1,966,514,816 people in the world have access to the internet, (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) it is, therefore easy to get your word out there. With it being so unrestricted and unselective it passes power and voice over to people who may never have achieved it before. An example of this would be Perez Hilton; what started as an obsession with celebrities turned into a blog followed by millions. Having left school with few prospects he is now a worldly recognised figure with a fortune and an abundance of celebrity friends...not bad for just writing a blog slating celebrities. Check his blog out here: http://perezhilton.com/
Gone are the days when you need to go to huge effort to find anything out. As soon as an argument is sparked, the answer can be ‘googled’ at the speed of light. An example of openness online would be Wikipedia, the authority of an encyclopaedia is dropped and anyone can contribute or research using it. There are positives to this, in that there is a huge array of niche information, the negatives being the lack of credibility with much of it. However, I believe as a generation that has grown up understanding this phenomenon we are able to take it all with a pinch of salt and be careful not to believe everything we read.
This openness has brought across a confusion regarding the user and producer online, resulting in a web abled ‘produser’, sites that back up this idea are amazon, ebay and youtube. All which have a blur between the two, you can be both or neither....and you don’t have to rely on what the producer is telling you – thanks to consumer reviews.
A main current issue of this week has been the Egyptian protests resulting in Mubarak stepping down. These were largely made effective due to social networking events; mainly facebook. This goes to show how much power the internet can really have, thanks to interactivity a country has been given new hope. This event also highlighted how much power crowds can have- another issue covered in our lectures. The world as we know it is going through many changes due to the ease of bringing together a crowd who want to stand up for something they believe in.
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