Social networking has been an important part of nowadays online activity for web users. Social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are used by millions of users daily. “All human beings belong to a single community, based on a shared morality” (Waldron, 2000). Through the transmission of digital text, the world is connected. It is a world of cosmopolitan, the medium is the message (McLuhan, 1964).
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These new media promoted international communication and exchange of culture as well as opinions. According to Chen and Zhang (2010), “The compression of time and space, due to the convergence of new media and globalization, has shrunk the world into a much smaller interactive field.” With these new social media, people can communicate with others and engage in conversations across different networks through the virtual community on the Internet. Social media offers an opportunity for people not to engage in face-to-face conversations or online conversations with others (Sawyer, 2011). People have the opportunity to participate in the dialogue through the common virtual media and freely express their opinions to the public (Sawyer, 2011). Through social media, Internet users have access to all aspects of knowledge and opinions about the different issues, topics and events in the world.
Using Twitter as an example, It is another dominant social network besides Facebook. Although every tweet (post) is limited in 140words only, Twitter has a striking function: #Hashtag. By following these brief status reports that expand the reach of your social network, you will know what happened in people’s everyday lives. It is a form of “ambient awareness” said by a technology writer Clive Thompson mentioned in Johnson’s (2009) article. We do not even need to ask my friend’s status by calling. “Twitter gives you the same information without you even having to ask” (Johnson, 2009).
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Apart from using Twitter as a communication tool connecting people around the world, it also used as a platform for people to fight for democracy. “Tweets were sent. Dictators were toppled. Internet = democracy” (Morozov, 2011). Through the internet, every individual is allowed to connect to the social networks, they can get and give information at any time, anywhere. It becomes an effective tool for citizens and some grassroots organizations to voice out their opinions, make changes on political issues (Morozov, 2011). When we look back to the Umbrella revolution in 2014, as mentioned in BBC News report, there were 1.3 million tweets about this protest within 4 days (BBC News, 2014). Twitter has been one of the main platforms for people participated in the protest to update their status. Of course, Hashtag has also been used in purpose. During the movement, Hashtags like #occupycentral, #umbrellarevolution, #occupyHK, #yellowribbon, etc has been used for Twitter users to find relevant tweets easily (BBC News, 2014). Not just local users, but international users. Joshua Wong, the leader of the protest, also used Hashtags like #Ferguson and #Arabspring to compare the U.S. atrocities in Missouri and the pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East respectively (Sile, 2015). After that, more people from other countries had announced this protest in Hong Kong and gave support to the protesters.
#Hashtag can arouse awareness
All of these shows the importance of a social network towards international exchange, breaking down the borders between countries. “Only through global communication competence can people from different cultures communicate effectively and productively in the globalizing society” (Chen & Starosta, 2005). Through traditional medias, cosmopolitanism is continuing to be promoting in a formal way, but it may not represent all information around the world can be learned by each individual when media companies do not have enough resources to get the full content (Kaul, 2011). However, with social media such as Facebook and Twitter, most of the internet users can receive a large variety of information not limited to local’s. This virtual world is leading our society towards globalization and becoming a cosmopolitan society.
- Johnson, S. (2009, June 05). How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live. Retrieved November 13, 2017, from http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1902818,00.html
- Morozov, E. (2011, March 07). Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go | Evgeny Morozov. Retrieved November 23, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolutionaries-cyber-utopians
- McLuhan, M 1964, Understanding media: The extensions of a man, McGraw-Hill, New York, USA.
- Waldron, J 2000, ‘What is cosmopolitan?’, The Journal of Political Philosophy, vol. 8, no. 2, p./pp 227-243.
- Chen, G. M., & Zhang, K. (2010). New media and cultural identity in the global society. In R. Taiwo (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Discourse Behavior and Digital Communication: Language Structures and Social Interaction (pp. 801-815). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Inc.
- Sawyer, R. (2011). “The Impact of New Social Media on Intercultural Adaptation” (2011). Senior Honors Projects. Paper 242.
- http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/srhonorsprog/242http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/srhonorsprog/242
- Chen, G.M., & Starosta, W.J. (2005). Foundations of intercultural communication. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
- Kaul, V. (2011) “Globalisation and Media.” OMICS International, OMICS International, 23 Dec. 2011, www.omicsonline.org/open-access/globalisation-and-media-2165-7912.1000105.php?aid=3360.
- Sile, A. W. (2015, November 24). Hong Kong’s digitized fight for democracy. Retrieved November 18, 2017, from https://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/16/social-media-key-to-hong-kongs-occupy-central-fight-for-democracy.html
- BBC News. (2014, October 2). Hong Kong protests: The role of social media. Retrieved November 18, 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-29454851/hong-kong-protests-the-role-of-social-media
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