week 9: Social Media and Participatory Fandom
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This week’s lecture focused on how the digital age has brought
about social media; which, because of smart phones, has become a global marvel,
bringing about the question: does social media make you feel more connected to
your content and more empowered? As a huge consumer of social media,
interacting in virtually all of the social platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook), I consider myself to feel more connected
through using social media, as I use my phone as a device to stay connected everyday. Many of the applications (also referred to as ‘apps’), allow fans and celebrities to
interact with each other, and allow companies and shops to use their accounts to help their consumers with transaction issues. With user-generated content being the internet’s
primary source of content production and information, Twitter has become
renowned for its ability to allow fans to engage and consume information, such as tour dates and ticket sales, as many celebrities use their page for promotion purposes.
I myself have been able to gain opportunities via Tweets since I have sent out 'tweets'
directly to companies, firms and magazine accounts. I can therefore say that I
am a prosumer of social media content.
With Twitter hooking in celebrities as well as the general
global population, it can be hard to differentiate between a ‘personal’ account
and a business account used for promotion. Many celebrities, including Katy
Perry (@katyperry) and Ben Affleck (@BenAffleck) use their influence towards
their millions of fans (with Perry having consuming a whopping 9.4.4 million
followers) to showcase their activism and gain charitable donations. For
example, Katy Perry’s ‘pinned’ Tweet (a Tweet that permanently stays ‘pinned’
to the top of their page) is her asking fans to donate to the charity Unicef,
whilst asking her fans to “help celebrate my birthday with the purchase of
lifesaving”. Ben Affleck uses his account to vigorously raise awareness of
Eastern Congo Initiative, with which he is the founder of. Despite both celebrities
using their voices for charitable causes, they do of course use their viewed
pages to promote their tracks and movies.
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| Zoella - Youtube |
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