BLOG POST: WEEK 4

This week within Audience Studies 3P18, some relevant yet fascinating topics were discussed. Within Chapter 3 of Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power (Second Edition, 2020), it is clear that J. Sullivan intended to open our eyes to how prominent social media is within the 20th century.

The first example provided for the reader was from 2016 when the presidential election was happening. It was said that social media was so prominent that after the election, Trump’s campaign manager said that “Facebook and Twitter were the reason we won this thing” (Lapowsky, 2016; J. Sullivan, 2020).

As an audience member that uses social media daily to connect with different people all over the world, a specific part of this example stood out to me. It was said that an investigation after the election uncovered that many of the pro-Trump tweets and Facebook messages that had been trending on social media close to the election were actually “generated by hundreds of fake accounts created by a Russian front company called the Internet Research Agency, headquartered in St. Petersburg, Russia (Shane & Mazzetti, 2018; J. Sullivan, 2020). All of these fake social media accounts were posing as average Americans, who were ‘pro-Trump.’ Within the reading, Bessi & Ferrera (2016) elaborated on this issue, and said that “the sheer volume of these social media posts distorted the online debate by making it seem that there were many more vocal Trump supporters than there were Clinton supporters” (Bessi & Ferrera 2016; J. Sullivan, 2020).

As an audience member, this was extremely alarming to me for reasons that relate to the readings, but also the content discussed this week in the lectures. Since social media is on the rise, it is problematic to me that people can be so impressionable when it comes to the opinions of other people. This is especially alarming considering that most opinions seen online come from strangers, or even a fake account as found to happen within the election.

Although these actions may be alarming, I cannot deny the fact that as a social media user, I can personally relate to such concepts. I most certainly relate to other social media users in terms of being an impressionable audience member. I am a strong-minded individual and can stand my ground but it is accurate to say that the opinions in which I view on social media help me shape my own opinions as an individual audience member. The most recent example that I can think of is about the large issues that have been happening within the world lately such as the Black Lives Matter Movement, as well as the COVID-19 Virus/Pandemic.

When the Black Lives Matter movement was first taking place, I was lost and confused in terms of what was happening. Like always, I turned to Twitter to get some insight into what was happening and why. As an audience member, I believe that it is important for me to point out that I enjoy using Twitter because it is an app that seems to be filled with like-minded people. I know that when I turn to Twitter to view other people’s opinions on certain topics, it is usually a genuine and unbiased opinion from like-minded people around my age (or so I thought). The Trump example opened my eyes to how deceiving online users can be, especially when it comes to their presence on social media. To be fair, I am anti-Trump and I believe that the accounts that are also anti-Trump are real individuals seeing as I interact with them socially and sometimes even physically (before corona) daily.

Such a topic leads to the topic of public opinion. In general terms, it was said that public opinion is a “group consensus about matters of public concern which has developed in the wake of informed discussion” (Graber, 1982; J. Sullivan, 2020). While studying the history of public opinion, its importance within the social media world became clear to me. As an online audience member within social media, the main connection between public opinion and social media is how I use such platforms, both as a creator of content and even as an audience member that consumes other people’s content daily. As an audience member that views Twitter activity, it is quite comical to me that public opinion in its historical term is still so relevant to how I experience it today on social media. I say this because as I mentioned before, I often turn to social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram to discuss topics with friends, family, and strangers. In doing this, we often come to some sort of group consensus on the topic. We discuss the topic in-depth and think about how such issue(s) or topic(s) affect us, our communities, humanity, and the planet as a whole. It is safe to say that my generation is extremely smart and rarely hesitate to take action when needed.

Similar to the result of public opinion, when there is an issue/discussion online, it is discussed in depth until it is resolved, or until a course of action arises. As an audience member, I witness and participate in this set of events. I discuss issues online with friends and strangers and come up with a specific resolution. If a resolution is not tangible, it is common for people to suggest communal plans of action to conquer issues, often issues that affect people worldwide. One thing that I can think of is petitions. Throughout the Black Lives Matter movement, many strangers and friends online were urging everyone to sign and share petitions, for our voices to be heard.

I particularly enjoyed this week's second assigned reading, titled “Why Do Online Audiences Amplify Benefits of Self-Disclosure? The Role of Shared Experience and Anticipated Interactivity.” This reading was an excellent addition to this week's content, seeing as I can both relate to class content, but also my personal experiences as an audience member. This reading focused on a study of a group of students who had recently gone through a break-up. The study featured the differences in their writing styles (etc) depending on what they were told in terms of where and how their writing pieces would be published. The results were as expected, “the writers who imagined audiences with shared experience used more language indicative of cognitive processing and reported more psychological growth but did not exhibit shifts in the effective language (Kornfield & Toma, 2020, p. 289).

Study aside, I have personally been through a serious relationship. Speaking from experience, I know what it is like and how hard it can be. I often took to social media to post and discuss some of my thoughts and feelings. With that being said, if I participated in this study I do believe that I would be very open in my response. Also, I do believe that I would have been open with my writing despite whether or not the commenting was going to be open or closed. I believe that I would have also been open with my writing despite if the audience was going to be the general public or a select amount of people that had gone through breakups. As an audience member, especially on social media, I both see and hear people discuss their breakups (and ex-boyfriends/girlfriends/partners) regularly. I am not sure if it is a generational thing, but many people my age seem to be very open with their past experiences, especially when it comes to discussing relationships if it means that they can help other people in a similar situation.

This week's content was extremely intriguing and relatable, seeing that I’m a daily audience member on social media, and even break-up discussions and relationship dilemmas. I am glad that I was able to relate so closely to the main points within this week's content and look forward to applying this content to my life moving forward.