What
is Social Media?
Today there is no agreed definition of social media.
Simply put, social media are platforms where Web 2.0 technologies are utilized
(Gunelius, 2011: 10). It is a natural product of the user content of Web 2.0
technologies. As opposed to Web 1.0 which has a static, program-based and
one-user productivity, Web 2.0 offers dynamism, self-creating opportunities of
content and social-based characteristics, which are the factors in the
introduction of social media in our life (Bozarth, 2010: 11).
Web 2.0 internet including much faster services such
as Wikis, content sharing sites blogs and social networks have influenced not
only technology and design but also all walks of life (Kahraman, 2010: 13).
Andreas Kaplan and
Michael Haenlein (2010: 61) define social media as ‘‘a group of Internet-based
applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web
2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content. This
content includes videos photos and textual comments’’.
According to Evans (2008: 31) ‘‘social media
involves a natural, genuine conversation between people about something of
mutual interest, a conversation built on the thoughts and experiences of
participants. It is about sharing and arriving at a collective point, often for
the purpose of making a better or more informed choice’’.
Another definition (Blossom, 2009: 30) is that
‘‘social media is a tool that creates opportunities for interaction with others
ranging from individual to group’’. Similarly, Gülsoy (2009: 245) defines it as
‘‘an autonomously developed practice by which people share their own content
independently with others’’. Abrahams et al. (2012, 88) also makes a similar
definition by saying that is ‘‘online services that allows for social
interaction, creating personal contents, non-centralized applications with free
membership’’.
2.1.1. Forms of Social Media
Many different forms and types of social media exist
in the World of internet. Users have varying reasons to use these social media
sites ranging from promoting a business to keeping up with friends.
Nowadays, there are basically six kinds of social media
these are listed below (Doğan, 2013: 3):
-
Wiki’s: This kind of social media
websites enable to add content to or edit the information on them, acting as a
communal database. The online encyclopaedia of Wikipedia is the most know
example of wiki’s.
-
Blogs: This is the most famous form
of social media among others. Blogs include online journals with the appearing
entries.
-
Social Networks: These
sites allow people to build personal web pages and then connect with friends to
share content and communication. The biggest social networks are MySpace,
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. These kinds of sites allow people to connect
with their friends and associates.
Social Networks: These
sites allow people to build personal web pages and then connect with friends to
share content and communication. The biggest social networks are MySpace,
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. These kinds of sites allow people to connect
with their friends and associates.
-
Content Communities (Social Book markings): In
these kind of social media websites: communities share specific kinds of
content. The other name of content communities is social bookmarking which is
about tagging webpages to for later use. After tagged you can easily find and
share them with your connections. The most popular examples of social
bookmarking consist of delicious, Instagram and YouTube.
-
Forums: This kind of social media
websites are online discussion platforms and generally affairs are specific.
-
Podcasts: This type of social media
websites include video and audio files
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