Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Is Facebook a Liberator or The Man?

Vanessa Miemis blogs for Forbes:

This post is highlighting content areas for The Future of Facebook project, a six-part video series exploring the impacts of social networking technologies on our lives and business.

Social networks are a tool for activism and civic engagement, as well as a means of control, manipulation, and surveillance.

What is the role Facebook will play in local and global political processes?

As futurist Chris Arkenberg put it, “Facebook really represents a battleground for ideas.  It’s becoming an area for propaganda, for influence, for memetics, for advertising, for marketing.  It is like any other public square: highly diverse and opinionated, potentially volatile and easily influenced by third parties.”

In an aspirational future scenario, we can imagine Facebook as a place that would encourage political transparency as well as civic engagement.

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