Week 4 - If it’s on the internet it’s got to be true

For me as an aspiring journalist, I enjoy using social networks for different reasons. Facebook is the more personal or social space. As Rosen (2007) says, social networking sites tend to foster weak ties such as “rumour-mongering, gossip, finding people and tracking the ever-shifting movements of pop culture and fad”.

Facebook is the place where I find out who’s seeing who, who has a new job or who is drinking where this weekend. Nothing is really “trustworthy” (Rosen 2007), but there is a place for Facebook in social media. Although it was ultimately a sad story, I enjoyed the anecdote of the relationship break-up because that is the very thing everyone sees and hears about through their Facebook accounts.

Twitter on the other hand I use for more professional reasons. I find this social media network a perfect place to track news from around the world. I don’t post on Twitter because I don’t receive much attention from other Twitter users (Huberman, Romero and Wu, 2009). However I do use the network to “keep track” of current news and find Twitter, because it is more commercially orientated, is more trustworthy.

I find social network sites both fun and necessary for my future career, and both Facebook and Twitter will play a role in my own future years.

See you next week,
Andrew


References
Rosen, C. (2007). Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/contentWrapper.jsp?content_id=_3070110_1&displayName=Week+4%3A+%E2%80%98MyFace%E2%80%99+or+%E2%80%9CDo+you+know+what+I+did+5+seconds+ago%3F%E2%80%9D&course_id=_60765_1&navItem=content&href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenewatlantis.com%2Fpublications%2Fvirtual-friendship-and-the-new-narcissism (accessed March 14, 2010).

Huberman, B., Romero, D.M. & Wu, F. (2009). Social networks that matter: Twitter under the microscope. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/contentWrapper.jsp?content_id=_3070110_1&displayName=Week+4%3A+%E2%80%98MyFace%E2%80%99+or+%E2%80%9CDo+you+know+what+I+did+5+seconds+ago%3F%E2%80%9D&course_id=_60765_1&navItem=content&href=http%3A%2F%2Ffirstmonday.org%2Fhtbin%2Fcgiwrap%2Fbin%2Fojs%2Findex.php%2Ffm%2Farticle%2Fview%2F2317%2F2063 (accessed March 14, 2010).