2.0 Social Networking

According to Alfred and Benjamin (2008), social networking is a concept that has been around much longer than the Internet or even mass communication. People have always been social creatures; our ability to work together in groups, creating value that is greater than the sum of its parts, is one of our greatest assets.

At its bare essentials, a social network consists of three or more entities communicating and sharing information. This could take the form of a research coalition, a Girl Scout troop, a church, a university, or any number of other socially constructed relationships. Since the explosion of the Internet age, more than 1 billion people have become connected to the World Wide Web, creating seemingly limitless opportunities for communication and collaboration. (Alfred and Benjamin, 2008)

In the context of today’s electronic media, social networking has come to mean individuals using the Internet and Web applications to communicate in previously impossible ways. This is largely the result of a culture-wide paradigm shift in the uses and possibilities of the Internet itself. The current Web is a much different entity than the Web of a decade ago. (Alfred and Benjamin, 2008)

According to Alfred and Benjamin (2008), this new focus creates a riper breeding ground for social networking and collaboration. In an abstract sense, social networking is about everyone. The model has changed from topdown to bottom-up creation of information and interaction, made possible by new Web applications that give power to users.

While in the past there was a top-down paradigm of a few large media corporations creating content for the consumers to access, the production model has shifted so that individual users now create content that everyone can share. The social-networking trend is causing a major shift in the Internet’s function and design. While we previously thought of the Internet as an information repository, the advent of social networks is turning it into a tool for connecting people. The mass adoption of social-networking websites of all shapes and sizes points to a larger movement, an evolution in human social interaction. (Alfred and Benjamin, 2008)