Social Media from My Perspective | W4 Q2 | Forum

My definition of social media is basically a platform that enables people to interact with each other, to express themselves creatively/artistically, to criticize and/or reflect on other people’s ideas/actions, and to create communities based on their common points. These interactions can be formed synchronously or asynchronously. As Greenhow and her colleagues (2009) say while Web 1.0 was mostly “read-only”, Web 2.0 is “read-and-write” by interactively collaborating with others and participating in activities (p. 247). In other words, Web 2.0 gives people opportunities to not only consuming but also producing content (Cormode & Krishnamurthy, 2008). Also, my definition is in line with the affordances of Web 2.0, “interconnections, content creation and remixing, and interactivity” (Greenhow et al., 2009) as I discussed in the previous post.

I generally use Facebook and Instagram. Additionally, I have started to use Twitter. Most of the time, I look at posts instead of sharing something or commenting on a post. Thus, I usually consume content instead of producing it. In all of the three platforms, I follow some people/scholars/groups/organizations related to education. As Manca and Ranieri (2016) find in the literature social media can be useful for creating support groups and formal and informal learning communities. These accounts are beneficial for me to think and learn about educational issues through discussions and information sharing. I think I might become more active in social media with the help of this course.