Flash From the Past: Neil Postman- 6 Questions to Understanding Media #COM641

In one of my earlier posts, I said I would attempt to answer the following six questions as posed by Neil Postman and that I would do so when I was close to finishing this course. What I failed to mention in the previous post was that I would try to answer these six questions pertaining to social media. So, here goes!

ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Question #1 What is the problem to which this technology is a solution? Possibly the sense of community between groups that are not able to coordinate actually seeing one-another on a regular basis. For instance, stay-at-home moms, people that work from home, long-distance relatives, etc. The word "community" however, needs to be examined for authenticity within a given social media group. Only those who are truthful, upfront, honest and a shared interest are true communities. In essence, social media as a problem, can also serve as a solution to more efficient news or sharing between people who use it.

Question #2 Whose problem is it? At this point I feel social media (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, cell phones, etc.) is the primary responsibility of the parents and educators of our children. I don't put my trust in the engineers who are the masterminds of creating this new technology to know what is best for our younger generations, but rather it is the people's responsibility to be well-informed of the pros, cons and unknowns. With social media as a trade-off to the old way of writing, speaking, and pure social exchange is changing. It is up to those parents and educators to decide what is 'safe' and appropriate uses for our youth.

Question #3 Suppose we solve this problem and solve it decisively, what new problems might be created because we have solved the problem? Well I think the biggest problem is that we won't ever be able to really keep up with the social technology media in the first place, thus causing constant information overload and confusion as to what we should/shouldn't know and how to teach this to our kids. There will always be new problems. I think the biggest issue might be the possible change in what is acceptable for speaking and writing and how this will change dialogue in general.

Question #4 Which people and what institutions might be most seriously harmed by a technological solution? Schools. Whether primary, secondary, college and beyond, this will change the way teachers teach and students are taught. It will also have a huge effect on our publishing companies and telecommunications.

Question #5 What changes in language are being enforced by new technologies and what is being gained and lost by such changes? The written and spoken word is being changed. Read my blog post titled "Superficial Communication" and I think that post answers this question.

Question #6 What sort of people and institutions acquire special economic and political power because of technological change? Again, I feel that the education systems are a huge area of concern as well as multi-media news sites. I don't believe that they now have special economic and political power because of technological advances, but they should. Those that hold such power now are those in political professions, more government based programs along with engineers.

As a blog post, this is a condensed version of all my thoughts regarding these questions.