Unit 2: A World Connected by Technology

Media is the number one connector between people not only in the United States, but also throughout the world. Social media plays a big part in keeping the world connected. Through platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat friends can keep in touch and continue to talk to each other no matter where in the world they are in relation to each other. Not only does the internet have ways to keep people in touch through social media, we can also use the internet to work on our media literacy. When people have a low media literacy, the connection between people may be compromised. For example, every country may interpret and use the same phrases in different ways. When this happens, it is up to us to use our skills from media literacy to determine the meaning of the phrase and then to interpret the phrase for the rest of the given conversation. When interpreted correctly, we now have another way to discuss new with different countries. When not interpreted correctly, misinformation gets spread sometimes causing country wide concern. We can use the recent tragedy of the death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and the others riding in the helicopter as an example of how technology can keep us together world wide. When the incident occurred, people from all parts of the world were sending their condolences through social media, creating a perfect grieving community global wide. In tragedies, support is all that everybody needs. The support coming from social media for the families involved, but also for the people who were affected by the losses from the helicopter crash was immense. Without technology and being able to connect the world globally the grieving process of these losses would have been worse and lasted a lot longer. This is just one example of the millions to demonstrate how technology has brought all of us together.