5 ways new media is changing politics

First off the most important part of this article is the date it was published. It was published in 2010 which is four years ago. Therefore it is safe to say that new media has progressed even more since this article. This article talks about the five ways that new media is changing politics. The communications director of the White House made a statement about how in today's time viewers and listeners can choose what they want to listen to and what they want to hear. They can control their news consumption just like they can control what they download to their iPod. The second way that media is changing politics is through the idea of sharing things. How in today's time people like Obama and Sara Palin shared their political views and ideas through Facebook and text messaging. Through mediums like that their messages went viral. This coincides with technological determinism,   it show how technology can have a power over our culture. It has changed our culture in the political world. The third thing that changed politics was the concept of being able to like something on social media. Now with someone running for a political party they don't need their voters to tell them what they like, they can just like it on Facebook which takes away the idea of physical transportation between people. The fourth way new media is changing politics is the idea of time. In a blink of the eye you can tweet something, like something, or share something. Political organizers had to personally hand out fliers and now graphics can be shared over the internet. The last way new media has changed politics is used the internet to donate. Political candidates would much rather have individuals donate in bulk versus corporations. With traditional media is just created audiences but with new media is creates users. Users that can be involved and donate to causes and help political candidates. The article just shows a few examples of how new media has changed the culture of the political world. 

Network Law

There are three network laws that describe three different perspectives on how networking works when it comes to value. These laws help lay out a calculation or a description of how a network can be valuable. The law that I agree with the most is the Reed's Law which talks about how social media plays a huge role in how valuable your network is. 

Social media is taking over the way we communicate. If you don't have a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any of the other forms of social media, you are looked at as anti-social, weird, boring, or the typical "what do you have to hide"? The other networking laws have some type of calculation to determine the value of the network. Social media has a calculation of its own. The value of a network is determined by likes, comments, shares, favorites, retweets and follows. 

The complexity in social media is the underlying reason in why people like or favorite something. Are they doing it because they truly like it? Are they doing it because that person is popular? Are they doing it because it was an accident? When you discover why someone is liking and sharing your posts on social media it is easier to post more things and get more likes. I couldn’t agree more that Reed’s Law is the way to determine value, especially in today’s time. 

Going along with social media, I think that is the route we are headed in the future. We already get everything sent to our phone to notify us. I believe the notifications are just going to get worse and worse. Soon even if we don’t want information given to us we will receive it anyway. It is only a matter of time before information overload takes over. I think in the future we will be able to have access to any information we want in a matter of seconds. Of course, “any information we want” is very broad but I am talking about the things we search on Google, or look at on Facebook. Soon we will be able to receive information in a quick manner whether it is a new device that can deliver any information even if you don’t have a phone or revamping the phone to send information even faster. Our source of information is going to be instant, more instant than now.