Research Paper Topic

For my research paper, I really want to look at social media.  I’m interested so much in the relationship between social media and journalism because I find myself drawn to the Internet’s wealth of available information and the capacity for people to create the idea of news and not just react to it. Social media, I think, is becoming a kind of journalism. Twitter can force headlines. The community can control the information the community is exposed to. It’s that relationship to social media that I want to focus on, I think, where people are attracted to different manners of expressing themselves to a variety of audiences. Why are people enamored of their ability to interact with news? I may not know what’s happening from the news sphere, per se, but I can check Twitter and get my bearings.  I’m fascinated by seemingly everyone’s desire to be witty and charming and wildly informative on the Internet. What is it that is so appealing about journalism through social media? I think it’s the acceptability of other people. I think social media has created a place where I don’t have to accept some higher news power’s deduction of events. I think the citizens’ accounts of events are becoming as important as mainstream news. I think newspapers are expensive and blogging is free and this disparity allows bloggers everywhere to influence a greater audience because of their universality.  After some casual googling, I’ve decided to focus on what people are drawn to in social media, and how it affects journalism as a medium and the idea of objectivity in the sea of all these perspectives.

Social Business Culture

I’m interested in social media for my research paper, and it’s not necessarily as relevant to my economic/financial responsibility here, but I’m going to try and make it work. There are businesses involved here, too.

IBM doesn’t want people to do business with companies. They’re adamant that people do business with people-hence, the need to become a social business. This doesn’t mean a company with Facebook and Twitter accounts. These “social businesses” are not just striving for more fans or followers, but software and hardware tools that enable them to foster people’s new relationships and to help them “accomplish tasks, make decisions, and inspire new ideas.”  These improvements in business operation seek to remove the obstacles between “creativity, innovation, and alignment” and business needs.

 

This invented culture seeks to combine expertise and insight from anywhere in the business network at the right time to quickly adapt and improve business outcomes.  This would mean customers, employees, and partners would all aid in speeding up business information. Opportunities would evolve with everyone’s help. This kind of information sharing is similar to the advent of the Internet, but not limited to the web in people to people interactions. People ultimately drive business, so the thought process is that they should be included at every step. They can drive business results themselves, just given the right information.

With the abundance of technology currently available, I see the useful ness of a “social business” classification. But right now, it’s just a classification. I’m not surprised that IBM wants to attract attention to itself by this new way of defining itself. It’s all very easy to say about yourself, but it’s more difficult to find concrete results that are based not on correlation, but causality. 

Harvard Pride

I found it particularly interesting that President Obama would appeal to college students for the next election through writing directly to them. I think the political sphere can sometimes get lost in academia unless students themselves are addressed. I think the idea that Obama plays with, the “Know Before You Owe” sheets, would help the financial crisis by educating the next generation of voters. Obama does not over impose his political beliefs here- they are alluded to more than expressed- “it’s been so disappointing to see Republicans in Congress block jobs bills from going forward”, but he does state that he will boldly act if Congress won’t.

I’m not well versed in matters of The Harvard Crimson, but I thought it was striking that the president is appealing to his alma mater in regards to their significance as a voting base, and also as a manner of personally getting out his sentiments regarding his intended political action and his personal battle with college loan debt. He harps upon the importance of an education even in this fiscal climate, by qualifying the pursuit and investment of education as “[believing] in the future of America”. He also links the personal battle of stripping part of paychecks for debt to the collective economic crisis facing the nation and how painful its influence is felt in the economy. The personal style invoked here speaks particularly to the desired votes and also the environment in which students may feel more comfortable being spoken to.