English Final

The Importance of Interactive and Social Media

14.1 Identify three reasons for learning about interactive media.

Interactive media are a constant reality in our lives and affect our daily activities in multiple ways. This pervasiveness provides the first and primary reason for learning more about this topic. A second reason is that understanding interactive media and having good media skills provide opportunities for self-expression and can help you be more successful personally. And a third reason is that understanding and using social media effectively in your professional life can help ensure career success.

First, we say that interactive media are pervasive because most of us interact with these communication technologies almost constantly and increasingly access them on mobile devices (Auxier et al., 2019). Recently, people have to rely on interactive media more than ever; because of remote work/learning/health environments, there has been a shift in thinking of interactive media as entertainment for pleasure to thinking of it as something we need in our daily lives for school and professional purposes (Vogels et al., 2020). You probably know that social media use has grown dramatically over your lifetime. In 2005, just 5 percent of U.S. Americans used social media, compared to today when 75 percent of all adults and almost 90 percent of young people (ages 18-29) use social media. Although communication technologies are a huge boon for many people around the globe, they present challenges to communication researchers (and textbook authors) in trying to understand and study the implications of these interactive media in our daily lives. Communication technologies come and go at a rapid rate. By the time researchers design a study, the particular technology may have lost prominence, and the study results can then seem irrelevant. In addition, it's difficult to predict which technologies will be important in the future or how we will use current ones differently.

That said, we have to start somewhere to describe the role of interactive media in our everyday lives, and most experts agree that we currently use communication technologies primarily for (1) connecting with others in various ways, through social networks, media sharing, social blogging, and discussion/community blogging and (2) consuming content (verbal and visual). These interactive media offer many ways to stay connected and, as Charee discovered, present many communication choices. Our friends can know immediately what movies we're streaming and what brand of sunscreen we've purchased as well as the restaurant where we're eating. Digital apps help us connect with new friends who share our interests (e.g., Meetup, Meet My Dog, Nextdoor) and potential sexual or romantic partners (e.g., Grindr, Tinder, Scruff, Bumble, OkCupid). Perhaps more importantly, social media can provide a quick way to notify friends and loved ones that we're safe during natural or human caused disasters (e.g., Facebook's Safety Check).

Of course, different social media platforms have different audiences that require different approaches. What you post on LinkedIn, for example, differs from what you post on Instagram or TikTok. We are constantly making choices about which information we want to share with which friends/acquaintances/colleagues and in which medium. Throughout this chapter, we will examine how this pervasive connectivity can affect our communication choices as well as our sense of identity, personal privacy, and romantic, work, and acquaintance relationships.

Connecting with others can provide opportunities for civic engagement and activism. Interacting on social media (eg., Twitter) offers opportunities for closer access to political leaders and celebrities. Some journalists say this direct access has upset the traditional role of journalists. But social media also presents opportunities for civic engagement and political activism. For example, one analysis found that the #MeToo hashtag had been used more than 19 million times on Twitter from October 15, 2017 (when actress Alyssa Milano tweeted, urging victims of sexual harassment to reply "me too"), through September 30, 2018 (Auxier et al., 2019). And the #BlackLivesMatter campaign started with one tweet after the murder of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown in 2012, gathered momentum over the years, and led to the 2020 massive protests after the killing of George Floyd.

Activism that takes less effort, or "slacktivism," involves supporting a cause merely by connecting with others on social media (e.g., by changing a profile image, retweeting an opinion, or using a trending hashtag). It turns out that "slacktivism" or "clicktivism" (a less negative term) is actually more effective than we might assume. By spreading little-known ideas and publicizing non-mainstream notions, these actions collectively can provide momentum to fledgling social and political movements (Fisher, 2020). Even seemingly insignificant daily social media activities can provide social solidarity and be a gateway to political participation (Stewart & Schultze, 2019; Yamamoto et al., 2019).

In addition to organizing and promoting social causes, interactive media have been used successfully to raise money through crowdfunding to support individuals, charities, or start-up companies. People can contribute to crowdfunding requests with no expectation of repayment, or companies can offer shares of the business to contributors. Kickstarter, the most popular crowdfunding site, has raised over $5 billion with more than 182,000 projects funded since its inception in 2009. Indiegogo and Causes are popular for nonprofit fundraising, and GoFundMe is used to raise money for personal causes (soliciting money, for example, for healthcare costs or travel). Kiva enables people from developing countries who cannot afford bank loans to crowdfund temporary loans (Nguyen, 2020).

Another important interactive media activity is searching for information/consuming content (visual and verbal). Some activities may be less interactive (e.g., reading news reports; getting directions; reading reviews of restaurants, movies, or home repair professionals; obtaining stock quotes or weather reports; watching funny cat videos), but others are quite interactive, like commenting on political/news/opinion blogs, posting your own opinions and reviews, or sharing a funny TikTok video to a friend along with your comments (see Communication in Society: The Role of Social Media in a National Health Crisis).

Communication in Society

The Role of Social Media in a National Health Crisis

In a national health crisis, some people panic, and some remain calm. Why is there this vanation, and what types of official messages are most effective in helping citizens deal with such a crisis? Can you relate this information to national health issues today? Communication scholars Glowacki and Taylor (2020) investigated this topic by examining 400 social media responses (Facebook posts and Tweets) to three different media sources during the three-month crisis when the deadly Ebola virus entered the United States in 2014. The three sources represented a range of political/cultural positions: (1) the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), viewed as a scientific and relatively neutral source; (2) the White House (WH), with a progressive Democratic President Obama; and (3) Alex Jones's show Infowars, a politically far-right, self-proclaimed conspiracy theorist known for stoking fear and concern from followers.

As expected, the messages from the CDC were focused on explanations of the virus and the health situation, the WH's messages on calming fears. However, these attempts at informing and calming citizens were often met with social media responses of criticism, distrust, and scepticism (e.g., the CDC was incompetent, hadn't provided best practices for handling the virus, and so on).

Not surprisingly, messages on Infowars' Facebook page stoked fear and anxiety. For example, some messages accused the U.S. government of "draconian powers" and detaining Americans Other messages accused the CDC of a "hidden" past, saying that the CDC knew Ebola had mutated into an airborne virus much earlier in 1989. Not surprisingly, social media responses to these messages centered on distrust of the government rather than concerns over Ebola (e.g., accusing the government of intentionally bringing Ebola into the United States and withholding treatment).

The CDC continued to send out facts and advice about the virus, quickly countering Infowars' false information; responses of accusations and blame slowly turned to scepticism and frustration, and finally the tide seemed to turn and responses to the CDC messages were more

thankful and even asking for guidance. Responses to Infowars' fearmongering messages became sceptical, with some labeling the messages as "scare tactics."

Glowacki and Taylor draw several conclusions: (1) When faced with a potential health crisis, citizens respond to fear with "hyperbolic" (exaggerated) rhetoric: scepticism and blame, apprehension, and/or an unwillingness to comply with the prescribed guidelines (2) This hyperbolic rhetoric seems to feed off of established patterns but "has a shelf life, lacks the endurance to withstand prolonged discussion." Suggestions for health officials: Monitor social media posts to get a sense of what the public perceives as concerning. Use specific rather than vague language when communicating about health recommendations and practices. The CDC's vague language at the beginning of the crisis seemed to lead to panic, mistrust, and scepticism.

SOURCE: Glowacki, E. M., & Taylor, M. A. (2020). Health hyperbolism: A study in health crisis rhetoric. Qualitative Health Research, 30(12), 1953-1964.

Searching for information presents a choice: When do you do a Google search, post a question on Quora (crowdsourcing), or ask friends on Instagram? One group of researchers found that people carefully choose their platform based on the nature of their question and the audience they're interested in. People used Facebook to ask questions when they wanted opinions from their friends, were seeking very specific information, or were asking friends to supplement information from a search engine. They tended to use Twitter when they needed a broader audience or were seeking information they thought inappropriate (too sensitive or too controversial) for other social media friends. They used search engines when they didn't think their Facebook friends would have the answer or the topic was too sensitive for social media (Oeldorf-Hirsch et al., 2014). How do you choose?

Closely related to crowdfunding, discussed earlier, is crowdsourcing. While crowdfunding seeks to obtain money, crowdsourcing is a way of getting information or opinions from a large group of people through interactive media. Originally, crowdsourcing was used like a Google search for general information; it is now increasingly monetized, used by businesses or marketing firms to solicit new business or raise capital. Individuals who respond to the crowdsourcing questions may be paid employees or freelancers hired to promote organizations/businesses, often by including links (to those businesses/organizations) in their answers.

A second reason for learning more about interactive media is that developing good digital skills can help in your personal life, for example, by helping overcome the challenges of problematic interactive media use Busch & McCarthy, 2020; Tanega & Downs, 2020). As we'll discuss in more detail later in the chapter, knowing how to use social media effectively can lead to better self-esteem (Firth et al., 2019), better mental health, and emotional well-being (Faelens et al.,

2021). Understanding the challenges of virtual relationships (romantic and friendships) can lead to safer interpersonal relationships and higher relational satisfaction (Verduyn et al., 2021).

Finally, you may not choose a career in social media (e.g., social influencer, digital marketer), but knowing how to use social media effectively to find and secure a job or using social media and other communication technologies in your chosen career will enhance your chances of professional success. For example, recent research shows a strong relationship between professional success and active use of social media such as LinkedIn. It appears that users of these platforms report more timely access to resources and referrals to career opportunities than nonusers do. (LinkedIn explicitly promises to connect its members with professionals from all over the world.) These professional informational benefits are positively related to career satisfaction, which is also linked to overall life satisfaction (Utz & Breuer, 2019).

Understanding the role that interactive media can play in employer employee relationships and understanding organizational rules and practices involving interactive media, including surveillance, privacy concerns, and "netiquette," will serve you well. You have probably read news reports about employees who lost their jobs or were penalized as a result of not understanding the informal or formal rules about media behavior in the workplace (Doyle, 2020). Perhaps you wonder when employers can (and cannot) terminate employees for social media practices. We will discuss this question later in the chapter as well as various challenges and guidelines for effective interactive media use in work contexts (Miller, 2018).

What Are Interactive Media?

14.2 Define interactive media.

We define interactive media as a collection of mediated communication technologies that are digital and converging and tend to be mobile, all accessed on a variety of devices, from desktop and laptop computers, smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. Let's unpack this definition a little further and distinguish interactive media from mass media — the topic covered in Chapter 13. In contrast to in-person communication, both mass media and interactive media are mediated forms of communication, meaning that the messages are carried through an intervening system of digital electronic storage before being transmitted between two or more people.

In contrast to mass media, in which messages are generally one-to-many, interactive media messages converge, meaning that they can be sent one to one, one to many, or many to many. Also in contrast to mass media, they are interactive, meaning that communication goes both ways and permits individuals to connect and interact with others. So what are examples of

interactive media? There are many, but the easiest description is: Interactive media include social media, online games (e.g., massively multiplayer role-playing online games (MMORPGs)], messaging apps, remote learning platforms, virtual reality, and email.

Social media is "a group of Internet-based, web applications that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content" (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p.61). For our purposes, social media include social networking sites (SNS), like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; media sharing networks, like Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube; social blogging networks, like Tumblr; discussions, like Reddit and Quora; and review networks, like Yelp and TripAdvisor. These categories are not set in stone. Twitter, for example, is an SNS but is also categorized as a microblog. Snapchat is a messaging app but functions like a social media platform. Remember, in addition to social media, interactive media also include mobile messaging and email.

One of the characteristics of interactive media is new versions are always emerging. It is a dynamic form of communication, and increasingly mobile. Distinctions between mass and interactive media are becoming more and more blurred. For example, some mass media forms like television reality shows viewed on mobile devices incorporate audience reaction and participation. And some media, like podcasts, may not allow interaction, functioning in a way that is similar to traditional mass media. For the purposes of this chapter, we focus on the interactive elements of media, where the "real give and take of social life" in cyberspace occurs (Walther & Parks, 2002, p. 3).

How do this mobility and this constant connection with others and information sources through interactive media affect our communication choices and uses? Before addressing this question, we need to understand how various communication technologies differ from each other and from in-person communication —the topic we turn to next.

How Does Interactive Media Use Affect Our Communication Choices?

14.3 Describe the dimensions of interactive media and how these dimensions help us understand and choose among various media.

Because interactive media are rapidly changing forms of communication, it is difficult to arrive at definitive conclusions about their exact role in everyday life. Researching these forms of communication can be like trying to hit a moving target. Still, with a basic understanding of what interactive media are and some of the ways they can differ, we can get some sense of their increasingly important role.

To begin, let's consider Charee's constant connectivity and her reaction to the various interactive media. Why do online classes and remote work frustrate her to some degree? Why is she happy to consult her cooking video and order her groceries online? Like Charee, perhaps you find yourself happy to engage with certain interactive media and not others. Or perhaps you have had an issue to discuss with a friend or acquaintance and were unsure what the most effective mode of communication would be. If so, you had good reason to feel unsure. Interactive media differ in important ways, and these differences can affect your response, the outcome of your interaction, and even your sense of wellbeing and happiness. One way to understand these reactions and choices is to examine the characteristics of various media and how they vary along two dimensions.

Interactive Media and the Individual

14.4 Describe issues that can arise in identity and relationship development when using interactive media.

Clearly, interactive media use presents us with a range of choices, and those choices can have a powerful impact on communication between individuals in terms of identity, and in turn, personal relationships. Let's examine the way this works.

The Individual, Interactive Media, and Society

14.5 Understand the role of power and privilege in interactive media use.

All media activities —whether for fun, socializing, or information seeking — are enacted by humans within a social context and the larger society. These activities both reflect and influence larger societal norms. For example, some of the same social hierarchies that exist in the larger society also exist in the realm of interactive media. When we sort people out by various identities (for example, gender, ethnicity, or race), we find differences not only in how many of them use communication technologies, but also in how they are perceived to use these media. In this section, we'll first look at how various identities influence technology use and then examine some of the inequalities in communication technologies use.

Ethics and Interactive Media

14.6 Identify four ethical challenges involving interactive media use.

One message we hope you take from this chapter is that interactive media are not good or bad in themselves, nor better or worse than offline communication. They are simply different. However, these differences can allow for irresponsible, thoughtless, or even unethical communication. How can you become an ethical user of social media?

There are at least four areas of ethical consideration: (1) presentation of identity online, (2) privacy issues, (3) posting ethical messages, and (4) building online relationships.

Improving Your Mediated Communication Skills

14.7 Discuss ways to improve your own mediated communication skills.

What should you take from this chapter that can help you be a better communicator? First, you can strive to communicate more effectively in educational, personal, and professional contexts. Just as we have norms of courtesy for traditional, in-person communication, we also have etiquette for virtual communication.