The Power and Influence of Social Media - Essay Example

Some features of social media are particularly helpful for conducting surveys to learn the opinion of the masses. Such surveys can be made not just for political purposes, but also for market-oriented purposes including the desired qualities and features in a new cell phone or a shampoo.

Social media is a very powerful medium capable of making and destroying public riots. People tend to form and join communities over social media for particular purposes. They establish the time and venue for meetings and discussions over particular agendas. Social media serves as a very efficient and cost-effective medium for the organization and coordination of such meetings.

            The role of social media in strengthening and fostering social ties is well-identified and documented. Social networking websites allow colleagues, business partners, and/or organizational personnel to interact with one another at another level outside the confines of the organizational culture. This fosters understanding and collaboration among people. It has been demonstrated by the IBM researchers on Beehive that the tools of social networking enhance the social capital of the staff by expanding their social networks and improving the connection of the organizational personnel with the organization (DiMicco et al.). “These sites can be oriented towards work-related contexts (e.g., LinkedIn.com), romantic relationship initiation (the original goal of Friendster.com), connecting those with shared interests such as music or politics (e.g., MySpace.com), or the college student population (the original incarnation of Facebook.com)” (Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe 1143).

            Social media offers tremendous benefits for research. In the absence of social media, the pace of development of knowledge was very slow because the researchers had no option but to rely on traditional means and sources of information including books and experts in the industry. With the availability of the Internet, research has been produced very frequently because now, researchers are just a click away from the most potential and informative sources of literature. Even one-third of teenagers have been found to use the Internet for “health, physical fitness, and dieting information” (Martinasek et al. 214).

The power and influence of social media in the present age cannot be denied. However, the way it is used depends upon the intention of the user. Constructive use of social media can bring radical positive changes in the systems. Likewise, social media is also capable of increasing violence if used inappropriately.