A very social 2011
| December 13, 2011 | Posted by Dan Baxter under Social Media |
Along with the most popular songs, albums, movies, sandwiches etc, the annual end-of-year list-orama was bolstered last week with Twitter and Facebook both sharing memologies of the top trending topics and most talked about news moments of 2011.
While both sets of lists presented interesting – if not yet nostalgic – reminders of some of the year’s events, it also gives a chance to reflect on the impact of social media in the mainstream news agenda.
Simply by casting a cursory eye over some of the top global trends and reflecting on stories that have gripped the consciousness of the UK, the role of social media (and largely Twitter and Facebook) has cast a very wide shadow.
Social media has not simply helped amplify the reach and speed with which these ‘happenings’ have spread, but in many instances has been at the core of the news itself.
Just taking a couple of global examples, the speed with which the news about Osama Bin Laden’s downfall spread and the tweet sent by a local resident about unusual activity he was seeing in the area became the lead supporting stories. And incredibly this moment contributed to 10% of all English-language FB posts this year.
And on a slightly lighter note, Charlie Sheen’s one man crusade against his producers exploded into the public conscious due to how he was communicating. Not exactly #winning.
Closer to home, whether it be the London riots, the phone-hacking scandal, or the philandering footballer being publicly exposed, the news agenda has evolved from how social media made these news events possible to what implications this has had on privacy, criminality and protesting.
From the serious to the glib, social media has dominated the news agenda this year in a way unlike any before, in the same way that social media has pervaded public life.
As debate rages in Text Towers about our favourite digital moments of 2011 (watch this space), the only thing we can be sure of is that 2012 is set to be just as exciting.
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