By Micah Brown
mb144205@ohio.edu
Thursday, Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism held a symposium comprised of speakers, researchers, and presenters from varies affiliations to Journalism. The all-day symposium focused on popular topics ranging from photojournalism, the new media versus traditional journalism, and the political - new media and company. I went to the last of the three.
My experience was not what I expected, because as I listened to the stories and the research presented, a young woman who served on the distinguished panel by name of Janelle Huelsman, a junior Public Relations major said something that struck me as odd. The comment did not sit well with me, and suddenly I had a eureka moment, when she said something along the lines of we are all moving from the Generation X to what she calls the "Facebook Generation".
I thought she argued her point to its full extent, but as a person who has seen a lot growing up, I felt she missed a key truth that millions of Americans lack the proper resources and access to be qualified Facebook Generation members. For those people whose reality is that they can't access these venues because they don't have and/or can't afford computers or Internet access, our Facebooks, Twitters, YouTubes, and the like, create some really large obstacles.
For example, another presenter at the symposium said he has been a computer-savvy person since he was a child, but those millions of non-Facebook generation members cannot even access the new technology, let alone know how to operate it properly.
As a result of my discontent with this discussion, I had to pose the question, “Who exactly are the people in the ‘Facebook Generation’ because there are many people who cannot access it but their lives are extremely affected by the people who do have access and more – the haves and the have-nots? And, how does journalism inhibit or enrich the growth of the gap between the haves and have-nots through venues such as Facebook?”
Janelle Huelsman's answer was not a shocker, she said she sees the gap closing and that she thinks people who are the haves are helping and the have-nots are catching-up.
Ms. Huelsman's answer was not what really amazed me, but it was the supportive response from the other panelists who acknowledged the Digital Divide. They gave a mixture of responses that reinforced the idea that the gap is real and large. That people are catching up, but not at the rate at which they should if everyone were equal and had the access to social venues like Facebook. They recognized that their research shows the class hierarchy, racial divide, sexual discrimination, and ethnic bias does exist.
Micah, I was there at that panel, and I understand your frustration with Janelle's response. Now let me begin by saying that I fully agreed with Janelle's answer, in that for many people in Gen Y, "Facebook" and other social networking Web sites are part of their (our!) daily lives. We are immersed in them.
ReplyDeleteHOWEVER.
Dr. Cary Frith did a great job of simply expanding Janelle's answer, reminding the audience of the many people who lack access to the Internet and ways to develop the skills to use Facebook, Twitter, etc. She emphasized the dangers of the Digital Divide, how by its very nature it could snowball into a larger problem, making these vulnerable publics even more isolated. She agreed with Janelle that the gap could be closed, but she stressed an important factor: us.
If we - the "haves" - do not act and advocate on behalf of the "have nots," they will fall further behind. She reminded us that this is a large problem - a threat to our democracy.