cortney robinson
Designer/ Student/ Ranter/ Activist
- May 19, 2009 • 5:33 pm PDT
- + responses
me)…a couple of weeks back a big deal was made out of the race between
movie "star" Ashton Kutcher and Cnn to be the first Twitterees (i made
up that word) to have one million followers on the new social giant
Twitter. In Ashton's live web stream he documented the closing moments
and final heart racing second when he clenched his victory over the
news giant and celebrated with his wife and friends.
During his live stream Kutcher made a comment that I found to be
very interestinig and it made me think. He stated something along the
lines of this being a historical event and achievement, not for him
personally but for society because he said it marked the ability of
individuals being able to no longer depend on conglomerates for their
information and news. He compared it to obtaininig a informational
freedom and being able to connect with people in a way never before
seen.
I really don't know where I fully stand on this. As a secret
conspiracy theorist I genuinely believe that the government and media
sources clearly seek to control every aspect of "news" we receive for
the reasons of public opinion control, money, population and party
division and numerous other reasons. I however am not fully sold on the
idea that connecting with a million people on a social network and
everyone having the ability to share "news" in an effort to spread
awareness or gain attention is a great leap forward either.
As we move forward in this ever expanding universe of technological
progression we have to decide how we really balance and define human
"connection" and what we consider news. Twitter in a huge sense does
offer both, a way for individuals to offer a mundane update about their
tedious day and also a way for people to quickly spread info about
issues that matter to them.
In our effort to become relevant as individuals in the dissemination
of news and information will this spell out the end of our need and
craving for huge news organizations like CNN to tell us what we are
suppose to care about or is this medium of online social togetherness
in all its forms (facebook, twitter, myspace, etc) just another form of
control and distraction?
Ashton out Twitters Cnn -
