Numer 21 (2/2022)
The Future of Social Media
Redaktor: Paul Levinson
Spis treści
Strony
Pobierz
Paul Levinson
Introduction
7 – 8
PDF

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Fordham University, USA
Paul Levinson
The Explosive Growth of Social Media: Trump, COVID-19, The Russian Invasion of Ukraine, and Elon Musk
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7494/human.2022.21.2.9
9 – 15
PDF

Słowa kluczowe

Twitter |Donald Trump |Elon Musk |Social Media |Covid-19 |Russian invasion of Ukraine |media evolution

Streszczenie

Social media have arisen to become the world’s go-to mode of communication in an astonishing fifteen years. In the past few years, social media themselves have been shaken by Donald Trump’s use of Twitter, and by deceptive reporting about many crucial aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. And now, in just the past few months, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has put social media to the test, with an informational war being fought alongside the physical war, and billionaire Elon Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter perhaps ending any attempt to limit deceptive posts that jeopardize human lives. This essay examines what is happening.


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Fordham University, USA
William Merrin
Bemusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Social Media
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7494/human.2022.21.2.17
17 – 29
PDF

Słowa kluczowe

reality |Postman |McLuhan |Baudrillard |hyporeality |social-media |Dick

Streszczenie

In 1985, Neil Postman published Amusing Ourselves to Death, a McLuhan-inspired critique of the transformation of public discourse from 19th-century print culture, with its depth of reading, thought and debate, to the contemporary era of television ‘show business’. Developments since then, most notably the digital revolution, allow us to update Postman’s thesis, to explore the digital age that succeeds the electric broadcast era and its contemporary transformation of culture and politics. This paper argues that digital personalisation has exploded the mass-media world, bursting its mainstream bubble into a foam of individual life-worlds, empowering everyone as the producer of their own realities. Arguing that the key thinker of this era is Philip K. Dick (with his exploration of fictive, split, and personal realities), the paper explores the cultural impact of this new post-truth era of ‘media’ realities and the ‘bemusement’ it produces.


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Swansea University, UK

Alexei Krivolap
Glass Man Identity: From Big Brother to Covid Passport
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7494/human.2022.21.2.31
31 – 39
PDF

Słowa kluczowe

Glass Man identity |algorithms |social credit |extensions of man |new new media

Streszczenie

This article will investigate the communication problems creating cultural identity and saving private space in the era of QR-codes and vaccination passports, in which every step offline and click online is recorded and stored in databases. The author proposes using the metaphor of the Glass Man to explain the status of the current cultural identification process. The term has come from medical terminology, where it means “imperfect osteogenesis”, a condition when bones are weak and unable to provide the necessary level of support. The body lacks the stamina and resistance required to function properly. The identity of Glass Man means transparency by default on the one hand, but fragility on the other. The Glass Man is a person without the need to hide anything. Nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of  – it is a new mode of communication, with no taboos or ethical limits applying to topics of conversation. The Glass Man identity also means transparency, not just for the individual but also for the corporation acting in the mediated public space. The Chinese social credit system can serve as a good example of how social control disciplines citizens and increases levels of social control. We can hide something about ourselves from other users, but not from service owners. The Glass Man identity means a new type of human, a new type of balance between control and power. Glass Man means a person who does not need to hide anything. It is a new mode of both communication and power. Big Brother is no longer merely a metaphor or a reality TV show. This is a “brave new world,” and most likely our new reality.


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Białoruski Uniwersytet Kultury, Mińsk

Agnieszka Stecko-Żukowska
The Poachers of Instagram – Tattoo Artists in Poland and Their Tactics in Social Media
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7494/human.2022.21.2.41
41 – 60
PDF

Słowa kluczowe

Social Media |Instagram |Internet |grounded theory |affordances |Michel de Certeau

Streszczenie

The rise of social media has had a huge impact on the body modification services market. This study aims to reflect on the transformation of the tattoo community, giving voice to tattoo artists themselves in order to reveal their practices within the digital spaces they operate in, and on this basis, to undertake a broader reflection on users’ expectations towards social media in their current form and in the future. In order to achieve this premise, a grounded theory methodology was applied. The results of the study suggest that forms of resistance to platform hegemony, such as alternative social media, would not necessarily address the real needs of tattoo artists and their clients. Tattoo artists, by inventing various tactics of poaching in the polymedia environment, can reap unexpected benefits from the aspects of the platforms that are often perceived as limiting and potentially harmful  – such as content selection algorithms.


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Uniwersytet Warszawski

Urszula Jarecka,
Paweł Fortuna
Social Media in the Future: Under the Sign of Unicorn...
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7494/human.2022.21.2.61
61 – 79
PDF

Słowa kluczowe

Social Media |emotions |algorithms |Artificial Intelligence |virtual world |network ethics |utopian media

Streszczenie

In this essay case studies pointing to problems related to the use of AI in shaping the virtual world are discussed. AI algorithms helps to shape and control the conventional web behaviour and speech of today’s media users, mostly teenagers and adults. Considering the development of software, social media may constitute a separate virtual world in the future. AI also shapes the image of this world and human relationships. The essay begins with an analysis of the future of social media against the background of truth; later, case studies show problems caused by AI to media users and the community. The authors attempt to answer questions such as: What kind of attitudes and abilities will be shaped in social media? What network ethics does AI dictate? What kind of attitudes and thinking will be promoted in the social media of the future?


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Urszula Jarecka
Polska Akademia Nauk


Paweł Fortuna
Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II

Agnieszka Maria Kula,
Monika Grzelka
Quotation in Social Media: How Sharing Other People’s Words Could Increase Misinformation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7494/human.2022.21.2.81
81 – 98
PDF

Słowa kluczowe

Social Media |quotation |objectivity |direct speech |indirect speech |quotation marks

Streszczenie

According to the report “We Are Social” (2021), one of the most important reasons why Internet users take to social media platforms are: “stay up-to-date with news and current events”, “seeing what’s being talked about”, and “sharing and discussing opinions with others”. They are all focused on quoting. Our research helped us to confirm the dominance of posts with quotations in social media (the institutional broadcasters’ profiles). Quotation can take various forms to produce different results. Direct quotations include direct speech, text islets, and pseudo-quotations; indirect quotations include indirect speech and narrated speech. Direct quotations in the form of various direct references accounted for 73% of quotations on Twitter and 61% on Facebook. This confirms the tremendous popularity of quotations in direct speech  – senders avoid allegations of being partial; after all they show the facts that speak for themselves. It is strategies of the senders which increase misinformation.


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Agnieszka Maria Kula
Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu


Monika Grzelka
Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu

Denis Porto Renó,
Xabier Martinez-Rolan,
Teresa Piñeiro-Otero,
Andrea Versuti
COVID-19 and Instagram: An Analysis of an Ibero-American Infodemic
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7494/human.2022.21.2.99
99 – 115
PDF

Słowa kluczowe

big data |photography |Instagram |communication |Covid-19

Streszczenie

Understanding the role of communication promoted by Ibero-American society during the Coronavirus pandemic is fundamental for building knowledge about the disease. In this scenario, Instagram occupies a privileged place, as it carries a diversity of possible languages. Furthermore, Instagram’s relevance in the social media landscape is growing. This article presents, from a study developed through big data analysis procedures, the first result of several that make up an international investigation on the subject. In the project stage, the quantitative volume of publications, the average publication per user and the participation of the different languages used in this analysis group were verified. It is hoped that further investigations can be developed based on the results presented here, especially due to the urgency of knowing the role of communication in the pandemic scenario in which we live.


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Denis Porto Renó
Universidade Estadual Paulista UNESP, Brazylia


Xabier Martinez-Rolan
Universidade de Vigo, Pontevedra, Galicia, Hiszpania


Teresa Piñeiro-Otero
Universidade da Coruña, Hiszpania


Andrea Versuti
Universidade de Brasília

Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza w Krakowie
Gramatyka 8a
ISSN 2084-3364
Wydział Humanistyczny
30-071 Kraków