Blog 2

While reading through these articles dealing with social media, I’ve seen evidence that many people are all seeking a sense of community through common issues, as well as, trying to reach other people who can emphasize with them.  In the article “Writers of Color”, the author states that “a lot of people I want to be read by, a lot of people I want to speak to, are not people who have subscriptions to The New Yorker or The New York Times, so it’s important for me to speak to them in this way also”.  Thus, the goal that this article emphasizes with social media, such as twitter, is that it is a way for individuals to reach may people with their poetry and to get their written works out into the world. Therefore, social media becomes a platform in which all people are given a voice - a voice that is able to create a community of people who share similar ideas, experiences, or beliefs. As Harris states, “we write not as isolated individuals but as members of communities whose beliefs, concerns, and practices both instigate and constrain, at least in part, the sort of things we can say”. Therefore, social media can become a means through which people are able to truly write as individuals by having the ability to express their thoughts and beliefs freely.  While, at the same time, social media becomes a community that invites multiple people into the conversation, which may influence and alter the topic or issue that each individual is writing about. For instance, in the article about hashtag activism, a woman shares about her experience with an abusive relationship and galvanizes a hashtag, #WhyIStayed, which provides a stage for many people to deal with the complicated issue that is domestic abuse and to know that they are not alone in this battle.

Social media writing seems to create more of a sense that people can write without the filter that seems to be required of them in other aspects of writing and life.  It may be this type of honesty that draws people into the type of expression that is attainable through social media. Further, according to Harris, a discourse community is important because it allows “opportunity for sustained engagement”.  With this, Harris also describes that the “literate community can be defined through the clusters of allusions and references that its members share”. Therefore, social media doesn’t only give people the sense that they can be completely honest, but it also connects other people in the “literate community” of social media together through a specific reference, such as a hashtag.  On the flip side, the article about “Facebooking” deals with the fact that social media can easily skew the truth as well.  From personal experience, I’ve seen that social media sites, such as Facebook and Instagram, can tend to be used by people to convince others of how “great” their life is.  Thus, we use social media as a way to write and present ourselves vulnerably, yet this action can be due to poor motivations, in which we are trying to get certain needs met by affirmation through a social media source.  Overall, social media is a unique and valuable tool in the literate community, as it opens up opportunities for writing freely and vulnerably, creating discourse, and galvanizing connections with others through our posts.  However, it is also a tool to be used with caution.  As members of the literate community of social media, we must recognize the limitations of social media to create a true sense of community; understanding that the opportunity to have no filter in discourse doesn’t always mean that what we write or post is beneficial or productive to ourselves or our community.