Yeah, I’m mildly surprised by the disagreement in this thread. Of course it is social media. Antiquated, niche and predating the wide use of the term. But still undeniably social media as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t think it’s social media in the sense that most people mean when they use that phrase, although it may technically fall into that category. I think of social media as an influencing channel (media) or as a means to sharing information largely about yourself (social). I realize that’s just my opinion (man). I suppose, with no bias whatsoever*, this place feels more substantial.
*All the bias.
You don’t need a listserv for a mailing list, just a big 'ol CC line.
Your item was virtual communities, plural. Facebook has groups; Reddit has subreddits; Twitter has lists. SDMB has none of these.
SDMB has a whole is a community, but there is no mechanism for further subdivision. And arguing that the set of internet webforums as a whole forms a kind of social media network seems dubious since there is no communication between them. Though it does share the aspect that users can easily jump into and out of the set of communities that interest them.
“Social media” doesn’t have the word “internet” or “computer” in it, so those posters that are going strictly from the definitions of the component words must also be including the fax machine, the telegraph, handwritten letters, tree carvings, and cave art as social media.
Well, there is that odd Friends list we have.
I tend to agree. Defining it by using component words seems to open up a lot of things to be defined as social media.
I think the difference, at least in my mind, is that I don’t come here for the purpose of meeting people but to discuss things. We all use aliases. We don’t know each others’ names. Nothing very “social” about that.
I can’t really put my finger on it, but this board is so different from Facebook, Twitter et al. that it really isn’t in the same category even though it meets the dry technical definition of social and media.
I was once trolled by smoke signal. He said the holocough wasn’t real.
Eh, I once took a vacation in Spain/UK with a couple of people I met on/via this board. “Dopefests” used to be a thing. Some posters had long-running relationships/feuds that very occasionally intersected with real life. Seems pretty social to me ;).
Originally I vascillated on where to start this thread; I didn’t think it was that heavy of a topic for a legitimate General Question (nor a question that had a definitive answer), and thought it was kinda mundane. Only in retrospect did I think about setting up a simple “Yes”/“No” poll [does the SDMB do polls?].
I’m amenable to moving this thread, and starting/re-starting a poll to simplify the statistics.
I’m leaning towards the “no” side, but the discussion here’s been entertainingly informative.
Tripler
Mods . . . thoughts? [sub]Caveat: as long as it’s not too much of a pain in the arse[/sub]
Well, there are scholars that theorize and publish about this stuff. They draw up classifications and definitions… you could call those sources for “factual” answers.
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Twitter is one of the standard examples of social media. Very few people use their real name there. Very few people document their life there. Most people use pseudonyms and talk about random sh*t, just like we do.
It might be technically (by a definition from years ago)… but when someone says “I should friend you… what social media are you on?” Telling them “Great, I’m on the Straight Dope Message Boards” really wouldn’t work. I’m picturing my relatives and coworkers, and they’d say:
“The… what? No. A ‘messageboard’ doesn’t count. Seriously, c’mon, what Social Media are you on? Facebook? Instagram? Twitter? Do you just not want to be friends online?”
In any human endeavor you can meet people, make friends, and take your relationship to real life. You might meet someone at work, date them, even marry them, but I don’t think anyone would describe work as a social environment. I might start dating the receptionist at the doctor’s office, but nobody would call that a social environment.
Sure, there are social aspects of work, and potential social interaction in real life from the SDMB, but there are social aspects of everything, so it would make the definition useless.
And if my mother had wheels, she would be a car.
I go to Cafe Society maybe twice a year to see what I’m missing. There’s users in there who don’t frequent GG and the Pit like I do. Why this is so different than subscribing to certain subreddits, I have no idea. If anything, Reddit is an advanced version of a forum.
The SDMB is a social media site but it isn’t a social networking site. Forums are an old technology that don’t really embrace the networking aspect of Twitter, Facebook, etc. but that doesn’t prove it isn’t social media. It just proves it is old technology.
That is a misrepresentation of what others have said. Nobody is saying that such technologies are social media, obviously, because nobody really uses them to create content for interactive communities. How many times have you sent a fax to multiple people about what’s going on in your life, and had others respond with faxes to the same group with comments? Major fail, dude.
Like, for example:
Social Media Definition and the Governance Challenge: An Introduction to the Special Issue
This was the source of the Wikipedia page I linked to. I’ll repeat the first item in their list since it’s unambiguous:
1) Social media services are (currently) Web 2.0 Internet-based applications
The SDMB is certainly not a Web 2.0 application.
You don’t subscribe to subforums, and nothing is ever hidden from anyone. Subreddits can be subscribed to or blocked. There are private subreddits. There is a very high diversity in moderation between subreddits. Yes, Reddit is an advanced version of a forum, in the same way that a Falcon 9 is an advanced version of a horse.
In actual usage, they’re completely synonymous. You can find articles that draw fine distinctions between the two, but no one actually makes these distinctions in common language.
That’s hardly the only thing that goes on in social media. If it were, LinkedIn wouldn’t be social media (and it most certainly is).
Although I never did it, I’ve seen chain letters, glurge, and political conspiracy rants sent by fax. These are definitely “social” things (and pretty much the bread-and-butter of Facebook).
The paper clearly is examining certain types of social media, as the author writes:
But even still, seems to me like Web 2.0 is an imprecise term that is exactly as vague as social media.
Yes, and there are hidden forums on this board. Only members can post in that ghost town of a subforum for selling things. Whoop-dee-doo.
Wait wait wait — first you make arguments based on jargon like Web 2.0, and then you switch to how people use words in common parlance? Come on, man.
Blasting faxes is not an interactive activity. Don’t argue things that you don’t actually believe.
The only difference between saying you’re on the Dope and saying you’re on Reddit is that they will have heard of Reddit. I think that once you’re on, the Dope is superior for social interaction due to its threading format, even if it had an order of magnitude more users and posts.
Now, if the Dope had yet another order of magnitude of users and posts, we could use some features to help people find the right sub-forum and curate posts for them that might fit their tastes, but I don’t think that makes Reddit “social media” but not the Dope.
By this analogy, if I open a thread on the SDMB, that is social media only so long as it gets replies.
When you blast faxes you hope you get replies. Again, though, what in the definition of the words “social” and “media” requires interactive activity?
I think there is a distinction between what we refer to as “social media” and what the SDMB is even if we cannot currently define it.