Social Media: Practices, Uses and Global Impact

Over 50 years ago, Pepsi sponsored the UNICEF pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair's. They worked with the Walt Disney Company to develop an attraction called the &quote;Children of the World&quote; which boasted a song and included a boat ride that passed by &quote;animated figures frolicking in miniature settings of many lands of the world&quote;. This song correctly anticipated the effect communication technology has on how people interact with one another. A line in the song declares that &quote;Though the mountains divide and the oceans are wide / It's a small world after all&quote;. Indeed, computer mediated-communication technologies, through cell phones, satellite phones, or the computer-based technologies of Skype or Facetime have trivialized the ability to connect to anyone at anytime, anywhere on the planet. Fast forward 25 years and the software phenomenon known as social media has further compressed not only time and space, but has also democratized news and information. Pundits talk about the 24/7 news cycles where news is available from anyone around the world and from around the clock. This new software has made the local global and the global local.