Communications and Media

Social Media is the new form of Online Communication which traditionally involved emailing, chatting, ad blogging. Online communication has revolutionalized by the onset of social Media, especially so with the youngsters as it is inadvertently their best resource for entertainment, chatting and gossiping too. Social Media has made connecting with the world easier, more interesting and has given it an entirely new dimension.

Development
In the present world, there have been tremendous changes in the dynamics of relationships (Bolter, 1999 Livingstone, 2002, Sunden, 2003 Boyd, 2008). Social Media has suddenly become an integral part of human existence. It instantly conveys personal messages, information, news and many other kinds of communication that needs to be relayed on. Thus it is a process that is both live and alive in generating mass relations in our society.

One can communicate very easily through social media from any nook and corner of the world. While mostly Social Media stands as a platform either for introducing a person or group of persons to another or maintaining existing relations with others, some people cleverly also use social media to market and further their business. In fact social media plays a vital role for shaping different kinds of social contacts on one platform.

The very language of social relationships is being reframed. Today people create their profile, make it public or private, they comment or message their top friends on their Wall they block or add people to their network and so forth. Today social media has become epicenter for making social relationship and is redefining the meaning of human relations.

Social Media has become integral part in the 21st century for identifying and introducing ones thoughts and emotions social relations and their life styles. In fact, social networking sites give new opportunities for self expression, sociability, community engagement, creativity and new literacy (Livingstone, 2002). It is truly and wisely said then, that social media is the soul of human communication and helps in developing and maintaining their relations.

There are several social networking sites that people currently use to express views share ideas and feelings and simply stay in touch with the others. Popular among these are Face book, Twitter, Orkut, Myspace and others.

Man being a social animal, is essentially by nature compelled to make friends for sharing and expressing his thoughts. Social Media, especially in the current age where almost all men travel great distances in search of their livelihood and to fulfill their dreams, provides a very good stage for keeping in touch with ones friends, colleagues and relatives.

Today, people are not only keeping abreast with the lives of their friends and relatives through social media, but are also looking to these networking sites to make new friends conduct online business seek marriage alliances or search for their ideal partner and connect with like minded and similarly inclined people. In short, with the advent of social media, human personal and professional communication methods and purposes are gaining a whole new range, scope and meaning  civic participation through social media is enabled in new dimensions.

These days Social Media is enhancing peoples participation in both local and global issues and events. It has become an excellent platform for connecting people with common interests, thereby forming groups and further leading to civic participation, though virtually at most times.

Evolution of Social Media is undoubtedly one of the milestone revolutions in the field of media and social civic participation. Even common men, who earlier didnt have the means to reach out and participate in events and activities of a larger civic appeal those whose voices could have made a difference but were not loud enough to be heard, can now be heard, read and felt through Social media. Social media has created a wider human interaction for the different civic purposes in different communities.  Most social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, and many others attract thousands of the youngsters. Most of them can be placed into three categories below 15 years 15 to 25 years and professionals. Depending on the age and categories that they fall under, the purpose for their presence on these sites and their use of the networking sites are defined. It has been observed that entertainment and keeping in touch with friends remain the most popular reasons for using social networking sites.

From the users point of view, more than ever before, using social media means creating as well as receiving, with user control extending far beyond selecting ready-made, mass produced content ( Livingstone, 2002).

Social network has both positive and negative impacts. Among the most notable of the positive outcomes of utilizing social media is furthering ones personal social circle, and claiming ones professional benefits. In fact, social sites make interpersonal relations more available - a dialogue with anyone, anywhere in the world is practically made possible. And the detrimental effects attributed to social media is that it is viewed that social networking wastes time is socially isolating and worst, it encourages and provides abuse, and easy access to inappropriate company (Livingstone, 2002). One of the most important factors of social networking websites is the issue of privacy. The News Feed feature of Facebook allowed displaying of all kind of information of the social network from change of relationship status to who has make friends with whom.

The tech world has a tendency to view the concept of private as a single bit that is either 0 or 1. Data are either exposed or not. When companies make a decision to make data visible in a more efficient manner, it is often startling, prompting users to speak of a disruption of privacy. This is not new. In 1995, DejaNews introduced a tool that allowed anyone to search Usenet, an early internet-distributed newsgroup system, similar to contemporary bulletin boards (Boyd, 2008)

Online Communication through Social networking sites is in fact more transparent. This transparency in communication systems sometimes leads to unauthorized and unsanctioned loss of information, leak of personal information and security breaches. It could ultimately lead to unwelcome visitors to ones online space. Some also accuse social Media of luring teenagers and youngsters into wasting their time of pampering and providing entertainment sometimes unwarranted and unfit to all kinds of the people. In this scenario one is advised caution and wisdom while accessing and using social media (Livingstone, 2002).

These insights centre on emerging social practices with online social sites. However, Giddens (1991) states that social media has little contribution in shaping many kinds of social practices.

Social medias range of ability to connect is wide and powerful. Hence caution is to be observed while keeping in mind that social media is accessible to people of all ages. James et al (1998) states that social media has a different perspective with regards to a child.  Gadlin (1978) points out that todays teenagers live through an extended youth - historically speaking staying young longer in terms of education and economic dependence but becoming independent younger in terms of sexuality, leisure and consumption.  

Besides, it is essential to understand the affordances of social networking sites, and employing a child-centered approach means that the analysis should acknowledge young peoples experiences and it should situate their social networking practices within an account of the changing conditions of childhood and the youth (James et al., 1998).

There have been certain discussions on the blogs presented over the exploitation of creators of the platforms, different use of social media, copyright infringement issues, commercial aspects of social networking websites and others. At one place on the blog discussion the theories of Banks  Humphreys (2008) have been discussed wherein it was argued that user co-creators are being exploited for free labor goes a bit too far. At the same time the same level of creativity which contributes to the growth of the Facebook has been compared with the non monetary compensation like growing number of users of that particular feature that brings satisfaction to the developers. The joy, free tome and social gain is considered more important than the monetary benefits.

There are different facets of the social networking websites projecting the positive and negative aspects. Positive aspects has been overweighing the negative aspects so far, however the question arises that how the negative aspects can be evaluated, understood and prevented.

Conclusion
Social Media has fascinated many groups of people for keeping the globe in a hand. Technology has made possible the development of strong social networking sites. People are connecting with their relatives and friends located anywhere in the world, like never before. Social Media is a wonderful gift, and has made our life cozy, comfortable, social and informative.

We are living in a modern age that is centered on dynamic communication. Social media being an answer to this need for dynamic communication provides both opportunity and risk. Giddens remarks that in late modernity self actualization is understood in terms of a balance between opportunity and risk (Giddens, 1991). Both the opportunities and risk arises because self actualization and is a social process.

Increasingly for teenagers self actualization includes a careful negotiation between the opportunity and risk opportunities like identity, intimacy and sociability and risks like intrusion of privacy, misunderstanding and abuse. Social Media started out with the definitive purpose of social networking, but has inevitably been put to improper use mostly by youngsters and more so by teenagers.
         
It is clear that while social media provides for enhancing and flourishing contacts and sharing experiences, and appears to be taking over traditional modes of communication and of staying in touch, Danielle (As cited by Livingstone, 2002) for instance opines that teenagers especially use social networking for only part, not all of their social relations. Therefore in conclusion, while social media is here to play a prominent and influencing role in civic participation, it would be a while, though not long before it takes over existing modes of influential civic participation.