Social media causing a social change

Like a chameleon the Internet is always changing and shifting,which means the way we communicate is always changing too. Twelve years ago there was only a select group of people who controlled the content on the Internet. Only those who could afford to hire a technology expert, trained in HTML coding, controlled the content on web. But that has drastically changed. Anybody who has access to the Internet, now has access to a worldwide audience, if they know how to grab the attention of those people.

The latest tool that is driving the attention of people on the world wide web is Twitter. This site allows people to write a one sentence thought sent out to the whole world. Through using twitter, both large scale protest and large social events have been planned. Twitter has a way of connecting people in the virtual world, but also in the real world.

Over the last year there has been an emergence of events called “Tweetups,” bringing together Twitter users of certain cities or of common interest. Usually they will be at a public venue, like a coffee shop or a bar and just talk about whatever connects them.

In fact just last week Twitter users in Fredericton gathered for the second Fredericton Tweetup in just five months, which took place at one of the local bars. There was a mixing pot of people, some whom knew each other prior to that night, and some whom had only sent messages to one another through Twitter, prior  to the event.

“Last time we had at least 100 people, and I am sure we have even more this time, just look at the crowd,” said Carter Vagrant, who is the organizer of the event . To Vagrant the most interesting part of the event was the variety of people

Carter Vagrant organizer of the Fredericton Tweetup sings to a crowd of local Tweeters.

that attended.

“I mean look around you have politicians, journalists, businesses owners, students. It’s a real mix of who is in this city and who is on twitter.”

Among the 100 plus people was Jacob Baisley, a fourth year university student who went to the event out of curiosity.

“I went [to the Tweetup] because it seemed like an interesting way to merge social media with socializing,” said Baisley. “People went knowing only a few people hoping to meet people whom they read about. That’s very interesting.”

Frederictonians are not the only ones hosting Tweetups. For example there is an NHLTweetup website dedicated to bringing together the many hockey fans of the world. The next NHLTweetup is planned for New York City and according to what is posted on the site it will bring together fans of two Californian teams.

“Are you sad that that you can’t cheer on the home team because its 3000 miles away? Then come to the NYC NHLTweetup on Sunday, March 14th for an epic Pacific Division rivalry. Join other Ducks and Sharks fans as we cheer on our teams at The Mean Fiddler. We’ll meet for cold beer, good food, and friendly trash talk as we dream of the California sun.”

But beyond using Twitter for planning parties and meeting new friends, entire countries have rallied together using Twitter. During the 2010 winter Olympics every time Canada would win gold the names of those athletes’ names were instantly at the top on the ‘most used words’ or ‘trending topics’ lists. This just shows that Canadians were engaged in the Olympics and clearly were engaging one an other about it as well.

Photo of Iranian protest, posted to www.twitpic.com.

Also last spring there were major protests in Iran over what many saw as a fraudulent election. All of these protests were planned by citizens using Twitter, both as way to communicate with individuals and with large groups. The protest grew so large that rest of the world started to take notice. So much so that when Twitter was scheduled to be shut down for several hours due to maintenance, much of the western world put pressure on the creators of Twitter not to follow through with the shutdown as they saw that the people of Iran needed this tool to aid in their call for more democratic electoral systems.

While there are still many people that see Twitter as a forum for tweens and glory hounds to just show off to one another, it is clear that this site can be used for so much more. When used to its full potential it can bring together small groups of like minded people and even entire nations. The power of this tool is only limited by how people choose to use it.

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Posted by Melissa Wah on Mar 11, 2010. Filed under Features, This Week's Edition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.