To what extent does the web form social identity.

In the era of intense social media, where people distribute their thoughts in 140 characters, and emoticons. A service like twitter, has not only allowed regular, average Joe's, like myself to interact with celebrities, or sports figures, it also detracts from said celebrities privacy.

With celebrities differing from lower league footballer, to "leader of the free-world", twitter has transcended the way we discuss and converse the goings-on in our own life, sharing public conversations on the net, for all people to read, and even join in.

Even websites like youtube, and a variety of blogs have a comments section, a section which is often fuelled with hatred, especially i've noted when it comes to sport, where rival supporters systematically insult and demean the other, the majority in anonymity.

This is an example of sticking to a social group, or alligning yourself with people similar. For example, as an avid supporter of Oxford United, if given the option to socialise with another set of people who share this support, or a group that follow a rival team, I would allign with people of my own ilk.

This view is supported in "This classic social experiment", where young boys were instructed to select one of two paintings they prefer. Experiment leader Henry Tajfel thought "it seemed impossible that people stood together for only 30 seconds can be said to form a group in any measurable way".

The experiment saw two groups split, one which preferred each individual painting,

When labels are branded so easily, and carelessly, when you can be dubbed a chav, an emo, a goth or a prep without having many common traits to either clique. It seems in a contemporary society every person needs to be grouped to maintain a social order.

According to Mooney, Knox and Schacht 2000, a social group is "two or more people who have a common identity, interact and form a social relationship. Would this mean Adolf Hitler and Benoit Mussolini would be a social group. They both shared a belief in fascism?

Social idnetity is a situation which is locked full of stereotypes and cliched thinking, the web has only helped to excacerbate these, with new volumes to air out uneducated, unnecessary words or phrases to group, and reduce people to a certain number of people they could be associated with.

21st Century News

News has always been seen as the writing and reporting of major events, whether it be local, national or International interests. A stories importance or significance was justified by its place in its publication, or how visible it is online.

Their has always been various types of news, politics, business, sport to name but a few, yet with the dramatic change in how we can view news, a great help being the inception of online news outlets. With news now accessible at the click of a mouse, and newspapers and their sales evaporating, the type of news we desire has also changed with it.

From days where news would be seen as political and royal affairs, the soaring popularity of tabloid papers or “red-tops” have certainly changed the topics of what news is reported. Galtung and Ruge (1973) discussed what they interpreted as news values in their book, they narrowed it down to 10 key components.

These were revisited by Harcup and O’Neill who modified and altered how they interpreted the values. Values such as celebrity personifies 21^st century news, where media and paparazzi court and follow actors, singers, T.V personalities etc, with intense scrutiny. Personalities like Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan or closer to home Amy Winehouse showed how intensely the media can follow a specific person, and treat there life as an ongoing narrative of news. The below video shows Charlie Sheen's interviews being autotuned and produced into song.

TV stations such as BBC and SKY now possess 24 hour news coverage where any breaking news is sized up and reporting within a blink of an eye of it happening. This, to all is not seen as a positive however with “Kovach and Rosenstiel” who proclaimed in their book “Warp Speed: America in the Age of Mixed Media” that journalistic standards had slipped and that “the press has moved towards sensationalism, entertainment and opinion” rather than just reporting the facts.

Some breaking news, to the females chagrin

Social Media has also seen a way of news being reported around the clock, with any user of Facebook, Twitter amongst others, having the ability to distribute news, whether it be fact or opinion, a reason for explaining the number of hoax celebrity deaths that are reported. The convergence of technology has also allowed news to travel to anyone anywhere, as most phones will possess cameras and internet, allowing news to reach them instantly.

The surging, and sheer addiction to sport, whether it be the latest injury news, gossip or whether a so called “expert” has shared their wisdom with the world, there is a huge market for sport, filling the need for values like celebrity and entertainment,

In stores and on the web there’s sports only sections, with most sports having journalists working specifically on their sport. Websites, such as Bleacher Report, have given the opportunity for anybody with enough journalistic talent to write and put forward their views and opinions to a mass audience. This, again concurs with Kovach and Rosenstiel and their notion that entertainment is surpassing professionalism.

Football only paper

A collage of various news outlets reporting the same story.