Assessment Task 2

As a volunteer for an event, taking place in November, it is important for every member of the team to be part of the Facebook ‘Promotions Team’ group. This group acts as a community for everyone to share ideas on how to promote the event on other social media platforms as well as print media.  Being a volunteer for this event and managing the event’s Twitter page has allowed me to be an active member in the event’s Facebook community. This has given me an opportunity to interact with other members on the type of content that could be posted on Twitter as well as give others feedback on content to be posted on other social media platforms. It has permitted me to step out of my comfort zone and has given me the opportunity to intermingle with people on a topic of mutual interest.  However, as mentioned in Finding Your Community, and as reflected upon in my blog post (Finding your Community), in order to be an active member of this community I had to post a stream of content in order for the ‘Big Five’ to notice me, and see the content and values I had to offer.

 

As mentioned in Theoretical Frameworks, McLuhan viewed “radio, cinema, hi-fi and television as a constituted shift away from the cultural conditioning of print.” Keeping this in mind, based on the objectives of the online community I am part of, I tend to agree with McLuhan.  One of the main objectives of my online community/group is to come up with different ways to advertise the event on various social media pages in order to promote this event. Had this event taken place a couple of years ago, interest would be created through newspaper articles a couple of weeks before the event rather than online posts months prior to the event. The act of creating this globalized flow of information relating to the event or any other topic of interest is termed ‘global village’. Through technology one is able to attract viewers through audio-visuals, images, sounds in contrast to the ‘ordered patterns of print-dominated cultures’. As expressed in an earlier post, I personally feel that this allows the audience to interact with others who share the same interests, rather than having seen it as a printed piece of communication. As McLuhan mentioned,  ‘The key to a medium’s cultural effect is not found in its content, but in the way it conveys information.’ Keeping this in mind I think it is highly important for communities such as the one I am part of to engage in the global village, as this will give a chance for the promotion of the event to reach a larger audience due to its interactive media forms rather than just printed forms.

 

In order to convey a message across effectively one must keep in mind the demographic of their audience and the medium that is most appealing to them. An earlier post entitled Cultural Content, further explains the use of media when trying to attract attention. In order to sell our event to the public, the group/community’s task is to promote the event as an interactive media form, one that will convey the message affectively to the audience as well as to develop interest regarding the event.

 

Bibliography: Landow, George P. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2006. Print. 107-124

Andrew Murphie and John Potts, Culture and Technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print. 11-38

Bolter, Jay David. “Social Media and the Future of Political Narrative.” Travels in Intermediality. Lebanon, US: Dartmouth, 2012. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 8 February 2016. 206-226

Oatway, Jay, Apr 26, 2012, Mastering Story, Community and Influence : How to Use Social Media to Become a Socialeader Wiley, Hoboken. 97-109. ISBN: 9781119943457.

 

Image Source: Google

 

Cultural Content

‘Cultural effect is not found in its content but in the way it conveys information.’

Due to the hustle and bustle in today’s day and age, I personally feel that in order to get a message across to a targeted audience one must have content that attracts the eye of the audience in a single glance. People tend to browse through content on the web and therefore do not pay much attention to detail unless it is striking. Textual information usually gets passed off as boring whereas audio clips, videos, GIFs are what usually attracts someone’s attention. Moreover, due to the numerous social media platforms, it is important to upload content onto the most used platform of your targeted audience if not all platforms.

 

GIF source: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/gifs-language-internet-history-culture-art-future/

Global Village

McLuhan terms the globalized flow of information as the ‘global village’. Being a part of this Global Village allows us to access content from the Internet from anywhere at any time, which as put forth by McLuhan is a ‘contrast to the ordered patterns of print documented cultures.’ Due to content being available in various media forms it doesn’t demand the ‘lengthy acquisition of reading and writing skills’, which I personally feel is important as in todays day and age people look for the easy way out due to their tight schedules. Moreover, this enables content to be more accessible to people for all ages.

Finding Your Community

 

After having read this article I was able to gain an understanding as to how to find my community as well as become an active member within it. A while ago I was selected to be part of a promotions team, which had a Facebook group that allowed the members to put forth their ideas for the entire team to view. At first I was hesitant to post my ideas on the group but as time passed, I felt the only way I would be heard and known was if I started posting, and that’s exactly what I did. This in turn not only allowed me to get my ideas across but also created a sense of belonging to a particular community.