How Blogging And Social Media Transform Our Culture

Name: Course Code: Date: Will the current trends and future direction of blogging and social media transform our culture? Introduction There has always been a strong connection between technology and culture throughout human civilization. Since the inception of the stone age tools to the development of wearables, technology has always influenced human culture. The relationship is vicious and it is continually evolving with no definitive starting point or end. The industrial revolution birthed urbanization which changed human social interactions and culture. Nearly 5 centuries ago, the world entered a new era of the information age that has revolutionized almost all cultures in the world as the world became increasingly connected. Many cultures have been assimilated into other cultures while many have evolved because of the ease of information flow and sharing among its members. Technology itself is most developed intended for good uses and to push the human race forward but there are always unintended consequences that come with every revolutionary technology. One of the technologies which have fueled this trend is the social media and blogs. The newest trends of social media and blogging on culture has been immeasurable and the two entities have become increasingly intertwined. Social media and blogging have influenced culture in positive and negative ways. This research paper will attempt to explore this premise to establish how the newest trends in blogging and social media transform our culture. Definition of blogging and social media According to CITATION Dju18 \l 1033 (Djuraskovic), a blog (shortening of “weblog”) is an online journal or informational website displaying information in the reverse chronological order, with latest posts appearing first. It is a platform where a writer or even a group of writers share their views on an individual subject. Initially, they were known as ‘weblog’ denoting that they started out as an avenue for people to share their views online just like traditional diary entries. ‘Web logs’ have been shortened to blogs and since it has become a standard. According to CITATION Mer181 \l 1033 (Merriam Webster Online Dictionary), social media is a form of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos). In blogs, the blogger has a domain or a subdomain on the internet for his/her content while on a social media the users use a single domain the community. For businesses, these two online entities are complementary I the sense that a blog is where people meet you while a social media channel is where they seek you out. CITATION Ann14 \l 1033 (Gusiff) asserts that ‘blogging creates content that lives on your website. Social media engages with people about content.’ for professional entities, it is unprofessional to refer someone to visit a social media site and then scroll through your many posts and other information presented by ‘feeds’ to access it. Blogging is the ideal reference to such people as they will sort the content chronologically and access it. What are the current trends in blogging and social media There have been many trends in these industries that are rapidly changing blogging and social media. One of these technologies is customizable chatbots which are offered by many social media giants. These chatbots help the companies to save cost on hiring more people and rely on the automated responses to their clientele on their services. Most people have interacted with chatbots before and they are nearly indistinguishable from humans. Artificial intelligence in maturing and these bots are some of the new ways which show the potential of future technologies. The number of companies using these bots has also risen exponentially. The chatbot market growth of these bots according to CITATION Gra17 \l 1033 (Grand View Research inc) is expected to reach USD 1.25 billion by 2025, growing at a rate of 24.3%.the public reception of this new technology is commendable more companies are planning to incorporate these bots into their service delivery in the operations in the coming decade and it is expected to be a billion-dollar industry which is founded on social media platforms. There has been a strong trend in social messaging is overtaking social media. Platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram direct among others have become the new preferable way of communicating. Since the inception of social media nearly a decade ago, social messaging has overtaken social media users in active users. Businesses have taken note of this shift and they have started to institute measures to accommodate their clientele through social messaging. According to CITATION Fac16 \l 1033 (Facebook), fifty-six percent would rather message than call a business for customer service while sixty-one percent likes receiving personalized messages from businesses. Technology is always shifting and it seems to be gravitating towards social messaging especially for businesses. It is also the one driving the chatbot industry and itself has been growing with double digits in the past three years CITATION eMa17 \l 1033 (eMarketer). These communication forms have changed greatly in the recent past especially for business where initially it was mainly through the phone, then emails, then social media and now the trend seems to be gravitating to social messaging. Video has become the most popular content type and live streaming has increased in the recent past. Live streaming has been incorporated in almost all social media platforms and they are trying out new video features. Video content has the highest engagement type with the audience and more users are increasingly using it to communicate. According to CITATION ONe17 \l 1033 (O'Neill), more than two-thirds (67%) of us marketers run video ads on Facebook, while more than half (51%) do so on YouTube. More social media users have become accustomed to using these video features and they are becoming serial video content generators birthing a trend of vlogs on the internet. As advertisers seek to exploit the potential embedded in packaging their messages as video, it is undeniable that this trend will continue because the content is in high demand, internet penetration and price is increasingly becoming cheap and it has reached more people. In blogging, the content must be structured to be objective, informative and of value to the reader. Blogs have become a reputable source of information though they have been plagued by the blanket perception of ‘fake news’ among elitists. Though cli...