As the rapid development of Information technologies, the social medias have gradually become the focus of modern people’s lives. The advanced public network society results in people’s diverse and inclusive PLN when using the social medias. At the same time, the benefits always come with the diversities and inclusiveness. As the chapter 4 says, “Social media tools can be used for rabble rousing or for engagement across difference”(Clark, J., & Aufderheide, P. 2013). People would expand their views by discovering different topics in social medias, some topics they may never connect with before; some topics may seem familiar but people are unclear with the contents; some topics people may learned about them but never go into them seriously. The process of discovering could motivate people to learn more knowledge, skills or information; also, most people would engage in this process. As people’s views become wider, their inclusiveness would become larger, so the diversity of the topics in their social medias could become more. In the other words, as the diversities and inclusiveness of people’s PLN become larger, the more topics and information they could come into contact with, so their views could be expended. Therefore, the benefits which are brought by both people’s and internet’s diversity and inclusiveness are bidirectional, and it is also a circular process.
As we mention advocacy communications, we could imagine that you are persuading your friends to try something new which he/she does not want to have a try; or the salesman promotes his/her products door by door, face to face; or the meetings that hold in the company, the staffs persuade the manager to give up some benefits to obtain something else. These advocacy communications always happen between people’s face to face conversations because people are better able to understand opposite’s opinions through their speeches, facial expressions, or actions. However, people may not able to express their own thoughts completely through directly facing others because of different identities. Therefore, the social media would be a good way for people to engage in advocacy communications as well. The social medias provide people total freedom of speech under the legislation of laws. Everyone’s identity is equal to fully express their thoughts to a case. When the same opinion appear more and more on a matter, most people would be persuaded by the opinion of the majority, the advocacy communication is social media would be achieved.
The social media uses in public disclosure potentially challenged the advocacy communication. For example, before the appearance of social media, people would learn information through public medias (television, newspaper, or radio), comments on some events are just after-dinner chit-chat to talk with people beside. At this time, individual’s speech could no be seen by population around the world because public media “limited in generating vigorous public conversations by the one- to- many structure of mass media.” (Clark, J., & Aufderheide, P. 2013). Most people receive the information one-sided, their speeches may just be shared and persuaded people around them. However, the appearance of social media expands the ability of spreading ideas largely. Almost everybody have a common daily habit at present: unlock their phones frequently, refresh their social medias to check the updates and look for several topics they interested. When they see unexpected information appear, they would choose to express their thoughts directly on the platform. These thoughts could be spread and seen by world-wide people who also interested in this topic. Therefore, if someone wants to tell some ideas to the public, the more effective way is to put it on the social media instead of just doing advocacy communications with some people around you because the audience of social media is much wider. Also, as I mentioned people would be persuaded by the opinion of majority, if a bad opinion has arisen on one issue in society, people could change the direction of public opinion by sharing this issue on social media for comments.
I think my PLN amplifies views of others. I am not kind of person who like to express my thoughts in social medias. Instead, I am more enjoy with reading others’ thoughts. For example, If I found interesting posts or thoughts of others on Facebook, I may share these posts to my community but not comment on it. Therefore, most contents of my PLN are my footprints of viewing and spreading other’s thoughts. However, I know not expressing my personal thoughts in my PLN is not a good idea. For example, if I want to apply a job, the employer would like to learn my information by looking my PLN( such as profile, community or posts). If I do not share anything in my PLN, the employer cannot see my shining points, so I would lose amount of success rate compare to other candidates. I think as a employer, the most important polices of social communication expectations are honest and responsible. The employee should chat with the employer with his/her real self information when applying for the job. During the work, the employee should not exaggerate his/her abilities and responsible for his/her speeches and tasks. Of course, the employer her/himself also should follow these policies when communicate with his/her employees and cooperative partners. Finally, I think building a better PLN cannot live without commentators if you are an influencer or if you want to be an influencer. More commentators would bring more flows, more positive flows would bring the influencer with larger reputation. As more people get to know this influencer, this influencer would have larger commercial value, so the commercial activity suppliers would be attracted by his/her flows and reputation. As the influencer connect with more suppliers, the influencer’s PLN would be expanded. In addition, as Simpson mentioned in the video, the way he develops his voices is start from expressing his opinion in university courses. (11:26). If an influencer could express more significant voices in his/her PLN, more commentators would be attracted by this influencer, this is one of the ways to increase the number of commentators.
Reference:
Clark, J., & Aufderheide, P.(2013). A New Vision for Public Media. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/login?url=http://www.palgraveconnect.com/doifinder/10.1057/9780230119796
MARKIEL SIMPSON. “EDCI 338 – 2021 – 02 – 22 MARKIEL SIMPSON”, YouTube, uploaded by MILLER, 22 Feb, 2021 of publication, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCSpm1Lx8-A&feature=youtu.be