Social Media Research Blog

Social Media and the Long Tail of Public Opinions

As some of you might know, I am deeply concerned about the current situation in Tibet and Colombia. A few weeks back, one of my friends posted a note on Facebook and pointed me to some reports in the Chinese media that clearly shows a certain amount of ignorance of a few main stream media (MSM) outlets.

What YouTube, Wikipedia, blogs and social network tools like Facebook have provided is a way for ordinary people like us to share our knowledge and opinions on different World issues. It is a platform for intellectual exchange of ideas and open forum for discussion. It is important that people do not limit their views to just one side of the story. By listening to an argument from all angles we can gain a better understanding of the situation.

I believe that the role of technology is to make it easy for people to engage in such discussions and promote ideas. Most revolutions start as Social and Political activism that begins on a grass-root level. But for majority of the people, "truth" is limited by the blinders that the MSM puts on our minds.

I have been thinking about the role of social media and public opinions...

• "The Long Tail of Public Opinions" : Public opinions, like many things follow a long tail distribution. Most people are largely influenced by the MSM and just rely on one or two sources for information. Technology should encourage opinions in the long tail to express themselves freely. Perhaps a minority view today would be the start of a revolution tomorrow. Through youtube videos, blogs and facebook alternative viewpoints often come to light.
• "Truthiness or The quest for truth?" : Note that the long tail may share many different opinions - some true some false. We still have people who question the moon landing and global warming. "Truthiness" might lead us to believe an opinion that is held by the group with the largest mouth-piece. Often it is balanced by self policing. This is what we see in Wikipedia, where there are policies, quality control and conflict resolution. Adherence to these is the collective responsibility of the community.
• "Information Control and Censorship": I have always wondered if "freedom to search online" is the same as "freedom of speech". Any form of government control on information is scary. What I mean is that if I wanted to search for something (Even a controversial topic) I should have the liberty to do so without the fear of repercussions on the basis of my search for information. In this respect, I feel that China's policy of subverting its citizen's access to Wikipedia, filtering news sources and other forms of infringement on "liberty to seek information" is worrisome.

Still, I do believe that we have lot to be optimistic about. Just roll a few year back and there wasn't much citizen journalism or many social network tools and no Wikipedia! Social Media is certainly changing the way we shape our opinions and learn from the shared experiences and knowledge of others.

Social Media and Social Causes

Whoever said social network was meant only for people who were interested in dating and getting together with a bunch for friends for a beer? One of the most amazing Facebook apps I have seen is causes. It was developed by Project Agape . Causes is an application that lets me publicize and advocate for social causes I am most passionate about. It is truly amazing that the even just the top five social causes have raised over $119,469 on Facebook. 

 

More coverage on Techcrunch. Another noteworthy social good application is DonorsChoose. It connects donors to specific school projects that they can choose to help fund. It enables a personal level of involvement with the project and makes the donor feel connected to the cause.

Additionally Google posts certain public service advertisements. I am not sure if there is something like this already out there -- I think a not-for-profit advertising network that also let users decide which causes they chose to host on their blogs, would also be a worthy effort.

While some people prefer to be discrete about their social causes and donations, publicizing causes one is passionate about has its own merits. At the very least, they serve a greater purpose -- that of educating people in your social network about the world and what we can do to make it a better place!