“I look down on him because I have Linkdin on my Smartphone…..
I look up to him, because he has Linkdin on his Smartphone; but I look down on him because he just has a Blackberry. I have Twitter ….
I know my place. Innit?”
Social media is just as capable of stratifying as every other part of society. If we want to use it to improve social mobility and close the divide between Britain's social classes, we cannot assume this will happen automatically – people have to make it so.So says James Ball, data journalist working for the Guardian investigations team.
And how so?
… the role of Facebook and Twitter in fuelling August's riots was marginal at best: analysis of more than 2.5m tweets obtained by the Guardian found only a tiny fraction of users attempting to incite trouble – and even these were generally shouted down. Instead, the networks were used to mobilise clean-up operations and report on the trouble, with mainstream journalists frequently using Twitter to make up-to-the-minute reports which were on occasion themselves used by rioters.Ah, so technology is a force for good as well? Whodathunk it….
In reality, Social media's role in the riots was largely confined to another network: BlackBerry Messenger. Rapidly portrayed as a faintly sinister untraceable, encrypted network, BBM is the social network of choice for many of Britain's teens – and through its ties to urban music, it is particularly popular in inner cities. BBM is cheaper than other networks, too.I do love the ‘ties to urban music’ and ‘popular in inner cities’ codes.
C’mon, James, we all know what you mean!
10 comments:
SAme double speak used on a discussion re 'Dangerous Dogs' on TTP this morning. Some 'young men' in 'urban environments' etc.
Oh great!
Not only (with reference to a previous post) as a white, male, vaguely christian (I'd normally say agnostic but I'm tired of explaining what that is to the elite of the iliterati), heterosexual, non-disabled (hey I have a dislocated knee, does that count?) am I a 2nd, 3rd.. er 27th class citizen.
But now?
I have a plain vanilla mobile which I use for.... (now don't be shocked) 'telephoning' people.
I don't even know what Linkdin is, the only Blackberry I have is what I have with apple in a pie, my Facebook is that scratty old photo album with the really good shot of me in a kilt (I'm told the old lady who saw my knees will recover eventually, she apparently only screams in her sleep occasionally now)and I haven't Twatted anybody, ever, honest officer.
I'll just go get my bell and practice shouting 'Unclean' then shall I? :-(
Well, they certainly didn't use Blogger:-)
You're not missing anything, Able, Linkdin (?spelling) is a dull worky thing which periodically generates invitations from (a) people you've never met and (b) people you wish you'd never met.
It's another of these irregular verbs:
- I am at the cutting edge of electronic media networking
- You spend too much time on facebook
- He is a Blackberry Yob
Blackberry Messenger, of course, hads a starring role in this edifying tale from last Spring:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377008/Keith-MacDonald-fakes-death-Feckless-fathers-plan-escape-paying-child-support.html
Surely that sketch, although it featured both the Ronnies, was on TW 3.
Or possibly The Frost Report.
Blackberry - PONA
I am astonished that Blackberry is allowed to use the word black.
Blueberry, I say! Change the law at once and force them to be pleasant to our friends from overseas! Let us not offend our vibrant cousins!
"...journalist working for the Guardian investigations team"
That'll be the Guardian's looter-loving-bleeding-heart-blame-the-authorities team to you and I.
In the course of an insomnia-induced trawl through the archives, this turned up from a post on this year's riots:
One September night in 1985, an elderly member of Clan Macheath was among a coachload of venerable ladies who found themselves being driven through the middle of a riot in Brixton. Over a restorative cup of tea, our aged aunt later described seeing shadowy figures directing the mob with 'those new mobile telephones'.
Those phones were the latest thing in technology and beyond the means of all but the wealthiest city types - the first UK network went live in January of that year - but were already being harnessed by the forces of disorder.
In other words, they've been at it longer than the rest of us.
"SAme double speak used on a discussion re 'Dangerous Dogs' on TTP this morning. "
The irony is, everyone knows exactly what they mean!
"I'll just go get my bell and practice shouting 'Unclean' then shall I? :-("
:D
"It's another of these irregular verbs.."
Heh!
"That'll be the Guardian's looter-loving-bleeding-heart-blame-the-authorities team to you and I."
Oh, indeed! I wonder how they'll cope with the news that the Sainted Ex-Ms Duggan wasn't, umm, whiter-than-white? In a manner of speaking...
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