What Are the Benefits of a Diverse and Inclusive PLN In Social Media Sharing That Understands Where You Are Coming from With Messaging That Impacts the Community?

The benefits that are associated with a diverse and inclusive PLN is that everyone is entitled to their opinion and ideas, coming from personal experiences I have been in Facebook groups where the whole point of the page is for everyone to voice their thoughts, ideas, and questions and we all interact with one another educating each other. The members of these groups come from all sorts of different backgrounds and we all acknowledge that this is a safe and inclusive space where we are all learning and that is how everyone is able to make potential friends and expand their PLN in the process.

 

How Does Social Media Engage Communications?

Social Media is able to engage communication among users by hashtags or shared interests. When users see a hashtag being spread on social media, they can click it and see various posts related to the topic, for instance if you see #BLM chances are if you click that or search the hashtag you will see content regarding the Black Live Matter Movement. Especially, when hashtags are trending on Twitter you will see those standing out on your account which can promote users to click on those and research the purpose of them trending. Shared interests can relate to what the user is always searching or viewing on social media therefore resulting in the algorithm to push that type of content towards the user.

 

How Does Social Media Challenge Communications?

They are disadvantages associated with communication on social media. To simply put it, not everyone is going to agree with your opinion or like you. There can be an issue or topic that a user feels very passionate about and someone can comment on a public post you made and talk negatively about it or you as an individual. In instances like those, where people refuse to listen to your opinion or communicate their feelings or thoughts to you in a mature and respectful manner there is only so much you can do. The best thing to do is ignore users like that and block or delete them or the comment.

 

Is It Inclusive?

For most of the part pages, accounts, and groups are inclusive. The times when they are not inclusive is when they are private or have to request to join. For the example I provided earlier about joining Facebook groups, they will usually have a topic that they primarily talk or focus on, and if you are interested in it you can request to join to participate in it. I know for where I am currently working, we have our own private Facebook group where all the employees can communicate with one another and if there are any upcoming events on the way like workshops those will be posted to remind us.

 

Does Your PLN Amplify the Views of Other?

I think my PLN is definitely open to other views or opinions, however I do not think it amplifies the views of others. I primarily use my social media to spread awareness in a non-bias way, for instance information of why this issue arose in the first place, why it is happening, and where it is happening. I try to stay neutral is situations and not push my opinions onto other people, however I do not have an issue if someone else in my PLN wanted to use their platform to spread their opinion on a topic/issue occurring in the world or just in general.

 

How to Better Use Social Media to Build PLN – Influences & Commentator

In general, I like to think if I had a big following, I would target social media platforms that are the most popular and relevant. Therefore, I could catch the attention of a large mass of people all at once and my outreach would be just as significant. I would also use a platform in which a lot of young adolescents are using day to day than compared to Facebook. In my opinion, as the years go on people on Facebook are an older age demographic than compared to TikTok. TikTok has been all the rage for a minute now, and if I were an influencer that would be the first place I would go.

 

References:

Clark, J., & Aufderheide, P. (2013). A New Vision for Public Media – Open, Dynamic, and Participatory. In J. Pooley, L. Taub-Pervizpour, & S. C. Jansen (Authors), Media and social justice (pp. 55-67). New York: Palgrave.