Information Society: Social Media

Social Media is a pretty vague term that summarizes almost anything one can do on their smart phones. The definition of Social Media, according to Dictionary.com, is websites and other online means of communication that are used by large groups of people to share information and to develop social and professional contacts. The term is relatively new as it really became a common phrase with the innovations of the smart phone. The first time the term "Social Media" was used in the New York Times was 2010. Since then the phrase has been used in 49 different articles in the NY Times. For the Chicago Tribune, Winter of 2008 was the first article written about social media. And for the Los Angeles Times, the first mention of "social media" was in the spring of 2012. The results from the database ProQuest (NY Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times) all prove that social media is a new term that didn't become common until about 4 years ago; however, now it is a very typical term that we all hear on a regular basis. The earliest use of Social Media on JSTOR was Spring of 2004, in ProQuest January of 1994, and Project Muse 1994. There is a solid chance that my JSTOR earliest date could be off because JSTOR seemed to be malfunctioned when I was doing my research. I believe that the meaning of social media has not changed much since it was first being said. As said before, I believe that the consistent and true meaning of social media is how people communicate with pictures, sounds, "tweets" etc. However, I believe that the importance of social media has changed immensely over the past couple years. Now famous people are very into their social media and it is a big part of their career. The public often judges famous people on how many likes they get or how many followers they have. In the end of the 19th century, I don't think anyone would take into account the amount of followers when deciding if they liked this certain rapper.