Reading Response #1

1. Clay Shirkey views new media technology largely as a positive. Using the story of the infamous 2006 StolenSidekick website and the massive amount of attention it drew in route to getting a woman’s stolen phone returned, he highlights the group strength that the new age of technology puts at our fingertips. Through all of the viewership site creator Evan garnered, he was able to access things like “lawyers, policemen, online detectives, journalists, and even his own ad hoc pressure group working on his behalf, without belonging to any organization responsible for providing those functions” (Shirkey 10).

Neil Postman, on the other hand, sees new media technology as a menace to societal communication. The problem he sees is that people do not view over-consumption of media as a communal flaw because it appears harmless on the surface. However, after all of past technology’s influence on the way we live our lives, he notes, “to be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a program for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make the assumption that technology is always a friend to culture is, at this late hour, stupidity plain and simple (Postman 157).

2. According to Shirkey, social capital is “the shadow of the future on a societal scale” (192). He also refers to it as the mutual benefits of habits of cooperation in functioning communities. He sees social groups formed via social media as an aggregator of sorts for social capital, as being able to create groups based on both “affinity and proximity” helps people come together (196).

3. In the life of My Tribe is My Life character Heythem, social media has a positive impact as it enables him to gather more attention to his reggae music. Just as he has created a Facebook page for his band (without pictures of his mother, as he puts it) I too have created a page for my film blog; social media is a big help when it comes to your passion.