Lecture 12: 3/10/16

Power of Social Networks

Just to reiterate:
1 We shape our minds
2 Our networks shape us (think: emotional contagion; viral contaigon)
3 Our friends affect us
4 Our friends 'friends' friends affect us
5 The network has a life of its own
Connections vs. Influence

Six degrees of separation

o
Discovered by Milgram's letter delivery study
o
Took an average of sic social steps for letters to arrive to designated
recipients in Boston

But, Three degrees of influence?

o
Social influences gets smaller with each social step
o
Even if we are connected by six degrees, our influence might run out in
less than 6 steps
Social network sites
boyd & Ellison's definition:
1 Construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system
2 Articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and
3 View and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the
system.
Social network sites
How do they differ from past technology?
1 Scope:
o
Enormity: vastly increase the size of our network
o
Communality: increase the speed in which we share info and collective
efforts
o
Specificity: increases particularity of the ties we can form
o
Virtuality: Ability to assume multiple identities?
2 Public displays of connection?
Review Exam 2
News
Know the 5 characteristics of what makes something news worthy and be able to
identify it in context
o Olympics
o Pandas
o Fresh news will be talked about, stale news will be dropped
Jacksonian democracy
What did the press look like pre-Jacksonian democracy?
o It was very biased, the people who were super rich and owned the
newspapers were the ones that wrote them and bashed their opponents

Jacksonian press
o
More printing presses and more affordable, more males were getting
the right to vote
o
People stopped wanting to serve the elite
o
Objectivity, they report on everything and dont try to bash on others
What if transparency is the new objectivity? (YouTube video)
The news channels today dont hide the fact that they're not objective, but dont
talk about their biases
Agenda Setting/framing
Media wants people to think a certain way about whatever information they present
to the viewer

Setting - not concerned on how the information is presented, but are

concerned about what information is presented

Framing - how the information is presented, OJ picture where one is super

dark and has a bleak headline while the other is lighter and has a more
uplifting headline. Pro-choice/Pro-life for abortion, climate change/global
warming

Salience
Sesame Street
What was their goal?

To close the learning gap between high and low SES (social economic status)
kids

High SES kids had higher grades and did better in school than low SES kids

When it was put on TV the gap got bigger even though the low SES kids
learned more

They found that parental involvement helped kids learn more

o
They started to add celebrities and pop culture references to appeal to
the parents
Social learning theory
Modeling and how people can learn something from the media without having to try
it

Vicarious learning
I can watch something and learn from it

Attention

Retention

Reproduction

Motivation
"I dont let me kids play video games not because theyll go kill people, but because
I dont want them to have scary emotional feeling"
It is inconclusive
Media Equation
Media = Real life
Virtual reality
We see things on TV and get so wrapped up in it
When in computer mediated environments the cues we get help us feel like it is
really happening
More cues the more likely we will believe something to be true more cues = better
Social information processing theory
Sipping vs gulping

Its takes longer to develop a relationship with someone over the computer but over
time it is the same as face to face
Hyperpersonal model is when something can be better. Sometimes someone fills in
the blanks to fit the description they want
We lie more in interpersonal relations than in online relations, but it still happens
(catfishing) but they are not malicious reasons, it usually comes down to the fact
that they may meet each other one day.
People smudge the truth sometimes because they really see themselves that way
foggy mirror effect "Im a sculpted god
Homophily