with potentially receptive Tweeters. In a blatant move in the corporate direction, brands are now prioritized on the site and Twitter has been made to feel increasingly like an advertising platform. Twitter's new CEO (http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/04/technology/new_twitter_ceo/index.htm?hpt=T2) has also mentioned that he wants to move Twitter into a more commercial direction and make it easier for people to buy things directly on Twitter, make reservations, etc.
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