Social Net'g

Corporations and businesses have been using new media for several unique and interesting ways over the years. For example, in India, the police set up a Facebook page for people to post pictures and videos of drivers who routinely break traffic laws so that they could go after them (Timmons). This is an example of a crowd sourced effort that helps the police stem the law-breaking drivers of India. Other uses for social media include recruiting for companies by simply looking at Facebook or LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a very powerful tool for recruitment as demonstrated by rectuier Maureen Crawford: "Typing keywords into a search engine, Crawford can scrape the entire network to dig out high-quality candidates that she can't find elsewhere" (Langfitt). It's an important tool for recruitment just as much as it is for those seeking a job.

New media does indeed have a darkside though, perhaps the most serious being that privacy is often a concern. An ever increasing amount of personal information is available online or is being asked of us by different companies. Just to sign up for a new platform, you might be asked for your email, phone number, first and last name, and birthday. When we stop and think about it, there is very little about us that isn't out there - and it's all in the hands of very large corporations or even the government.