Assignment: Overview of Social Media Theories and Influences

Read the three statuses below and think of three different scenarios where the original status listed could be interpreted to mean something different.

For example, if the status update was, “Goodbye, cruel world!” it could be a reach out for help, a reference to pop culture (Pink Floyd album or several other songs), or someone being overly dramatic and silly. What it meant to the original poster depends on their situation and personality, and what it means to the reader varies as well. Be sure to consider biases and different social groups as you write.

For each of the statuses below, discuss each interpretation of the status. Your paper should be 2-3 pages in length.

• Status 1: They’re always trying to keep me down!

• Status 2: A very good day. I didn’t have to see any of the sickly, disgusting mites that live around here.

• Status 3: I love my life!

Overview of Social Media Theories and Influences:

Cultivation theory looks at how we are subtly influenced over the course of time. For example, think about language. In your house, certain words might have been forbidden and you would be startled to hear them. But as you got older, you might hear them more and more at school, on the bus, at work, with your friends, etc. Suddenly, it wasn’t such a big deal. You may have even found those words slipping out of your own mouth!

For social media, cultivation theory could be applied to look at political views, religious views, shopping habits, and more. But let’s look at something a little different – biases. Our social media groups tend to reflect aspects of ourselves. Many of us have friends with views that we don’t wholeheartedly agree with. What if we read something from them, time-after-time, which was a little uncomfortable, like all of those xyz people are stupid?

If you read something to that effect over and over again, do you think it would affect how you think about xyz people? Even if you just say something in passing conversation, like “I’ve heard that xyz people are stupid.” What you read, especially over and over again, affects you and your beliefs.

Social learning theory describes the way we learn behaviors. We get encouragement and motivation to repeat a behavior when we are validated for it. Social learning theory can help us understand things like attraction. Pleasant attributes, like humor, make a person more attractive to us. When a date (significant other/spouse) says something funny, and we laugh, both sides of the interaction get pleasure out of it. Humor is likely to be something we both appreciate and share more of in the future.