Social Media

SOCIAL MEDIA

by Antonio C. Antonio

June 25, 2014

Pro-environmentalism is, perhaps, one of the loneliest advocacies.  Often misunderstood, it becomes even more pathetic when there is a very low level of interest to seriously look into it.  Its importance is generally relegated to a “non-essential” matter even when it represents life and quality of life for the present and future generations.  “In the case of environmental advocacies, the situation is even more pathetic.  There really is a very low level of awareness for what is good for Mother Earth.  Journalism, public relations and advertising are on the business end of things and, therefore, fuelled by money and sponsorships. Social media, therefore, remains to be the only viable medium to popularize environmental matters and concerns.” (Antonio, 2014)

What is “social media” then?  And why is it so popular nowadays? 

Social media is a domain, a website and an application that enables users (popularly called “netizens” or citizens of the internet) to create, share and network preferential content (literary or visual).  The netizens’ participation in such activity is called social networking.  Sharing scholarly thoughts about social media, Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as “a group of internet of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.” (Wikipedia)  Social media depends on highly interactive mobile and Web-based platforms that allow individuals and groups to share, create, discuss and generate content generated by other on-line individuals or groups.  Advances in information technology (IT) have brought down the cost to acquire computers and net-connective mobile units.  Seemingly affordable, most everyone owns a mobile phone and a computer at present.  Affordability of the hardware and access to the internet were the keys to the popularity of social media.  The fact that more households, with the passing of time, can now afford computers is very encouraging.

Examples of social networking sites are: Facebook, Blogger, Google+, YouTube, Linkden, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and Twitter (United States); Nexopia (Canada); Badoo, Bebo and Vkontakte (Russia); Delphi and Draungiem.lv (Latvia); Hyves (The Netherlands); iWiW (Hungary); Nasza-Klasa and Soup (Poland); Glocals (Switzerland); Skyrock, The Sphere and StudiVZ (Germany); Tagged and Tuenti (Spain); Myspace, Xanga and XING (parts of Europe); Hi5 and Orkut (South America); Mxit (Africa); and, Cyworld, Mixi, Orkut, Renren, Friendster, Sina Weibo and Wretch (Asia) just to name the more popular ones.

As social networking sites or social media allow users to share ideas, interests, posts, pictures, activities and events in their world-wide network, they have became the most cost-effective and efficient means to promote and popularize anything… pro-environmental advocacies included.  It is for this reason that most advocates, whatever their advocacies are, choose social media.  Personally, I prefer Facebook and Blogger.

Just my little thoughts…

(Please visit, like and share Pro EARTH Crusaders and Landscape Ecology on Facebook or follow me at antonantonio.blogspot.com.)