Connectivity (media)

Last updated • 4 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Connectivity refers broadly to social connections forged through mediated communications systems. That is, "since the arrival of the World Wide Web and the spread of mobile communications, mediated connectivity has been quietly normalized as central to a consolidating 'global imaginary'". [1] One aspect of this is the ability of the social media to accumulate economic capital from the users' connections and activities on social media platforms by using certain mechanisms in their architecture. [2] [ better source needed ] According to several scholars (van Dijck and Poell) "it is a key element of social media logic, having a material and metaphorical importance in social media culture". [3] This concept originates from the technological term of "connectivity" but its application to the media field has acquired additional social and cultural implications. [4] [5] [6] The increasing role of social media in everyday life serves as the basis of such connectivity in the 21st century. It shows the interrelations between the users activities on social media and at the same time the empowerment of the social media platforms with the data that was produced by the users and given to those services for granted.

Contents

Notion of connectivity

Connectivity developed with the rise of the Internet, first with the introduction Web 1.0 and later Web 2.0. New improvements in equipment, software, the advancement of speed and access have increased the level and quality of connectivity. Along with these improvements, new media such as social networking systems (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google+), websites that provide access to user-generated content (e.g. Youtube, Myspace, Flickr), trading and marketing sites (e.g. Amazon, eBay, Groupon) and also game sites (e.g. FarmVille, The Sims Social) have become an essential part of everyday life of an average user: [2] "Just as electricity in the 19th and 20th centuries transformed societies by penetrating every fibre of people's personal and professional lives, network connectivity is probably the most powerful transformative force in early 21st-century cultures". [4] This made a shift in the understanding of the nature of connectivity and moved the initial focus just from a technical side of the notion to its increasingly acquired techno-socio-cultural character. [4] [5]

As mentioned before, connectivity is built on the principles of Web 2.0. that promote an openness, create the vision of empowerment of the user in the generation of a new content and coordination of the information flow on the Internet. These mechanisms encourage staying in touch with each other despite distances and share as much data as possible. According to Youngs, the development of the Internet has resulted in the deeper permeation of ICTs into public and private spheres of peoples' life, their relationships and spheres of identity. [5] Hence, connectivity becomes a resource of maintaining these activities. However, van Dijck notices that this connectivity is not just a neutral feature of new media, but is manufactured by the combination of human and technological resources, where the role of technologies is intransparent. Algorithms and protocols that are part of such platforms prompt users activities and online experiences on social media platforms. One of the most prominent activities on social media includes sharing and as Kennedy argues, "sharing rhetoric draws on a cultural image of connectivity. Social media platforms are not the only actors to use such imagining, mobile-based platforms do the same. Network providers, handset manufacturers, and social media platforms each promote social activities of togetherness enabled by their products which evidences a sustained cultural norm of sharing through teletechnologies for the purpose of affective connectivity". [7] Therefore, such architecture creates even bigger demand in connectivity that is continuously exploited by the online market.

Example of the application of connectivity

Facebook can serve as a good example how connectivity is being produced and exploited by social media. Van Dijck mentions three concepts implemented in the technological side of connectivity which result in the connective structure of the platform and in the creation of its additional social and cultural dimensions. These are platform, protocol and interface. [4]

Several scholars (van Dijck, Gillespie) mention in their works the ambiguity of the term "platform" that promises to bring openness, access, to be neutral and help people build social connections and participate in online activities, but in fact implies a more complicated structure of the media, most of the time created for the profit purposes and as the enhancement of control under the users. [8] [4] As for the protocols and interfaces, the algorithms behind the platform are intransparent and presented to the user as intermediaries for "staying in touch", being connected, encouraging to make those connections, but at the same time the platform itself "facilitates the cultivation of 'weak ties' as well as the fabrication of 'strong ties'". [4] Therefore, connectivity becomes a new type of social capital gained from the platform's working principles.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet</span> Global system of connected computer networks

The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing.

Technological convergence is the tendency for technologies that were originally unrelated to become more closely integrated and even unified as they develop and advance. For example, watches, telephones, television, computers, and social media platforms began as separate and mostly unrelated technologies, but have converged in many ways into an interrelated telecommunication, media, and technology industry.

New media are communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for the influx of interactive CD-ROMs for entertainment and education. The new media technologies, sometimes known as Web 2.0, include a wide range of web-related communication tools such as blogs, wikis, online social networking, virtual worlds, and other social media platforms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet culture</span> Culture that has emerged from the use of computer networks

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The ethics of technology is a sub-field of ethics addressing ethical questions specific to the technology age, the transitional shift in society wherein personal computers and subsequent devices provide for the quick and easy transfer of information. Technology ethics is the application of ethical thinking to growing concerns as new technologies continue to rise in prominence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronic colonialism</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Web 2.0</span> World Wide Web sites that use technology beyond the static pages of earlier Web sites

Web 2.0 refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture, and interoperability for end users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social networking service</span> Online platform that facilitates the building of relations

A social networking service (SNS), or social networking site, is a type of online social media platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital rhetoric</span> Forms of communication via digital mediums

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social media</span> Virtual online communities

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Echo chamber (media)</span> Situation that reinforces beliefs by repetition inside a closed system

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of the Internet</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tribe (internet)</span> Slang for an unofficial community of people who share a common interest

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">José van Dijck</span>

Johanna Francisca Theodora Maria "José" van Dijck is a new media author and a distinguished university professor in media and digital society at Utrecht University since 2017. From 2001 to 2016 she was a professor of Comparative Media Studies where she was the former chair of the Department of Media Studies and former dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. She is the author of ten (co-)authored and (co-)edited books including Mediated Memory in the Digital Age; The Culture of Connectivity.; and The Platform Society. Public Values in a Connective World. Her work has been translated into many languages and distributed to a worldwide audience.

<i>The Culture of Connectivity</i>

The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media is a book by José van Dijck published by Oxford University Press in 2013 on social media platforms and their history. The author considers the histories of five social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and Wikipedia. She focuses on how their technological, social and cultural dimensions contribute to their current status.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Platform economy</span> Economic and social activity facilitated by technological platforms

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References

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