CSci 489/689, fall, 2018
Assignment #3, Part 1, on Social Media
The purpose of this assignment is to investigate Facebook and YouTube as
communication media and contrast the two. Since social media is so important today,
this is a two-part assignment, with this piece being part 1. There are 50 points for each
part.
In our times, computing, networking, and media are intertwined. Social media are very
actively used. Consider the following bar chart from
https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/by-the-numbers-17-amazing-facebook-stats/
that shows, for example, that in Q2 of 2018 nearly 2.25 billion people use Facebook
each month. The chart also shows the phenomenal growth rate of Facebook usage.
On any given day, approximately 1.47 billion users are active. Among millennials (15 -34
year olds), approximately 91% use Facebook. In 2018, the average number Facebook
friends for women is 166, and for men, 145. These data, along with the word “social” in
the phrase “social media,” reveal that systems like Facebook are the primary social
impact forces of our time.
YouTube is very widely used for video content. But since Facebook began emphasizing
video, Facebook and YouTube are direct competitors. Data on Facebook versus YouTube
is covered on many sites, including these links:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2018/04/30/facebook-vs-youtube-for-marketingvideos-whats-the-difference/#3cb8136a363d
https://moz.com/blog/facebook-vs-youtube
There is also heavy use of many other systems, such as Twitter, and Google. In addition,
there are now probably around 700 million smart TV sets connected to the internet
across the world.
The graphic bellows shows the percentage of web traffic attributable to mobile phones
over the past few years.
Movie ticket sales are still also prominent. The graphic below on movie theater tickets
sold annually in units of millions of tickets comes from
https://www.statista.com/statistics/187073/tickets-sold-at-the-north-american-box-office-since-1980/
In addition to the theater tickets sold, many more people view movies at home sourced
from online systems like Netflix.
These data underscore how pervasive multiple kinds of media are in our society, and
how media is intertwined with networking and computing.
In this assignment you are to research the societal effects of communication media as it
applies to Facebook and YouTube and produce a report. To provide some structure to
your investigation, the four effects (or laws) of media traceable to Marshal McCluhan
are insightful. Basically, the four effects are:
1) Enhancement, which asks the question of what the medium intensifies or extends.
For example, a telescope or microscope can be viewed as providing enhancement of
the human eye.
2) Obsolescence, which concerns what the medium pushes out of prominence. For
example, the invention of the automobile pretty much made ground transportation
using horses obsolete. Obsolescence need not mean that the old is completely gone,
but does mean that the prominence of the old is greatly reduced.
3) Retrieval, which recovers what has been lost. For example, consider how many
societies functioned in a very local “tribal” sense long ago, with each tribe
possessing a strong cultural identity and even governance structure that separated
them from other groups. Many modern communication media (e.g., smartphones,
location-aware devices, and internet) in some sense retrieve tribalism by providing
the potential for online communities to form independently of geography.
4) Reversal, which is the opposite of enhancement, and concerns problems or
unforeseen consequences that could appear as the medium evolves. For example,
toward the end of World War II, nuclear energy and the atomic bomb in particular,
was viewed as a good thing that greatly enhanced the ability to end a horrific war.
Yet in following years and decades, nuclear technology has largely done the reverse,
due to disasters (e.g., Chernobyl) and adding stress to international relations.
The outline to use for the report is literally given below. Report length should be on the
order of three pages.
REPORT OUTLINE
Report Title:
Four Questions of Media in Annotated Tetrads for Facebook and YouTube
1. Introduction
As in any Introduction to a document, here you provide a succinct idea of what the
paper is about and prepare the reader for what follows. Include a paragraph or two
that provides some basic explanation of the four questions of Marshall McCluhan.
The four questions (sometimes called laws or effects) are EXTEND, REVERSE,
RETRIEVE, and OBSOLESCE
2. The Facebook Tetrad and Notes
Here is the place for the Facebook Tetrad. Doing a good job requires researching and
understanding principles of communication theory as well as information about
Facebook. Most of the research can be from reading on the web, but if you want to
interview or survey some people about the items, that is also fine. For each item in the
Tetrad, include a footnote that provides an explanation backing up and justifying the
item. This can be short, just a sentence or two. A citation in a footnote is good, in which
case there would be references at the end of your report. When considering items for
each category, think in terms of the three primary distinguishing concepts: Scale, Pace,
and Pattern. Carefully note: you don’t need to actually draw as tetrad figure. For
example, you could just have an inline subsection paragraph for each for each of the four
parts of the tetrad.
3. The YouTube Tetrad and Notes
Here is the place for the YouTube Tetrad. Doing a good job requires researching and
understanding principles of communication theory as well as information about
YouTube. Most of the research can be from reading on the web, but if you want to
interview or survey some people about the items, that is also fine. For each item in the
Tetrad, include a footnote that provides an explanation backing up and justifying the
item. This can be short, just a sentence or two. A citation in a footnote is good, in which
case there would be references at the end of your report. Carefully note: you don’t need
to actually draw as tetrad figure. For example, you could just have an inline subsection
paragraph for each for each of the four parts of the tetrad.
4. Comparison of Facebook and YouTube from a media perspective
In this place you are to write a paragraph or two that contrasts Facebook and YouTube,
in terms of pieces that you have created for the two tetrads. Be specific. For example,
one of the articles referenced about Include information on innovations of the two media
and their relative impacts on society.
SOME RESOURCES TO CONSIDER USING
To get you started on the reading, here is some information and links to articles to read:
1. The work of communication theorist Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980). Professor
Marshall McCluhan is famous for having written several books on communication
theory and having coined the phrases “The Global Village” and “The Medium is the
Message.” He invented Tetrads, along with his son. Although he lived prior to the
internet and social media and never used a smart phone or a computer, his insight
into the understanding and meaning of media and technology were ahead of his
time.
Here are six readings concerning the work and ideas of Marshall McCluhan:
a. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrad_of_media_effects
b. What is the Meaning of The Medium is the Message? by Mark Federman
Chief Strategist McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology.
http://individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/article_mediumisthemessage.h
tm
c. Marshall McLuhan, his life and work, available at
http://www.dw.de/marshall-mcluhan-his-life-and-work/a-15253340
d. The four laws of media. One site is found at
http://www.provenmodels.com/18/four-laws-of-media/marshall-mcluhan/
e. A site in which the four laws are applied to the internet, is found at
http://www.media-studies.ca/articles/mcluhan.htm
f. http://www.media-studies.ca/articles/mcluhan.htm
Here are three readings with analyses on the social and ethical effects of media
g. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/negative-effect-social-media-society-individuals27617.html
h. https://nypost.com/2017/11/04/our-smartphone-addiction-is-killing-us-study/
i. https://www.recoveryways.com/the-negative-effects-of-smartphones/
Here is an example Tetrad for the Internet, taken from “Laws of Media: The Internet”,
Martin Soules, “McLuhan Light and Dark”
https://www.media-studies.ca/articles/mcluhan.htm
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