Social media

When we look back in history, we see that some of the greatest social changes were brought about by stories. Many times it was done through novels, short stories or even film. Zandt even proposes that, “storytelling has been the most powerful building block for social change”(1). But now we have been given a new medium through which to tell our story and that medium is social media. According to Zandt, “social networking gives us unprecedented power to share our stories” (1). We have seen this truth occur over and over again. What once took getting published in a newspaper or a novel to have your ideas seen by the masses now can be done instantly through social networking. Social media offers many advantages over previous media when it comes to sharing stories. The first advantage social media has is accessibility. A blog or a Facebook group can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection which latest statistics show to be about 2.4 billion people. Even the most popular and world changing stories in the past could never be available to this many people. Social media also groups people by their interests making them more engaged in whatever story is being told. There are an endless variety of forums and groups that all specialize in a different idea or activity. So instead of only getting ideas by means of publishing houses, newspapers, or what the small amount of people we know told us, we can now go and seek out our own information and stories that perfectly match up with our interests. This is great because when people hear an idea by means of a story they like, they are more likely to actually do something to promote it. Finally, social media is a much better way of spreading a message because most of the time social networking is free to the reader, making them much more likely to read the story than if they would have had to pay money to see it.