Essay Sample on Social Media and Ourselves: Networked Publics

Introduction

Networked Publics are social networks that have been restructured simultaneously by using networked technologies resulting in a collective intersection of person, practice and technology (Tiidenberg & Siibak, 2018). The paper will discuss two of the networked publics: Usenet and blogosphere. Usenet is a technological network where people and support groups share and exchange information and news. Some newsgroups form the collection of every subject that is posted and are hosted on the servers that are interconnected. It is a global discussion computerized system that connects people across the world. The public was started in the year 1979 and was based on an original version of Unix-Unix and was later improved to acquire the version of Network of News Transfer (Bourlai, 2018). The blogosphere is another public which is a network comprising all blogs together with their interconnectivity systems. It is a network that connects the connected societies by creating a service of networking where bloggers can broadcast their opinions and ideas (Meinel et al., 2015). Networked publics are platforms that allow people to gather for cultural, civic and social interactions at a global level.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Culture of Usenet

To start using Usenet one has to pay to get access to the services from a range of $5 to about $30 monthly to the service provider like Astraweb and Easynews (Tiidenberg & Siibak, 2018). Being a public that was developed by students at the graduate level, in most cases, the public was known to be used mostly by the academic systems where first-year students joining the college in September would acquire such accounts in droves, a culture that was popularly known as netiquette. Usenet has a culture of welcoming the beginners and also help them in the process of acquiring a Usenet account to create an aspect of friendliness (Bourlai, 2018). The network holds that it is a community as well as a culture that is controlled by a set of conventions and norms. The users of the network have a belief that they owe each other something (Cheng, 2018). Its primary purpose was to promote the distribution of information and communication across university campuses. Usenet can be considered to be having a super cultural society since it acts as a spanning system for other mainstream networks that it depends on for its continuity in the sector. It has the culture of producing elements of society for the entire society. Usenet encourages, users, to share their thoughts, views, ideas, opinions as well as questions with others in the public space (Bourlai, 2018).

The public possess its linguistic jargon where is accumulated its own folklore as well as a sense of humor. English is the most commonly used language in the Usenet public. However other languages are also used in different newsgroup depending on the hierarchies of the nation (Bourlai, 2018). It has also used other body languages and nonverbal clues in spreading of information. Usenet invented the use of extrasensory emotions like laughs and grins. Also, the use smileys are common by using a textual drawing of a person smiling by rotating it at 90 degrees anti-clockwise that can be typed and get printed on the computer and the print outs (Tiidenberg & Siibak, 2018). Sharing of posts in Usenet is not restricted since students want to help each with quality information. However, posts can only be shared across similar newsgroup, and as long a person is a user, commenting on posts is allowed except for few cases where one has turned off commenting (Bourlai, 2018). The most discussed topics are about education, economics and job opportunities among others (Cheng, 2018).

Culture of Blogosphere

By 2015, it was estimated that there were more than 160 million identifiable blogs which produce at least one million posts for a day. The culture of the blogosphere as a public dwell so much on connecting the bloggers in the globe. Anyone is entitled to join the blogosphere public but only if he or she is a blogger or owns a blog either as an individual or as a firm (Meinel et al., 2015). The posts in the site are meant to promote globalization through various ways of interactions and posts regarding global subjects. It uses the links called hypertext to mark the topic of discussion where other internet sites can follow a discussion from one blog to the other (Tiidenberg & Siibak, 2018). They believe in engaging the community to discuss the things that matter to them. The norms are that every blog or blogger, in that case, must respect the opinion of each blog posted (Meinel et al., 2015). It is because there are various political blogs which can bring about heated debates. In most cases, blogs have been used to generate revenue through the use of ads (Cheng, 2018).

The use of languages is not restricted although the most commonly used language is English. Other languages are also used depending on the originality of the blog. Just like other sites, imagery is profoundly used especially using proverbial phrases to make political blogs (Tiidenberg & Siibak, 2018). In Blogosphere, commenting in a blog is not restricted; hence anyone who reads the blog can comment and as well share the information except when the blog has restricted sharing in general or has turned off comments. In fact with the onset of making revenue from ads, sharing is highly encouraged (Meinel et al., 2015). The most discussed topics are the political subjects, fashion, music, health, and food since they are the ones affecting the global society most (Daly, 2018).

Interaction With Usenet

As a student, I have in most cases used and interacted in the Usenet networked public. When choosing the course to undertake in college, I sought for opinions and views from Usenet. After joining college, I have been getting academic materials and information from my newsgroup in the Usenet. However, due to the fast spreading of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Whatsapp and so many more, the public is not much used by students as before. It is because social media site especially Whatsapp and YouTube are also becoming a timely and consistent source of information (Daly, 2018). Usenet is, however, the best site to source for academic revision materials and course outlines (Bourlai, 2018). I once wrote an assignment which I later felt that it was not up to standards. I uploaded it on Usenet to get views and thoughts regarding the essay. To my surprise, the scholars in public helped with valuable ideas to rewrite which helped to produce a high-quality assignment. When comparing Usenet to the online center in our college, interactions between scholars and students is enhanced by such publics since learners can share information efficiently in a professional manner unlike in the social media platforms (Tiidenberg & Siibak, 2018).

Interaction With Blogosphere

Due to its wide range of subjects or topics posted, I found blogosphere to be an interesting site to get general information on critical things regarding our economy and nation. Anything to do with the politics of a state can be found in this public. I once participated in a blog posted by CNN asking about the political status of my country. From the comments, I was able to get a reflection of how my nation is. News and posts regarding career development have also helped in making a critical decision in my academic life. According to (Daly, 2018), in most cases, social media is fond of spreading propaganda since everyone has a chance to air his/her opinion without restriction thus it may damage the reputation of an innocent person. You want to get news regarding, nutrition, health, political economics, the blogosphere is a good site from my experience. Sites such as clouded website systems have used as networked publics where I have received such a blog sent to our group websites. I have also shared a blog's post using LinkedIn emails to various friends and colleagues.

A Connection of the Public

Having used or else made interactions in the two publics, I can say that both of them are outstanding. The only difference is the kind of information shared since one is more of an academic site while the other is news or gossip site. During my interactions, my fellow users were able to understand the need for sharing information, thoughts, and opinions which could be of help to someone. Being a participant in the networks, I would prefer to play the role of spreading information since everyone needs access to useful information instead of propaganda that would ruin the image of an individual. It is because how people are interacting on the online platforms is becoming more of a personal issue other than fundamentally informative and educative (Daly, 2018).

Conclusion

The influential power of networked publics cannot be underestimated even with the rapid and frequent use of social media. By a great extent, the networks have boosted the sharing of information across the globe professionally. The spread of culture, information, news, and socialization has been possible. The two publics: Usenet and Blogosphere have their own unique culture of creating interaction platforms as well as acting as agents of information broadcast. However, networked publics need improvements to counter the stiff competition posed by social media as it currently. It is because social media is too fast and convenient to use although it lacks some professionalism in the way posts are produced or how posts are shared and commented. Thus more networked publics should be developed giving them convenience and simplicity as key features.

References

Bourlai, E. E. (2018). Gender and Language in Computer-Mediated Discourse: A Historical Analysis of USENET Newsgroups (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University).

Chen, Y. (2018). "Being a butt while on the internet": Perceptions of what is and isn't internet trolling. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 55(1), 76-85.

Daly, D. (2018). Humans are Social Media (2nd Ed). Top Hat: Ontario, Canada

Meinel, C., Bross, J., Berger, P., & Hennig, P. (2015). Blogosphere and its Exploration (pp. 3-246). New York: Springer.

Tiidenberg, K., & Siibak, A. (2018). Affordances, Affect and Audiences-Making sense of networked publics, introduction to AoIR 2017 special issue on networked publics. Studies of Transition States and Societies, 10(2).