Jeffrey Wisenbaugh first discovered the power of YouTube in 2008. Sporting braces and armed with a webcam, he began broadcasting his feelings on an array of topics with no goal in mind but to have some fun.
Three years later, Wisenbaugh, a psychology junior who goes by the Internet personality Kool Jeffrey has more than 18,000 YouTube subscribers, an active Twitter feed and an Emmy to boot. Because of YouTube, he said his entire life was changed.
“Without YouTube and without what I’ve been doing, my life would have gone in a totally different direction,” Wisenbaugh said.
Wisenbaugh’s experience is not typical by any means, but websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have changed the face of how people share information forever on other, less obvious levels.
Information, be it news, entertainment or the latest cat video, can be spread to millions at the drop of a hat. Recent phenomenons such as the Kony 2012 video produced by activist group Invisible Children incited both activism and criticism across campus, as well as throughout the world.
Although many students, experts and officials are encouraged by the positives social media platforms can provide, some believe the power of the platforms should be taken into consideration and treated carefully.
Sign of the times
According to recent reports from Pew Research Center, people have not replaced their news consumption with social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, but the number of people using social media as a news source is growing and acts as a supplement to many news sites.
In the center’s State of the News Media 2012 report, which was released Monday, with information compiled of survey responses from 3,016 U.S. adults, 9 percent of digital news consumers get the majority of their news information from Facebook and Twitter, as opposed to the 36 percent who go directly to news organizations, 32 percent who get news from search engines and 29 percent who go to a news aggregate such as Google News or an application.
Amy Mitchell, deputy director for the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and one of the lead researchers on the project, said the sources people got their news from on social media sites was an especially interesting finding of the report.
About 70 percent of the news read by users on Facebook was determined to be generated from friends or family members, whereas Twitter users reported getting it from a much larger variety of sources.
“It really fits the personality of those two media platforms,” Mitchell said. “It’s amazing that these platforms have only been around for a few years, and we’ve already seen these social media platforms established in their style and audience.”
Media matters
Whether people love or hate the way Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 video was conducted or spread, Shanice Akoto and other representatives of the MSU chapter of Invisible Children are just glad for the exposure.
“Nobody can say they haven’t heard of Joseph Kony or Invisible Children anymore,” said Akoto, a human biology sophomore and moderator for the MSU chapter of Invisible Children. “The message was definitely effective.”
The organization’s Kony 2012 video, which focuses on the alleged crimes of Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony in Africa, has received more than 100 million views on YouTube and Vimeo since its release earlier this month.
Since the video’s release, Akoto said the group at MSU has seen an influx in students interested in learning more and taking action against Kony.
“A lot of students were really excited about getting involved and helping,” Akoto said.
A grain of salt
For East Lansing Mayor Pro Tem Nathan Triplett, social media is another platform for him to connect with his audience and share pertinent and relevant information to residents.
“I think if you want to engage the public, you have to meet them where they are,” Triplett said. “It provides a venue for a dialogue to take place.”
However, Triplett doesn’t believe social media should be the only way for people to connect or share information.
Clicking on a link or retweeting 140 characters can be useful, he said, but it’s only a doorway. Consumers need to go the extra mile in getting a larger picture of the information they get.
“It’s a good way to start a conversation, but (social media sites) are never going to be enough in and of themselves,” Triplett said.
Marc Colcer, a general management sophomore who has repeatedly maxed out the limit of 5,000 Facebook friends and uses the site for both personal and promotional purposes, said he makes sure to keep the potential impact and repercussions his updates could have in mind before he posts.
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“I’m very careful about what goes on my page because it goes out to thousands of people,” Colcer said. “If you get information out quickly, it spreads — and that’s when you start to see big trends.”
Here to stay
Colcer said he cannot predict the future of social media and where it’s headed, but said the newness of the social phenomenon makes predicting its upcoming role in society challenging.
“Right now there’s no accurate textbook on social media,” Colcer said. “People like me who rely on Facebook and Twitter to get information have to be ready for any changes that can possibly happen.”
Mitchell said when enough people are consuming a video or social media event that has gone viral, it is often written about or picked up by news media just to stay in touch with what’s on the mind of readers.
This exchange, she said, is indicative of one of the most common trends in news media consumption today — social media, at times, generates the news.
Wisenbaugh said he believes social media will continue to flourish and will provide a nice complement to more traditional ways of obtaining information.
“I think the established media so far will stay established, but they’re viewing social media as a way to add to entertainment and news,” Wisenbaugh said.
“Now it’s not so black and white, but mixed together and integrated.”
