As I was recording this audioboo podcast about a talk I'll be giving in a couple of weeks to a group of senior citizens on an educational tour of Los Angeles, it occurred to me that as I talk about my career in media, and the realities of living in the film industry's "company town," I might touch on social media.
It's a challenging proposition. Most of these tourists range in age from their 60's up to their 80's. I expect that a good percentage of them will be online to some extent - some will even active in Facebook. It should prove interesting to learn their various levels of online activity. I'm pondering an analogy that could define social media.
We live in a time when we can use the tools of popular media to communicate with others - to develop community - express ourselves and reach, at least theoretically, a virtually unlimited audience.
Still, it's a challenge to define a form of expression that is still developing.
Perhaps we're living in an age akin to the development of literacy in advanced societies - where reading and writing became accessible to more and more people, leading to a more informed populace, and ultimately transformed those societies.
Similarly, media literacy can bring the most effective means of communication in the modern world to millions, where just a few years ago, such tools were limited to a select few.
What changes will media literacy bring?
[My personal blog, and links to my own social media world, can be found at http://worldaccordingtorich.blogspot.com]
One of the topics that i want to tackle with this blog, is about how social media has affected the elderly. The so called "Silver Surfers".
ReplyDeleteI suspect their experience is a different one to mine. I'm hoping to get at least one guest post from someone from that age group.